The IMDB is reporting that Star Wars and its two sequels are going to be released upon 21 September 2004 in a box set. This is a good thing, right? Absolutely wrong.

It's going to be those bastardized remakes from the 1990s which incorporate annoying things like a revised sequence in Jabba the Hutt's palace and Greedo shooting first at Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina. No, I didn't like "Jedi Rocks", either. I never thought I'd agree with Nicholas Meyer (who reportedly hates directors' cuts) but it seems that Lucas should have left well enough alone.

Why am I so ticked at the Greedo shoots first thing? Well, here's why: In the original Star Wars, Greedo was a bounty hunter for the as-yet-unseen Jabba the Hutt, and I thought Han was in a pickle. Greedo jams a blaster in Han's face and maneuvers him to a booth, where the latter eventually starts arming his DL-44 blaster. This culminates with Greedo's "I've been waiting for this for a long time", which Han punctuates with "Yeah, I'll bet you have", and a shot under the table. Greedo's head then thumps down on the table, and an unruffled Solo flips the barkeep a coin in apology for "the mess".

In the revised version, Greedo shoots first. He shoots first and misses. He's got a blaster no more than a foot or two away from Solo's face, and the shot misses. I understand that Greedo's a Rodian and has funky eyes and maybe his depth perception's off, but at that kind of range, you can pick which eye you want the shot going through. Jed and Owen of Boots and Sabers or John of Argghhh!!! are the pistol mavens and would know more, but that's ridiculous to miss at that range.

The justification I heard reported was that George Lucas didn't want to encourage violence and wanted to make sure that Han acted in self-defense. Hello? A pistol in the face and a threat to kill you don't constitute grounds for some sort of deadly force response? Good grief!

I don't know if/when I'll buy these. I've been a Star Wars fan since the 1970s, but I've been left flat by the last two movies, and there's just not a lot of enthusiasm left for me in the franchise.

UPDATE: It seems that others have the general idea and had it ahead of me; once again I'm a day late and a post short. TFB! Anyways. A Small Victory has posts on this subject, here and here. Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Comrade Commissar for sending me in the direction of the other posts with his humorous and somewhat disturbing take on the thing.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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