This fan film does a good job of explaining the controversy over the editing of the Star Wars Original Trilogy. In the original version of “Star Wars – A New Hope”, Han shoots Greedo before Greedo can respond. In the edited versions (poorly edited) Greedo shoots first, misses, and then Han shoots in retaliation. In the eyes of the hardcore Star Wars fans, this scene is symptomatic of the poor choices made in the editing room. Han goes from being a dangerous rogue to a smart alecky good guy and he loses out on character development. Han shooting first grabbed the viewer’s attention and made him iconic.
In addition to this change, numerous scenes were “touched up” with CGI. Apparently Lucas’s goal when redoing the Star Wars movies was to make sure there was always some side character performing slapstick in each scene. Instead of being humourous, it only serves to distract the viewer and makes the scene too busy.
This would be all fine and good if Lucas would just release the original versions on dvd (or HD-DVD or Blu-Ray). He would have his version of the film and the fans would have theirs. Heck, the fans would most likely buy both versions.
For more info on the subject, see Han Shot First
Later Bloggies
Tags: Funny Stuff