Peter Mayhew is apparently as tired of the argument between fans and George Lucas about who shot first, Greedo or Han, as the rest of us are, and has helpfully decided to weigh in on the matter, his remarks backed up by the shooting script he kept from when the film was shot in 1976. As you can see in the Tweet below (which Mayhew simply captions with “Han Shot First. Period”), the original script, as written by George Lucas himself, clearly has Han Solo shooting the bounty hunter Greedo first, with nothing in there about dodging a blast from Greedo. Now fans have proof that Lucas decided all on his own to change the story when he released the ‘Star Wars’ Special Editions, going against earlier comments he made in 2012 where he stated that Greedo always shot first, and poor editing was the reason for the confusion.
#chewscript 014 Han Shot First. Period. @starwars pic.twitter.com/4tGOOsRp2l
— Peter Mayhew (@TheWookieeRoars) March 2, 2016
For years fans have been outraged by the change, as it paints Solo in a completely different light. In the original cut, Han was an anti-hero, a selfish, dangerous smuggler who shot first and asked questions later, and only through his adventures with Luke and Leia did he become the lovable pirate who would risk his life and his love to bring down the Empire. Fans have long suspected that Lucas changed his mind on this matter in order to make Han Solo more “family friendly,” which of course detracts from the roque that audiences responded to back in 1977. Of course, since the Special Editions are still canon, fans still have to live with the way Lucas left the story, and I am not sure Disney will go out of its way to make Lucasfilm alter the films yet again. Of course, if they finally get around to releasing the original cuts of the trilogy, then fans could finally rest easy.
What do you think? Does it really matter all that much whether Lucas says Greedo shot first? Does canon even matter in cases like this? Share your opinions in the comments below! (For anyone curious, in my book Han ALWAYS shot first, no matter what Lucas changed).
Source: i09, Screen Rant