George Lucas says that Han did not shoot first

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Is George Lucas trolling us?

While doing press for the 3D release of THE PHANTOM MENACE, Lucas told The Hollywood Reporter that Han did not shoot first.

Here’s what he had to say:

“The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.”

I never ever, ever, ever thought of Han as a cold-blooded killer, nor did I think that any of the fans of the series thought that way. Devin Faraci over at Badass Digest nails it, “They want Han to be a guy with some badassness who isn’t going to wait for the villain – who is essentially stating his intention to kill him – to take the shot. It’s doubly ridiculous when you look at the new version, where Greedo proves himself to be the most pathetic shot in the galaxy, and when you consider Storm Troopers live in that galaxy that’s saying something.”

I then recalled the original article with The NY Times where Lucas states that he’s retiring. When the many changes that have been made to the STAR WARS series were brought up, this is what was said:

When fanboys wailed, Lucas did not just hear the scream of young Jedis; he heard something like the voice of the studio. The dumb, uncomprehending voice in his Socratic dialogues — a voice telling him how to make a blockbuster. “On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie,” Lucas says, referring to fans who, like the dreaded studios, have done their own forcible re-edits. “I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’ ”

Lucas seized control of his movies from the studios only to discover that the fanboys could still give him script notes. “Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”