One of the easiest ways to get a guaranteed reaction out of any Star Wars fan is to tell them with complete conviction that you believe Greedo shot first, and then just wait for their response.
Ever since George Lucas went back and tinkered with the theatrical versions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in the 1990s, the diehards have been clamoring for the original unedited cuts of the trilogy to be released. Unfortunately, the bearded plaid enthusiast has absolutely no intention of handing them over, and out of all the changes he made to the movies, nothing annoys the fanbase more than watching Greedo fire the first shot in a choppy and very poorly edited addition to the cantina scene.
Everyone knows Han shot first, even Mark Hamill, but new book titled The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005 once again finds Lucas defending his decision, with the filmmaker saying:
“I never designed Han to be a ruthless killer. All the good guys shoot in self-defense. When I edited the scene in 1977 you couldn’t tell who does what.”
The can of worms was opened once again last year when the Original Trilogy arrived on Disney Plus, and at this point it feels as though the argument will rage on for eternity. In the larger Star Wars mythos, though, it doesn’t matter who shoots first, because the brief interaction between Han and Greedo doesn’t really have much bearing on the overall narrative.
That being said, Luke Skywalker is the clean cut white knight of the franchise, while Han is more of a charismatic rogue who obvious has a shifty past, so him taking out Greedo before his opposite number tried to pull the same stunt on him is perfectly in keeping with his personality, although George Lucas can say or do pretty much whatever he wants seeing as he’s the guy who created Star Wars in the first place.
