CT GL doesn't want Han to be a cold-blooded killer, but isn't Han justified when he shoots Greedo?

He's a smuggler for crying out loud! You really think he cares about peace and love? Heck no!

 

Well, this is the strangest turn I've ever seen a 'Han/Greedo shot first' discussion take...

 

Definitely!

Yanksfan and anakinfansince1983: I thought we were discussing whether Han's action was justified, not its entertainment value.

EDIT: And I have to say that pacifism would be an excellent topic to bring up in the new trilogy, as a reaction to what's happened previously. War will dominate the plot, of course, and it will be all the more entertaining for it, but I see nothing wrong with some characters at least trying to avoid it.

 

Word!

 

Star Chats Episode I: Everything is Just Fine
Star Chats Episode II: Everything is Still Just Fine

The end

 

It's a life or death call. It's totally explicit from Greedo's dialogue and actions that he intends to kill Solo. Only one of them is walking away from that table.

It's not cold blooded, it's just a demonstration of the resolve that has kept Han alive so long.

Great screenwriting too.

 

Greedo wouldn't necessarily have aimed to kill Han then and there if Han had been more diplomatic. I agree that what he did is perfectly understandable and completely in his character, but that alone does not justify it.
As with everything else, it's a matter of perspective.

Fair enough.

 

Well, you've got a point there. The OP concerned Han's justification not the entertainment value of shooting Greedo. I guess to a pacifist Han's actions would be wrong, but if someone's a true pacifist, he wouldn't even have to watch the scene and analyze the scenario. It would just boil down to the fact that Han kills intentionally, and any act meant to kill would be considered wrong no matter the circumstances to a complete pacifist. So, really the discussion wouldn't be analysis of Han's actions per se, but instead, it would become a larger moral debate: Is killing as a matter of self-defense ever morally justified or must people always respond with pacifism? Philosophers, scholars, and theologians have had big old complicated arguments about this one, so I don't think we'll resolve anything here!

Also, some pacifists don't have such a black and white view. Some pacifists accept that physical violence is justified when there are no other alternatives, and Han didn't exhaust all alternatives. He clearly could've tried to work things out with Greedo. Of course, that would have been long and boring cinema.

Some pacifists accept that physical violence not intended to kill is justifiable too. Perhaps, this could've actually worked on screen. Han could've wounded Greedo or shot the gun out of his hand. I've seen Westerns where this is done in a cool way. The old shoot the gun, then shoot it further way when it lands on the ground, then shoot it even further away after it's stopped moving from the last shot.

I also agree that pacifist themes do come into play in Star Wars. Obi-Wan turns off his saber and lets Vader kill him. Luke decides to risk his life falling to his death on Cloud City rather than be captured by Vader. Luke refuses to kill his father and throws away his lightsaber, making it clear that he is willing to let the Emperor kill him rather than turn to the dark side, and the example of Luke's self-sacrifice is what returns Vader to the light side. (Luke also doesn't slice up all the Ewoks with his lightsaber but allows them to capture him, although cinematically many viewers may have preferred for Luke to take the more violent option in this case! )

I'm glad Star Wars has sometimes explored non-violent options. For me, it's gotten kind of old in Hollywood films when there's a final big battle and the hero kills the bad guy at the very end. Some of the moments of non-violence in Star Wars have made for the most emotionally powerful moments in the films, and I hope they continue the tradition in the ST.

But, despite all this, Han still should've shot first.

 

I hate the revision because (1) it looks ridiculous and (2) it was always clear to me --- even as a small child when I first saw SW -- that this was a case of kill or be killed. Shooting before you're shot by someone who has a gun trained on you had has just told you they've looked forward to killing you for a long time doesn't make you a cold-blooded killer. It makes you someone acting in self-defense. So Han shooting in this scene always made sense to me -- especially since until the end of ANH hat he's all about putting his own self-preservation pretty high on his list of priorities -- and I already knew what kind of character Han was for a myriad of reasons, including especially his conversation with Luke and Ben immediately prior to the Greedo scene.

 

The fact is though that many people didn't get that impression and built that to mean something other than it was and therefore making Han's "conversion" stronger even though the point is not that he's cruel but is selfish and then goes over to be selfless for his friends.

 

And I have a hard time believing that Disney spent $4 billion on the franchise while still allowing Lucas to maintain some creative control. I have no doubt Disney could make any changes they wanted.

I think we already have seen some of that. I think Yoda is a pacifist in a lot of ways. At most, he subscribes to the Just War Theory.

Pacifism doesn't really work so well (in movies or in real life) when your opponent is a tyrant who will stop at nothing and kill however many people it takes to get his way. It is a good philosophy to affect change from within. It is not so good when the nazis are marching across Europe.

 

I may be misreading your post, but I can honestly say, having been a Star Wars fan for 20 years before the change was made, and having spent many a half-sober night discussing SW with my fellow geek friends in college and grad school, I never once remember anyone arguing that Solo was anything other than selfish in ANH. The idea of Solo being cruel never came up. This whole idea that "Han was a cruel, cold-blooded killer" before Lucas changed the scene is a concept that didn't even, in my experience, exist. He was selfish, a mercenary, an outlaw and an anti-hero, not sitting in either the good or bad camp until the last five minutes of ANH, but none of those characteristics were cemented by him shooting Greedo. Those characteristics are obvious and everywhere in ANH. IMHO Lucas made a mountain where there wasn't even a molehill previously and made an attempt to retcon Solo as someone who was always a good guy (although I think having him not shoot first doesn't accomplish this as I don't think there was a particularly strong "bad guy" implication to shooting Greedo). But Han wasn't a good guy in ANH. His arc thru ANH and then his larger arc over the OT was always obviously selfishness to self-sacrifice for the people he has grown to love.

 

They aren't going to change anything.

What they are going to do is eventually sell everything.

So you will continue to get the canon version of the films which are the 2011 SE's then at some point the original cuts will be available and maybe even the 97 versions.

 

Although Lucas swears the original theatrical editions don't exist anymore due to the changes he made in 1997. I don't really believe that, given the technology avail in '97, and given that I think both ESB and SW where in the national film registry in their original versions by then.

 

That's true.

From a certain point of view.

He is correct in that the O-Neg of the original was in very poor condition and to restore it they had to go back to the original film elements and recompose the shots to match the ones originally created.

That is part of restoration. Various pieces were taken out due to damage or the need to create the SE so they are presumably stored somewhere.

With the digital tools now availble there are a myriad of ways they could recreate the originals. The easiest way to me would be to scan and combine the separation masters and therefore recreate the O-Neg digitally.

 

Why not? They're going to make all that money back and more just with the new movies and associated merchandising. $4 billion wasn't actually that big a price tag for the Star Wars franchise. I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas's insistence on control over the old movies was why the deal was so cheap.

 

Because it invites 1,000 times as many nightmares as it solves. If everything you do has to be approved by the former owner, then you spend the rest of eternity at his mercy. He can hold you hostage with an array of lawsuits lasting decades.

If your argument rests on the notion that $4 billion isn't a lot of money then I really don't know what to say.

Fact is there is nothing to indicate Lucas maintained any control and Disney would be idiots to spend $4 billion and not even fully own the franchise. I don't even believe such a clause could exist in the contract without the media finding out and reporting it. After all, Disney is a publicly traded company and these sorts of acquisitions have to be publicly disclosed. Every single piece of information we've read regarding the deal indicates Disney owns the entire franchise and creative control.

 

I didn't say everything had to be approved by the George Lucas, and you know I didn't say that. I said I don't find it at all unlikely that Lucas retained control over which cuts of the original movies get to be released. Except for A New Hope (which Twentieth Century Fox controls distribution for), Disney could release, re-brand, re-box, and re-sell the original movies to their heart's content; they just couldn't mess with the "definitive" versions. I think Disney would be pretty dumb to consider that dealbreaker.

I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem at all farfetched to me. If Disney said no, Lucas could easily find someone else to sell to, and was apparently willing to.

I never said $4 billion wasn't a lot of money. Stop claiming I said stupid things that I didn't actually say.

I said it's not nearly as much money as Star Wars could have gone for. The Star Wars franchise has made something like $27 billion over its entire lifetime up until now. Unless there's a massive implosion in the market for Star Wars, Disney's going to make all of its money back and start making massive profits in no time. And given that Disney's a highly diversified, highly successful company, they're not even taking all that big a risk with Star Wars. Their total net worth is over $100 billion. Given that financial calculus, $4 billion really isn't a bank breaker. I'd be happy to discuss that point with you, but you're going to have to come up with a better argument than "4 billion is a really big number!"

And Disney already paid $4 billion while not even fully owning the franchise, since, as I pointed out, Twentieth Century Fox still controls the distribution rights for Episode IV in perpetuity (and for the rest of the films, until 2020). I guess Disney got suckered!

 

Disney would be dumb to allow such a clause.

And what are you basing that statement on, beyond pulling it out of thin air? Did you have a team of people appraise to value of the franchise for you? Let us know what accounting firm you hired to conduct your audit.

That does not mean the franchise generated that much in profit for the owner.

Tell us.... if Lucas could have gotten so much more for Star Wars selling it to someone else, then why didn't he??

20th Century Fox is a 3rd party and irrelevant to the proceedings, but I tell ya this: The fact that they own those distribution rights defnitely affected the bottom line of the deal.

My friend, no offense, but the more you write, the more you show you really don't know what you're talking about.

 

Why didn't he sell to someone else? Because he trusted Disney to take good care of his legacy.
For him to demand that they respect his current vision (such as it was at the time of the deal) wouldn't be the least bit strange. Frankly, I'd be surprised if they did not include such a clause. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can't make alternate releases, but the blu-ray editions will likely be treated as the officially definitive editions.

 

Not if Lucas wouldn't sell unless they agreed to the clause. Do you really think Disney would've rejected the deal just because GL says they can't alter the original 6 films (and really most of the complaints are just about the ANH alone)?

When Disney bought it, money made from the 6 films and the TCW accounted for only 1/4th of Lucasfilms' profits -- blu-ray sales, TV rights, etc. Merchandising (toys, games) accounted for more than double that revenue, and that revenue was equaled by ILM.

So, when Disney bought Lucasfilm, Lucasfilm was making only 1/4th of its revenue from the films and TV content, and now that Disney will be making big money by the release of the SW trilogy and spin-offs and making new theme park attractions, that portion earned from the 6 original films will account for an even smaller fraction of the whole pie.

Most people outside of these forums don't care whether the blu-rays are the OOT, the OT, the 1997 Special Edition, or the most recent Special Edition blu-ray upgrades. As long as it's not the Holiday Special, they're okay. In the grand scheme of things, compared to what Disney can earn from the other profit areas, the amount they can earn from releasing the original versions of the 1st 3 films in a blu-ray release is peanuts.

GL specifically chose to sell Star Wars to Disney to protect Star Wars' legacy. He did not even look for a second buyer and start a bidding war. Much to my dismay, GL is married to the idea that the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars is the real Star Wars. (Of course, I only want him to keep the changes I like!) He wouldn't even give the Library of Congress the original version of Star Wars. They have the SE.

Given that GL cares that much about preserving this version of Star Wars and given that Disney could at best only make a fraction more if they release the OOT in blu-ray or some other form, I think it is logical to conclude that GL would've gotten the contract written up so that Disney would be forbidden from tinkering with the old Saga, and I think it's also logical to conclude that Disney would have agreed to the terms of that contract given that they're now on their way to making huge profits from every other area to exploit the franchise.

And really, how many times can you think of a film studio going in and altering a director's version of film for a Blu-Ray or DVD release? Sure, they tell director's to re-cut films for the theatrical release all the time, but I can't think of a single time when a studio has altered a film for a DVD or Blu-Ray release. Sure, Director's re-cut their films for home formats all the time -- Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Cameron's Aliens, Spielberg's Close Encounters and ET, Coppola's Apocalypse Now Redux, Jackson's even longer versions of LOTR. Studios almost never do this type of stuff on their own.

 

Do you really think Lucas would have turned down $4 billion just because Disney wanted full control?

Bull. I expect a 3-d version eventually and I expect it to be very profitable - and Disney is not going to allow for meddling from the former owner.

Heh heh. That's cute that you think that is the case. Your naivete is adorable! Don't ever change.

The whole Star Wars/Disney deal is unique and unprecedented. Talking about what other studios have done with other movies is irrelevant.

Bottom line is this: You people are just pulling things out of mid-air. One of the main reasons I do not believe such a clause exists, beyond the fact that Disney would not be stupid enough to allow it, is that we haven't heard anything reported indicating it does. Disney is a publicly traded company and, as such, has to publicly disclose major acquisitions like this. If such a clause was included in the agreement, I have little doubt it would have already come to light.

 

Yes. Everyone knows he's a stubborn man and a control freak.

GL wants the films to be released in 3-D. It was Disney and Kennedy that put an end to those plans. Also releasing a film in 3-D or 4K is very different from changing the content of a film.

No reason to be rude. Here's the article about the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney: http://www.businessweek.com/article...ught-lucasfilm-and-its-plans-for-star-wars#p1

Business Week is a pretty reliable source, and its article quotes Lucasfilm's lawyer as stating that Lucas spoke to no other company besides Disney about selling Lucasfilm. It would be a pretty bad mark on a lawyer's reputation if he publicly made a claim that wasn't true, and again, that lawyer was representing Lucasfilm when he said it.

So, Ridley Scott, Spielberg, Jackson, Coppola would all have greater say over the final versions of their films than GL does with Star Wars even though Star Wars is the most successful franchise in history? Even if it's not in the sales contract, there is no way Disney is going to treat GL with less respect than other studios have treated Scott, Cameron, Spielberg, or Coppola.

Just because a publicly traded company bought Lucasfilm doesn't mean the details of the sales contract is available to the public or the media. If that were so, go find me a copy of it, or go find me a copy of JJ's contract for directing Ep. 7 or Daisy Ridley's contract. You won't be able to because they don't have to be made available to the public. Sure, very top level shareholders can gain access of that sales contract, but Disney has no obligation to release that info to the media. So, if Warren Buffett has 1 million shares of Disney he can look it over, but I don't think someone in his position is going run over to CNN and tell them that he just learned that GL has retained the rights to Greedo shooting first.

Furthermore, there are tons of things done by the huge multi-national companies that never appear on shareholder's reports. Do you think Universal, owned by Sony, felt obligated to release the info in a shareholder report that Spielberg was planning to update the special effects on its 20th anniversary release of ET?

 

Still not sure how Han shooting Greedo first is worse than shooting an unarmed Vader as soon as he sees him, as I doubt he knew Vader could block shots with his hands.

As for the OT,regardless of his vision, I just wish we could get an unaltered edition out on Blue Ray. His buddy Coppola believes in the Reduex version of Apocalypse Now but he also bought out the original (and superior) version with it, why can't Lucas/Disney.