Why does Han shoot my Greedo first?

"7AnimalMother;619862" wrote:
"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians". - George Lucas

"Unless they're the creators then it's okay." - George Lucas (probably).

"ItsJarJarBinkz;62532" wrote:
Come on devs! Make it so where a Greedo and han face off Greedo shoots first but only for han and it stuns but has a 50% 100% chance to miss.

FTFY

Nevermind

"TheFoxReDux;619848" wrote:

"CptCaveman;618935" wrote:
Yes; Han shot first, and yes Jar Jar is horrible, but other than that the prequels had much more meat and story to them than 7. Lucas is 10x the director JJ Lensflare will ever be.

I completely agree, though saying Lucas is 10x better is not saying much when applied to the low bar of Jar Jar Abrams. The only thing I liked about the new movie was the blood on the storm trooper. Star Wars needs to get a lot more dirty.

Quit hating on the best character

I can't let that slide. Abrams faced an impossible task with Ep7: to continue one of the most iconic and recognisable film franchises in history. What he delivered was so in-sync with Star Wars methos that it's often referred to as a reboot (or rehash if you want to go a bit more derogatory). He did this not by taking the easiest route and drawing everything but by using techniques and expertise from the original films. He did this with careful respect of the source material. He did this by distilling the raw ingredients of Star Wars and putting them into a new film with enough of the old to gel things together and enough of the new to move things along. If anything, he can be accused of playing it too safe but better that than stomping all over the legacy and trying to reinvent it.

It's odd that there's a correlation between people who were old enough to enjoy the original originals actually praising the film, and a younger generation who enjoyed the prequel trilogy knocking it. I'm one of those old guard and for all its intents, the prequel trilogy was nothing close to what I'd hoped: They made a great baddy out of Darth Maul and then neglected to give him any gravity (I have trained with Ray Park and I can tell you that the choreographer for his fight scene chronically underused him); they explained The Force (what the actual fcuk?); they made 'young Vader' a snivelling teenage brat with all the menace of wet fart; and then unashamedly made Bobba Fett the daddy of all Stormtroopers (in a manner of speaking). +Binks

No. Star Wars was never meant to be big and clever. The prequel trilogy attempted to make it first into a political drama and then into a love story. Utter tosh that must be endured so that everything else has some history... There's a good reason why Lucas made episode 4 first: 1-3 just weren't very good stories. They're like the B sides of the Star Wars saga.

Meanwhile... back on topic...

The biggest driver for Greedo shooting was that when it came to the re-release, they were worried that cold-blooded murder would have been too much to push through the board of film classifications - especially when the same scene has an arm dismemberment minutes beforehand. Greedo shooting makes it look like an old west-style 'quick draw' which became a thing in America as it was effectively classed as self defence... not murder.

Lol! Wow. No one is ever going to read that. Ever.

"SifuSteve;620028" wrote:
Lol! Wow. No one is ever going to read that. Ever.

I read it, you took the time to write it and it's a rainy day with not much else to do. While you are correct that he took on an almost impossible task what he did wasn't even playing it safe it was playing it easy. I'm old guard and saw the Ep IV in the theater when it came out. It could have been a great film had he not completely copied EP IV. It was the same movie in the same sequence with the characters slightly shifted in time. There is so much of the EU that has been built up over the years, some of it good and some of it terrible but mostly accepted, that he could have drawn upon much much more than he did. We didn't get a continuation, we got EP IV in JJ's image. The movie by itself is not bad and if you had never seen EP IV would probably have been phenomenal. In the end he didn't drop the ball buy he just didn't carry it forward either.

@TheFoxReDux That's pretty fair. I don't pretend to suggest it's the best of the bunch. I was just making the observation that there were a lot more things that could have gone wrong. It would have been very easy to drop said ball (and kick it into touch). The fact he didn't is his greatest achievement.

Many ne'er sayers blast it for being so similar to IV but won't acknowledge that IV was rife with well-established tropes. Star Wars has always had running themes (father/son conflict, taoist concepts of equilibrium, light versus dark, childhood rites of passage etc). These themes were old hat when IV arrived 30 years ago and are the reason Star Wars was so accessible. To remove those tropes is to change the essence of what made Star Wars the phenomenon it is. But to use them is to retread old ground. There is no easy solution.

Ultimately, VII had to introduce Star Wars to a whole new generation. Films are big business and the Star Wars brand is as strong as any. If he'd opted to introduce it as an epic sci-fi political drama, it would not have had the mass market appeal. So he introduced it as an accessible, familiar hammy space opera. He laid a canvas for his successors to take it any direction they see fit without tying them down too much. I think he could have taken a few more chances but in effect, took one for the team by not bottlenecking it down any given path.

We've seen with the advent of several EU staples turning up in Rebels (Interdictor, Thrawn etc) that Disney are a little happier to draw on that wealth of detail now. For everything Abrams did, he didn't actual slam many doors closed... obviously, Solo notwithstanding.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of VII, it's hard to see how the future can't be bright. If he'd dropped that ball in any way then we'd have a sense of foreboding like we did after EpI.

Just a late night musing. Thanks for engaging with me on it. (",)

"SifuSteve;620028" wrote:
Lol! Wow. No one is ever going to read that. Ever.

Read all of it and your second one. Must be us old guard guys with attention spans hahaha.

Of all the things you addressed I feel the need to explain, at least my interpretation, of one.

A lot of people are hung up on the whiney young Vader and emo Kylo. The reason these guys are whiney and not completely bad dudes is simple. Those attitudes lead are weaknesses that lead you down the dark path. Understanding the darkside allows you to harness those emotions and use it for power. If Anakin (ep 2 and 3) was as bad as Vader (4, 5, 6) he wouldn't have possesed the weakness to turn him. As for Kylo, let the boy grow into his evil role. There are 2 more movies to go.
Everyone who hates on these characters also really needs to go rewatch Ep 4 and pay attention to Luke. He's being a crybaby like 80% of the film. Look what he grew into.

Finally, Han shot. Greedo died. 1 shot fired.

@MilMuertes Again, a very fair comment. I totally agree that he had to be portrayed in that light and agree more so that the parallels with Luke are there for all to see (it's that rite of passage trope I was wittering on about). My point was that it ruined some of the magic and 'menace' of Vader by showing his roots. It had to be done, I get that, but it undermines Vader's dark majesty. Explaining the Force was another component of backstory that ruined some of the magic of IV but that seemed a lot more callous.

I expect good things from Kylo but I think the casting and character himself didn't quite hit the mark. Admittedly, he was the one character they really struggled with in development. I do like that Abrams turned a Star Wars constant on its head and had a dark Jedi being tempted by the light. As one of his few innovations, it's a shame it wasn't picked up much.

Mark Hamill seemed to mature as an actor and his writing reflected it. The development of his character over three (four?) films seemed credible. The same could not be said of Christensen. I simply could reconcile his face beneath the mask... but then, I guess, it wasn't.

Kylo Ren as a character is now in a world of trouble because once again we'll get to see Vader in Rogue One. I can't help feeling that because of this, no matter how well they right him, Kylo will be stood in the shadow of the biggest bad in cinema.

I sense a great disturbance in this thread. It's like a million topics suddenly screamed out in terror and were suddenly silenced...