The version I first saw had Solo defending himself, returning fire after that first errant blast. The greatest affront came in that Mos Eisley cantina scene. What was this hackneyed pandering in their prized Star Wars? Fans couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Lucas also added an understated introduction of Empire Strikes Back fan-favorite Boba Fett, who now can be seen silently lurking in the background before turning and staring straight into the camera. The Falstaffian human actor portraying Jabba in 1977 was replaced by a laughably obvious CGI creation in 1997, worsened only by an even crappier-looking computer enhanced Solo stepping on CG-Jabba’s tail. Han Solo confronts a human version of Jabba the Hutt in Docking Bay 94. Take, for example, one awful addition to the Special Edition in a scene cut from the 1977 release. Compared to the changes made to those originals, the compromises seem trivial. Anybody familiar with the history of the original movie knows he was undercut by the studio at nearly every angle, forcing him to make quick, potentially regrettable decisions that could have compromised the vision of his space epic. But am I taking this too seriously? Maybe Lucas had a point. It was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Special Edition. But older viewers, long-versed in the language of that universe, had plenty to gripe about.Įventually, I wised up to Lucas’s changes. Kids like me embraced it without any qualms whatsoever - seeing Star Wars was, after all, a turning point in my life, as it will be for 10-year-olds who see Rogue One in December. As he spruced up some scenes with CGI, and blatantly overhauled others, Lucas made mad bank while claiming the updates fulfilled an old artistic vision that movie-making tech in the ‘70s forced him to defer. Some changes were cosmetic, polishing up little details. Perhaps the most egregious changes were to the 1977 original itself, which, because of Lucas’s prequel plans, would later be re-labeled as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, an inelegant heresy. I’ve even made some of my best friends by challenging them to exceedingly nerdy Star Wars trivia (Q: What was the number of the garbage compactor that nearly killed Han, Luke, and Leia in the first movie? A: If you don’t know it, we aren’t best friends.) I couldn’t count how many Star Wars birthdays I’ve had, how many toys I’ve bought, and how many home video editions of the original trilogy I owned. It’s a cultural artifact that permeates my whole being. I confess that I love Star Wars far too much. The galaxy far, far away that fans like me fell in love with is a different film entirely. This means that a whole generation of supposedly passionate fans have been living a lie. That impromptu shootout in the first Star Wars is but one of the sequences that diverges from what audiences saw when the movie was originally released in 1977, and it’s perhaps the most infamous of writer/director George Lucas’s endless tinkering with his beloved space saga. Without batting an eye, Han fires a return blast under the table, killing the bounty hunter and sauntering away from the grisly yet PG-rated scene. After some tense chit-chat, the amphibian-looking barfly pulls a gun and fires a laser blast inches from Solo’s head. An alien bounty hunter pulls up a chair to confront him. The roguish anti-hero Han Solo sits alone at bare table in the Mos Eisley cantina. It’s a scene etched into every Star Wars fan’s mind.
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