George Lucas Now Claiming Han Never Shot First

Hey Star Wars fans: If 3-D Phantom Menace isn’t enough raw pain and confusion for you, check out the latest dribble of crazy from King George’s hair-ensconced mouth. Lucas just told the Hollywood Reporter the reason he tinkered with the Han Solo/Greedo cantina scene in Star Wars so many years after the fact is because Greedo always fired first—we just couldn’t see it in the original cut of the film because he screwed up the framing. Take it away, Pudding Boy:

The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo…what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo…to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. [The 1977 scene] had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. [In subsequent editions] 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.”

Interesting. Just last month George did some gum-flapping where he claimed the contentious cantina showdown was altered because the initial presentation was a “violation” of his “own naïve style” (and not because he had no clue how to block his shots). And what purist could forget the brazen fashion choice our beloved director made a few years ago when he was prepping Indiana Jones & the Holy Shit Look At All The Zeros On This Check? Guess he was just trollin’ us on that tip. Or maybe he’s trollin’ us now.

Of course, none of this would matter if Lucasfilm would bite the goddamn bullet and release remastered Blu-Rays of the original Star Wars trilogy sans computer diddling. The most intelligent, insightful thing Harry Knowles ever said was that updating these films was akin to correcting your math homework from middle school. Yeah, you know it’s a mess, but your mom doesn’t care. She’s hung on to it anyway because it means something to her, despite all its flaws.

What I’m saying is I don’t care if the ghost of Norman Fell commanded George Lucas to scribble all over his creations—they were all stupid changes and any attempts to justify them now are moot. Give us the real movies back and we’ll stop referring to you with cruel monikers like “Pudding Boy” on the Internet.