Posted in: Disney, Movies, News With Benefits | Tagged: disney, george lucas, greedo, han shot first, han solo, star wars

Disney Has Chance to Fix Star Wars' Han/Greedo Scene for Disney+, Makes It Worse Instead

The technical difficulties plaguing the launch day of Disney's new Disney+ streaming service aren't the biggest controversy of the day, and neither is the fact that the service does not feature the original Muppet Babies cartoon (even though that should be all people are talking about). Instead, the biggest and probably strangest decision Disney made for the service was to once again edit the Star Wars scene between Han Solo and bounty hunter Greedo at the Mos Eisley Cantina.

In the original cut of the film, Han clearly fires his blaster first at Greedo, killing him before Greedo can get off a single shot. In George Lucas's 1997 Special Edition version, which features many questionable changes and additions to the Star Wars films, Greedo fires at Han first, with Han CGIed to dodge the shot before firing back at Greedo and killing him. This was changed for the film's 2004 DVD release to show both characters firing at roughly the same time, and though this one is thematically superior to Greedo shooting first, it may be the jankiest-looking of all the edits. The scene was further altered for the Blu-Ray release in 2011, though both characters still fire at the same time.

The changes have been widely decried by fandom because, unlike arbitrarily adding in unnecessary CGI objects as most of the other edits consisted of, this one fundamentally changes Han's character from morally ambiguous to heroic. The "Han Shot First" meme is one of the most well-known in Star Wars fandom and pop culture in general. Every time a new version of the film is released, it's an opportunity to set things back to the way they originally were and the way fans seem to prefer it, and another opportunity was presented with Disney+'s version of the film. Alas, it's an opportunity Disney failed to capitalize on, though they couldn't resist putting their own touch on the scene.

In the new version, Han and Greedo still shoot at the same time, but this time, for some reason, we @#$% you not, Greedo appears to shout "Maclunkey!" while doing it. No, seriously.

Why? And also, why? And furthermore, @#$%ing why? We may never know, just as we may never know what exactly "Maclunkey" means in Rodian since no subtitles are included for this exclamation. Our best guess is that the phrase translates roughly to "Disney, you had the chance to fix this bizarre mistake that's been plaguing Star Wars for decades, but instead you chose to make it worse by adding an unnecessary line of dialog that opens the edit up to even more ridicule. For shame, for shame. To make matters worse, you did not include Muppet Babies in the Disney+ streaming lineup, even though you own Fox now so there should be no issues with all those scenes from Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Truly, this is a missed opportunity that you should attempt to rectify at your earliest convenience." It does sound more elegant in the native tongue though.

Disney+ is available now if their servers are working for you, but personally, we're not signing up until they add Muppet Babies to the lineup.

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