Wednesday, November 14, 2012

One Of These Things Is Exactly Like The Other...

All this recent talk about Disney buying Star Wars (and everything else LucasFilm related) got me to thinking...
Back around 1997 George Lucas decided that Han shooting Greedo first was a Bad Thing. He claimed it made Solo look like a cold-blooded killer. He felt so strongly about this that when he released the Special Editions he changed the scene so that Greedo fired first (and missed!!!) and then Solo shot him.  Phew! Thank goodness! Now he's only guilty of voluntary manslaughter (alienslaughter?) instead of murder.
Curiously, when placed in a similar situation Indiana Jones guns down a threatening swordsman and George is apparently OK with that. In fact the Swordsman's murder is treated as high comedy.

 So for the record, shooting an alien first is bad and must be excised from the public's memory. Shooting a sword-weilding guard-- Com-O-Dee Gold!
at

2 comments:

  1. Jon PintoNovember 14, 2012 at 3:12 PM

    Surely you must know the legend of that Indiana Jones scene?? Harrison Ford was suffering thru a food illness that befell the entire crew (except Spielberg because he only ate canned food) and didn't have the strength to do the scene as scripted. It was to be a full on fight scene that was rehearsed and choreographed. Ford decided he should just shoot the guy. Spielberg loved it but Lucas did not. They filmed it both ways and showed it to test audiences who all favored the improv shot. So, Lucas was wrong again. There is an interesting book that chronicles the filming of all the Indiana Jones films and it's telling that all of Lucas' ideas were bad ones that were shot down. Pun intended!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob CanadaNovember 14, 2012 at 3:21 PM

    Yeah, I read the story of that scene. But Lucas seems to exert quite a bit of control over Indy, so I thought it was odd that he wouldn't try to change that scene as well. Maybe he did and Spielberg said no.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.