MithrandirOlorin wrote: ↑Wed May 11, 2022 12:34 am
Frustration wrote: ↑Tue May 10, 2022 7:19 pm
Three hours? Nah, I've seen what I consider to be the most relevant parts.
If they had limited the Special Editions to fixing effects gaffes - and actually gone through and fixed the most notable ones - I don't think anyone would have had a problem. It was the material they added that not only didn't match the appearance of the rest of the movies, but significantly altered the emotional reactions to the portrayed content for the worse, that everyone complained about.
It's things like those that convinced me Lucas is actually a terrible moviemaker - the best parts of his movies are the things that others added, and working on his own he has terrible judgment about what does and does not 'work'. Which is a true shame, as the original films are great classics and need to be preserved from Lucas' attempts to 'improve' them.
The last section of the video is that one about the changed you people accusing of altering the film emotionally.
Han was always killing Greedo in Self Defense, if you paid attention to the Subs that was clear in the earliest versions. So the Irony is all you Han Shot First people insisting that Han was doing some Clint Eastewood here are proveing Lucas correct the scene wasn't clear enough and needed to be clarified.
And acting like Han is no a longer a selfish character in need of a redemption arc simply because he doesn't kill people in Cold Blood, says more about your messed morality.
First, I'd argue that even if we grant every single claim about what the scene is supposed to depict and what intentions lay behind it, the edited version simply looks terrible to the point that I don't think it even accomplishes any of what it was supposedly edited to do. It's just so bad visually that rather than getting "Han is shooting in self-defense" out of it, I think someone who has only ever seen the edited version is just going to be confused as to exactly what is supposed to have happened.
Second, I think that whatever the intention may have been at any given time, Han's body language after Greedo dies only makes sense and seems like it belongs in the original version where he shoots first. He has a grim, guilty-but-in-a-sheepish-way kind of an expression and movement. It clearly comes across as though we're supposed to see him as someone who knows he just crossed a line. It seems intended to convey a mix of personal guilt and social fear, like he's at once conflicted about what he did but is afraid enough of the consequences that he wants to keep putting on a tough face. Either way, it's not the reaction of someone who killed a person in desperation after they shot at him first. Again, this doesn't address the question of whether the scene would work better if Han had shot second, but it does mean that as it is editing the first part so that he does causes the second part to feel badly out of place and makes it pretty clear that the scene was not originally filmed with the idea that Han was purely reacting.
Actually, even his actions before the shot demonstrate this. The line "yes, I'll be you have" is
extremely clearly intended as Han making a sarcastic comment knowing that he's about to kill Greedo. That doesn't mean he can't be doing it in self-defense; see the next point.
Third, note the careful choice of word in my previous sentence: I didn't say that the scene was not originally filmed with the idea that Han was acting in self-defense, but rather I said that it was not originally filmed with him
reacting. I think it's an entirely plausible reading of the original scene that Han was
proactively acting in self-defense. It makes perfect sense if the idea is that he knew Greedo was about to kill him and so he proactively shot first, NOT to kill Greedo in cold blood but to prevent Greedo from killing him. What doesn't make any sense are any of the versions of this where he says, "yes, I'll be you have" and then only shoots in response to Greedo and then acts like a conflicted tough guy after the fact.
