By Joel Thurtell
Some blaster-totin’ goon’s got the drop on you, threatening to blow your brains out on the spot. No help in sight. Your back is to the wall.
What do you do?
Well, if you’re Han Solo, with the smarmy bounty hunter Greedo aiming his sidearm at you, your first thought is to distract him with some left-handed wall-tapping while your right hand, invisible to Greedo under the table, slowly twists your blaster until it has a bead on the bounty hunter.
The rest is cinematic history: you drill the bastard, of course.
On your way out, you casually tip the bartender and apologize for the mess.
I hadn’t watched “Star Wars” in ages. Knew we had VHS tape copies in the house, but couldn’t find them. Looked high and low. Nothing for it but to head for Blockbuster and rent the movie.
Not as easy as it sounds. First conundrum — which movie? Turns out the one we watched in 1977, the first episode, now is Episode IV. Fork over the money, head home, stuff it into the machine.
DVD, not videotape. Same difference, right?
Hey, this is great. Princess Leia in all her nobility, the young Luke Skywalker, the heavy-breathing Darth Vader, delightful R2D2, sage Old Ben, repulsive Jabba the Hut, and then we’re in the cantina and this weird creature Greedo is promising good ol’ Han he’ll fry him.
I’m ready for this. I love it when Greedo gets his just deserts.
Left hand tapping on wall, watch that right hand, slowly, stealthily, trigger finger moving…
But wait, what’s this? Something about this scene is wrong.
Did Greedo get off a shot? That’s not right!
My son Abe explained why my confusion was justified. Seems George Lucas took the opportunity to be creative when the first “Star Wars” film was put on DVD. Using digital wizardry, he had the scene changed.
He’d decided to put a white hat on Han. Real heroes don’t kill people — even bad guys — in cold blood. If Han shot first, as indeed he did in the 1977 film version, it made Han a cold-blooded killer. According to Wikipedia, the 1977 version, with Han shooting Greedo first, made Han a “morally ambiguous” character whose turnaround late in the movie was all the more significant, dramatically. But Lucas was afraid Han’s bad behavior was a poor example for kids, so he changed it. He had Greedo take the first shot, but missing. Wherewith Han put him down.
There was an uproar about that among “Star Wars” aficionados, so Lucas changed the scene again to what I saw — Greedo and Han shooting at the same time. It still waters down the moral ambiguity and is unfaithful to the historic film. I don’t like it.
But I understand Lucas’ moral dilemma. It’s a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s, when we had a surfeit of cowboy and frontier TV shows that depicted a clear ethic — the good guy shoots last. In a classic high noon showdown, the good guy must wait for the bad guy to un-holster his gun. At that precise moment, the good guy is licensed to blow the bad guy away, but not before.
It’s a morality straight out of knight-errantry, with chivalrous assailants giving each other a noble hand because they’re all good guys, all wearing white scarves.
Ridiculous, but that’s where Lucas is coming from.
He should relax. Han did just fine.
No telling what laws — if any — were in use on that desert planet where Han sent Greedo to his maker.
In many states in the U.S., Han’s killing of Greedo would have been considered justifiable homicide.
I doubt a prosecutor would have charged him. (Hope he had a permit for that blaster!) Had he been charged, his attorneys would have had an excellent argument for self-defense.
According to Wikipedia, in many states, “a person may use physical force to prevent imminent physical injury, however a person may not use deadly physical force unless that person is in reasonable fear of serious physical injury or death”.
There was no way Han could escape. Greedo was aiming his blaster at him all the time and threatening to kill him. Han was therefore justifiably in fear for his life. Lacking a way of escaping, his only means of preserving his life was to kill Greedo. Which he did, quite satisfactorily.
In Florida and Louisiana, Han would have been absolved of any pretense of retreat. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld that right to kill someone who’s trying to kill you, even in a public place and not in your home. So Han had the right to stand his ground when Greedo threatened him with a blaster.
Again according to Wikipedia, ” ‘Stand your ground’ governs U.S. federal case law in which self-defense is asserted against a charge of criminal homicide. The Supreme Court ruled in Beard v. U.S. (1895) that a man who was ‘where he had the right to be’ when he came under attack and ‘…did not provoke the assault, and had at the time reasonable grounds to believe, and in good faith believed, that the deceased intended to take his life, or do him great bodily harm…was not obliged to retreat, nor to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground.”
Han did not provoke Greedo. Greedo provoked Han by promising, blaster drawn and leveled at Han, to dispatch our hero to his Maker. Instead, Han rid the galaxy of a real slime ball.
Next time George Lucas tampers with “Star Wars,” I hope he’ll understand that Han Solo not only saved his own life, but was correct to do so. He needs to fix the film again by putting it back to its original form.
It’s only logical. Because if you’re catering to some “turn-the-other-cheek” ethic, there’s only one way the Greedo-Han confrontation can end. Han waits for Greedo to shoot and gets blown away. Forget morality — that just does not work in cinema.
Think of where that leaves the film: Han lets Greedo kill him. Okay, by movie’s end, where’s the unambiguous hero who’s gonna save the day when Luke Skywalker is simultaneously attacking the Death Star while Darth Vader, piloting one of those evil black fighters, bears down from behind with photon torpedoes blazing?
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
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Obi Wan Knobe, the sand runts or whatever they call them. I’m really getting into this when Hits the tavern and the bounty hunter, Greedo starts making dire threats, aiming his blaster at Han.
I’m waiting for this great scene where Han, back to the wall, no way out, distracts Greedo with his left hand while aiming his own blaster at the creep from under the table. One shot and Greedo is no more.
Except it doesn’t happen. Not the way I recalled it. The scene just isn’t clear. So we watched on.
Next day, our son Abe is home and I’m telling him we watched Star Wars.
Fsat forward toThe arguments.
Legally, he was in the right. back to wall, threatened by gun-totin’ goon…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first
Han shot first — so what?
