Star Wars Books Thread
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Nope. As of 2004, him and Greedo shot simultaneously.It has been canon that it was so since 1997.
I've got copies of the 2004 updates (and the BluRays that further modified stuff). Greedo always shoots first; it's just that Han's shot is recut to be closer and closer. But still, Greedo shot first.
Whatever. In my head canon, Han always shot first anyway.
Han never shot first.
The way the scene was cut originally is clearly meant to be an homage to that scene that's just about every samurai movie ever. You know the one where two warriors face off, there's a flash of steel, a beat...and then one of them just crumples as the other walks away. You never see who landed what blow first or last, it's just a blur of motion and kicked up dust. Because *it doesn't matter*. The obfuscation is part of the mystique for that kind of archetype.
I don't know why exactly Lucas lost confidence in his original cut of that scene. Maybe he thought it looked too close to a cold blooded preemptive murder which wasn't what he'd intended and sought to clarify (it is a movie primarily for children after all), but lost the magic in the process.
Anyone who's any kind of artist can probably relate. Whether you're a writer, a sketch artist or sculptor, you'll occasionally have a piece of work that you're very happy with except for one minor detail. The pose of a hand, the shape of an eye or a single line of prose. So naturally try and fix it with a small adjustment...but it's still not right. So you try again and again and again until you've come so far away from the spontaneous spark that inspired the piece to begin with that you've screwed up the whole thing and need to start over. Learning to recognise when to stop fiddling and move on isn't as easy as it sounds.
Lucas wasn't kidding when he said movies are never completed, only abandoned. It's the same with most forms of art. At a certain point you accept it's as good as you can make it and live with it, or get bored trying to touch up the details and jus move on to other things.
The way the scene was cut originally is clearly meant to be an homage to that scene that's just about every samurai movie ever. You know the one where two warriors face off, there's a flash of steel, a beat...and then one of them just crumples as the other walks away. You never see who landed what blow first or last, it's just a blur of motion and kicked up dust. Because *it doesn't matter*. The obfuscation is part of the mystique for that kind of archetype.
I don't know why exactly Lucas lost confidence in his original cut of that scene. Maybe he thought it looked too close to a cold blooded preemptive murder which wasn't what he'd intended and sought to clarify (it is a movie primarily for children after all), but lost the magic in the process.
Anyone who's any kind of artist can probably relate. Whether you're a writer, a sketch artist or sculptor, you'll occasionally have a piece of work that you're very happy with except for one minor detail. The pose of a hand, the shape of an eye or a single line of prose. So naturally try and fix it with a small adjustment...but it's still not right. So you try again and again and again until you've come so far away from the spontaneous spark that inspired the piece to begin with that you've screwed up the whole thing and need to start over. Learning to recognise when to stop fiddling and move on isn't as easy as it sounds.
Lucas wasn't kidding when he said movies are never completed, only abandoned. It's the same with most forms of art. At a certain point you accept it's as good as you can make it and live with it, or get bored trying to touch up the details and jus move on to other things.
Is that like the Obi-Wan scene?
Everything happens so fast, shots are fired(I think), a lightsaber ignites, and I can't tell what's happening, then you see the alien's arm on the floor.
That's similar to a scene(s) in Yojimbo. Mifune rarely pulls out his sword, but when he does, it's a quick blur, limbs are severed, then he immediately puts in back in its sheath.
Everything happens so fast, shots are fired(I think), a lightsaber ignites, and I can't tell what's happening, then you see the alien's arm on the floor.
That's similar to a scene(s) in Yojimbo. Mifune rarely pulls out his sword, but when he does, it's a quick blur, limbs are severed, then he immediately puts in back in its sheath.
Yeah, pretty much. Westerns and Samurai movies are much more interrelated that most (non-film geeks) realise so it's interesting that Lucas chose to visually and archetypally represent two variations of basically the same thing, within a few minutes of each other and yet it doesn't really feel like the film is repeating itself.
I suppose if you want to split hairs you could say that the two scenes are each showing a distinct trope; with the Kenobi scene being the seemingly helpless, mild mannered old man suddenly turning into a lethal badass (see: Zatoichi, among others) whereas the Han/Greedo scene is along the lines of the traditional western trope of the veteran gunslinger being threatened by some thug (typically drunk and typically over a poker table) who's clearly out of his depth and is easily dispatched. The key difference is in the former, the audience isn't expecting the character to be so competent, while in the latter the audience is in on it and it's more about building anticipation: hence the shot of Han, surreptitiously upholstering his blaster.
Where the tropes get switched around is the respective opponents. Lucas gave the old Samurai veteran the drunk saloon barfly, and the maverick gunslinger the cold blooded killer working for the local bandit warlord.
And one of the best.
Not exactly, but it is a very closely related trope. That was more of a duel, akin to a western high-noon showdown where the tension is focused all on the build-up. Indeed it seems like it was almost directly inspired by this scene from 'Seven Samurai' (which incidentally inspired this scene for 'Magnificent Seven'.) Definitely part of the same family of tropes (for lack of a better term) but still kind of it's own thing. To give an example of another, very similar but distinct trope is the "final charge at the end of an extended fight" shot Which seems identical, but the context of the preceding fight makes it distinct and tends to show up a lot more often, even in more modern movies. (see: 'Kill Bill' & 'Underworld', just off the top of my head.)
What we're talking about is the sudden, almost without warning, flash of steel and limbs go flying scenes. Bonus points if it's a harmless looking old man, or vagabond on the side of the road during an attempted mugging.
Was that an intention pun there?
Unintentional puns are often the best ones.
I've been meaning to ask for a while now, are the old Tales of the Jedi comics any good? They've been up on Comixology for a while now, and I've been curious to check them out. A lot of the stuff from them was pretty influential on the Legends stuff, and I think some of it's even made it's way to the canon now.
I've been meaning to ask for a while now, are the old Tales of the Jedi comics any good? They've been up on Comixology for a while now, and I've been curious to check them out. A lot of the stuff from them was pretty influential on the Legends stuff, and I think some of it's even made it's way to the canon now.
A little hard for me to be objective about them since they were really the first EU stories that I really enjoyed as a kid, so I'll always have a soft spot for them.
That said, I think they're worth a read if for no other reason than the novelty of a Star Wars setting with a radically distinct, yet still recognisable design aesthetic. It's almost reminiscent of 'Masters of The Universe' in a way. That weird mix of Flash Gordon and Conan The Barbarian.
The characters are mostly two dimensional, but the narrative focus never stays with one character long enough for it to really matter.
So far as I can recall the main thing to be incorporated into canon thus far is Onderon. Which while much tamer on the giant monster front, was still quite recognisable in TCW.
I don't think so, at least not in terms of specific characters. There were fan theories about the voice of the Sith holocron being Darth Traya, a Mandalorian crusader helmet was seen in the Ahsoka/Chewie episodes and Revan almost appeared in the Mortis episodes, but those were KotOR references, not TotJ (plus I'm pretty sure the Traya thing was refuted.)
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StarWars.com has posted an excerpt from Last Shot focused on Han and a 2 year old Ben, with a short appearance from Mon Mothma and another familiar character.
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