matril: (Default)
[personal profile] matril
Star Wars draws its influence from a broad range of sources, everything from fairy tales to samurai legends, 1940s serials and westerns. And what's more characteristic of the classic western than a shoot-out between two bravos? So we get the Han-Greedo confrontation. I frankly don't care who "shot first;" it's really about who's the fastest draw. Clearly, that's Han.

But he's not standing alertly, hand poised obviously at his weapon. He's slouched in a corner, cleverly luring Greedo into dropping his guard. The audience gets to see Han's finger inching toward the trigger while the bounty hunter remains arrogantly ignorant. Until it's too late.

Then we get another indicator of the seediness of this locale, no dialogue necessary: the patrons briefly note the shoot-out, then return to business as usual. Dead bodies, whatever. Casual scum and villainy.

Next time, more weirdness in a city full of weirdos...

Date: 2025-01-16 10:59 pm (UTC)
krpalmer: (europa)
From: [personal profile] krpalmer
Every so often I muse how my family's first "Star Wars on videotape" was our own off-the-air recording (for which we still had to fast-forward through the commercials). The broadcast had been cut a bit, and it was missing the cantina shootout (and other bits in Mos Eisley and the chess game, going by my recollection). That might have kept me from becoming "attached" to that particular bit of the pre-Special Edition (and we know what the problem with that is...)

I'm ready to proclaim the movie as it is now merely "constrains interpretations to what had been intended all along: Han was in genuine danger and cold-bloodedly responded." However, even if this contains some measure of "this is why we can't have nice things," I'm at least willing to see an aesthetic critique in "Han managing to dodge a shot had to be faked up after the fact," and it's been awfully tempting in recent years to just hit the chapter-skip button a second or two after the scene changes from "That's okay. I'm never coming back to this planet again," and use the Jabba the Hutt scene to establish why Han needs a lot of money.

Anyway, I did once make an effort to offer a jape on the subject.

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