Friday, September 22, 2006

The Parable of Han Solo

This week I was out buying a video game and looking at DVD’s when I saw the Original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. Now this is the original unedited versions that are without the 1997 special features that some fans believe ruined the saga.

One of the most notable changes is that in the Special Editions Greedo shoots at Han Solo first in the classic bar scene.

In the updated version Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker have just agreed to book passage on Han’s ship the Millennium Falcon. Once Han agrees he sends Chewbacca to ready the ship. With Han alone Greedo, a bounty hunter, corners Solo at gunpoint and fires a warning shot above his shoulder before Han fires back killing Greedo where he sat.

The original vision shows depicts Han unholstering his weapon below the table and before Greedo is aware that there is a weapon pointed at him he is dead.

All movies should be made like this! Not the updated PC version that makes many true Star Wars fans want to puke but the way that hits you in your gut as great movie making? Why because it’s believable!

And this is how the war on terror should be fought.

We know the terrorists want us dead. Like Greedo they’re pointing guns in our preverbal faces. Liberals in our country would like to think that the enemy would fire a non-hazardous warning shot before we should be allowed to fire a deadly counter strike. However they forget that their last “warning shot” cost 3000 lives, 4 airplanes and my favorite 2 buildings in New York City!

Back in 1977 Han Solo got it right.