In the original Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is portrayed as a smuggler with debatable morality. He is a gunslinger and he is good at what he does. So he is cocky, but he can back it up. Why then did George Lucas feel the need to go back and change the scene in which Han shoots the bounty hunter Greedo so that Greedo fired the first shot, effectively rewriting history? And why now does he need to come back and it explain it again? Because fellow Star Wars fans, we know the truth. Han shot first!
In an interview with the Washington Post, Mr. Lucas explained rather flimsily, "Han Solo was going to marry Leia, and you look back and say, 'Should he be a cold-blooded killer?' Because I was thinking mythologically - should he be a cowboy, should he be John Wayne? And I said, 'Yeah, he should be John Wayne.' And when you're John Wayne, you don't shoot people [first] - you let them have the first shot. It's a mythological reality that we hope our society pays attention to." Okay fine. He is a cowboy, yes. He even eventually becomes more like John Wayne, but that is because of the love he has for Princess Leia, who he has not met yet at the particular point in the timeline when he shoots Greedo.
In the beginning, he is more like Clint Eastwood. Is he going to go out just shooting people willy-nilly? No! Of course not, but when his assailant is sitting two feet away from him with a gun trained on his face, you better believe Han is going to shoot first because he is a survivor.
I for one, am glad Han shot first. If he hadn't then there is no way he would have been alive for the rest of the original Star Wars movies. He would have died right then and there because Greedo was no slouch at being a bounty hunter.
Sadly, this is not the first time Lucas has treated his fans as fools. Huffington Post reminds us of another time Lucas tried to explain away the discrepancy between the original version and the special edition that was released 20 years later, "Lucas also spoke about the 'Han Shot First' controversy in 2012, with The Hollywood Reporter. But at that point, he alleged that he didn't actually change any of the content of the movie. Rather, the new cut in the Special Edition just 'made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first.'"
