Well, perhaps I should take offense because I’ve made that argument a few times ;). It’s something I think people should be reminded of. It’s Lucas’ film and he knows better than anyone the motivations of the characters involved. Too many people consider the scenes their own.
Point taken. With the added Jabba/Han scene, the Greedo shooting first is more understandable than Han shooting first. However, I had never heard anyone complaining about Greedo shooting first who made the argument that that scene should be taken out as well. As long as that scene is in, Han shooting first seems much more morally questionable.
:rolleyes:
I’ve ‘dodged’ the question because I’ve considered it an idiotic strawman, if I should be so frank. The differences between a one on one confrontation with a bounty hunter which may or may not be willing act on his threat is entirely different from a rebellion against an empire which has shown itself to be a tyranny (and especially so from a moral sense). I mean it isn’t even worth comparing and I assumed it was a silly throw away statement. I didn’t realize you actually wanted a response to it.
Btw, I don’t think many people would consider attacks against the military to be terrorism. I know I wouldn’t.
with the new DVDs out, I’ll ask the question. What do others think of the NEW change to the shooting scene. Yes, that’s right, it’s changed AGAIN!!!
this time 'round, Han and Greedo shoot AT THE SAME TIME!!!How’s that for compromising your creative vision and attempting to please the fanboy element? It’s not even, ‘I’m right, I don’t need to listen to you’, nor is it, 'I’m sorry, you guys were right, I’ve corrected it… it’s just… blah….
that may not even be a spoiler, but I know some folks will want to be kept in suspense…
Oh, and I never noticed this before, but did you know Han shoots from under the table, but somehow the blaster bolt flies up and out from under the table (but not through it!) and whacks Greedo in the chest… I much prefered the implication of a gut-shot in the old version.
Just to clarify the editing weirdness from Mr. Blue Sky’s post: ISiddiqui said that it’s not a big deal, not me. No way am I defending that cinematic abortion.
So now Han Solo isn’t a baddass who can take care of himself but someone who was incredibly lucky to have the worst shot in the universe gunning for him.
From what I understand of Lucas’ directing style, he really doesn’t try to control the actors and doesn’t give them a whole lot of specific direction. If you’re going to act well in a Lucas film, you have to be able work out the character’s style and taste on your own. This isn’t neccessarily a bad thing (Witness Ford and Guiness, but not every actor can do it right).
For the record, I despise Natalie Portman’s ham-fisted acting (I’m still amazed people think she was good in AotC), and think Hayden is much better, albeit not quite subtle or mature enough.
Well, considering how integrated the military and government are at the time of ANH (with the senate recently dissolved), it’s not really just an attack on the military. It does, after all, kill Grand Moff Tarkin, who was pretty high up there in the scheme of things. I think the point remains valid - Luke killed thousands of people on the Death Star; some genuinely evil, yeah, but also a bunch of low-level guys. Did the guy doing tech support on the tractor beam really deserve to buy it along with Tarkin?
I also don’t understand the desire for Han Solo to be some kind of morally pure character in the first place. Especially since he’s already a criminal whether he shoots Greedo or not; he has no problem being a smuggler for one of the most powerful and murderous crime lords in the galaxy.
So what? Nobody knows the motivations of the characters in Freddy Got Fingered better than Tom Green, but that doesn’t excuse the quality of the film. I don’t think anyone needs to be “reminded” of that fact. It’s a big part of the reason that I don’t have any respect for Lucas as a filmmaker anymore. Whatever talent he used to have has clearly deserted him.
So far as I know, almost everyone who objects to the “Greedo shoots first” scene also dislikes the Jabba scene. They were both tremendous missteps from a narrative POV, and were amateurishly executed to boot.
You use the word “differences” there, but you fail to actually demonstrate any. How is killing one representative of a tyrannical ganglord somehow more morally questionable than killing hundreds of thousands of representatives of a tyrannical government? Aside from scale, what’s the difference there? Hell, Luke doesn’t even have as strong an argument of self-defence. Maybe Greedo wasn’t going to kill Han… but what the hell do you think Jabba was going to do to him? Luke, on the other hand, had days to cut and run before the Death Star showed up at Yavin. He chose to put himself in harm’s way, and then killed a small moon full of people. But his character doesn’t need any moral white-washing in the SE? How does that work, exactly?
So, that plane that hit the Pentagon: not a terrorist action, in your view?
I think Luke had a pretty good reason to believe that the Death Star wasn’t at Yavin to help with television receiption. After Alderaan, I would think everyone on board the Death Star is guilty of crimes against humanity.
That said, trying to compare anything in the Star Wars universe with 9/11 seems pretty lame.
Why is it valid? You are suppositioning a part of the SW Universe that’s not addressed in the movies. Something like that belongs, if anywhere, in the fan-fiction areas of the net, not in a discussion of the changes found in the special edition.
Besides, this issue was sufficiently covered in Clerks: civilians working for the military in a war zone are aware of the possible deadly consequences. Since the motivation for these “low-level guys” is never addressed in the movies (on either Death Star), we can disregard the morality of blowing them up just because they showed up for work that day. At least with the Greedo/Solo gunfight, there is something concrete to appraise. Bringing your mythical contractors into the fray approaches ‘merely annoying’.
Mark my words: if people keep bringing this up, Lucas is going to release another version of the series, with a prolouge showing contract negotiations between the Empire and its tech unions.
Tarkin was on a military instillation. They didn’t blow up the Death Star to get Tarkin. They did it because it was a badass weapon, that when operational and running would destroy the rebellion to bits.
Well, see, a lot of people distinguish between people doing no-harm crimes (like smuggling or drug use) with heinous crimes (like murder and attempted murder). There are a lot of people who don’t consider the no-harm criminals to be that bad.
Do you mean to say that Tom Green shouldn’t be making changes to the film that the fans of his movie (and there are some) don’t like?
:rolleyes:
You MUST be kidding me. So are you saying those people during American independance era who drawed and quartered tax collectors are the same morally as the Continental Army? Are you claiming that those in the French Revolution who killed the nobles on the guillotine are morally equal to the people in the streets who carried out the revolt?
Come on! Revolutions against a tyrannical government never need moral white-washing. Killing another person sometimes may, especially when that person may not be actually trying to kill you (at least at that moment).
Frankly, I’d lean more towards no. But it’s a borderline case, I guess, because the Pentagon isn’t physically occupying the percieved oppressed land. Yet, I’d still lean towards no… an act of war, surely, terrorism? In my book, you have to target civilians for it to be terrorism.
That had no civilians on it (AFAIK), so I’d say that is clearly a case of not being terrorism.
Nah… he will just replace all of the humans with CGI robots.
For the record, I prefer the original of the cantina scene, but I don’t lose any sleep over the second edition. I will buy the DVD’s and I won’t lose any sleep over their version of the scene either.
I’m saying that when an artist puts a work out in front of an audience, that work is fair game for criticism on whatever grounds the audience feels is relevant. In the case of Star Wars, those grounds include the fact that there are earlier versions of the film that are plainly superior to the “improved” versions. “Reminding” people that the movies are George Lucas’s property is a meaningless argument, because nobody is advocating that the original trilogy be nationalized so that he can’t change them anymore. They’re merely pointing out that the changes suck.
Where the hell did you get that? I’m saying that a government that uses orbital space lasers to blow up planets is morally equivalent to a mafia gangboss who indulges in slavery, murder, and deathsports. If it’s okay for Luke to take up arms against the Empire to combat its moral failings, then why is it not okay for Han to take up arms against Jabba’s goons to protect himself from their moral failings?
Who’s kidding who, here? Any action taken against a tyrant (and who defines “tyranny,” in these situations?) is automatically morally correct? Fidel Castro’s actions in overthrowing Bautista don’t need any moral white-washing? Khomeini’s reign in Iran was morally just because the Shah was such a douchebag? Gimme a break.
Fair enough, but you should probably note that your definition of “terrorism” is out of step with the one held by the government and the public at large, who consider both the attack on the Pentagon and the bombing of the USS Cole to be acts of terrorism. I mention this only because of your earlier assertion that “[you] don’t think many people would consider attacks against the military to be terrorism.” Most people, in fact, do consider attacks against the military to be terrorism, at least under certain circumstances.
Okay, point taken. Looking back, I’m not even really sure why I said that, because it doesn’t really have anything to do with what I was thinking. So I retract that.
It still seems to me, however, that it boils down to Han killing the employee of someone “evil” and Luke doing the same thing on a larger scale. It’s not as if Greedo was any less aware of the possibility of harm coming to him than the soldiers on the Death Star were, nor were his goals any more admirable, even if they weren’t on the magnitude of destroying a planet.
Why is an armed Greedo any less fair game than, say, a Stormtrooper?
Yeah, but what Han is doing isn’t strictly “no-harm”. He’s knowingly and directly providing a service to someone who is directly responsible for many, many harmful crimes. I don’t see how, morally, that’s a huge step up from killing a bounty hunter sitting three feet away from you and pointing a gun at you with every intention of bringing you to either your death or something worse.
That’s quite a streach. Would you consider the old mafia to be as morally bad as, say, Hitler’s regime? I doubt many would.
And are you really claiming that Han killed Greedo because because he wanted to destroy Jabba’s mob? After all, Luke destroyed the Death Star because he wanted to get rid of tyranny. Han shot first because he didn’t want to get squeezed for money.
Whenever a tyrant is being fought against, the rebels are considered morally correct with the exception being that if the rebels are not fighting against tyrany, but for their own more repressive one (thought a lot of times this is not known until later). Castro’s overthrowing of Bautista was morally correct (Castro’s tyranny is much less than Batista’s) as was Khomeni’s overthrow of the Shah (ditto). What comes afterwards is another story. So a morally incorrect fight against tyranny is, say, the Taliban, which wanted a more restrictive tyranny under their own rule, but like I said, it’s an exception to the rule.
I don’t really care. The government and the public at large are highly hypocritcal when it comes to defining terrorism, when the American founding fathers who tarred and feathered tax collectors were ‘freedom fighters’ instead of terrorists. At least I’m consistent.
Guilt by association? Just because you provide a service to a person responsible for harmful crimes, as long as those services don’t involve the harmful crimes, I’d consider it no-harm. Just like people buying drugs is providing cash for someone who may be directly responsible for many harmful crimes (Drug lords) are considered doing a no-harm crime by a lot of people.
