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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

I am not a Star Wars superfan, but have enjoyed some of the films, particularly the original Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Rogue One.

When I first saw Lucas' revisionist scenes in Mos Eisley back in the 90s or early 2000s, such as the CGI creatures outside the cantina and the Greedo/Han Solo incident inside, it was disillusioning.

Lucas didn't fix flaws in the original film. He jazzed up some scenes that didn't need it. He neutered one of the great flawed heroes of science fiction film. It would be akin to Francis Ford Coppola remaking the scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone coldly shuts the door on his wife by adding an audio or video edit in which the wife spits on Michael, thereby "justifying" the cold treatment.

Kudos to the teams restoring the original 35mm films, although I fear this article may trigger a heavy-handed response from Disney's legal thugs.

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> although I fear this article may trigger a heavy-handed response from Disney's legal thugs.

Project 4K77 and other restoration projects have been well known for quite some time. This is hardly going to be the first Disney has heard of them.

I was wondering about that. Maybe they're taking an approach of "any publicity is good publicity"?

But once it's in the NYT, Bob Iger will surely read it. It may force the suits to release the hounds if just to make an example for anyone else considering similar restorations of Disney originals.

Everyone get to Mirroring them now then.

It's all objective. I enjoyed all the changes except the laser 'projectiles'. Though I agree it's nice to see fans preserve the OG edition.

I think you mean subjective. But I agree: the Star Wars special editions are the superior versions. I have never understood, nor will ever, why people get so worked up about the Han Solo scene. It's simply not an important part of the story or the character.

Tell me you don’t understand Han without telling me you don’t understand Han.

I think they're also showing they don't understand storytelling, character development, or the medium of film.

And that's the important part of their comment

I think the loss of a major character beat is exactly what bothers people—it’s the whole point of the original scene. Aside from the modified action just looking really goofy.

Yes subjective. Sorry.

I bothers me on two levels:

(1) it’s a cooler scene when he shoots first. It’s raw and uncompromising and represents what the first two films were before the later films went in a different direction.

(2) The idea that the bounty hunter could miss by that much at that distance is just ridiculous. It’s immersion breaking.

It’s just one scene but it stands out. If it were food, you could say “it’s just one hair in your yogurt.” It still kinda impacts the rest of it.

What an insanely wrong take.

It literally establishes that he will shoot first and ask questions later. It casts Solo in a completely different light than as simply a guy who is trying to survive and willing to skirt the law.

The original Solo is dangerous and reckless. The neutered one isn’t.

Did you enjoy the crappy 90s CGI Jabba the Hutt composited in a shot with Han Solo? They look like overlapping sprites due to bad collision detection. Pathetic.

Yes, I enjoyed that too. I was pretty into Star Wars and CGI at the time. (Did some models and animation for "Star Wars Quake" mod.) While it may seem pathetic today, back then it impressed me.

If you watch The Making Of (or some other documentary) you can see that there was a different actor for Jabba (a big guy) when they filmed that originally, then subbed in the crappy Jabba. To me the "tail stepping" part is what truly ruins it (beyond being entirely unnecessary; Jabba's not the kind of Hutt to go talk to Han Solo and let his tail be walked on).

Since Lucas added back the Jabba scene that they couldn't complete for the original release, he should have deleted the Greedo scene entirely, since it was only filmed as a replacement. There doesn't need to be two scenes that explains that Han needs lots of money fast.

Release the hounds to what avail? I can't read the paywalled article, but if all they are doing is restoring a physical copy, what can Disney do? I realize there are things they can try, but what law is being broken? I wouldn't think they are infringing on copyright.

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