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.

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.

Yes subjective. Sorry.

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

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.

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.