When Han Shot First
Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 12:55 pmOriginal Unaltered Star Wars Trilogy Coming to DVD!
And in honor of this special occasion, as well as Star Wars creator George Lucas’s birthday this month, I decided to take a look back at how my Star Wars obsession began and reveal my loyalty to all things Lucas.
Confessions of a Star Wars Fanatic!
The original unaltered Star Wars trilogy is finally coming to DVD, and while this is a dream come true for me, I’m really more excited for all those poor souls who’ve never experienced Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in their purist form, before creator George Lucas tampered with his masterpieces. [read more…]
Read my feature to:
- find out which scene in Jedi was interrupted on me the most;
- view large photos of some of my collectibles;
- learn about my most regretable moments;
- know why I believe I’m part owner of the Skywalker Ranch;
- discover how me and my rebel forces can single-handedly keep the Star Wars legacy alive.
And check out the cool shirt that I totally should own.
Listen to this podcast
I, too, own several copies of SW on VHS and staunchly refused to buy the DVDs when they came out. In fact, a friend ripped his Faces Edition LDs to DVD for me to help me out. And I ripped several copies of those for people to keep them from buying the “official” DVD set. I, personally, do not know a soul who owns those DVDs.
My proudest piece is the Faces Edition VHS set in letterbox. Very rare collector’s flat box instead of the virtual cube. I like it so much more. Great set. A VCR tried to eat it one time… I tore the VCR apart and trashed it rather than have my tape get ruined.
K, when the world comes to an end, I hope that I’m there with you.
The summer after ROTJ came out, they ran a triple feature at that 18th Ave. movie theater that eventually became a Mandee’s or something. All three flicks on the same screen, in the same day.. for months!!!
Needless to say, I spent most of July and August there watching my three favorite movies over and over again. After the third week, the ushers knew me by name and some of them let me in for free.
I couldn’t possible explain to you how blessed I felt.
When the ’special edition’ DVDs came out, I made several copies of my LD originals onto DVD and gave them out to friends for christmas with explicit instructions that they in no way purchase or support the special edition discs.
Oh my lord. I want those. I want those! I wore out my VHS copies a LONG time ago and have been dying to see Jedi minus the freaking dopey “all the worlds celebrating the end of the Empire scene” for some time now. Very good news Eve, very good indeed.
I’ll be there waiting for you with the uncut Star Wars movies complete with telltale cel squares around each TIE Fighter as it flies through space. God I love those cel squares. I miss them. And Luke’s girly scream. And Han shooting first (and only). And the now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t Wampa. Those versions of the film rock.
I’ve had my laserdisc converted to digital video for ages… “The Empire Strikes Back” was the first thing I ever loaded onto a computer. Of course, the size and quality of that early effort was crap, but how cool was it that I could watch Star Wars on my Mac?!?
I’ll be buying them also, even though I too have a current rip of the LD on DVD.
How you haven’t disowned me I don’t know, because ever since Star Wars was still “Star Wars” and not “A New Hope”, I’ve been maintaining that Greebo shot first, but Han shot better.
Golfy, my girl, I would never disown you!!!
Though, I must disagree. That punk Greedo never even got a shot off before Han blasted him into a cloud of smoke. And even if he had a chance, Han was wanted ALIVE (not Dead or Alive, spinning right round baby, right round). Therefore, Greedo would not have shot at all; he wanted to bring Han alive to Jabba so he could collect the extremely large bounty.
Remember in Empire when Vadar was having Han put in the carbonite, there was a question of whether Han would survive the process, and Boba Fett says to Vader “What if he doesn’t survive? He’s worth a lot to me.”? Vadar replied that the Empire will compensate the bounty hunter if Han dies.
See? Han had to be alive — and not shot!
Dave2: It is super cool that you were able to watch SW on a Mac back then — and NOW as well!
Meet me and all the other commenters on this post The Day After the nuclear holocaust, so we can keep the SW oral tradition alive.