h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Simpost.

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I know I should know all this but what's the issue with Han shooting anyway?

Han had a conversation in the pub with Greedo (I think it was?) one of Jabba's hitmen (can't remember his name, something like Greedo). He pleaded for more time to pay back his debt to Jabba, but Greedo said it was too late and now he was going to kill Han.

Han had his hands on his lap under the table. He produced a blaster and "got his retaliation in first", shooting Greedo from under the table before he could carry out his threat.

In later versions this was edited so that Han and Greedo drew their guns at the same time.

This is really reminding me of a time in about the 7th year of school. The nuns found (somewhere) "Mary Poppins" ... Four reels for the school projector in the gym. All 8 grade classes watching.

The guy wasn't so good at loading and playing the reels - #2 went first, then part of #1 before it broke. So we saw half of reel #3 while #1 was patched ... Reel #4 was delivered a few days later.

By the 4th day (the 4th be with you?) we saw them all in correct sequence.

We went to see Star Wars (IV) when it first came out & were absolutely wowed by it. Enjoyed the next two as well, but didn't care for I & II, didn't bother to watch III. A colleague of mine who is somewhat younger fan said III was better than I & II.

Anyway we're planning to go & see VI next week & we rarely go to the cinema these days!

III was certainly better than I or II but it started with a ridiculous and really boring space battle. If you can get past that, the rest is good although not great.

I'm a grumpy old man, but there's still hope that I will go into my second childhood.

I'm not too old to weep when I hear extremely beautiful music .

[It might not make others weep. We're all different in what we like ]

This latest film was the one I wanted to see after the Return of the Jedi..Now it's way too late and everyone I liked in the original three are decrepit..Can't see any point myself apart from it being a cash cow.Haven't seen any after the so called part 1 which had that annoying CGI character and it was blatantly obvious what was going to happen in parts 2 and 3..

I'm pretty certain that I remember a discussion a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away, being told that the series was planned to be a trilogy of trilogies and that they had started with number 4.

Anyone planning to see this will probably have seen the others in some order, but if they haven't it doesn't matter as this can stand alone.

And I have seen the new one. My son (29) suggested a first day showing. I went along with that - it was to be a family thing with his sister and my ex etc. It was only later on that the penny dropped and I realised that I was eventually going to be in bed at about 3a.m. as a result..... Left to my own devices I would have gone sooner or later. Or might not have.

I have to say, the film was massively over-hyped. It is the same as the others in the same way that all Bond films are the same and all Keystone Cops, Carry on, Jaws, etc. You knowwhat you are going to get. The story could be summed up in a short paragraph.

Some of the plot was clunky, some of the acting wooden and The Big Event, signposted ('well, that won't go well will it?' I thought. It didn't).

It's a Star Wars film - the latest one. Just that. It is what you would expect. If you are a Star Wars fan and expecting a rip roaring romp through space with aliens, space ships and light sabres, that is what you will get.

Each of the ones that I have seen has been just that. A spectacle.

PP.

That's true enough, I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it a lot, but then as with all of these films (expect maybe the first 2 when I was genuinely young enough to be excited about it) I was not expecting Citizen Kane.

It was quite illuminating how exciting it was for the kids though. I have literally never seen the opening scene of a film greeted with a resounding 'Yesssssss!' from all around the cinema.

It is largely exactly the same as the original as far as I can tell and I later saw a five star review in the Guardian where that was very much recognised - essentially it's a reboot.

It's good fun, and by jimminy, it's waaaaaaaaay better than 1, 2 o r 3.

The new baddie, Kylo Ren (I think) was magnificently malevolent, I did enjoy him a lot.

This might be a spoiler but...

they're being very cagey about the origins of the new heroine (Rey?). If she's not of the Skywalker clan I shall eat my virtual hat.

The only time I ever expected "Citizen Kane" was when I saw.... "Citizen Kane." I'm still not sure why it's considered such a great movie .

I like comedies, though, and I'll even take a drama with some funny lines -- "The Martian," anyone?

Many of the "Star Wars" films had some sight gags that I enjoyed:

--The space canteen, with its weird assortment of alien lifeforms.

--Yoda and Jar Jar Binks. They looked funny and they talked funny. I laughed at the scene where Binks was promoted to a high political position where he was determining the fate of the Empire. He was clearly not up to the task, but he was so earnest that I couldn't help chuckling. Proof of the Peter principle: that people get promoted until they reach their level of incompetence, where they stay and continue to gum up the works for everyone else .

Maybe I like Yoda because he's a muppet? I never could resist those muppets.

Citizen Kane has an awful lot of really groundbreaking cinematography. I only found this out recently and I think that's part of it. Otherwise I agree - it's alleged quality is not particularly clear.

I learned about the great cinematographic in a film course in the 1970s. It's great . But I had trouble really caring about the title character.

The good news is that Kane is dead. The bad news is that he didn't suffer.

The issue with Han shooting first is this:

In the original, you have NO IDEA who Han is. Even Obi-wan hasn't met him - the negotiation is explicitly set up by Chewbacca (it's only at the end of Revenge of the Sith where you find out Yoda and Chewie were buddies). All you know is, he has a fast ship, and Our Hero is forced to trust him. Is this a good idea? You don't know yet. You don't know anything about Han. So, once you've had the rather frosty interchange in which the price for passage is negotiated, the very next thing you see this guy do is sit down at a table with a dangerous-looking armed thug and have a tense conversation about how much he (Han) owes some unseen mob boss called Jabba.

The ENTIRE TIME he's having this conversation, he's misdirecting Greedo's attention, looking up and to his left, picking at some imagined blemish on the wall behind him with his left hand, all the while using his right to unbuckle his holster and draw his gun under the table, out of sight. When the moment comes, Han ruthlessly shoots the guy dead at the table, calmly gets up and saunters out, flipping the barman a coin in apology for "the mess".

The idea is that here is a man of utter ruthless selfishness, capable of not merely sucker-punching but actually shooting dead an unsuspecting opponent. Someone who doesn't care for the idea of "fair fight". A man to be reckoned with. A pirate. A scoundrel. Unbelievably cool, obviously. And crucially, also, you are led to believe that Greedo was a dangerous bounty hunter who posed a real threat.

This means, later on, on Yavin IV, when Han's paid, he leaves, and this is entirely in character. Sure, he gives Luke a sardonic MTFBWY, but he is outta there.

Which makes his (spoiler alert) heroic intervention at the critical moment of the battle over the Death Star a crowning moment of redemption, and crucially, a surprise.

----

In the Special Edition, the idea is (presumably) to present Han a more heroic and less amoral - not a sucker-punching, shoot-first kinda guy. But this DESTROYS his character arc. Consider:

Han is intercepted by Greedo, and they have the same conversation. Han attempts to get his gun out of his holster, but, crucially, FAILS. Greedo gets the drop on him, and shoots first.
What does this make Han look like? A wuss. A half-arsed loser who can't talk his way out of a confrontation, and hasn't the skill to shoot his way out. A dumbass. But it gets worse.
Greedo got the drop on him and shoots... but from a range of less than a metre, MISSES HIM. So this big, bad, thuggish bounty hunter, sent to collect a debt by the supposedly scary mob boss Jabba the Hutt, turns out to be a cross-eyed n00b who probably couldn't hit a barn door with a flamethrower. Given his marksmanship at that table it's amazing he managed to walk into the bar without shooting himself in whatever Rodians have instead of balls.
Han FINALLY gets his act together and shoots back, probably with his blaster set on "light stun", the ponce, then calmly walks out, presumably at this point smelling faintly of urine.

It destroys the meaning of the scene, it destroys Greedo as a threat, it destroys Han's dangerous coolness, and it destroys his character arc in the film. Nice going George.

Thanks for explaining that, H. I don't think I've ever seen the version in which Greedo shoots first, so I wasn't aware of the implications.

I have to say I never noticed who shot first because I basically didn't care.I still don't.

I've seen both versions and can't say I noticed. My memory of this scene is that Han shoots first and had no idea there was an issue over it.

I suspect I'll be unable to unlearn what I have learned regarding this now though

One thing I noticed in the new film though is that they seem to have fully embraced the ridiculous Kessel Run parsec thing. Now *that* has always made me cringe.