There’s a new interview out that sheds a little light on some why he still argues that Greedo Shot First, as well as something pretty amazing involving George and the internet.
Lucas has been popping up lately with some candid, if not somewhat bitter sounding, interviews that touch on the fact that he was pretty much persona non grata when it came to anything Star Wars after the Disney Buyout.
Now, we have a hint that the fan backlash over some of the changes in the original trilogy special editions and Episode 1 had a deeper effect on him than anyone realized. It turns out that the man who revolutionized technology for the world of cinema has completely avoided the internet for the last fifteen years!
As to his reasoning on why Greedo shot first:
Lucas says Han shooting first in the Mos Eisley cantina — which is what happened in the original edit of 1977’s debut Star Wars film — ran against the character’s principles. “Han Solo was going to marry Leia, and you look back and say, ‘Should he be a cold-blooded killer?’” Lucas asks. “Because I was thinking mythologically — should he be a cowboy, should he be John Wayne? And I said, ‘Yeah, he should be John Wayne.’ And when you’re John Wayne, you don’t shoot people [first] — you let them have the first shot. It’s a mythological reality that we hope our society pays attention to.”
Personally, I’ve got to call bull on this. Even John Wayne would not let himself get shot at from point blank.