The latest changes to Star Wars has been made since before Disney bought up Lucasfilm.
Yesterday, we reported the news that a further change or two had been made to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, for its debut on the Disney+ streaming service in the States. Lots more detail on it can be found here.
The key change is to the notable Han/Greedo encounter, where the word “Maclunkey” is uttered by the character of Greedo before he meets his maker. It’s the fourth time by our counting that the scene has been altered, starting with the Special Edition of the movie from the later 1990s. And it turns out that – unsurprisingly – this was nothing to do with Disney at all.
Instead, the change had been made, but never seen the light of day, before Lucas sold his company to Disney back in 2012. As such, Lucas had adopted it as the most recent cut of A New Hope and his latest official version, so when it came time to do a 4K upgrade for the movie ready for Disney+, that’s the version that was picked up.
This is how the sequence now plays out…
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) November 12, 2019
It’d be fair to say that fans weren’t surprised by news of further tinkering. But there’s hope that at some point in the future, Disney will finally bring the original theatrical cuts back to either disc or its streaming service.
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