The original Star Wars movie debuted back in 1977 before later being rebranded “Episode IV: A New Hope.” For nearly 20 years the movie remained the same outside of the name change to the opening crawl, but George Lucas made some changes in the mid ’90s with the re-released Special Edition. One of the most notorious changes has always been the controversy of “who shot first?” However, while Lucas has said his vision in the Special Edition is what he always intended, a leaked script from way back seems to say otherwise.
The scene in question comes near the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope when fans are first introduced to the lovable scoundrel Han Solo. During a confrontation, the quickly expendable bounty hunter Greedo is shot and killed very quickly. The original version of the movie had Han Solo just outright shooting Greedo, but the Special Edition had Greedo shooting first, which led to Han dodging and then shooting Greedo as a result.
This change always took some of the bad boy edge away from Han Solo, especially with Lucas claiming later that this was always his vision and was planned all along. However, a copy of an original Star Wars script has now been found by librarian Kristian Brown, according to CBC. Brown works at the University of New Brunswick’s library in Saint John and has been working to digitize its collection for awhile now. This led to him coming across this original script.
This Star Wars script was dated March 15, 1976, which was over a year before the final movie came out, though it is said not to be an actual filming script. Rather it is an exact replica created from the actual script that was bought at an auction years ago. This script features the original name for Luke Skywalker, as Luke Starkiller, which has of course been known for ages.
Brown made it a point to say that “Based on the script, I can tell you 100 percent, Han shot first.” This isn’t a big surprise or anything, but considering Lucas has tried to say that Greedo was always meant to shoot first is far from correct. The script that was eventually used to film Star Wars had Han shooting first and that is the canon that most fans will continue to go with, regardless of what Lucas says.
