George Lucas says Han never shot first!

Who shot first? Han Solo or the bounty hunter Greedo? This moment from Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope is possibly one of the most controversial moments in the Star Wars saga. Over the years fans have divided themselves into two camps; those who say that Han is an absolute badass and shot first, and those who think Han was shooting in retaliation to Greedo shooting first. (I am personally in the "Han Shot First" camp.) The one thing that makes this debate hard is that there are two very different versions of the same scene from the movie. The original scene from 1977 and the recreated scene from 2004 where you see Greedo shoot first.

George Lucas recently did an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in which (in his own view of things) clears up the debate once and for all...but not really. According to Lucas himself, Greedo shot first and it was never meant to be viewed as Han shooting first. Let's take a look at the exact quote from Lucas.

"The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."

Well, there you have it. It's up to you whether or not to believe him and if this quote changes you mind (my guess is that for most people it won't) but this is the first time Lucas has outright given us an answer to the question "Who shot first?" However, if you want to watch the scene in question one more time to really make a choice watch the two versions below.

Original - 1977

Re-created Blu-Ray version - 2011

Source: The Hollywood Reporter