George Lucas says he went back and edited the original Star Wars trilogy (with minor tweaks to the prequels) because they simply “weren’t finished.”
“Most movies aren’t finished; they’re simply yanked out of your hands and put in the theaters,” Lucas said via IGN. “So you’re always saying ‘oh, I wish I could have just finished that one piece of thing.’ But it’s not that way. You have a deadline; you’ve got to make the deadline.”
“But then I went back, after Star Wars, and redid all the movies, in terms of finishing them,” the filmmaker continued. “So that they’re actually finished. And of course, a lot of people got upset about that, because they said, ‘you’re not allowed to do that.’ I said, ‘Fans are doing that. They’re making alternate versions and all kinds of stuff.'”
As a fan, the two changes from Star Wars: A New Hope that frequently keep me up at night are ‘Han shot first’ and ‘Maclunkey!’ In the original 1977 cut, Greedo threatens to kill Han Solo, and Han promptly shoots him in response, his gun having already been drawn and ready underneath the table. In the 1997 Special Edition, Lucas added a scene that shows Greedo firing first at Han, making the subsequent murder a justified one. Did we need this? Nope. Not everyone in the Star Wars universe who isn’t a Sith needs to be a good guy (and Andor does a great job at showcasing this).
However, this scene was further edited in 2012, though it didn’t hit Disney Plus until 2019, to include Greedo yelling out something nonsensical before being shot and killed. That nonsensical phrase has been roughly translated as “Maclunkey!” and was pulled from the film’s archive of unused audio. Lucas has never outwardly explained the reason behind the addition, save for specifying that the phrase is “Huttese.”
Star Wars: A New Hope will return in all of its unedited glory in February 2027. Next up for Star Wars is Ahsoka season 2, which arrives on Disney Plus on January 20. Until then, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows for everything else that’s in the works.