Han fires first!!

I just received the best news I have heard in months, maybe even years. In the middle of the second game of a softball double-header last night, my budddy called me up to tell me that Lucasfilm Ltd. has agreed to finally release the Original Star Wars Trilogy (unaltered, non-special edition) on DVD. To quote Napoleon Dynamite, "yessssssssss."

For the uninitiated (those of you who aren't as patently pathetic and lame as myself), the original trilogy was re-released in theaters in 1997. The films were labeled "Special Edition" because George Lucas had gone back to the original film stock and digitally restored it so that it finally brought to life the grainy VHS versions so many of us had been lugging around for years. However, unbeknownst to most fans during the run-up to the theatrical release, Lucas decided to digitally alter the original films and make what he thought were "improvements." Would Van Gogh ever go back and touch up the Mona Lisa? No, because why mess with perfection. Well George Lucas in all of his megalomaniacal glory had no such reservations and added new non-sequitur scenes (in all three films) to show off the expanding digital capabilities of Industrial Light and Magic, changed the music during the Ewok Celebration at the end of Jedi, and in the most blasphemous of sins altered the Cantina showdown between Han Solo and bounty hunter Greedo.

In the original release, the film immediately establishes what a badass Han Solo is by having him casually blast Greedo, mid-conversation, while sitting in a booth after realizing that the bounty hunter was either going to rob him, kill him, or both. For unfathomable reason, Lucas opted to digitally alter this scene for the "Special Edition" to have Greedo fire his blaster first and then have Han shoot him in an act of self defense thus completely altering the tone of his character. It was one of the worst things I had ever scene and since that time Lucas has maintained that the "Special Editions" represent his ultimate vision for the films and that the original versions would never see the light of day on DVD. Well all that has changed.

We are finally going to get what every dork has dreamed of for years; the greatest film experience in modern history in pristine digital format in all of its original unspoiled glory. Is this a big deal? Yes, it is fucking huge. For a generation of dorks who grew up ensconced within the culutre of Star Wars, it is such a releief to have a beloved character returned to his rightful place as the baddest muthafucka in the galaxy. (Yes, even badder than Boba Fett.)