I know it’s not really good form to give the reader too much of a clue about what’s coming or not coming, but I feel I have to start off by saying this blurb isn’t just another piece about that much-debated question of who actually shot first in that iconic scene in the Mos Eisley Cantina. Perhaps it will just end up being rambling word salad… Follow along, and let’s find out together, shall we?
We’ll presume it makes sense for Han to have subtly distracted his green interlocutor’s attention while surreptitiously drawing his blaster under the table only to let Greedo get a shot off. We’ll assume Greedo is at the acme of the inept bounty hunters fraternity, and that his point-blank shot somehow misses. We’ll also suppose that it makes financial sense for him to have wanted to kill Han rather than take the presumably higher bounty on a live mark. We’ll ignore Han’s unique brand of bravado blended with cowardice that’s on display throughout the original three films.
Fast forward thirty-five years or so, to the time of the forthcoming Episode VII, to some other drinking establishment of questionable repute…
Han sits in a booth, gun in hand under the table, facing some other ne’er-do-well who’s pointing a blaster at his chest for whatever reason. Who shoots first? Does the septuagenarian Han think defensively and cautiously, in the same vein that Mr. Lucas would have us believe he was thinking in the Special Edition release? Is that a risk he wants to take, or does his inner Indiana Jones come out and simply shoot his antagonist without further ado?
Given our previous assumptions, Han surely has the same defensive mentality in his present situation. He doesn’t simply shoot; he waits passively. There is a fatal flaw in his thinking, though. He didn’t learn anything at all from his encounter with the hapless Greedo—he still thinks he’s invulnerable. He’s also old and soft, but the softness didn’t come with age. It was there all along, and he gets his heart burned out for it this time around.
Han was lucky to have gotten out of smuggling when he flew Luke et al off Tatooine all those years ago; he clearly didn’t have the mercenary attitude it takes to be successful at it.
But, hey! Harrison Ford now gets the spectacular death he so badly wanted in Return of the Jedi. And the death he deserved at Greedo’s hands all those years ago.
