Other changes were impossible to miss. Mos Eisley was filled with new CGI creatures and extra background movement. A deleted Jabba the Hutt scene was restored, but rebuilt with a digital Jabba. And the cantina scene was changed so Greedo fired at Han before Han killed him.
That became the most famous change of all.
In the 1977 cut, Han shoots Greedo first. It is quick, cold, and tells the audience exactly what kind of smuggler he is before Luke and Obi-Wan pull him into something bigger. In the Special Edition, Lucas changed the scene so Han’s shot became more of a response. Later releases kept adjusting the timing, but for many fans, the original moment had already been replaced.
The problem was not only that Lucas changed the movie. The problem was that he treated the changed version as the real one.
That became even more important when the prequels entered development. By the late 1990s, Fox wanted the right to distribute the next three Star Wars films. Lucas had the movies every studio wanted, and that gave him enormous leverage. In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lucas gave Fox the theatrical and video distribution rights to the prequels. The same report said Lucas already owned the franchise except for the original film, which Fox had financed.
That original movie was the missing piece.
According to the report, one source said Fox gave Lucas the rights to the original Star Wars as part of the arrangement, in exchange for favorable distribution terms and other rights connected to Episode I. Fox and Lucasfilm did not publicly lay out every detail of the deal, but the result was clear enough.
Lucas finally had control of the original 1977 film too.
After that, the theatrical cut became even easier to push aside. The Special Edition was no longer just a 1997 theatrical event. It became the version that carried forward on home video, DVD, Blu-ray, streaming, and later releases. The movie people could easily buy, rent, or watch was not the same one audiences first saw in 1977.
For years, anyone who wanted to watch the original version legally had limited options. They could track down old VHS releases, or watch the 2006 DVD bonus version, which used a low-resolution transfer instead of a proper modern restoration. Meanwhile, the Special Edition remained the default version.
Lucas defended that choice. In 2004, he told the Associated Press that fans had fallen in love with what he considered “half a completed film,” and that he wanted the movie to be the way he wanted it to be.
” The special edition, that’s the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it’s on VHS, if anybody wants it. … I’m not going to spend the, we’re talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for it. I’m the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they’re going to throw rocks at me, they’re going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.”
That was the whole conflict in one sentence. Fans saw the 1977 movie as the original historical version of a film that changed cinema. Lucas saw it as an unfinished version he finally had the money and technology to fix.
Because Lucas was the creator, his preferred version won.
For decades, the theatrical cut became almost like a forbidden version of one of the most famous movies ever made. The film that started everything was still remembered, quoted, and studied, but the actual 1977 cut was not the version being pushed to new generations.
After that, the original 1977 cut was no longer treated as the main version of Star Wars.
The Special Edition became the official memory, and for a long time, the movie that started everything became the hardest version to see.