George Lucas Explains Why He “Redid” the Original STAR WARS Movies: “They’re Simply Yanked Out of Your Hands”

For decades, George Lucashas caught plenty of heat for going back and tinkering with Star Wars. From changing who fired first in the Mos Eisley cantina to dropping the immortal and completely baffling “Maclunkey!” into the mix, Lucas has made changes that fans are still arguing about.

For Lucas, though, the reasoning behind revisiting the original Star Wars trilogy is pretty straightforward. He didn’t consider the movies finished when they originally hit theaters.

When speaking to IGN about why he continued editing the films, Lucas explained: "Most movies aren't finished; they're simply yanked out of your hands and put in the theaters.

"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."

Lucas eventually found himself in the rare position where he could actually go back and finish those things that had bothered him. That resulted in the Special Editions of the original trilogy, along with some smaller adjustments to the prequels.

"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.'"

It’s easy to understand the filmmaker’s perspective. When you’ve spent years thinking about shots, effects, edits, and moments you couldn’t quite pull off because of deadlines or technology, getting another shot at them has to be tempting.

Of course, understanding why Lucas did it doesn’t mean every change worked. The most infamous example comes from Star Wars: A New Hope and the eternal “Han shot first” debate.

In the original 1977 version, Greedo threatens Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, who already has his blaster ready beneath the table. Han shoots Greedo and walks away. It’s a great little character moment that tells us exactly what kind of guy Han is when we first meet him.

Then came the 1997 Special Edition. Lucas altered the scene so Greedo fires first, making Han’s decision to blast him look more like self-defense. The change has irritated fans ever since, largely because Han didn’t need to be cleaned up into a more traditionally heroic character.

Part of the fun of Han Solo is that he starts out as a shady smuggler who gradually becomes something more. Andor later showed just how well Star Wars can work when its protagonists are allowed to live in morally messy territory.

Lucas then went on and edited it again before selling Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, adding a final bit of dialogue from Greedo just before Han shoots him. The revised version eventually appeared on Disney+ when the service launched in 2019, and suddenly Star Wars fans everywhere were confronted with one wonderfully bizarre word: “Maclunkey!”

The unused audio was pulled from the film’s archives, and Lucas hasn’t offered much of an explanation for why he decided Greedo needed one final mysterious utterance before becoming a smoking pile at the table. He has specified that the phrase is Huttese, but that hasn’t exactly cleared things up.

Fans will soon get another chance to see where all this started. Star Wars: A New Hope is returning to theaters in February 2027, giving audiences the opportunity to experience the original theatrical version again.

Lucas may consider his later versions the properly finished movies, but for a lot of fans, the unfinished 1977 version remains the one they want to see.