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Yesterday Disney+ launched and the thing that we all expected to be talking about, at least as it regards Star Wars was the debut of The Mandalorian, and while we certainly did talk about that, the thing that really went viral yesterday was that the original trilogy of Star Wars has been changed...again.
The famous cantina meeting between Han Solo and Greedo in Star Wars: A New Hope, which had already been changed by the Star Wars Special Editions to include Greedo firing at Han first, showing that the professional bounty hunter is literally the worst shot in the galaxy, has been changed once again.
The new sequence gives Greedo a last word. (You can check it out if you sign up for a Disney+ 7-day free trial here) It's delivered in Huttese, and isn't translated in the subtitles, but one eagle-eared fan has apparently tracked the word, being referred to largely as "Maclunkey" to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It's used by the pod racer Sebulba at one point.
It's certainly an odd addition to A New Hope, if only because the rest of Greedo's dialogue is given subtitles, but this line is not. However, as Star Wars aficionado Bryan Young points out, the word is used elsewhere in the Star Wars films. Sebulba, another speaker of Huttese, uses it when talking to Anakin Skywalker after the young boy steps in to keep Sebulba from beating the crap out of Jar Jar Binks.
While I can't find a decent video clip of the scene, I can confirm that Sebulba does tell Anakin "It will be the end of you," and the word he actually says sounds a lot like what Greedo says in the new shot from New Hope.
George Lucas had begun yet another remastering of the Star Wars movies back in 2010 so that the entire saga could be released in 3D. The films were to be released in episode order, and so The Phantom Menace came first. However, Disney purchased Lucasfilm before any of the other films could even be theatrically released. The other two prequels got shown in 3D at Star Wars Celebration, but the original trilogy was never seen in the format.
However, work had apparently been done on the conversion prior to Disney taking ownership of Star Wars, and this was part of that change. No other major changes to the other two original trilogy movies have been found, but even this is a "blink, and you'll miss it" sort of moment, so it's possible we just haven't found all the other changes yet.
It's far from surprising that this change is connected to the prequels. George Lucas continued to make minor tweaks to the original trilogy in every new format in attempts to make the six films feel more cohesive. This was just another one of them.
