‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Alden Ehrenreich Answers Who Shot First

The original Star Wars depicted Han Solo murdering Greedo in the Mos Eisley Cantina before the bounty hunter could bring the pilot to Jabba the Hutt. Various subsequent releases of the film have altered the scene, though according to Solo: A Star Wars Story star Alden Ehrenreich, there’s no question that Han was the first to pull the trigger.

When asked by SiriusXM’s Entertainment Weekly Radio who shot first, Ehrenreich definitively said, “Han.”

He added, “I think it’s just fun, it’s part of the fun swagger, cowboy of the whole character and everything. I think the one thing that is true about him and you get to enjoy in this movie is it’s kind of the dark underworld, gangster underbelly of the Star Wars universe, and you’ve gotta be quick and cunning if you’re gonna make it there.”

George Lucas revisited his iconic trilogy in the ’90s to give them a technical overhaul, updating many of the trilogy’s antiquated visual and sound effects. He also took this opportunity to tweak some of his original decisions, which included changing the timing of key blaster shots.

Not wanting to make Han appear as a cold-blooded murderer, the Special Edition of Star Wars depicted Greedo shooting first, with Han retaliating. This didn’t sit well with fans, as it made Han appear more hesitant and removed some of his darkness.

For the 2004 DVD release of the films, the sequence was once again altered, with the two characters firing at the same time, though Han was digitally manipulated to move out of harm’s way.

During a Reddit AMA, when asked who shot first, Harrison Ford replied, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

When Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, the studio hoped to unify the universe by founding the Lucasfilm Story Group, which consists of studio executives who help oversee the overall continuity of the saga. A member of this group, Pablo Hidalgo, shared some of his thoughts on the matter last summer.

“All that’s canon is that two people entered that booth, & Greedo died,” Hidalgo explained of the situation.

Hidalgo equated the situation to the distances between characters when speaking with one another.

“In my mind, there’s no such thing as their canonical distance from one another. The only ‘fact’ is that these guys were there and talked,” Hidalgo noted.

The live-action interpretation of these events is that both Greedo and Han shot at the same time, but, more importantly, Han was the only one to survive, regardless of the timing.

Fans can see Han’s early life with Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters this Friday.

Who do you think shot first? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

[H/T YouTube, SiriusXM]