How Greedo's Original Actor Really Feels About Star Wars' Infamous Maclunkey Scene
The Greedo scene from George Lucas' 1977 film "Star Wars" remains steeped in controversy. /Film has written before about the many, many cuts of the Greedo scene throughout "Star Wars" history, and how baffling each subsequent change has been. In the original 1977 cut of "Star Wars," the affable Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is approached by a mugwump-like alien named Greedo (Paul Blake) in a seedy bar. Greedo is there to collect on a debt, holds a weapon on Han, and will likely kill him right at the table where he is sitting. Han, seeing the danger, plays it cool. He reaches under the table, surreptitiously unholsters his blaster, and kills the unsuspecting Greedo before the alien can get a shot off. The bar is so sleazy, no one seems to really care about the murder.
In 1997, Lucas released a polished re-edit of "Star Wars" touted as the "Special Edition." The 1997 cut added a new wrinkle. Rather than having Han preemptively kill Greedo, Lucas added a "blast" special effect coming from Greedo's gun, indicating that Greedo got a shot off before Han fired his weapon. It was a baffling change.
There were third and fourth cuts of the scene as well, detailed below. Lucas has famously maintained a weird, obsessive need to over-tinker with the Greedo scene, correcting something that no one else can see. The most recent edit came in 2019 when "Star Wars" debuted on Disney+, when Lucas bafflingly added a sound effect that had Greedo screaming a word that sounded like "Maclunkey." It, too, was a mystifying change.
The website Fantha Tracks interviewed actor Paul Blake in 2020 to get his take on the constant changes to the Greedo scene, and he was just as perplexed as any "Star Wars" fan.
'What was his fascination with that scene?'
Between the 1997 Special Edition of "Star Wars" and the 2019 Disney+ debut, there were two additional cuts of the Greedo scene. In 2004, when "Star Wars" was released on DVD, Lucas cut the scene again, timing Greedo's and Han's shots to come at the same time. Lucas also digitally altered Harrison Ford's body to make it look like Han was ducking away from Greedo's shot. What? The "Greedo shot first" version of the scene was also included in the 2011 Blu-ray release of "Star Wars," but it was further altered to be a few frames shorter. No one can say why.
When asked about the constant re-edits, Paul Blake was whimsically entertained by how strange the enterprise was. The actor was glad that his character was constantly talked about, of course, but couldn't offer any insight into George Lucas' thought process. Blake said:
"Extraordinarily bemused is what comes to mind. I only found out about it through Mike Carter — old Bib Fortuna — who emailed me about it and said, 'Your scene is in the news again.' I'm still no wiser, really. Except my wife was reading a bit about why George had done it as a bit of last-gasp tinkering before he sold the franchise to Disney, so it was done some time ago, I think. What was his fascination with that scene? I'm forever grateful, but it seems bizarre that he's tinkered with it so much."
Bib Fortuna was a featured alien in the 1983 sequel "Return of the Jedi" played by British actor Michael Carter. Both Carter and Blake only appeared in one "Star Wars" film each.
Greedo's Irish heritage
Blake, of course, didn't offer much insight into Greedo as a character. He knew his character's species was Rodian, and that he spoke a weird alien language. Beyond that, he understood that his face would be covered by a mask, and that he'd have to wear elongated alien fingers. There wasn't much beyond that, Blake felt, which required a great deal of acting acumen. "I just put the costume on!" he said. "Once the costume was on, that led the way."
But Blake had been paying enough attention to know about the "Maclunkey" debacle, and the actor read that the word was not from Greedo's language, but from the language spoken by Jabba the Hutt. When asked about it, Blake said:
"What I understand is that Maclunkey was the final word Greedo shouted when they shot simultaneously, because it was changed from Han Solo just shooting Greedo in the first version of the scene. Then he moved his head slightly. And now in this latest one, he's got Greedo shouting out 'Maclunkey,' which George says was not Rodian but Huttese, and translated basically means 'you're dead.' But Greedo even got that wrong like he got everything else wrong."
Clear as mud. Why would Greedo shout a Huttese word?
Or perhaps it wasn't Huttese like Lucas claimed, but a reference to Greedo's personal lineage from the Emerald Isle. Blake added:
"I have a much wider explanation; I think it was a shout out to my long-lost Irish cousin Maclunkey. It's little known that Greedo had many relatives in Ireland, one of whom was Maclunkey."
"Star Wars" takes place a long time ago, which could very well be the year 1922 when Ireland formed, and Maclunkey was still alive. (Probably not, but just go with him on this one.)