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We know Han Solo has history with a sidearm in A New Hope (I’m a Han shot first truther) but we very nearly got a balls-to-the-wall blaster extravaganza starring the smuggler, a slew of Stormtroopers and lots and lots of guns – but it ended up getting left on the cutting-room floor. Boo.
Sci-Fi Central (h/t Screen Rant) are carrying an interview with actor Paul Blake, who appeared in the cut scene (and, ironically, also played Greedo) and explained just what was supposed to go down.
“There’s a brilliant little sequence which I loved doing with Harrison, where we were shooting at each other like cowboys and Indians,” Blake says, “We had this big gun battle which lasted all morning and then Stormtroopers came out of the big double doors and we started firing at them. So we had this fantastic scene and of course that’s all gone.”
The scene in question partially appeared in the Special Edition re-release of A New Hope, with Jabba the Hutt threatening Han Solo in a docking bay on Mos Eisley.
In that version (which you can see in part below), things only go partially south with Han shooting at some Stormtroopers. The cut, and in my opinion, cooler version sees Han get into a shootout with one of Jabba’s underlings (played by Paul Blake) before teaming up to fight off a whole bunch of Stormtroopers.
So, we missed out on Han going gangbusters on some Stormtroopers but, hey, at least he 100% definitely, no doubt about it, shot first. We’ll always have that.
Image: Lucasfilm
