Star Wars Outlaws Has The Chance To Do Something Unprecedented For Star Wars
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Star Wars is for kids. At least, that’s the excuse that gets rolled out whenever one raises an issue with poor plotting, fart jokes, or pat moral lessons. But Star Wars also takes place in a universe with dark implications, like a fascistic Empire that turns a blind eye to crime lords who trade in sentient slaves and illicit drugs. Star Wars has long shied away from letting its seedy criminal underworld simply be unapologetically seedy, but by setting itself in the midst of it, Star Wars Outlaws may just be the scumbag simulator we’ve been waiting for.
While it would be easy to lay this problem at the feet of the kid-friendly Disney corporation, the Star Wars franchise’s unease with portraying criminals actually began much earlier, with franchise creator George Lucas. Lucas himself authored the classic ur-example of a charming dirtbag with a heart of gold, Han Solo. Years later, he apparently felt conflicted about one of pop culture’s most enduring icons being introduced as an unrepentant killer. As one of many changes made to the “Special Edition” releases of Star Wars, he altered Han’s confrontation with Greedo. What was originally Han making a wry comment and then casually offing the Rodian, was changed to Han awkwardly “dodging” a shot and then firing in self-defense.
Subsequent edits have altered the timing slightly, and the most-recent edit has Greedo more explicitly threatening to kill Han to make the latter’s actions read more as self-defense. Arguably it was always self-defense; Greedo was a bounty hunter openly stating his intentions to turn Han over to Jabba the Hutt, a ruthless crime lord who later kept Han as a trophy out of sheer spite.
