We’ve just learned that the new 4K Ultra HD box set, Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, will feature the “Maclunkey” cut of A New Hope.
The matter of “who shot first” has been one of the longest-standing enigmas of that galaxy far, far away. At this point, there are so many versions of the scene from the first movie out there that we’ve stopped trying to justify what each could imply, and there’s no telling which one is the definitive canon edition.
While the original 1977 version saw Solo preemptively kill Greedo, George Lucas thought that this went against his heroic demeanor. As such, the 1997 Special Edition release tweaked the encounter to depict Greedo shooting first. When the movie debuted on DVD in 2004, though, the scene was modified again to have them both shoot at each other simultaneously. In 2011, the scene underwent some minor changes again.
As if that weren’t enough to unsettle fans who were having a difficult time determining what really went down between the two in the Mos Eisley cantina, the Mouse House released another version of the movie last year on Disney+ with a specific change that proved to be very controversial. In this alternate edition, Greedo can be heard saying something similar to the word “maclunkey” before getting killed, hence the name of the cut.
Now, it would seem that the new box set edition of all nine-films in the Skywalker Saga has incorporated the “maclunkey” addition to A New Hope. So, if you buy the 4K Ultra HD disc, you’ll hear Greedo uttering that strange word in the encounter, but if you go with any other Blu-ray edition, it’s not going to be there.
This may not seem like an important detail, but for purists and fans who take their lore more seriously than the rest of us, the Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga box set has this particular drawback to consider.