The Greedo Assassination Conspiracy Page

"Over my dead body!"
"That's the idea..."

In tribute to the re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy in theatres during the first three months of 1997, we at the prestigious McGill University Department of Exopolitics took it upon ourselves to examine one of the more pressing questions that the Special Edition has produced, namely the mysterious circumstances leading to the vapourization of Greedo, the clueless bounty hunter. After minutes of intensive research, we at the department are proud to present our findings.

Subject 1: GREEDO. Rodian. Age Unknown (young). Upstart bounty hunter under the very temporary employ of Jabba the Hutt. This individual was given assignment to collect monies owed to the aforementioned Jabba the Hutt by Corellian smuggler Han Solo, with orders to use terminal force against said smuggler if demands for recompensation were refused. This was Greedo's first assignment as a full-fledged bounty hunter.

Subject 2: SOLO, HAN. Human Corellian, Age unknown (late twenties/early thirties?) Veteran smuggler who was given the assignment to deliver an unspecified amount of spice, an illegal intoxicant, from the harsh mining planet of Kessel, overseen by paranoid warden Moruth Doole, to Jabba the Hutt. However, Solo's vessel, the Millennium Falcon, was intercepted by an Imperial patrol, forcing the smuggler to jettison all of said spice to avoid arrest. Jabba immediately demanded compensation from Solo, since he had already paid Doole in advance. Solo refused on the grounds that it was not his fault he was forced to drop said cargo, and even suggested that it was Doole that alerted the Imperials. After thwarting two attempts by Jabba's "bill collectors" to extract the monies from Solo, Greedo volunteered himself to try and get the money, or Solo's ship, or his corpse, whatever was convenient.

Overview: Our young bounty hunter made two previous attempts while on Tatooine to get Solo to hand over the credits, only to be repeatedly stonewalled. Finally losing his patience, Greedo confronted Solo in a secluded booth in Chalmun's Cantina, Mos Eisley, Tatooine. After pulling a blaster on Solo, Greedo warned the smuggler to pay up immediately and even suggested that Solo's ship might be forcibly used as collateral (bad idea). The die was cast...

Original version: Han Solo, taking umbrage to having a blaster pulled on him and realizing that Greedo could not be easily reasoned with (plus Solo was in a hurry), opted to pull out his own weapon and shoot Greedo under the table before the Rodian had a chance to fire.

Star Wars Special Edition Version: A single shot was fired from Greedo's pistol after Solo remained unimpressed with Greedo's threat to seize the Millennium Falcon as payment. Inexplicably, despite the less than one metre separating the antagonists, Greedo's shot went wide and ricocheted several times off the booth's walls, giving Solo more than enough time to pull out his own hidden weapon and effortlessly eliminate Greedo.

Question: How did Greedo manage to miss?

Possible explanations for what may have caused such a strange occurrence remain elusive, as there were few eyewitnesses, Solo has refused to talk, and Greedo is, well, deceased (pay attention!). Interviews carried out by Exopolitics grad students with some of Greedo's former comrades for their ideas proved equally fruitless. Just examine these excerpts:

The interviews didn't get much better from there, and actually got worse when Bossk ate our only tape recorder and IG-88 tried to ask our laptop out for drinks. Nevertheless, after painstaking and completely fictional field research, we at the Research Division at the prestigious McGill Department of Exopolitics have managed to come up with some relatively possible theories:

Greedo missed by accident: Admittedly, Greedo was new to the bounty hunting business, and was green in more ways than one. It is possible that he was nervous enough, being well aware of Solo's reputation, to miss the shot, despite the fact that Rodians are renowned throughout the galaxy for their hunting abilities. There is also the possibility that the dim lighting of the booth hindered his aim, yet this is also unlikely given the large size of the Rodian's baby blues (see photo above).

Greedo missed on purpose: No one ever said Greedo was smart. Actually, his general fashion sense (pastels??), coupled with the fact that he was pea-brained enough to let Solo's hands stay hidden, suggests that his mental capacity was right up there with a newborn dianoga. Hence, there is the possibility that he missed on purpose to rattle Solo, apparently without thinking that Solo might overreact and take exception to such a brash move.

Chewbacca covered for Solo: Even though Solo supposedly sent his Wookiee companion back to the Falcon to get it prepped for takeoff, we are never sure that he actually left the cantina. Note that when Solo confronted Jabba in the docking bay soon after the incident, Chewie was with him, suggesting that he may have left for the docking bay with Solo after the incident. If that were the case, Chewbacca may have had a chance to get Greedo from another angle. Of course, this still doesn't not explain why Greedo's shot went awry.

The Force: Former Old Republic General Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi, after having secured Solo's services to transport himself, a farm boy, and two obnoxious droids from Tatooine to the planet Alderaan, (note: planet no longer exists, disregard galactic atlas entry), may have intervened to protect his investment. General Kenobi was known to be very strong with the Force, and may have sensed that his ride was in danger, prompting him to mentally deflect Greedo's blast while allowing Solo's to hit home.

Darth Vader was involved: Some who have read waaaay too many conspiracy theories have suggested that it was Vader, not Kenobi, who intervened by using the Force to deflect Greedo's shot. He supposedly did this because had Solo been eliminated on Tatooine, the Dark Lord would never have had the opportunity to do not-nice things to the smuggler at Cloud City, Bespin, such as steal Solo's blaster right out of his hand and dip him in carbonite goo.

Boba Fett was involved: How that could be possible is unclear, since he was acting as one of Jabba's bodyguards while the Bloated One waited for Solo at Docking Bay 94 during the time of the incident. However, an unofficial rule states that Boba Fett must be mentioned at least once on any given Star Wars related website since both he and Wedge Antilles are considered, quote, "cool".
(Far be it from us to break the trend).

IG-88 did it: Ever since the four or so model IG-88 assassin droids made a forcible escape from Holowan Laboratories months ago, (taking out much of said laboratory before departing), they've been blamed for just about every calamity that has taken place since then. Thus, it's only fair to put the droids on the list of possible suspects, since they would be interested in eliminating competition wherever possible, (after all, they made several attempts on Boba Fett). However, there is the question of how IG-88 could have slipped past the cantina's droid detector without alerting the cranky bartender.

A Second Gunman: This is possible, but what proof was there? There have been doubts expressed about the "single blaster-bolt" theory. Yet the fact remains there was no knoll, grassy or otherwise, for a potential second gunman to make use of. Also, being very new to the bounty hunter business, he was not on the job long enough to annoy the threshold number of people. Therefore, it is very likely that Greedo acted alone when he missed his shot and got himself microwaved on "high".

An Imposter: Some have suggested that it was not Greedo that was the victim, but rather a cleverly-disguised stand-in who gracefully volunteered to make the Final Jump in Greedo's place. This may be a long shot (pun not intended), but on the other hand, other commentators have reported seeing Greedo in some very strange places since his supposed demise. Also, during that seriously cheesy cabaret scene that was inserted into the Special Edition of Jedi, we noticed that, in addition to the fact that the Yuzzum lead singer couldn't carry a tune if his life depended on it, one of the dancers in Jabba's throne room was a Rodian with a bleached-blond wig named "Greeata" (!). Could this have been Greedo doing a J. Edgar Hoover?

Paranormal Activity: This cannot be completely counted out either, since other equally odd mysteries sprang up at the same time. Namely, how did Jabba the Hutt gain so much weight and change colour between his confrontation with Solo at Mos Eisley and when he got splattered all over the Dune Sea when his personal Sail Barge fell down went boom five years later? For that matter, how could the Bloated One just stand by and get his tail stepped on by Solo while surrounded by a large armed personal entourage, including the aforementioned Boba "Sarlacc Chow" Fett?

The Greedo Assassination Theory (accept no substitutes!) is one of many Exopolitics Graduate Studies Research Projects offered to students interested in exploring advanced level studies in this field, and who also have no social life to speak of. Now that the SW Special Edition is out on video, we at the department are anticipating many fun-filled hours of playing with the "pause" and "slo-mo" controls to take more accurate measurements of the trajectories of both laser bolts in order to uncover more concrete information about the conspiracy. The Department of Exopolitics hopes to offer similar research projects as soon as we can make up some more topics.

LEFT: Utilizing McGill's state-of-the-art (yet still budget-conscious) Exopolitics laboratory facilities, members of the Department of Exopolitical Studies investigate possible evidence of a Greedo assassination conspiracy.

Save Greedo! We in the Department of Exopolitics, in the hopes of obtaining more information about this baffling conspiracy, are looking forward to the release of Episodes I to III in the next few years. Episode I will be covering the early years of Anakin Skywalker. Episode II, it has just been revealed, will tell the story of Boba Fett <sound of loud cheering>, (However, based on what we have seen of Fett so far, we frankly wonder how much dialogue will be featured.) At any rate, we believe that Episode III should be given over to Greedo, portraying his carefree early years and (hopefully) providing more information about how he met his demise. Thus, we urge all interested parties to give their support for Star Wars Episode III: A Greedo Tale.

Question: How did Greedo manage to miss?