This morning, like a lot of fellow human beings, I woke up with high anticipation for The Mandalorian. Honestly, I had trouble sleeping last night. It’s a weird thing knowing a new Star Wars would be ready to watch literally as soon as I woke up. No travel, no lines, just watch. And The Mandalorian did not disappoint. Here’s what I kept thinking while watching that first episode: You know how in The Phantom Menace when Darth Maul shows up, or in The Empire Strikes Back when we see Boba Fett and start thinking, “Hey, they seem cool. I wish we got more of them.” It’s like the entire episode was just “more of them.“ Look, I know it’s not Boba Fett and IG-88, but for someone who has imagined a million adventures between those two characters, yes, I pretended for a quick second that was them, fighting side by side, finally getting my wish, and it made me really happy. And then the actual plot is revealed and, yes, I’m intrigued! After one episode, The Mandalorian seems great!
And then it happened. After watching The Mandalorian, I decided to finally check Twitter and, there, I saw a cryptic tweet about Greedo in the original Star Wars. That, somehow, it was different … again. So (after finally finding a Disney+ screen that would fully load, then offering “The Darth Vader Collection”) I selected Star Wars on the Disney+ app and fast-forwarded to the Han and Greedo scene. I watched the whole thing through, and right before the blasters go off, it seemed like the Special Edition. I didn’t notice anything weird. Han gives his trademark line, “Yes, I bet you have” … then something truly odd happened. Instead of both of them shooting at each other (which, frankly, is still weird, but whatever) Greedo says something that sounds like, “Maclunkey,” before terribly firing his blaster into a wall. What does it mean? The rest of Greedo’s lines, like always, are subtitled (though, the font has been changed and it doesn’t look great), but Maclunkey is not. We get no translation. The mystery of why this is even here in the first place becomes a bigger mystery.
How…? Who…? How is this something someone decided to do? I can’t even make a clear thought about this. pic.twitter.com/buC5ptGQ7S
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) November 12, 2019
I have a theory. Now, I’ve emailed Disney and they, kind of as expected, didn’t have an immediate answer. Honestly, I can’t imagine Disney making this change. Because why? It makes no sense. And, frankly, I’d bet money that a lot of people there didn’t even know it was coming. (I fully admit I could be wrong here.)
Now, remember, about the time Lucasfilm was sold to Disney, the big plan with Star Wars was to restore and release them all in 3D. (And The Phantom Menace in 3D actually had a theatrical release.) And there was no way Lucas wasn’t going to tinker around with these movies again before they came out because that’s what he does. What if that’s what this is? (Again, I’ve asked for clarification, but since we aren’t getting any yet, this is the best I can offer.) It’s the only thing that makes sense, right? If anything, Disney would offer the original versions of the Original Trilogy because Disney likes making money. (And I assume will someday.) So, maybe this is George Lucas’ one last everlasting gift to us. Seven years after the sale of Lucasfilm, he gets us one more time with, “Maclunkey!” I don’t even want to know what actually happened. (But I will update this if we find out.) I just want to believe McClunkey is all George Lucas. If Disney released a Greedo action figure that said, “Maclunkey,” I would buy it. Long live Maclunkey.
(Shortly after publication, Disney confirmed that this change was made at least years ago.)
You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
