Anyone who can navigate through the mire of technical glitches that have plagued the launch of Disney+ has a whole lot of Star Wars surprises waiting for them. Not just the first episode of The Mandalorian but apparently a new version of Star Wars: A New Hope, in which Greedo and Han Solo’s infamous shootout in the Mos Eisley cantina has been changed yet again.
In the original version of the movie, and the one fans generally prefer, Han shoots the bounty hunter Greedo at point-blank range after a few threats but not a ton of other provocation. (Is he justified? That’s a subject for the legal experts.) In 1997, Lucas changed the scene so that Greedo shoots first, and he changed it again in 2004, so that they shoot at each other almost simultaneously, with Greedo firing a little before. The version currently available for streaming, as a Vulture staffer checked and confirmed, still has Greedo and Han shooting each other at nearly the same time but not until after Greedo shouts a phrase that sounds like “Maclunkey!â€
Disney+ subscribers on Twitter have already noticed the new, Maclunkey-added version of the original film and reacted with the appropriate levels of intense confusion. According to Vanity Fair, Lucas himself made the change to A New Hope before selling the Star Wars films to Disney in 2012, though that still doesn’t explain Greedo’s weird exclamation. What does “Maclunkey†mean? Why does it sound like the last name of a football star from a Wisconsin high school? Was Maclunkey Rey’s mom or dad? Millions of voices suddenly cried out “Maclunkey!†in unison, and so far have gotten no reply.
Update: We have something of an answer to this great, clunky mystery. As writer Donna Dickens pointed out on Twitter, what Greedo is saying is likely the Huttese phrase “ma klounkee,†which pops up a few times elsewhere in the Star Wars universe and means something along the lines of “this will be the end of you.†Having Greedo say it is probably a way to make him all the more threatening and make Han seem all the less murderous. That, or George Lucas really wanted to troll a bunch of entertainment writers into brushing up on their fake Star Wars languages.