Captured by the Evil Empire!

Script written by George Lucus.
Movie directed by George Lucus.
Rewritten as a situation by Ian Rae.

Princess Leia has received stolen data files vital to the rebellion. However, the transmissions were traced back to her ship and it's been fired upon and captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer. There is seemingly no chance of escape.

In a situation that could have easily inspired the hopelessness of defeat or the disgust over politics and unnecessary carnage, the droids keep the situation light and almost whimsical. Instead, we see clean white troopers and pleasantly fake laser blasts that take all the punch out of seeing actors fall to the ground after being shot. It's an overall good handling of what had been mishandled by sci-fi shows before 1977 who made similar situations feel desperate and psychologically disturbing. The protagonist is willful yet pretty, and her theme music suggests that we should be sad that she was captured. We are sad, but kept from being afraid for her by phrases like, "I want them alive", "She'll be alright", and "Report that all were killed" (while implying that the report would be false). We can't be afraid yet because we need patience enough to settle into Luke's character and his background.

The droids must go down to the planet. It's the only way (we know of) that Luke and Obi-wan can enter the plot. If Leia fails to think of giving the plans to R2, the only alternative is for R2 to hack into the ship's computer to find out what's happening and what he can do. When he realizes the significance of the data files aboard, he downloads them and deletes them to protect Princess Leia's ability to help the Rebellion in her position in the Senate. He then breaks into an escape pod and jettisons himself down to the planet below with his partner C-3PO who he'll need to get help hiding from the Empire if they follow him and finally to book passage off the planet to Alderan. This is problematic because then there's no reason to trust Obi-wan with all this information. Of course, it's already problematic that they happen to be at Tatooine. Was this just a jump along the way to Alderan where they Empire finally caught up? Or was it a deliberate detour to find someone who could help? If she was able to jump at all, why couldn't she make it all the way home? Did she know that once she reached Alderan, she wouldn't have been able to seek help without implementing her allies there? If these Rebel spies where on Tatooine, there might be some interesting stories behind that, given the importance the planet plays in both Anakin's and Luke's story. Was Obi-wan one of the spies? Were the spies actually Aunt Beroo and Uncle Owen?

The princess is also too important a plot device during later situations on the Death Star, so she's not allowed to die is this situation. She's not able to do anything drastic with her ship since the plot has the Empire disabling the main reactor in the attempt to stop them from going into hyperspace. If she tries to attack the storm troopers or Vader, she'll be taken out with a stun ray, noticeably absent from the rest of the movies.

Princess Leia, long time member of the Rebellion, has risked exposing herself to acquire the plans for the Death Star. The spies where successful, but close to being captured and they knew it. They were forced to contact Leia outside the regular channels, a risky move that exposed them to the Empire. Though the risk was great, Leia knew she had to act fast or many months of effort and what might be their only hope would be gone. Her fears came to fruition when she her ship had unexpectedly come out of hyperspace on her way to Alderan. An Imperial Star Destroyer had ambushed them! They quickly overtook them and disabled her ship. With mere seconds of freedom left, she had to formulate a plan to save the technical readout of the Death Star battle station.

The ship is over taken by an Imperial Star Destroyer and has its main reactor damaged enough to take it off line. This may have been too quick for them to make the calculations for the jump to light speed or they could have been employing a Gravity Generator, which causes all passing ships to drop out of hyperspace. Of course, ships that go into hyperspace in a high gravity area, either because they're too close to a planet or a artificial generator, are torn apart.

Upon accessing information about her location in the Rebel database (shortly before deleting it from the ship's computers), she found that an old ally by the name of Obi-wan Kenobi is said to have been last seen on the planet below. He was a general for Leia's father in the clone wars. While his loyalty is unquestionable, his ability to help her or his exact location is unknown. The information on him has not been updated since before she was born. Still, he's her only hope...

[Redirect] Overcome one of the guards and use his armor to escape.
[Weaken] Somehow get the plans off the ship and hopefully into the hands of Rebel sympathizers.
[Fail] She could let herself and the plans get captured.

The movie starts with a minute and a half of thick background story for us to read and spark our imagination. From this, we're thrown into some nice visuals, to firmly establish the sci-fi presence; particularly memorable is the clip of the Imperial Star Destroyer (#8), which is a whopping 13 seconds long. This situation is not a battle, but a capture. The battle merely illustrates how escape is not an option. The true protagonist of this situation, Princess Leia, is noticeably absent from its description. In fact, the first time we see her is the first clip of the response. This story telling technique is borrowed from Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", where the story is told through the eyes of seemingly insignificant characters.

A sci-fi element, the droids pick up the story telling from there, placing the story into context for us. Shots of them transition from the soldiers running past them to their destination, the ominous white door. And from there the fighting begins, ending with the emergence of the instigator, the antagonist. With the appearance of the antagonist, we're set up quite nicely to receive the protagonist's response.

Predominant features of the description are sci-fi elements (starships, space, ray-guns, robots) and action (violence, people running, ships flying), which can be found in every shot with two notable exceptions used for effect. The still shot at the beginning of open space (#4) is a still shot meant to drive home that our location through out the entire movie will be in outer space, echoing the basic question of sci-fi, "What could be out there?" The other set of still shots is that of the ominous white door (#36, #38, #40). The soldiers nervously set up and point their blasters at it for a full thirty seconds and nineteen clips before it does anything, and of course, it's where the troopers storm enter and kill most of them. Following close behind is the manifestation of the Grim Reaper, our chief antagonist, Darth Vader.

Of the secondary elements, I've identified four: violence, dialog, Vader, and the two Droids. By screen time, they are dialog (1:48 - 40%), violence (0:50 - 18%), the droids (0:43 - 16%), and Vader (0:17 - 6%). By clip count, they are violence (30 - 40%), the droids (16 - 21%), dialog (9 - 12%), and Vader (2 - 3%). As far as story telling goes, I think clip count in a more accurate measure. For instance, the scrolling words at the beginning take longer than all the scenes of violence added together, but the energy of the violence makes a much stronger impression on us. Switching to the verbal storytelling medium robs us of the ability to zip through combat that quickly, especially if players are involved. If the action is important, the clip count should be used when writing the new script. Else if the battle would just distract from the story, screen time is a better guide.

As much background dialog as this scene seems to have, the movie does not contain much more. Besides a detail rich scene in Obi-wan's house and a short conversation during Luke's training scene aboard the Millennium Falcon, there isn't any other explanation of the Force or the plot. The rest is straight action/adventure; mostly of the dumb-luck variety.

The protagonist's response can be described as a [weakening] of the antagonist. While Leia was certainly captured, she was far from defeated because she was able to take the teeth out of Vader's bite by thwarting his real goal, obtaining the stolen plans for the Death Star battle station. She also attempted to over take one of the troopers so she could slip into his armor, however, she exposed herself before she realized that the one she'd come across was not alone. She tried to hide again, but it was too late, she'd been seen. She shoots and runs, but is hit by a stun-ray.

Vader gets nowhere with his cursory interrogation of the princess, however he quickly realizes what she's done. It's curious that he doesn't go down himself. Is there something on Tatooine he doesn't want to face... a memory perhaps?