He tells her that the Rebels have stolen some secret Imperial plans and transmitted them to her ship. Moments later the princess is stunned by Imperial troops and taken to Vader. R2-D2 and C-3PO get away from the ship aboard an escape pod and go to the planet below Imperial troops choose not to destroy the pod, as their scans detect no living organism on board, and presume it ejected due to a malfunction. R2-D2 meets up with Princess Leia, who loads him with the stolen plans and records a holographic message for the small droid to take to the planet's surface. C-3PO and R2-D2 manage to escape damage from the firefight. He then tells the troops to search the entire ship and to bring all the passengers to him - alive. (In actuality there is a diplomat aboard - Princess Leia Organa - but she is hiding from Vader, the second-ranking man in the Empire, which tends to support Vader's thesis that somebody on this ship is up to something.) Upon learning that 'the plans' were not downloaded into the ship's computer, Vader strangles the captain. Vader perceives that he is lying, noting that a consular ship would have an ambassador on board. When the smoke clears, Darth Vader ( David Prowse voice: James Earl Jones), a man dressed in a black cape, black armor, and a black helmet that obscures all his features, briefly surveys the damage before interrogating the ship's captain, Antillies, who claims that the ship is on a diplomatic mission to the planet Alderaan.

A huge firefight ensues in the corridors of the Rebel ship, with many Rebel soldiers being lost in the battle. It is caught in the Imperial destroyer's tractor beam, pulled into the hold of the larger ship, and boarded by stormtroopers from the Empire's 501st Legion. The Rebel ship is so heavily damaged that its main power reactor must be shut down. Inside, protocol droid C-3PO ( Anthony Daniels) and utility droid R2-D2 ( Kenny Baker) are tossed about as their ship endures a barrage of laser bolts, and '3PO' concludes that escaping capture will be impossible. A small Rebel blockade runner, the Tantive IV, is being pursued by a mammoth Imperial star destroyer, the Devastator. Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia ( Carrie Fisher) races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy.' Following the opening crawl, the frame moves down in the star field and we see a pitched battle between two starships in orbit around the desert planet of Tatooine. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DeathStar, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. An opening title card reads: 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Note: Italicized paragraphs describe scenes added for the film's 1997 special edition and updated for its DVD release.

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