Nicholas
The 1977 film Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope gave us one of the truly greatest sci-fi battles ever put to film. The battle serves as the climax to the film and serves the culmination to Luke’s character arc in the film as well.
In the movie, the Empire has discovered the location of the secret Rebel base on the moon of Yavin and attacks with the Death Star, aiming to destroy the moon with a single blast. As the Death Star is only fifteen minutes within range, time is extremely limited for the Rebels but they launch a desperate attack with the roughly thirty X-Wing, A-Wing, and Y-Wing fighters at their disposal.
The fighter dodge blaster fire from the Death Star and Tie Fighter attacks and attempt to fly down the trench to launch torpedoes down the reactor shaft of the Death Star, but all of these attempts end in failure and most of the fighters are shot down.
With less than three minutes left before the Death Star will be within firing range of Yavin Luke flies down the trench, but to the alarm of the Rebels at the headquarters turns off his targeting computer and instead uses the Force to guide the torpedoes him. Darth Vader attempts to shoot down Luke in his Tie Fighter, but is instead ambushed by Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon, giving Luke the opportunity he needs to make a successful shot.
The Death Star explodes and the Rebels celebrate their victory back home, although their period of triumph will be short lived as they find themselves chased around the galaxy by the Empire’s fleet of star destroyers, leading to the events of Star Wars Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.
