the first death star was shown in its finished form in "". it was commanded by grand moff tarkin (peter cushing). the death star was the galactic empire's "ultimate weapon". the movie begins with leia organa (carrie fisher) attempting to take the station's plans to the rebel alliance, wanting to help them destroy the death star. onboard her vessel, she was captured by an imperial ship and taken captive to the death star. there, tarkin tries to make leia reveal the location of the rebel base by threatening the use of the death star to destroy leia's home world, alderaan. she tells them a location but not the real one, but tarkin has her planet destroyed anyway. later, luke skywalker (mark hamill) and his small crew are also captured and taken to the station, escaping with leia shortly after. in the movie's main battle scene, the force ghost of obi-wan kenobi tells luke to use the "force" to help him direct proton torpedoes from his x-wing into the death star' reactor core and not with his ship's targeting system. luke obeys and successfully launches the torpedoes into the core. this ultimately resulted in the destruction of the battle station.