Good point, Jeyl. Threepio's dialogue must have been manipulated after the fact as well.
I also noticed editing tricks like one medium length scene being divided into two shorter scenes to give more leeway to the editors.
For instance the scene of Tarkin and Vader getting the report of Dantoone not containing the Rebel Base was the first half of the scene where they receive the report of the Millennium Falcon arriving inside the Death Star.
Also, Tarkin asking Vader if the homing beacon was on the Millennium Falcon was the first half of the scene where Vader says "This will be a day long remembered -- it has seen the end of Kenobi, and will soon see the end of the Rebellion."
By dividing them this way it gave the editors four scenes to work with and move around as they saw fit, instead of just two...
Didn't Lucas know the index card system? That's how you're supposed to work out the narrative.
The Star Wars was written long before the days when Syd Field-type screenplay advice books were available in every book store. I'm sure they were available, but not so readily, like today...
And for all we know, it read better than it played when first assembled in filmed form. Reportedly, some people were actually taken in by the story when reading the screenplay. (Alec Guinness, for one.)
