A young farm boy gains mystic powers to help a princess rebel against the Galactic Empire.

16 words. I wanted to include “in a far away galaxy,” but with so many things to include I don’t know that the idea communicated is important enough to use five words on it.

byrd

I’ve been out of town- bummer, because that would have been fun to enter. Let’s see how I do improving:

Pursued by the Galactic Empire, farm-boy Luke joins with with a Rebel princess to destroy the Emipre’s ultimate weapon.
(21 words- a little long, sorry.

Or, to try a different route:

Can farm-boy Luke and the Rebel princess he rescues destroy the Galactic Empire’s ultimate weapon?
(Only sixteen words, but I feel like it lacked some of the punch of the other one… I dunno. You’re the expert.

I haven’t read through the rest, but this is my take.

To me the princess, the “it’s a traaaap”and the rakish pirate/pilot are all fine but not the point. They’re plot, and to me Star Wars is theme. Little guy, hidden power within, causes downfall of bad guy. Mythic. But that’s me.

I strongly considered adding ‘mystic’ before Force, assuming the reader didn’t know what the Force is.

A young farm boy develops mystical powers and joins the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire.

That’s 15 words, and I think it hits the most important points. Of course, for only one more word I was able to fit in Leia above, but I didn’t really like the way that sentence minimized the Rebellion.

So ya, with these two elements you classify a few genres of the movie/book: sci fi, fantasy, epic adventure, maybe even a touch of romance.

And Luke’s character is never underdog in my mind anyway. So my retake of Randy’s summary is this-

A boy from nowhere joins a fugitive princess in the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire.”

While it may be true that the “princess” thing is a trap, well, that’s what it’s meant to be, isn’t it? Ok, maybe not exactly a trap, but if I had written Star Wars, I’d be trying to lure the agent/publisher in. That’s what the Sentence Summary is for: selling the book. So, the princess is important.

I have to disagree with Ben, here, when he says that Leia is not important because of her being royalty: she is important in several ways to the story, but “princess” is a magic word that *will* draw readers, and therefore, agents/publishers.

I had disregarded the principle when posting my own entry yesterday, and only focused on theme (the rebellion, Luke’s identity issues…). If I had paused to think, and considered the Sentence Summary as the attention-grabbing tool it is, I’d have done it differently.
So:

Farm boy and rebel princess fight galactic tyrant.

Ok, I cheated with the articles, but it’s only 8 words!

Also, I know Randy said to concentrate on one or two characters, but wouldn’t

Farm boy,rogue pilot and rebel princess fight galactic tyrant,

add a “who-will-get-the-girl” element? And it’s ten words.

And still, since I agree with Destiny about the Jedi/Force theme,

Farm boy with mystical powers and Rebel-leader princess fight galactic tyrant.

Twelve words. Or, again:

Farm boy with mystical powers and Rebel-leader princess join forces against galactic tyrant,

Because the process of making allies is important to the story too. Fourteen.

I’m getting ready to send of a completed proposal, so this gives me fuel to relook at my one sentence summary to make sure it is the best it can be.

A farm boy and a rebel princess take a desperate stand against the Dark Empire enslaving their galaxy.

Orphaned youth joins fugitive princess and rogue pilot in the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire.
15 words.

“young boy” is redundant. “orphan” is a more emotional button that “young” and more universal than “farm.” As we can see, some cultures actually view farmers as having social status; that’s a political discussion for elsewhere.
The princess, it seems to me, makes the story more believable and, to me, that means more compelling. An orphaned farm boy against the Galactic Empire? Yeah, right. But wait, there’s a princess involved. A-ha! Maybe he has a chance; princesses have armies, or at least a small following. So, how does the orphaned farm boy hook up with her? Now, I’m curious, rather than incredulous.
You might not know what the Rebellion, with a capital “r” means, like most of the world would ask, “Which civil war?” Similar for the Galactic Empire. It sounds like bad sci-fi, how they just throw out words, like, “He jumped on the krypton-blaster and sped away.” I’d like to know what that a ‘krypton-blaster’ is before you go speeding away on it. So, assuming that our readers are absolutely clueless, or possibly Australian, how about:

An orphaned boy joins a princess in the rebellion against an evil empire.

Boy, that’s stripped down. The only adjectives are “orphaned” and “evil.” Very prime. This is fun, Randy.

byrd

The explanations of “princess” have helped as well. I especially like the function Byrd pointed out, with the word acting as a link between the disparate terms “orphan” and “rebellion.”

I’m toying with the idea of ditching “joins” in favor of something a little more punchy. Like:

An orphaned youth rescues a princess and rebels against a galactic empire.

12 words. I think the empire should not be capitalized if, as here, an upper case “Rebellion” is not used.

However, Luke is highly representative of what is called the ‘hero mythologem’, which means his story fits many of the requirements for him to be a hero in a classical sense. This should not surprise us as George Lucas consulted with Joseph Campbell, one of the world’s great authorities on mythology and mythic themes.

If you would like to see the classical shape of a hero’s life, check out the work of Lord Raglan here.
http://department.monm.edu/classics/courses/clas230/mythdocuments/heropattern/default.htm

I’m wondering about Han Solo and Chewbacca. They are just as important Princess Leia and are in all three movies.

Also, this inspired me to browse the taglines on IMDB.com where I found the original tag: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”

The descriptive summary on Netflix was interesting too: “In a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas put himself on the pop culture map and cemented his status as a legend with this classic battle between good and evil. Intrepid Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), his trusty droids, and smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) face off against Darth Vader (James Earl Jones), trying to save Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and destroy the Death Star. And a little help from Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) never hurts.”

Neither of those are really elevator pitches, though.