Royal Award Ceremony The Royal Award Ceremony was a medal ceremony held in the Great Temple on Yavin 4 the morning after the Battle of Yavin . The ceremony honored Luke Skywalker , the Rebel pilot who fired the shot that destroyed the Death Star during the battle , as well as Han Solo and Chewbacca , who helped Skywalker during the battle . The ceremony played celebratory music , and at the cue of trumpet s , Skywalker and Solo were presented with medals of Bravery by Prince ss Leia Organa ; Chewbacca also received a medal privately after the ceremony ' s conclusion . Following the presentation of medals , the ceremony honored those who died when the Death Star destroyed Alderaan . At the conclusion of the ceremony , Rebel General Jan Dodonna announced that the Rebellion would be evacuating its base and finding a new one . History . In 0 BBY , the Alliance to Restore the Republic engaged in its first decisive battle against the Galactic Empire by stealing the plans to the Death Star , an Imperial superweapon capable of destroying entire planet s . Following the theft of the plans , they were transmitted to Prince ss Leia Organa of Alderaan who was captured by Imperial forces under the command of Darth Vader , she was then taken aboard the Death Star where she was torture d for information about the Rebel Base . After witnessing the destruction of her homeworld , Organa was rescued by the Jedi Master Obi - Wan Kenobi , the smuggler Han Solo , a young farmboy from Tatooine named Luke Skywalker and the Wookiee Chewbacca . Following the rescue , they made their way to Yavin 4 where the Rebel base was located , but was secretly being tracked by the Death Star as Darth Vader had placed a homing beacon on their ship . Once arriving at the base , the Rebels planned an attack to destroy the battle station using the stolen plans that had been placed into R2 - D2 shortly before Organa ' s capture , the battle that followed resulted in the Death Star ' s destruction . The ceremony . The following morning , the ceremony was held to honor Skywalker , Solo and Chewbacca , as the beings responsible for the Death Star ' s destruction . They entered the throne room to the sound of trumpet s and on either of the trio were hundreds of uniformed Rebel troops gathered for the ceremony . When the three heroes had reached the end of the aisle , Organa stepped forward and placed a medal around Solo ' s neck , Solo responded with wink and smile towards the princess . The Princess then repeated the procedure with Skywalker . Following the awarding of the medal s , Organa congratulated those assembled for their role in the destruction of the Death Star , and asked them a moment to remember those who were killed in The Disaster . Chewbacca was given his medal privately shortly after the ceremony had finished . Aftermath . Because the Empire knew the location of the base , procedures went directly from the ceremony to the evacuation of the base . Leia , having recently learned from Evaan Verlaine that the Empire was hunting down the survivors of Alderaan , went on a mission with her to rescue them despite strong opposition from General Jan Dodonna . Behind the scenes . The triumphal celebration on Yavin 4 is the final scene of , the first installment of the original trilogy , released in 1977 . The scene was shot at the massive H Stage of Shepperton Studios , located in , . Most of the interior scenes had been filmed at Elstree Studios , just outside of , but Elstree could not , at the time , offer a stage large enough to portray the chamber , and the shooting was relocated to Shepperton . This scene was filmed over two days , May 13 and 14 1976 , right in the middle of principal photography , when the camaraderie had grown between the main actors . The extras hired to portray the assembled troops wore orange X - wing pilot costumes and olive - green suits . Aside from R2 - D2 ' s bleeping and Chewbacca ' s roar , the scene featured no line and was highlighted by " The Throne Room , " a march written by John Williams and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra . The filmmakers originally intended to portray the assembly of Rebels present for the ceremony using a matte painting . However , this proved too difficult , and the scene was filmed by moving the extras to different positions in the frame until the illusion of an large assembly was achieved : the extras were first filmed at the near end of the stage , then relocated to the middle , and finally to the far end of the room . According to " " , the extras were anything but reverent toward Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill , who portrayed Han Solo and Luke Skywalker . Extras believed the film would be a flop , and whispered insults , openly mocking the actors while they were walking down the set . Originally , the droids R2 - D2 and C - 3PO , played by Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels , were meant to march up the aisle with the rest of the characters . However , due to their costumes ' limitations , Baker and Daniels could not climb stairs , so it was decided that the droids would wait on the platform with the Princess . On her performance as Leia Organa in the final scene , Carrie Fisher once declared : " The last line in the script was that the Princess is way down the hall and she is staggeringly beautiful . I crossed off the ' ly ' and ' beautiful ' and felt this new wording more approached what I would bring to the character . " This end ceremony segment emulates , almost shot - for - shot , a similar scene in " " , a 1934 Nazi propaganda film made by . Both segments feature a large and enthusiastic crowd gathered in a ceremony hall bounded by columns , with a low podium where the leader stands — in " Triumph des Willens " , was the leader in question . This similarity is unusual , as the Nazi references in " Star Wars " generally involve the Galactic Empire of Palpatine , whose authoritarian regime mirrors Hitler ' s Third Reich . Many of the versions of the movie script ended with a celebration . In the rough and first drafts , Princess Leia was crowned Queen , and in the third and early fourth drafts , Obi - Wan Kenobi attended the ceremony , having survived his encounter with Darth Vader .