MSE-6 (Mouse) droids are general purpose droids manufactured by Rebaxan Colmuni. This sequence in the movie was unscripted, and created on the spot. .
A cute thing to spot, watch how Chewbacca intently stares at the glossy black Death Star droid (5D6-RA7) that wanders by as the heroic trio wait for a turbolift.
Right after Han and Luke get on the turbolift, the shot cuts to a hallway. A bunch of stormtroopers march from left to right. If you look at the third one down, on the left, his mid-arm armor isn’t fully on. It’s split down the middle.
A fanatically loyal Imperial officer, despite his demotion due to being blamed for a clerical error. Childsen is a strict adherant to the Imperial doctrine of alien subjugation. Somewhat of a bully.
While we're in this scene, note the subtle creepiness achieved by the sound department. Listen carefully and you’ll hear a "metallic drip" background sound effects.
Devin Cant is one of the elite Death Star trooper charged with protecting detention block AA-23. The uniform of the Death Star Trooper was adopted by the Imperial Naval Trooper following the Death Star fiasco.
Hey detail freaks! Making your own Death Star Trooper outfit? Well, be sure you make the inside of those gloves red!
Getting back to sound for a second, the first gunfight in the detention block sounds different depending which version of Star Wars you’re watching. Since we get French versions of Star Wars up here on our French TV channel, we can see early prints of Star Wars, and the sounds are different. This scene really differs from the original video release. For instance, Chewbacca’s rifle shot, right after the camera shows him roaring madly sounds a lot more "lasery" in the French version (more peeeyowww!). The THX and Special Edition versions have more explosive sound effects accompanying the destruction of the laser gates and holocams.
Try to find this frame in the Special Edition. Can't be done, because it was cut out of the movie. I guess watching a laser burst erupt in an Imperial's abdomen is too violent for 90s audiences. This is not the only incident of censorship, as witnessed in the previous section.
So this is what a laser bolt looks like from head-on. One of the things that has always bothered me about stun blasts in expanded universe fiction is writers assuming they arc out in a ring, because it looks like that in the movie. Well, the reason it looks like that in the film is because the trooper is firing right at the camera. We know blaster bolts come out as cylinders, and not rings. But if the shot to the left is all we saw, then we wouldn't be so sure.
After a shout of "Look Out!" Han blasts an Imperial officer running down the detention block corridor, but watch carefully. The shot doesn’t hit him. It hits the wall, a foot beside him. He still promptly falls over, though.
After Vader declares that "I must face him alone..." the shot cuts to a Death Star hall way. Ben sneaks around, and in the background, you can see a bright blue astromech droid with a see-through head. This became the basis of the R3 unit that I "created" in the expanded universe.