Of course it's all ultimately pointless, but it's still fun.
I've said somewhere before that SF author George Alec Effinger in a lecture defined "Sci-Fi" as ray guns, rockitships, and robots. "SF", on the other hand, is is a story that you can't tell without the science. Star Wars is Sci-Fi and Nightfall is SF. Both are Science Fiction. I think it's a useful distinction, so I go with it.
Outside of a college film criticism class I don't think you can get away with saying that Star Wars is not science fiction. There are lots of robots and aliens and spaceships. If you argue that it's actually fantasy because the robots and spaceships are not necessary to the story, I would argue that the force isn't necessary either! You could have Vader kill Obi-wan, and remove the scene where Vader force strangles Lieutenant Commander Overbite. Maybe Luke uses the force to make the lucky shot at the end, and maybe not. He said he could bull's eye wamprats in Beggar's Canyon back home, and they're not much bigger than two meters. Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" is almost exactly the same as Star Wars, and it's a samurai movie. I think Lucas admitted being "influenced" by this movie, but he pretty much copied the story.
Back when I was in a film criticism class I tried convincing my mom that Singin' in the Rain was a science fiction movie. It's about silent movie actors who careers and lives are altered by the coming of talkies. It's a story that you can't tell without some kind of novel technology. It just so happens that the technology was already developed. I think you can imagine how well that went.
