text: They are only important to the plot at the very beginning and near the end, and realistically, in a high tech society which has Artificial Intelligence as commonplace as household appliances, the idea that they would need to be transferred manually via starship, or that the flaw in the Death Star design would not be easily seen by, for instance R2-D2 as soon as the data was loaded into him, and thus recognised earlier and transmitted in a simpler and less vulerable form, shows that the 'stolen data tapes' (which we never actually see in 'tape' form) very clearly indicates that the tapes are, in fact a MacGuffin.