Akwat Kbrana said:
Could be a figure of speech.
Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Interstellar travel between Alderaan and "remote" locations like Tatooine and Dantooine seems to go pretty quickly in Star Wars. Also, doesn't the ending of Empire depict the Rebel fleet outside the galaxy? From the ESB screenplay:
Together they stand at the large window of the medical center looking out on the Rebel Star Cruiser and a dense, luminous galaxy swirling in space. Luke puts his arm around Leia. The droids stand next to them, and Threepio moves closer to Artoo putting his arm on him. The group watches as the Millennium Falcon moves into view, makes a turn, and zooms away into space.
Specifically, the Falcon moves toward the galaxy that Luke and Leia are looking at, and since the dialogue indicates that Lando and Chewie were headed toward Tatooine, it's reasonable to infer that that galaxy is the very galaxy in which the storyline of Star Wars unfolds.
Also, Mon Mothma says in Return, "With the Imperial Fleet spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage us..." which, again, suggests that hyperdrive travel is capable of crossing vast portions of the galaxy (and even leaving the galaxy, according to the ESB ending) in a very short amount of time.
I like to think a lot of it was for the purpose of moving the story. It's fairly contradictory to call Tatooine remote, requiring quite an expense to travel, and then only taking 5 minutes to get to Alderaan. And the galaxy is a nice visual. As for the Imperial Fleet, that it is spread across at least a large portion of the galaxy makes sense, but it also implies significant travel times - otherwise we could probably have the entire fleet here in under half an hour. I like to think it's like parsecs and more about artistic license in telling a story than intentional decisions about physics.
From what I understand the EU takes pains to explain what parsecs means and rationalizes travel times with discussion about hyperspace routes. I think it's okay to realize some stuff in Star Wars wasn't that intentional.