It's not trying to tell the same story, though.

Spoiler
Show
As you can tell by the ending being completely different, it's an ambush, not a village defence. Also, the mission is not to collect merceraries, it's 'get help from the rebels', the mercs are a bonus on the way.

The alternative suggested was that the lead character just leave to village to avoid reprisals, optimistically thinking that the Admiral would... just ignore the discovery of a dozen of his men dead? The Admiral is very prone to indiscriminate reprisals and everyone in and out of universe knows it.

'Humanoid shaped robot' is generic enough that it's pretty common, and Jimmy doesn't particularly resemble any Star Wars robot, I'm not aware of any 'royal guard turned pacifist' droid, although knowing the EU there might be one somewhere.

The fact that the story has differences from Seven Samurai isn't a fault, because the story being told isn't Seven Samurai. They're not trying to tell the story and failing, they're just making a different story.