Yes, the Evil Empire<tm>, but what were they rebelling against specifically? Higher taxes? Unpaid overtime? What? Ok, the Empire killed a planet or two, but that was AFTER the rebels rebelled IIRC.
I have to add that I am not a huge SW nerd and have only seen the OT movies maybe 2-3 times and the newer ones once. I remember something in the Phantom Menace about a Senate and Republic but it was all a bit confusing. So help me out here, what were the aim and goals of the rebellion.
They disagreed with the totalitarian nature of the Empire and the violent way in which it took control. They were fighting to overthrow it and reinstate a democratic republic, which had been the galactic form of government before the Emperor took over.
So basically, yeah, they were rebelling against the existence of the Empire.
And rampant Ewok oppression.
The Old Republic had existed for something on the order of 30,000 years. During the prequel movies, Palpatine engineered events so that his control, and establishment of the Empire, would seem politically necessary to preserve order and peace. Those who saw it for what it was (a power grab, and an excuse to get rid of the Jedi) then began a rebellion against him.
Though it’s not particularly well-articulated (if at all) in the movies, one of the things which comes out in the books and other “Expanded Universe” sources is that Palpatine and his Emperor were particularly humanocentric, and non-humans in the Empire were persecuted, if not (as in the case of the Wookiees) enslaved.
If you want specific details, those aren’t really given in the movies, but generally the Empire engaged in conscription, burdensome taxation, allowed miniature despots with loyalty to the Emperor to run their own little regions of space however they wanted to, were racist against non-humans, IIRC required papers to travel everywhere, etc. etc. Basically every evil thing you can think a government could do, it did.
Ruling by fear is a big no-no.
Damn. I thought I was joking.
Spotted too late to edit: I meant to write “Palpatine and his Empire”. :smack:
Just going by what’s in the first movie, and nothing in the sequels, prequels, novelizations, comics, video games, lunchboxes, bedsheets, or Burger King mugs:
The Empire is a violently oppressive totalitarian government. Early in the first movie, there’s a line about “the Emperor dissolving the Imperial Senate.” In other words, the Empire has only just recently crushed the last remnants of democratic rule in the galaxy. To cement their hold, they’ve built a gun that’s big enough to blow up a planet. And they’re willing to blow up a planet full of people, just to demonstrate to the rest of the galaxy that they’re totally willing to blow up a planet full of people. As you note, the planet exploding all happens after the Rebellion has already started, but you can probably infer that they were doing some pretty heinous stuff in the run up to the events of the first movie. It’s not like they were totally chill up until the Rebellion started, and then they suddenly went into murder mode. They’d been killing and oppressing people all along, and were just taking it to another level with the Death Star.
Pulling in some of the EU stuff, here’s the bigger story:
Palpatine was the Senator for a minor backwater planet called Naboo. He’s also secretly a Sith Lord. As a Sith Lord, he manipulates a coalition of economic interests (The Trade Federation) into trying to annex Naboo, and as a Republic Senator, tries to get the rest of the galaxy to stand up to the Trade Federation. His goal all along is to cause a civil war that will fracture galactic society, and give him an opportunity to rise to the top.
This works out pretty well for him. He gets his war, sets up the Jedis as the leaders of Republic army, then pulls the rug out from underneath them by putting the blame for his machinations on the Jedi’s shoulders, essentially framing them for starting the war that he engineered. At this point, he’s now Chancellor of the Galactic Senate, and has has his secret Trade Federation allies stage an attack directly on the Republic’s seat of power. Believing that the Jedi have betrayed them, and fearing that the wolves are on their doorstep, Palpatine gets himself named Emperor, and is granted extraordinary powers to resolve the current crises. He uses his new-found position to wipe out the Jedi and crush his “allies” in the Trade Federation, thus cementing his position as ruler of the galaxy.
Not all of the member planets of the Republic support making him Emperor, but in light of the lately ended war, it’s not a politically popular position. The Emperor begins enacting policies that favor humans over non-humans. Planets that protest too much are labelled rebels and Federation sympathizers, and are brutally suppressed. Slavery is re-introduced to the galaxy as a method of dealing with especially recalcitrant aliens, the Wookies being the most prominent example. As the number of Imperial atrocities grow, and start to encompass more human settlements, the Senate becomes increasingly restless, and unable to look the other way, but the Emperor has gathered too much power, and has the backing of the Imperial military, against which no one planet can stand. Some planetary governments begin making secret alliances with each other to stand against the Empire, and begin funding a guerrilla army to try to fight against the excesses of Imperial rule.
Which brings us to the beginning of the original movie. With the completion of the Death Star, Palpatine no long needs to make even token efforts to placate the Senate. He formally disbands them, and gathers all power in the Empire into his own hands. He uses the Death Star to destroy Alderaan, whose government has been a thorn in his side for a long time, but who has never given legitimate reason for Imperial intervention, as a sign to the rest of the galaxy that no planet is safe from his power.
And then some whiny farm boy from the asshole of the galaxy shows up and ruins everything, but you probably know that part already.
What have you got?
Miller’s post is excellently laid out, but this wins.
“Where are you taking that…thing?”
- a line from an Imperial officer on the Death Star (when Han and Luke are disguised as stormtroopers, and Chewbacca as a captive.)
But Pricess Leia was not much better herself. “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee,” she once said to Han, and I distinctly remember her referring to Chewbacca as a “walking carpet.” That’s some pretty prejudiced shit. And if I remember correctly, Chewbacca is not awarded a medal at the ceremony at the end of “A New Hope,” even though everyone else gets one from Leia. Man, she’s looking worse by the minute.
Nice work, if you can get it.
It’s just the empire is bad and the rebels are good. All that is required for the story. Why does everyone gotta be overthinking these things and missing the point.
I figured the lack of aliens in the Death Star was due to 1977 effects. The costumes sitting in a cantina was one thing. Having them do complex battle scenes just wasn’t in the cards. Other than Chewbacca, they probably didn’t have the budget to do other convincing aliens.
Maybe, but if so that’s a hell of an unintended consequence, since the line “Where are you taking that…thing?” would have been a way to explain the lack of aliens, and that right there is support for anti-alien sentiment, or at least anti-Wookiee sentiment.
Hell, I don’t know. You’d think they were talking about Star Trek.
Star Wars isn’t even real.
She also was kind of patronising to the Ewoks, until late in the movie. I think that’s just her snobby upbringing.
Miller, from your description there, it almost sounds like you consider the prequel trilogy to be “expanded universe” material.
But even going back to nothing but just the first movie, the Rebellion knows that the Empire has no qualms about killing civilians, and that they are building or have built a superweapon that can destroy a planet. Connecting the dots from there isn’t too hard.
Of course not!
I’ve got too much respect for the EU to lump it in with the prequels.
But yeah, most of that is actually from the prequels, not the expanded universe. Mostly the stuff about the Empire being really racist, which isn’t directly mentioned in any of the movies, AFAIK.
Aliens were largely comic relief in the III, IV and V, were they not?