When you think about it more, that the Rebels were the ones who started the war? Who took up arms against the government while it was still technically democratic or semi-democratic, still had the elected representatives in the Senate? Albeit with the Emperor steadily increasing in power over the Senate and doing away with it soon after the Rebellion started. You could argue that the construction of the Death Star was an aggressive enough act, against the government's own population, that it really did cause or force the Rebellion to emerge against the government.
Palpatine orchestrated a war, murderer his rivals, prepared contingencies to wipe out the Jedi Order and who knows who/what else, brought on an assassination attempt, seized permanent power, killed millions, and installed himself as absolute leader. *Then* enough people realised to organise a resistance. So no, the evil overlord of unknown age and horrible acts brought about an armed rebellion against him years after his rise to power. Which we've all known since at the very least, 2005. So...what the hell?
Palpatine was already over his term limits before the Clone War started and hadn't had an election for the office of Chancellor for almost ten years when the Clone Wars ended. He'd been using the state of emergency to stay in office and the war to create enough propaganda that people followed him verse the increasingly vilified Jedi. He proclaimed himself Emperor after Executing the Jedi for a crime they didn't commit, and declaring his New Order and Empire. Padme's group in the plot point that was skipped in Revenge of the Sith, was trying to ensure that Palpatine returned his every increasing emergency powers to the Senate and held elections for his office once the war ended.
Maybe Palpatine himself orchestrated the Rebel movement so that there would be a continued scapegoat for galactic woes and an excuse to keep imposing and extending harsh order over the galaxy. Kor
Yeah, because the real villains of the second world war were the allied forces. I mean if they had just let Hitler take Poland without making a fuss, there would have never been a war. I mean really! How could people have been so uncivil as to defend their own freedoms and the freedoms of their neighbours from violent oppression? Bloody cheek! Seriously though: the Empire wasn't "semi-democratic" at all. The Senate was just a vestigial bureaucratic apparatus there to rubber stamp whatever Palpatine decided to do. It had no real power of it's own and only kept around as long as it was out of sheer convenience. The Moffs and governors were the ones that wielded actual local authority, not the senators and they were appointed, not elected. Hell, we're not even sure the Senators were elected either. Probably not. Any semblance of democratic representation was merely an illusion meant to subdue. The Empire was a totalitarian dictatorship: end of story. Also, the cells that made up the rebel alliance were mostly from worlds that were actively under military occupation and systematic exploitation. Some more recently but many were under the boot heel for going on two decades before open civil war. In that time whole species were wiped out, planetary ecosystems devastated, inhabited moons shattered all just so the Imperial machine could take the resources it hungered.
That seems at least questionable, open to interpretation. As a Senator Leia very much acted as if she had immunity from interference from the military although she didn't, at least to the point of being part of the Rebellion. Not in the original trilogy films (I think they made the Empire feel like it at least used to be a consensual and representative supragovernment, the continuation of the Republic, though becoming much less so) although I guess that isn't directly inconsistent and even feels pretty consistent.
Yes, the Rebellion started a war against the Empire. The Empire, that would protect us and take our resources - as much as they wanted. They would take our people, too. As many as they wanted. All this to keep the gears and cogs of the war machine running smoothly. "For a safe and secure society." These themes were all nicely addressed and portrayed in Rogue One. Galen Elso is a result of that take-the-best-talent mindset. We see what the Empire does with both Jedha and Scarif to suit their Death Star construction efforts. While working for the Empire, Erso presumably does not enjoy freedom of movement like an ordinary citizen. Chirrut and Baze both immediately join the Rebellion without a second thought upon escaping their home of Jedha after the Empire destroys the holy city. Seeing the Death Star finished and witnessing its power firsthand is what indirectly causes the Rebellion to plunge the conflict into all out war. Is this a fair interpretation? The Rebels take the initiative to take the DS plans before the DS directly threatens them.
You need only to look to the US Declaration of Independence to see the justification behind the rebellion. The government gets its power from the people, and when the government becomes too oppressive that it no longer serves the people, the people have a right to break away from the government and form one of its own. The Emperor became a dictator, and usurped the elected power of the Senate. The Rebels had every justification for their revolt.
I still can’t see, in any of the films, how life changed much for the average citizen from Republic to Empire and back again.
Well, military occupation, having next to no agency in the expansion of the Empires military power simply to...enforce more power, destroying planets, not ending but rather helping slavery, enabling an extremely profitable miltary industrial complex (Monaco the Planet) which had ample slave labour including children etc etc etc Most planets struggled to give it's citizens anything, the Empire rewarded only those that ramped up it's facist infrastructure, occupid those that didn't and actively put down anything that seemed to glorify anything that wasn't them. Nice and cuddly like...
Well, they apparently saw a difference, even if you can't. Apathy is not often accompanied by fireworks, cheering and the toppling of public statuary.
Killing all the Jedi was an aggressive act, as well as enslaving the Wookiees. They assaulted planets that didn’t join the Empire willingly too. If the Rebels started the war, it was purely out fighting an evil regime that ended to be wiped out.
You no longer had to worry about having your entire planet and all its inhabitants turned into space dust because one person wasn't cooperating with the Empire. Kor
And I have seen people claim they can speak to birds and see invisible spiders that steal their dog's food, thus causing it to starve (note: they didn't even have a dog .) Both of these opinions appear to be equally rational to me.
I don't remember the Republic leaving many burning homesteads with charred skeletons in their wake when they didn't find stolen property.
Pretty much every story before ANH makes it clear that the Empire was bad from the start and the Rebellion was completely justified. Spoiler: The Force Unleashed had an origin for the Rebellion that was similar to this. In The Force Unleashed Vader was actually the one responsible for the beginning of the Rebellion. He sends his secret apprentice on an undercover mission to gather the Empire's enemies together in one rebellion because he thought it would distract Palpatine enough that he could overthrow him. As you can probably guess, things don't go according to his plans.