I'm kind of mixed on that part. Part of me feels that to beat evil, you must sometimes do evil acts yourself. Glorifying terrorists as some story of good guys is also stupid. When you read the personal opinions of the film's writers, they've said some seriously shitty things that are rather anti-American...
In the end, I chose to ignore their stupid liberal bullshit and just enjoy another SW film...
That's part of the whole Star Wars mantra though. The middle way. That good and evil are just part of life and one has to have both to be balanced.
It's what Anakin spent his whole life struggling for, it's what Luke learned midway through his training. It's what this movie shows as well. Sometimes to get what you want accomplished you have to do terrible things for the greater good. Balance, yin and yang, middle way. That's the religion that is the backbone of Star Wars.
I feel this movie captures that fully. It doesn't paint the empire as purely evil, black, dark, and grotesque. But as what most perceive as the norm. It shows them to be confused, searching for their place, filled with power, but not knowing what that can achieve, and while seemingly the "bad guy" they do look as though they employ an awful lot of folks all over the Galaxy. They are bad, or perceived to be. But they are a source of income for a lot of people, likely also have policies on everything from education, to parks, to sanitation, and beyond. To me it seems like the empire is the established norm.
And the rebellion are the anti establishment, wild guns. Many of them terrorists who fight for restoration of an old system, and a return to the way things were. Which based on their ages, some of them wouldn't remember the way things were before the galactic senate was voted into the hands of Palpatine. They use protests, bombings, raids, guerilla tactics, and other such campaigns to take out small bases and outposts. They're like the IRA was up here. They couldn't fight the English head on, they knew they didn't have the political establishment on their side so they took to bombs and bullets to try and make things happen. The English are still up the north, and a lot of the IRA are broken up, dead, or old. So we have people getting their hands dirty trying to remove a regime they believe to be dirty. But really both are dirty. And most of the Galaxy seems to just be innocent mugs caught in the middle.
And I think that's the whole point. Until all of the Jedi were dead, and all the sith gone there was no balance in the force. Until the entire empire is gone, and the first order too. And until the rebellion has disbanded. There is no balance in the Galaxy. Just dirt on both sides, and innocence trapped in the middle.
