If you haven't seen Jonathan Last's Case for the [Star Wars] Empire, it's very funny. And it's not a bad case either. It's not that Emporer Palpatine is a completely benevolent tyrant, it's that the Republic that preceded it wasn't great either. And the Rebels, most notably Princess Leia, are fighting for a return of the genetically privileged elite to power. They're royalists in the clothes of republican rebels. But of course Lucas was more interested in mythology than reality, and we love Star Wars all the more for that.