i would have liked this movie to skirt the 'politics' of the star wars universe even more. the actual star wars movies were about black and white, good and evil... but a smaller more personal movie like this could afford to explore those shades of grey.
krennic struck me as the type of villain who believed he was in the right. he seemed real passionate about restoring 'peace' for the empire... but in the end i don't know if we really ever learn what he or the empire stands for.
if any of you guys have a theory i am all ears.
It's basically normal loyalty/patriotism.
In RotS, Palpatine portrayed the Jedi as a cult trying to pull off a coup to get rid of the legit elected government.
The Republic was thousands of years old. I think as far as the citizens of the Republic were concerned, the Republic and the Empire were still the same "country". They still have the same Senators and even the same flag.At first, the only difference they would have seen between Republic and the Empire was that the guy in charge started calling himself an Emperor instead of a Chancellor.
The changes were gradual, and I would guess on the more remote worlds they didn't even notice a difference between the Republic and the Empire at all. If you watch the original Star Wars, it was Luke's lifelong dream to go to the Academy. As in, the IMPERIAL Acadamy. For Luke, joining the Empire was just the normal thing to do, exactly like going to college. He didn't want to leave with Obi Wan until stormtroopers killed his family and burned his house down.
(I JUST realized...If Rogue One doesn't happen, then Luke become a TIE Fighter Pilot)
Why was the blaster part in the Death Star at the bottom instead of the top like in the og trilogy?
There's no such thing as "Up" or "Down" in outer space. The Death Star seems to have its own artificial gravity that points toward its center (like a planet).