Saga Galactic Civil War

It's been established that the war in the OT (Rebellion vs. Empire) was called the Galactic Civil War. This never really made sense to me. In my opinion, it makes more sense to call it the Galactic Revolution. The Clone Wars seemed more like the real Galactic Civil War. Anybody else agree with me?

 

Apart from the uncomfortable connotations that accompany the term 'revolution' that may have frightened away audiences during the Cold War (Marxism, socialism, communism etc), the Alliance considered themselves a legitimate government, & we, as an audience, should consider themselves to be so as well. They're the good guys, & they were simply trying to overthrow an evil regime & return democracy to the galaxy, i.e. restore the Republic. They weren't actually interested in destroying what was there & creating a new government with themselves in charge, simply going back to the way things were. The American, French & Russian Revolutions changed everything completely in situations where true democracy had never existed in the first place.

The Empire would have considered them rebels or revolutionaries, the Alliance would have considered themselves the legitimate caretakers of the galaxy. Hence, a civil war. And yes, the CW was a civil war as well.

 

My guess is that it became known as the Galactic Civil War only after the fact, it seems like a term historians would come up with. I don't believe it was referred to as such universally, at least not while it was being fought. I am sure that it was presented in the Imperial Media as "the rebellion" if not a series of acts of terrorism by malcontents, hostile aliens, ex-sepetarists etc. The character of the conflict seemed to change drastically after the destruction of the second death star becoming more closely related to our perceptions of a civil war with more and more systems joining the New Republic.

 

It's just a name. Our real-life wars are similarly (and retroactively) given the titles we know them as after the fact to give people a common point of reference. For example, no one called WWI "World War One" while it was happening, but you have to refer to it as something in the history books. The American Civil War and how it became known as such, provides an even better analogy to the Galactic Civil War.

from Wiki re: Naming the Civil War:

"The most common name, particularly in modern American usage, is simply "the Civil War". Although used rarely during the war, the term "War Between the States" became widespread afterward in the Southern United States. During and immediately after the war, Northern forces often used the term "War of the Rebellion", while the Southern equivalent was "War for Southern Independence". The latter regained some currency in the late 20th century, but has again fallen out of use. Other terms often reflect a more explicitly partisan view of events, such as "War of Northern Aggression", used by some Southerners, or the "Freedom War", used by their black counterparts to reflect the celebratory nature of Juneteenth, which marked the end of the war."

So based on that, it's fair to assume the term "Galactic Civil War" is just the name that was most widely accepted in the GFFA, but that various regional and political views likely provided several alternative, albeit less widely-used names for the events.

Really though, I think it's a safe assumption at this point to accept the most logical real-world explanation: Lucasfilm has to call it something to differentiate it from the Clone Wars and all of the other various eras that have been explored in the GFFA.

 

Pretty much this. It's easy to observe from an out of universe POV that the Empire and Palpatine were illegitimate. In-universe, not really.

 

Darth Nub, and JonYo both make excellent points. George Lucas studied world history avidly, and was drawn to Julies Caesars time, which helped him get the ideals of the Galactic Empire, then he was thinking of the chancellor, and drew heavily from Adolf Hitler and the nazis. For the most part it was Caesar who was influential in drawing up the conflicts in the movies. The revolts after Julies had once became emperor, is the same Palpatine had with the Galactic Civil War. Caesar was betrayed by his right hand man, Mark Anthony, as Darth Sidious was betrayed by by Vader.

 

When was it first named the Galactic Civil War?

 

Even the American Revolution was a civil war, as well.

 

Digging up old threads huh?

 

The Clone Wars was a manufactured sham war, courtesy of Sidious, but most people in the galaxy didn't know that for a long time. I do agree with you, however, that the Clone War was a civil war. I would prefer the term Galactic Revolution as opposed to Galactic Civil War. Sounds better. That said, it was a true civil war that was beyond Sidious's control.