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From A New Hope:

LUKE: I can't get involved! I've got work to do! It's not that I like the Empire. I hate it! But there's nothing I can do about it right now. It's such a long way from here.

At this point, Luke lived on Tatooine, a planet far away from most of the Empire, that had only very recently began being militarized.

Were there any specific events that made him out-right hate the Empire? If not, how did he find out enough about them to form this strong opinion?

Rogue Jedi
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    He lives with uncle and aunt. They likely gave him an impression about the death of his mother or parents. He also had a friend who joined the rebellion - and who your friends are often determines something about you. There are good arguments that overlords who build death stars are bad for the general prosperity and peace of the galaxy. – EngrStudent Mar 18 '16 at 01:40
  • Well, Biggs joined the Rebels so maybe it was Biggs who was filling Luke's head with pro-Rebellion anti-Empire thoughts. :) – RedCaio Mar 18 '16 at 01:40
  • The dialogue in ANH really makes Luke seem like a typical confused teenager - he wants to join the Imperial Academy (and is upset when his Uncle refuses to allow him to that year) but later on says he hates the Empire. Or its just bad writing. – Moo Mar 18 '16 at 13:58
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    @Moo - He wants to fly professionally and the Imperial Academy is the only game in town. – Valorum Mar 18 '16 at 15:15
  • @Richard "professionally" and "as a military pilot" are not the same thing. I have no doubt that there is the equivalent of Fedex in the Star Wars universe with which he can fly professionally. As he gets dumped into an X-Wing with zero hours on the type, we can surmise that Luke has already learned to fly... – Moo Mar 18 '16 at 15:21
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    @Moo - He flies his T-16, basically a short-range sub-orbital flier with small cannons which he famously uses to "bulls-eye" womp rats – Valorum Mar 18 '16 at 15:24
  • The general impression I get from Star Wars: Rebels is that pretty much everyone hates the Empire. They're mean and nasty and none too clever about hiding it. – Valorum Mar 18 '16 at 15:28
  • @Richard which allows him to fly a fully fledged military spacecraft by the end of the film with little to no training, so its not like we are talking about going from a Cessna 172 to a Boeing 737 here. Unless you can point to some material which suggests that Luke managed to rack up several hundred hours on the X-Wing at some point before Yavin...? – Moo Mar 18 '16 at 15:28
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    @Moo - In the novelisation and earlier versions of the script, Luke spends some time in a simulator familiarising himself with the X-Wing. The T-16 is described as being an almost ideal 'trainer' for the X-wing since they're both designed by the same company, a bit like graduating from a Hawk to a Typhoon. – Valorum Mar 18 '16 at 15:50
  • @moo - You might be interested in "Why did the rebels allow Luke to fly an X-Wing against the death star?" – Valorum Mar 18 '16 at 15:54
  • @Richard I'm still not convinced that that means the Imperial Academy is his only route to flying "professionally", nor that T-16 hours aren't transferable to something more than an X-Wing and thus gives Luke a head start on other pilot candidates. This isn't about why the Rebels allowed Luke to fly against the Death Star, its about why he flip flops between wanting to join the Academy and hating the Empire - the Academy is not his only route to flying professionally, just (in his mind) in the military (although we do see independent military pilots in the films). – Moo Mar 18 '16 at 15:56
  • @Moo All of his friends either went to or are at the Imperial Academy. – Rogue Jedi Mar 18 '16 at 16:38
  • North Korea has very little impact on the lives of anyone living outside of the immediate area, and yet lots of people all over the globe have strong feelings about them. – user45623 Mar 19 '16 at 09:37

3 Answers3

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Luke has grown up watching the rise of the Empire. He witnesses first hand as the Empire comes in and occupies Tatooine. One can assume that he has been hearing the stories of the Clone wars and the overthrow of the Jedi as the peacekeepers of the galaxy all of his life. Any military occupation of one's homeland is certainly enough to cause hatred toward them.

It is obvious that his best friend Biggs has no love for the Empire either. There is a deleted scene where Biggs explains to Luke how he is defecting from the Empire to join the rebellion. You can tell by the conversation that both of them have previously thought about joining the rebellion.

Luke at the Tosche Station

Mykewlname
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Although the implication is that he's hated the Empire for a long time (almost to the point that it goes without saying), it's perhaps worth noting that he just found out that an agent of the Empire killed his father.

If that's not a good enough reason for disliking them, I don't know what is.

LUKE: How did my father die?

BEN: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct...

Valorum
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A behind-the-scenes answer: One thing to keep in mind is that absolutely everything George Lucas ever writes is about the Vietnam War. Scout Walkers tripping over trees? American vehicles in Vietnam. Primitive Ewoks defeating a technologically superior military? The Vietcong.

In this case, Lucas was likely making a jab about all of the Americans who opposed the war but didn't really do anything about it.

http://nypost.com/2014/09/21/how-star-wars-was-secretly-george-lucas-protest-of-vietnam/

As for an in-character sort of answer... lots of people have strong feelings about North Korea, Isreal/Palestine, Russia, Serbia, etc etc etc, even when the affairs of those nations don't directly involve them.

user45623
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  • Sigh... why the downvote? – user45623 Mar 19 '16 at 19:51
  • Upvote from me. However, your "in-character sort of answer" doesn't seem so "in-character" to me. In the eight episodes I've seen so far, I haven't seen anything about how people in Tattooine get their news. – Alonso del Arte Jan 11 '20 at 20:13
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    @Alonso del Arte: Maybe by word of mouth? As a teenager living in a backwater dump near a spaceport, news that comes in with the spaceships is probably some of the juiciest entertainment available. Also deleted scenes and such clearly establish that Luke and his friends often discuss the war and dream of running away to join up - Biggs actually does, and is present at the Battle of Yavin. – user45623 Jan 13 '20 at 03:39