Whites, Oranges, Reds, and Silvers are the Primary Colors of the Rebel Alliance
They usually give a safe, secure, positive presence, their colors are soft, warm, and yet firm and serious, it also has a few sharp blues here and there, it makes the ships and buildings nice to look at, nice to be in, and the flagship Home One has a feel of a sanctuary.
Now take a look at the Empire, its Death Star II
Greys, little Whites, Carbon Black, little accents of Blood Red and Copper are the Empire's Colors
A very strict and cold colors, harsh and oppressive, also it should be noted that the Nazi's had colors of grey and black with bits of red mostly with the SS, which some say the Empire's motif was based on, I agree more or less but thats a different debate. The whole point is that you can tell this formers-Republic has been infected and corrupted by the Sith, and if you play the Knights Of The Old Republic series, the Sith Empire was a lot like this, only with more black.
Pop-Culture Cinema has used this type of formula heavily when they make film franchises they want to be memorable, and I say its a rather brilliant one.
You make a very good point. I have noticed this type of technique used in a variety of films, one film I can remember off the top of my head is Traffic directed by Steven Soderbergh. This movie takes place in many different locations including Mexico. It becomes clear when the film shifts to Mexico because the director used a bright orange desert color which is very symbolic of Mexico. Obviously this is just one example of many that share this type of technique. I agree with you in that George Lucas purposely used more colorful colors such as blue, green, yellow and so on to depict the Rebels 'good guys'. These colors represent warmth and security while the colors portraying the Empire 'bad guys' are more dark and dull colors such as black and white. The colors representing the Empire are very boring and more symbolic colors of bad characters. I just want to add that the color of the Jedi's lightsabers are also very symbolic. The good guys lightsabers are blue which represents trust and loyalty, while the Dark Jedi carried red lightsabers which depicts blood and fire and can also be associated with rage and anger. I can keep going with this but this symbolic imagery is used by a variety of different directors in the film industry. By using these techniques it is much easier to follow the film and understand what is going on.
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