BTS The Whills

The Millennium Falcon is in the battle at the beginning of First Contact, which wasn't directed by JJ. The only thing that links Star Trek and Star Wars is ILM and they love easter eggs. They're just a bit of fun and not intended to be canon.

 

Really?? I hadn't noticed ANY of that. So ET's species is in TPM as a senate species? And R2 and 3PO are in two Indy movies?? I'm going to have to go back and watch for these lol.

 

The great thing is, they seem quite at home in the Star Wars universe. It was one of those little gems I liked in TPM.

 

And the ET Senator is supposedly named Grebleips.

 

Based on the deleted Qui-Gon line, I'd guess that The Whills would be an ancient race that are at one with nature (no, not Ewoks ) and are more atuned to The Force than any other beings.

The Whills have been in the back of Lucas' mind for so long, they're bound to "show up" eventually.

Lucas promised (lol) that we'd get a Force Ghost explanation in Episode III. I've no doubt The Whills would have had something to do with it.

 

Another thing I will have to find!

 

I was always frustrated that Lucas never got around to explaining the 'one-with-the-Force' thing. It's easy enough to infer the basics: Qui-Gon figured out or was taught a way to detach his spirit from the material world and enter the Force, and he helped Yoda and Obi-Wan refine this so their bodies could do likewise. Why Qui-Gonn was cut from Episode III, though, I just will never understand. Honestly it angered me; his passing was clearly meant to mean something and his voice appearing in AotC suggested he had some kind of consciousness after death, but Lucas was just too darn distracted to follow through and give us the satisfaction of even a simple line from him. Why was that so hard for him?

Anyway, I'm not particularly concerned with what is canon and what isn't, because the ultimate arbiter of canon is George Lucas and he seemingly can't remember his own story. What interests me is what potentially makes sense, and I think with Qui-Gon's cut line regarding the Whills, it seems very feasible that these beings are some kind of spiritual entity that he managed to communicate with and learn from through his rather different perspective on the Force. I have long been interested in the Journal of the Whills concept, it could have been a nice framework for the saga, and I always assumed the crawls at the beginning of each movie were meant to be part of that journal. At this point there's probably nothing to be gained bringing them into the story, though. If they weren't in Episode I as a framing device, there's nowhere to really insert them in that way without it seeming very weird and disconnected from the series.

 

And you were right to assume that!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Making_of_Star_Wars_Revenge_of_the_Sith

 

This is awfully confusing, but nevertheless intriguing. I like the idea that R2 is the one who relays this critical legend. A seemingly unimportant, mass-produced droid, who coincidentally happens to be at the right place at the right time during the galaxy's biggest struggles. It makes sense that he never got his memory wiped when 3PO did either.

Also, the very idea greatly expands the Saga... to assume that the events of the Skywalkers was only one small tale in an even larger universe really puts it in perspective. Come to think of it, the movies themselves may be re-enactments based of those tales, but now I'm just over-thinking it.

 

I remember around the time TPM was in production reading in a few places about how Lucas had shot the OT in somewhat of a documentary style. I was never convinced, I just don't see how it could be accurately described that way, but if so it would be interesting to imagine the films being a sort of docu-drama to entertain the Whills.

 

No you're not! If you look at Star Wars timelines, a lot of them include a bit at the very end telling how a spaceship crashed in the desert on earth and a young George Lucas found the journal of the Whills there.

 

Funny how it was Lucas himself who found them. I always wondered if Luke was something of an author avatar for Lucas, and he does in a way come across a message from a spaceship that crashes in the desert.

 

Who do you think 'Luke' was named after?

 

I've always thought just that.

 

"George... George's real name is Luke Starkiller. The amount of times he tried to write himself into the script is just embarrassing,"

 

I was reluctant to make that leap because it just seemed too on the nose, but then I saw the PT.

 

Authors very often write themselves into their stories.

 

Didn't know about that. All I remembered was that they said an explaination of some kind regarding the Jedi "ghosts" or spirits, and that concept of Immortality, would be addressed.

I see your point on the whole. It remains a possibility, although as you said, all this is pure speculation on our part.

To me, actually, regarding the few things Lucas told about the concept of the ST in the early 80's, as considerably vague and changing as it was of course, there is not much to suggest that such a link between the PT and the ST was either envisioned or thought to be necessary (hook for the audience), and that the concept of "Whills" or Jedi Immortality issue would arouse in the ST, even as a minor subplot. Plus at the time the ST was still toyed with by Lucas in the early 80's, the 3 trilogies were supposed to be rather different and pretty independant from each other, both stylistically and storywise.

But as always here, there is no real evidence on when and what was in Lucas' head when he came up with those lines in the script...Except that the Jedi "ghosts" issue would be dealt with in ROTS some way, as he and R. McCallum delclared.

 

I know that, and I don't begrudge Lucas doing so, but usually authors try to avoid doing it in such an obvious way that they pretty much name their main character after themselves. Naked author avatars rarely turn out to be a good thing.

 

I think the Whills as higher beings in tune with the Force would be interesting area to explore in the new Saga. The PT added midi-chlorians, and I'm sure that the Whills would go over much better than midi-chlorians did given that the Whills correlate with the idea of a supreme being and gods found in most religions. One change I would make is that Whills should not simply be writing history but also actually creating history whenever they write. This would make them akin to the Fates from Greek mythology.

Myself, I like the midi-chlorians. It goes back Descartes and his belief that there must be part of the human body that must connect the soul and body together. Midi-chlorians connec the Force to the body in the same way. The only thing I didn't like about midis is that you can measure midi-chlorians to tell an individual's potential. That seems too simplistic to me.

Another thing adding the Whills would do would make C3-P0's story to the Ewoks more interesting (a scene I've always liked.) Right now, when C3-P0 does that it's the telling of a story within a story, but if the Whills are added, that would make it a story within a story within a story.

 

"COUGH!" 'Luke' "COUGH!" Skywalker...

 

The one in the back looks like he's been doing some bench pressing. He's got some pecs!

 

He's their Arnold

 

In that case, that E.T. is going to eventually drop from politics, get involved with holo-films again, and then get become dragged into a public scandal for cheating on his wife with his maid