Rogue One The Whills

How did you feel about the reference to the Whills in Rogue One? It was brief but rather exciting. I just hope they never appear in any of the films, because it would ruin the mystery. At least they are now referenced in a movie, and not in an unfilmed scene in the ROTS screen play, or the novelization of ANH.

 

What are whills?

 

The whills are an ancient alien race that records the events of the galaxy. The main saga is actually a story that R2 is telling the whills. The whills are mentioned in the novelization to A New Hope and Revenge of the Sith. In the screenplay to Revenge of the Sith, Qui-Gon's ghost talks to Yoda about the whills. However, the scene was never even filmed.

 

It was a nod to the fans, and not a clumsy nod like these things sometimes are

 

They manifest the Whill of the Force.

 

Marvel comics has its own such race, The Watchers, and one of them went renegade. The way Snoke was presented as an elder god in appearance made em think of them, and I hope Snoke turns out to be a renegade Whill.

 

I'm not so sure that the Whills are an alien species but an other order of force sensitives besides the jedi and the sith. I believe what we saw in R1 WERE Whills and that the order has different castes like shamans and guardians.

 

I liked this reference - nice connective tissue with TCW

 

The "priestesses" in the Yoda arc of TCW might as well have been Whills. But I suspect if the Whills are ever clarified going forward the priestesses will probably be ignored.

 

I don't think they will offer too much definitive explanation on the Whills, but it seems like Lucas, at least, imagined the Priestesses and the Whills as one and the same (he said Qui-Gon learned his immortality from the Whills, but then refined that concept in TCW for the priestesses).

 

A missed opportunity...

Here they had an opportunity to explain Jedha, the history of the Jedi and the Sith, and who or what the Whills are, and not to mention Chirrut's and Baze's relationship to all this.

 

I like that they left some of that as a mystery. They don't need to explain everything - for the plot of this film all we needed to know is that Chirrut had a connection to the Force, - without being a Jedi, but based on faith - and that Baze once had this faith but had lost it. I don't think they needed to go into back story on where this faith came from, or their jobs as guardians of the temple on Jedha.


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Hopefully this is one day expanded upon in a Jedi / Sith origin film (or films, preferably).

 

My thoughts exactly. One of my favorite things about the Whills is that I ask questions and let my imagination fill the gaps. I never want them shown. I know that in the ROTS script, Qui-Gon's statements were supposed to help explain why some Jedi disappear. When Chirrut was dying, I thought that he might vanish. I think that the guardians of the Whills followed the teachings of the Whills and were devoted to protecting them. This also poses the question of how the Whills influenced the Jedi back in the early days.

 

I've actually grown to enjoy theorizing about the mysterious nature of the Whills, including some plausible theories that break the 4th wall. From what I gather, it's something much larger than even the events of the main series.

At least the small reference cements the age old term within canon and associates the group with the Jedi. Maybe it'll be expanded upon, maybe not.

 

It was interesting even if it is difficult trying to decipher their history in the place of canon. It's unclear whether or not the Shaman of the Whills is definitely for sure cannon and taught Qui-Gon how to become a Force Ghost or was one of his teachers maybe he found him first and it was he who directed him to the Priestesses. There's still a cannon page for the Shaman on Wookieepedia as well as the Journal of the Whills which is cannon because of the TFA novel and there's the Guardians of the Whills that was introduced here in Rogue One only the Ancient Order is said to be non-cannon.

Considering the idea has been mentioned and it was an idea originally from Lucas I think the Shaman could still have a chance of existing. After all the Church of the Force was supposedly an idea for Star Wars Underworld and they've already taken a lot of EU elements. Really it's taking the best elements which ones make sense or ones they think could easily make sense if changed to fit the cannon logic.

And if the Shaman of the Whills appeared in some way these would be my choices: Timothy Dalton/John Hurt/Gary Oldman (/ indicates I have more than one person in mind for the role)