Discussion The Journal of the Whills and the Anthologies

I got to thinking about The Journal of the Whills and an interesting thing came to me.

First, here is my headcanon for how the Saga should go as it pertains to Luke.

Episode 8: He helps train Rey who ultimately decides neither to focus on the Light or the Dark Side. Rey chooses neither. Luke then decides to go into permanent exile and agrees not to train anyone else. Instead, he will spend the remainder of his life hunting the history of the Jedi/Sith.

Episode 12: Luke returns with the key information needed to finally defeat The Emperor(who is now in Kylo Ren via Snoke if you've followed my theories), such that he stays dead. That information is then used by Rey and Company to rid a GFFA of the manipulators of The Dark Side for good and finally bring balance to the force.

Luke then creates The Journal of the Whills from his expeditions as a history for future generations as to how a GFFA went wrong such that nothing of its like ever occurs again.

Now here is the Big Idea. One of the problems with the Anthologies has been they've needed to tie stories to existing canon within the movies themselves to have a hook that they can be sold on. The first movie deals with how the Death Star Plans were obtained. The second movie details Han Solo's backstory which will inevitably deal with the Kessel Run. There are rumors of a Boba Fett or Obi Wan Kenobi movie. All those ideas are great, but they aren't exactly the stories the EU provided because cinematically things need to build on what has come before. Suddenly setting something in Ancient Jedi times or the recent past is a hard sell to base a $200+ million investment upon.

What if The Journal of the Whills is used as a universal hook to solve that problem? Instead of tying it to our modern world as Lucas intended(which was always kind of cheesy), instead use it as a framework to be able to jump into different eras and stories of a GFFA that don't pertain to the Saga, basically giving them free reign to detail the past cinematically. You can even have Luke provide very short voice over(like.. not much longer than a Saga scroll) at the start to set the stage so to say.

That then allows you to continue making movies about pretty much any time and any place in a GFFA that a writer can dream of, while bringing the viewer in from a known point so the transition is seemless. Then as you make these movies, you can tie-in various familiar elements of Star Wars(Maz or Yoda hundreds of years ago) as needed, and keep continuity straight so the stories interconnect.

 

Great Post. But i doubt they'll bring back the emperor. And i think Luke has already begun his work at the Journal after the destruction of his jedi academy with him searching for jedi lore and taking a wider view of the force at Akch-To.

 

Thanks. And in my head canon, there is no doubt they'll bring back The Emperor, but it won't be won't you're expecting. Typically when I say The Emperor, people seem to be thinking That Guy from Return of the Jedi and the Prequels. What i'm referring to is the dark spirit of The Emperor that got split from the body of Palpatine when Vader threw him into the bright light at the end of RoTJ. It was visualized by the blue stuff that came racing out. That, in turn, was able to eventually make it into the body of Snoke, which will end up in Kylo Ren by the end of 9(when Rey ignorantly kills Snoke with the lightsaber, allowing the spirit to go fully into KR), essentially completely suppressing the Ben Solo personality. This is why Ben as KR was shown as essentially a petulant child, so that there is a contrast of Before and After. Kylo Ren will be a much different person(the one who ruled the galaxy in 1-6), in 10-12 than he was in 7-9(Ben Solo), and it'll take some decent acting skill from Driver to pull off.

The best analogy is LOST, where John Locke ends up being taken over and played by the Man In Black/SnokeSmoke Monster. Similar will happen to Kylo Ren/Dark Spirit of the Emperor and per my theory Luke will come up with the information needed to make sure that the spirit can't leave the body and go into another, and how to weaken it to the point Ben Solo can come to the fore(redemption), so that Kylo Ren(along with Ben) can then be killed by Rey, ending the story.

Its really not that different from what we got in 1-6 except Vader and Palpatine were two separate people when Vader resisted long enough to kill Palpatine. Ben Solo will have to push The Emperor out of control of his body long enough for Rey to kill them both.

 

Interesting idea. But imo it would be more fascinating if Snoke is an adversary out of the distant past of the galaxy and connected to the beginnings of the jedi and sith.

 

Except you're midway through The Episodic Saga. Think of The Saga like a train with cars that connect to each other from the start to the end. If you go and pull some villain out of nowhere, it breaks that chain. Can you do it? Sure. But what you have is essentially two trains. 1-6 and then 7-12. What you want is 1-12 in more than just scroll. The events of the ST have to carry on the events of the OT as the events of the OT carried on the events of the PT.

My way, Using the Emperor, you can make the connection between 1-6 and 7-9. Anakin and the light wins, but not completely because they didn't understand the true power of the dark side of the force. As such, The Emperor over a 30-year period is able to go from spirit to Snoke to finally achieving his ultimate revenge by making his way into the body of the grandson of the man who killed him, and returning to full power. Luke is permanently exiled and won't create more Jedi, Leia dies in 9 just after the transformation(Rey will have much guilt about this), Rey is no longer a threat and permanently changed physically(best part: can't have kids for this Saga to drag on with), and The Emperor is once again the undisputed ruler of a GFFA. He has won.

You have an unbroken chain between episodes 1-9, with 10-12 pretty much writing themselves. Rey is revealed to be a Skywalker via Jyn Erso(essentially becoming 'A New Hope' for the Skywalkers), and Rachel Skywalker and the gang(including Luke) figure out how to finally destroy That Guy for good, ending the Saga. 1-12, not 1-6 and 7-12.

Plus.. if they go with The Journal of the Whills idea, they can use it to make stories about villains and heroes in the distant past, which you find fascinating.

 

But weren't GL and later also Pablo saying that Sith can't become Force Ghosts?

The connecting elements of the trilogies for me have always been the Skywalkers and the Galactic Republic and it's successor states.

 

Per theory, I'm not saying he's a ghost. I'm saying the spirit, or soul of The Emperor was tethered to a GFFA by some physical means long enough to get him into a new body. That's how he 'cheated death', something Palpatine already essentially claimed knowledge of in Episode 3. And if the Good Guys have a way of coming back from the dead, its reasonable for the Bad Guy to have a way of making sure he doesn't die. And the Bad Guy that doesn't seem to fully die(or death not being permanent) is also a trope as old as dirt.

Use the Emperor's Royal Guard, the red robed hooded guys that came off the ship in RoTJ, and who were conveniently not in the throne room, to explain it. Perhaps he kept a piece of himself in each of them, and that's where his spirit went, and then they got him out in the ensuing chaos /shrug. Its a Hollywood movie, not Shakespeare, and most of the time reversing a death is tenuous at best, but with Movie Magic, you buy it. After all, how did Palpatine survive being microwaved by Mace Windu to begin with? Who cares. Its an entertaining story.

As per the connecting elements. Skywalkers are characters, not plots. Galactic Republic and its successor states are locations and characters, not plots. The plot of the story, how everything changes, is what needs to be unbroken with one thing begating another from the start of the story(Episode I) to the end(Episode XII). Its a pretty universal concept in fiction.