It's widely believed to be true that when Disney and CEO Bob Iger bought the rights to Star Wars, they completely abandoned George Lucas's original vision for the sequel trilogy. There have been reports that Kathleen Kennedy herself actually thew Lucas's treatments of Episodes 7-9 in the trash, and told him they were moving forward with their own vision for the sequels. Fast forward 7 years, and to the untrained eye...it may seem like this is indeed the case. After the extremely controversial release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, many fans have been left with the feeling that Disney doesn't even understand Star Wars, and that they have turned their back on everything George Lucas set Star Wars up to be with his first six films.

I say the untrained eye, because at least to me, most of this anger and rage coming from the "fanbase" is completely unwarranted and may not even exist if they could just do a little bit of research and digging for themselves. Alas, that is often too big a task for most of the modern world, so I decided to take this task upon myself to complete. It's actually astonishing how far a little bit of research can reveal. What if I told you that not only did Disney NOT completely abandon George Lucas's vision for the sequels, but that the sequel trilogy actually REVOLVES around the main concepts that George presented them when they first bought his brainchild.

Allow me to explain.

The Poem

This entire idea actually entered my brain long ago...2015 to be exact. I had picked up a copy of The Force Awakens from my local library (yes those still exist) and had opened it up for the first time only to find the most curious of poems written on the very first Page. It goes a little something like this:

"First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight."

-- Journal of the Whills, 7:477

Being the crazed Star Wars fan I am, I immediately went into a researching frenzy...foaming at the mouth for any knowledge I could absorb about what this "journal of the Whills" was and who these mysterious "Whills" even were in the first place. What I found was most interesting indeed. I learned that the concept of the Whills were originally thought up by Lucas himself as a race of beings existing at the microscopic level that were, in essence, the force itself. Here is Lucas explaining his original intentions for the saga as a whole and how the Whills originally fit into the larger picture.

"Originally, I was trying to have the story be told by somebody else (an immortal being known as a Whill); there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events. I eventually dropped this idea, and the concepts behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the Journal of the Whills."

--George Lucas

Well that certainly explains the title crawls.

This would have tied nicely together with the other supremely controversial idea that Lucas introduced into the prequel trilogy...the Midichlorians. Hated almost universally by all Star Wars fans as a contradictory (and less interesting) explanation of how the force actually works, it seems after a bit of research that this wasn't even the original intention of Lucas when it pertains to the Midichlorians and their place within the larger Star Wars universe. See, the Midichlorians were actually tied tightly together with the Whills themselves...acting almost as the "messengers" for these micro-beings.

"The midi-chlorians are the ones that communicate with the Whills. The Whills, in a general sense, they are the Force."

-- George Lucas

This idea is even expanded upon in Episode 1: The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon is explaining the Midichlorians to young Anakin. Perhaps the blind rage of the fans has caused them to overlook this little quote:

"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you."

--Qui-Gon Jin to Anakin

It is even stated by Yoda in the Revenge of the Sith Illustrated Screenplay that Qui Gon had learned the secret to immortality through the teachings of a Whill who had discovered that very secret.

"The secret of the Ancient Order of the Whills, he studied."

-- Yoda

"The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed."

-- Qui-Gon Jinn

Lucas is on record stating that all these concepts would have been tied together nicely with his inclusion of the Whills in his version of the sequel trilogy that we never got. However, if Disney threw away his original ideas and treatments of these forgotten films...why would they include an excerpt from the Journal of the Whills on the very first page of the novelization of their version of the sequel trilogy? It would be one thing if they had just included the poem with no reference for where it came from...but they made absolutely certain that people knew that it came from The Journal of the Whills, and if there's one thing I've learned about the new Disney Star Wars after countless hours of research, it's that they don't just drop things in major titles like that for no reason. Almost everything that has been happening in the new cannon has been tied together with a predetermined plan, and they have been dropping these little hits for literal YEARS. This poem is perhaps the most important of these hints. Let me explain what I think the poem itself actually means, and how it describes the beginning middle, and end of not only the sequel trilogy...but the larger saga as a whole.......

What It All Means

After a bit of thought, I realized something spectacular about this poem. It actually describes the beginning, middle, and end of the sequel trilogy AND the entire saga as a whole. It's a nice nod to George Lucas's explanation of why things within the Star Wars universe seem to repeat themselves. The following excerpt is taken from a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the prequel trilogy:

"You see the echo of where it's all gonna go...It's like poetry, sort of. They rhyme."

-- George Lucas

So not only is including a poem taken from the Journal of the Whills honoring Lucas and his original version of the films...but the poem itself is actually honoring how he presented the films in a poetry-like fashion, with certain events echoing across the generations into sequential films. Absolutely brilliant on Disney's part, and completely contradictory to what these rabid fans are claiming. Let's break this puppy down.

"First comes the day"

This in the scope of the sequel trilogy is obviously the first film. A lighthearted return to the heart of Star Wars and what made it so special in the first place. Full of humor, happy music, and thrill where the good guy and bad guy play tug of war for a few hours only to have the good guy win. Fun...but predictable. Things are always clearer in the day.

In the scope of the larger saga, however, this could be viewed as the larger part of the prequel trilogy, and the years leading up to those events. This era of "daylight" can be best described by Obi-Wan as he explains to Luke just who the Jedi are and what their legacy was up to that point in the galaxy:

"For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire."

Not only does this accurately fit the "daylight" theme we keep talking about, but he also literally mentions "the dark times" and uses "the empire" as an analogy to these dark times. This leads directly into the next line of the poem....

Then comes the night

These are the "dark times" that Old Ben refers to. The time of war and tribulation within the galaxy...where death and dark dominance reigned supreme. This is perhaps the part of the saga that fans are the most familiar with, so I'll skip on telling you just how dark things got.

In the smaller scope of the sequel trilogy though, this is the second film... The Last Jedi. This film is about as dark as Star Wars ever dares to get while still claiming to be a movie for children. We had the day...and now comes the night, but only....

After the darkness
Shines through the light

now for the most part, this can be taken as some sort of prophetic declaration of how these events are actually supposed to occur. This leads me to believe that the Jedi have read these poems and have taken them to be the "prophecies" they keep mentioning throughout the lore. This would coincide with their knowledge of the Midichlorians and their relations to the Whills themselves. However, after watching The Force Awakens again, I noticed something peculiar about how J.J. Abrams framed the sequence of events directly before and after Kylo stabs his father, and it reminded me of this part of the poem....take a look at the progression of shots below.

......

THE DARKNESS LITERALLY SHINES THROUGH THE LIGHT!! This can be taken as the exact moment the trilogy shifts from "day" to "night". Some really cool imagery here from J.J. and it gives much more meaning, depth, and significance to Han's death, where most triggered fans had been saying it felt empty.

Now this part of the poem can be broken down even further into more echos. I would propose that each trilogy has had a moment like this. A significant one that altered the course of history forever. In the prequels, it was Anakin cutting off Mace Windu's hand and joining his daddy, Papa Palpatine, and in the original trilogy, it was when Luke's innocence was cut off along with his hand and he found out that his daddy and grand-daddy were actually the supreme evil rulers of the galaxy. In the sequel trilogy, it has been duly noted that murdering his daddy split Kylo Ren "to the bone" and that he became "unbalanced", which is by far the most important aspect of Kylo's character at this point, and it also seems to be the driving force going forward.

Notice how all of these include daddies.
And murdering something.

"You see the echo of where it's all gonna go...It's like poetry, sort of. They rhyme."

The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight

This final part of the poem is the key to understand how Disney will approach episode IX and the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga. We have seen the day. We have seen the night. We have seen both sides of the force in a constant tug of war for power this entire time and if there isn't some solution, death and war are destined to remain imminent until the struggle tears the galaxy apart. "The difference they say..." (the difference being the struggle between the two power structures) "Is only made right..." ("right" being true balance in the force) "by the resolving of gray" (black and white mixed together makes gray...good and evil must become one) "Through refined Jedi sight".

Now what intrigues me most about this entire poem is that last line..."through refined Jedi sight". When I first read this poem back in 2015, I thought there was no way Disney was going to change the way of the Jedi, but after watching these first two films...and then going back and analyzing the prequels and OG trilogy under a closer microscope...I now realize this was inevitable. The Jedi failed. Miserably. It has been stated across various Star Wars media that although Yoda had good intentions, he inevitably caused the downfall of the Jedi due to his ignorance of the true teachings of the Whills. Yoda was fearful of fear itself, and the emotions that came with it such as love, envy, anger, and hate. While most will agree that those emotions can be destructive, what they rarely consider is how much more destructive they can be if they are forced to be held in (Case and point: Anakin Skywalker). Yoda failed to embrace the true teachings of the Whills, and in doing so, lead thousands of innocent peaceful warriors to their deaths and kick-started an endless galactic war. The only way to fix this is through "refined jedi sight"...meaning the Jedi must go back to the way they were thousands and thousands of years ago...when they first discovered the teachings of the Whills. The teachings of the Whills obviously lean heavily on balance, stating that the force will ALWAYS balance itself, and that when the scales start to tip too heavily in one direction, it'll find a way to tip it back the other way. In essence, by training an entire legion of Jedi in only the ways of the light while suppressing all negative emotion and forbidding any knowledge in the dark side, Yoda essentially helped create the very thing he was trying to destroy.

The Temple of Kyber as seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Also known as "The Temple of the Whills".

A collapsed statue located just outside the Temple of the Whills on Jedha. This can also be seen in Rogue One

This was even confirmed by Yoda himself in The Last Jedi when he sets the ancient tree ablaze, much to Luke Skywalker's dismay. The reason for the destruction of the tree is purely symbolic, as we later come to find out that Rey actually took the books with her (Yoda is aware of this). The common theme in The Last Jedi is "letting old things die" and although we are led to believe that this is the misguided mantra of the movie's villain, it may prove to be the very cornerstone upon which the new Jedi order is formed. Watch these two key scenes taken from The Last Jedi that confirm this very idea and help set up the new Order that will be formed in Episode IX:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yepMuMoAKpA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZRCIjMWRLg

"So it is time...time for the Jedi to end?"

"...Time it is."

The Last Jedi and Beyond

In George Lucas's original sequel trilogy plans, the Whills and their world were heavily involved, and according to all the evidence presented in this article...as well as countless other examples from the various other Disney Star Wars media (Comic Books, T.V. shows, video games, etc.)...it seems that they are indeed following Lucas's plans after all. Perhaps they won't be making the Whills "microscopic beings" and the chances of Disney Incorporating the quantum realm in the Star Wars Episode 9 are probably zero, but mark my words, The Whills WILL be involved in some capacity. Although not mentioned by name in Episode 8...they were literally all throughout that film and it was so obviously being shoved into our faces.

The sad part? No one seems to have noticed.

Let's start with the most blatant and obvious reference to the Whills in TFA...the "sacred Jedi texts". Yep, I think these texts are actually the writings and prophecies of the Whills. In fact, I'm fairly certain the very poem I keep bringing up will appear in one of the books that Rey now possesses on the Falcon and that she will discover it in Episode IX. These texts contain the original teachings of the Jedi and the knowledge necessary to rebuild the order the correct way this time. I say the correct way, because Disney is trying very hard to let us know that if the Jedi order are to survive...they cannot keep training young Jedi the way they have been for the past few hundred years. This idea is highlighted by Luke's tragic story of his failed attempt at training a new generation. He tried to do it the same way Yoda did, and that's why it was destined to fail in the same way, and give rise to an even more powerful darkness.

"You see the echo of where it's all gonna go...It's like poetry, sort of. They rhyme."

The idea is bounced around a few more times throughout the film, the most blatant of which is DJ's ramblings about there "being no sides" as a kind of meta-narrative/analogy to the status of wars in the real world. This lends further evidence that Disney is planning a radical change to the way the Jedi operate..blending the light and the dark to form the "Gray Jedi"...a concept that has already been teased in The Clone Wars television show. Notice the similarities between Ashoka Tano's "Gray Jedi" outfit and the outfit that Rey wears in The Last Jedi

I think Disney has been setting this up from the very beginning. All starting with that poem...

By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi Sight

Now as for how Disney will actually incorporate the Whills into Episode IX is anyone's guess. There have been some pretty wild leaks and theories that have led people to believe that Snoke himself is a Whill and that he is simply doing what is necessary to ensure that the Galaxy stays balanced this time...by setting up Kylo and Rey on a collision course that will merge the two ideologies. Some have even suggested that Snoke is actually the same Whill that Qui-Gon learned the secret of Immortality from. If you haven't checked out my article on Snoke...go ahead and give it a read. I think Snoke being a Whill is very plausible and could be woven well into the fabric of the saga. This idea becomes even more interesting once you consider the following quote from Snoke himself in The Last Jedi:

"Oh, still that fiery spit of hope? You have the spirit of a true Jedi! And because of that... you must die."

Snoke says this to Rey just after she charges at him with a ignited red lightsaber. Seems far from how Yoda would have taught her to behave. Furthermore, how would he presume to know the True teachings of the Jedi unless he studied them himself...or perhaps even wrote them.

"Originally, I was trying to have the story be told by somebody else (an immortal being known as a Whill); there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events...."

VERY interesting indeed. Something to chew on until we get to the Episode IX release for sure.

I can't presume to know what Disney is going to do with Episode IX, or where they will take these characters, but what I do know is that the Whills will be involved, and that Disney (contrary to popular belief) is actually honoring George Lucas's original vision as much as possible while still having make sense. The story isn't over yet, and once being angry at Star Wars on internet threads ceases to be popular, I think people will finally come to their senses and realize this. Only time will tell.

Until then...

May the Force be with you.

...and

-- SAF