Just wanted to lay out a few of the options I’ve heard floating around regarding Rey’s story in the movie, as well as share some bigger thoughts regarding Ascendent.

So, these are some of alternative reveal options I’ve heard so far:

Rey Palpatine (Original)
Rey Nobody, Palpatine saw her future and ordered to have her killed/taken.
Not Palpatine’s biological grandchild, but created her through the dark side, like an anti-Chosen One.
Rey Nobody, but she killed her parents. (Remove connection with Ochi).
Rey Nobody, but Kylo killed her parents.
Rey Nobody, and the main conflict deals with destiny and visions of her future.

A 7th option might be worth trying with initial edits is to just try and cut everything necessary to remove the Rey Palpatine connection, and don’t try to set up some kind of dramatic reveal. At this point we’re all trying to replace the Rey Palpatine reveal with something else, but the challenge with that will be to create new shots and dialogue that fit these alternative narratives. Something like this idea would mostly require making Rey and Kylo’s Kijimi/Destroyer and hangar interactions more action-focused and brief, as well as cutting other brief lines throughout the film.

In regards to discussing it on Hal’s thread, I think this approach might fit best with the minimalism of Restructured and Legendary. Both of Hal’s edits have worked well at addressing the major issues of their films, but not changing too much, which allowed those edits to function well as foundations for other editors to build more radical ideas on.

So working along those lines, I think it would be great to collaborate on making the minimal changes necessary to remove Rey Palpatine, and use this as a basis for future editors to explore some of those alternatives like I mentioned above. I know Hal’s original post mentioned he was a little iffy on deviating from the canon too much, so maybe Ascendent isn’t the right project for this idea.

BUT, I will say that while Restructured, for example, doesn’t get rid of Starkiller Base, which was arguably one of biggest gripes people had with the film, it did drastically change its position in the film to make the overall film better. I think Rey Palpatine was one of the biggest issues with TROS for many people (and Ben Solo dying being another, imo), and I think it would be difficult to improve that plot point outside of just removing it completely.

Also, since Hal is rather busy with his personal life, we could use Ascendant as an opportunity to collaborate like many here did on Restructured. And Hal could chime in every once in and awhile on the direction the project is going in. Restructured gave us a clear goal that multiple people could work towards, which was focused on improving Starkiller’s function in the story. Ascendent could work similarly, with the goal being to simply remove any connection to Rey and Palpatine (as well as other popular changes, like the other ideas Hal mentioned in his initial post).

I don’t want us to take over your edit, Hal, but since you’ve already released two other edits for the sequel trilogy and you’re busy with life right now, it might be a good way for us to help you round out your trilogy, and work together to improve what is arguably the movie in this trilogy that is in most need of an edit. But again, I can’t recall your stance on Rey Palpatine and I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

So basically, the objective could be to collaborate on making only the most necessary changes to remove Rey Palpatine, and make other popular changes, basically as an edit that addresses the major gripes people had with the movie, without becoming too radically different from what we got.