I wouldn’t say there were any ideas that were totally abandoned. Many things that were in the final evolved quite a bit as we moved through the edit.
The Palpatine contact originally was wedged in between Rey and Kylo’s final staredown. It was kind of a moment to connect all three of them, but it was also really confusing. DZ-330 who took what I did and mocked-up the more logical flow that was the path to where we ultimately landed. We also at one point had “It is your destiny” in there, but decided less is more.
At one point, there were a lot more static-y noises added to the earlier force-Skype calls to tease the final contact. It was too much, though, and became distracting, so we dialed it way down.
The first attempt at the Palpatine silhouette appearing in the cave had the two shadows of Rey’s parent merging into the silhouette of Palpatine as they walk towards the camera (using a shot from ROTJ where he walks towards Luke).