The transition is something I was curious about. One of those things where you’re not sure if it only works because you’ve been looking at it so long. Will look into alternatives as it seems like it’s not working for people.
What’s your plan for Palpatine’s plan in the movie? Maybe I’m just slow but I never worked out why he asked Kylo to kill Rey. He clearly doesn’t actually want her dead; he wants her on Exegol so he can ritualistically bodysnatch her or whatever. What if Kylo had run Rey through and come back to claim his new fleet? Was Palps just banking on Kylo caring too much about Rey? Palpatine’s prequel plans were hardly airtight either, but I don’t really see what he actually wants from Kylo. Once they’re together he uses the dyad - was that his plan all along?
It’s a tricky thing because the obvious solution is have Palpatine tell Kylo to bring him Rey, but it makes Kylo’s story a lot less interesting. I suspect this is why they changed it to be the way it is. It’s pretty convoluted, but yeah there’s probably a couple different explanations, and arguably it’s on par with his 4D chess reverse psychology prequel plans. If someone can come up with an alternative I’m ears, but like I said the only one I can figure lessens Kylo’s story and agency.