Having Palpatine have no plan for Rey would be nice because it would show him falling into the same trap the Jedi are guilty of, letting their arrogance and belief in their own power prevent them from seeing what is on the horizon.
Yeah, exactly. The Jedi didn’t see the darkness before them, and Palpatine never saw the light. He had so many plans and contingencies and forethought, he was just waiting on the death of Luke fucking Skywalker. But he couldn’t predict/perceive that thirty years into the future, a new lightside warrior would rise, backed by the Skywalker legacy. (Possibly this also implies, that he also couldn’t predict force ghosts). This particular combination of Rey backed by his great rivals is his Thermal Exhaust Port, the one thing he didn’t account for as a weakness.
Leia dying on Naboo is a great idea, as it allows her to end where her mother started. Make this movie rhyme with the others as much as possible. It is the last after all.
And any version that is meant to include Padme surviving RotS and dying while Leia is a young child, should absolutely consider giving Leia the pendent.
Yeah at first I was much more into Pasaana as Jedha than Ajan Kloss as Naboo, but I’ve really fallen for this now. It’s not only Padme’s home, but Palpatine’s too. And having Leia die here, in the act of redeeming her son, feels super right. I’d love for her to be buried with the pendant that her father made for her mother when he was just a boy.
Ben in exile is a great idea, and one that could probably be executed, but without dialogue between him and Rey where he says something like "I’m staying here. It is my penance.’ It could be quite a head scratcher.
I imagined this one something like:
“Rey who?”
[Rey looks to her right, to see Kylo standing quietly in the distance, watching. Maybe he nods. We take a beat.]
[Leia and Luke’s ghosts appear, one to either side of Kylo. They’ll watch over him, and all three implicitly support Rey too.]
“Rey Skywalker.”
[Back to her new family on the ship, off to other adventures]