I’m curious to see what people might come up with putting the helmet scene at the start. The fact that he knows Palps is behind Vader’s voice is definitely an important question. In my edit I tried to solve this by having Kylo hear Palps’s voice when he touches the helmet, so basically it’s like Kylo was checking to see if what he said was true.
Here is a SUPER rough implantation of the helmet scene moving up I put in Hal’s thread:
The mirroring of the Vader Castle does make it seem like its a new shot (along with the removal of Krennic’s ship)
What can also help sell that too is if you don’t use the “whole” clip.
Here is a quick and dirty rough idea if moving the Vader helmet scene towards the beginning. As for the middle of it, I didn’t do anything to it since I wanted to show just the “kylo” footage with Vader’s helmet. Obviously the idea would be to alter all that flashback/imagery/sounds/etc. to fit more on the lines of “Vader” guiding Kylo.
Just super rough idea playing with a bit this afternoon:
https://vimeo.com/418658350
fanedit
As for what you did, I like the concept a whole lot. It is a MUCH better implantation than what the movie did with it. I admit, it still makes you wonder why use the helmet if Kylo already knows Palps is behind it … not his grandfather.