Just stumbled across this thread. It always amazes me how RogueLeader spots ways to improve these stories, and then saddens me that many of them are just out of the reach of what fanediting can do. “If only RogueLeader had been in that room with JJ and Terrio!” I think to myself…
Anyway, my idea is that the movie should’ve cribbed its ending from Avatar The Last Airbender.
Considering the lengths at which ROTJ goes to not have Luke just kill Palpatine - and how this movie makes a big deal about Rey not wanting to hate him - just having him die in a gruesome explosion feels pretty empty (and yes, I know, he technically blew himself up so it’s not really Rey killing him). It’s a stark contrast to Aang doing everything he can to avoid killing Ozai in ATLA, which made me think of this.
I propose that, as Rey approaches Palpatine through his lightning beam, sabers crossed, she throws her arms apart, deflecting the lightning away with a force shockwave that knocks Palpatine off balance. Throw in the force ghosts in the background “helping” Rey with this, a la JonH’s edit. Before he can recover, she drops both of her sabers and in some way firmly grabs him (I would suggest a forehead hold, but that might be a little too blatant). As he’s frozen in place, we see the orange glow fade from his eyes and his corrupted grey skin begin to return to a healthier pink, until he’s just bog-standard Ian McDiarmid (but aged up considerably to suggest he’s already long past his natural lifespan, perhaps taking cues from his look in Utopia or in AOTC). Rey lets go, and he scrambles away pathetically, reminiscent of Revenge of the Sith, but this time he isn’t pretending. She just stands there and watches with pity as he crawls away on his back yelping, with his hood slipping down and his hands making desperate but now utterly impotent gestures. She’s disconnected him from the Force - Darth Sidious, the “One True Emperor”, is now just elderly Sheev Palpatine of Naboo. He gives up and cries, and Rey briefly silently comforts her grandfather as he succumbs to his age. He doesn’t fade away and join the force; he just leaves a cold, flesh and blood corpse.