I haven’t looked through all 3,000+ replies to this topic, so forgive me if someone has already pitched this.
Is there a feasible way to remove both Snoke and Palpatine from the entire sequel trilogy, and have Kylo Ren as the sole main villain?
Getting rid of Snoke in The Force Awakens is no problem, he only has a few scenes.
The Last Jedi would be a bit more of a problem. The Snoke’s Throne Room scene would have to go, or at least be heavily altered.
Snoke isn’t a problem in Rise of Skywalker, but the Emperor poses some major issues. The Force battle finale on the ground on Exegol would have to go. Maybe the space battle could be salvaged, but Rey v Grandpa Sheev would definitely get cut. Maybe the Rey/Kylo lightsaber fight on the Death Star wreckage could serve as the final battle?
Anyone has any suggestions on how to make this crazy idea work, hit me back!
I think this could work reasonably well as a 2-in-1 edit of TFA and TLJ. I’m not so sure there are any parts of TROS that are worth salvaging (or even useable for a project like this).
Other than that just edit out any scene involving Snoke and any reference to him. Make Kylo turn to the dark side simply because of his ambition and his Vader fanboyism. Luckily both of the sequel trilogy’s big baddies feel pretty tacked-on and don’t really connect to any of the backstory until Rey becomes a Palpatine, so this idea could be feasible and could even make for a stronger story.
I actually had an idea kind of similar to this, though I don’t remember posting it. Basically, remove the cave scene and its aftermath from TLJ. Instead, reinstate the “caretaker village” deleted scene and have Rey leave the planet right after it - this way it seems like she’s going to go help the resistance herself instead of confronting Kylo. Then she doesn’t reappear until the battle of Crait.
I’d have TLJ play out pretty much the way it does (besides heavily reducing the Resistance “B” plot). Then I guess you could end on the final scene from TROS with some alterations. Rey buries Anakin’s broken lightsaber at the Lars homestead and comes to terms with being “Rey Nobody”, having realised that’s what the cave on Ach-To has been telling her. But the original TLJ ending probably works better than that.
Taking elements from TRoS to augment the ending of TLJ could definitely work. You could even have the civilian fleet be responding to the Crait call, going into Exegol’s space battle and the Kef Bir dual as the final fights.