Thanks! Recently I have been thinking about the first act, and how one could lay it out to delay Palpatine’s reveal.
Even though it isn’t as dramatic of a start, I thought it would be interesting if the film started off with Kylo on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, and as he staring into the abyss, he hears a whisper of mechanical breathing. It cuts to him in his chambers, unsealing Vader’s mask and placing his hand on it. He gets a brief vision of Mustafar, Vader’s castle, the chest that contains the Sith wayfinder, and maybe a brief glimpse of Vader/Anakin himself. He also hears the voices of Vader, and maybe Snoke, to better set up Palpatine’s line about being the voices in his head. Palpatine, through the mask, is leading him to the Wayfinder. It ends on a haunting echo of Vader saying “Join me…” which transitions into Rey’s meditation scene, with her chanting, “Be with me.”
Rey speaks with Leia, then goes to train, which is where we then get the Mustafar Minute intercut with Rey’s training. We see that through their bond, Kylo’s rage is fueling Rey’s. She eventually breaks the remote, Kylo picks up the Wayfinder, and then they share a vision of Exegol, the fleet, the battle, and we get a glimpse of Dark Rey.
Rey snaps out of it, and we get the scene where Rey tells Leia she’s just distracted. Then, we finally get to Kylo flying towards Exegol and meeting Palpatine. After that, we get Finn and Poe’s mission, and the film continues as normal.
I might play around with this eventually but I’m not sure if it would work.
EDIT: One thing you couldn’t use in this version, which I really like, is Dom’s mini-flashbacks we see as Kylo touches Vader’s helmet in his version, which compels him to reforge his mask. I sort of would like to see if one could intercut Kylo reforging his helmet with the mini-flashbacks, instead of making them two separate scenes. Alternatively, it could be interesting to give the monkey-creature off screen dialogue where he says the modifications would shield his mind from outside influence (implying he is trying to remain independent from Palpatine), or simply, using the Knights of Ren line, “May our bond never again be broken.”