Here’s my attempt (again, I’m sorry about the flashing lights, idk why it’s breaking like that)
https://vimeo.com/514582031/30fc504bd0
cut lines:
- “for my grandchild to come home”
- “i never wanted you dead. I wanted you here, with me”
- “palpatine”
moved lines:
- “long have i waited” is swapped with the musical sting that originally immediately followed it; this allows for less silence before the next line of dialog, and as a bonus Rey now “senses” Palpatine before hearing/seeing him
- “you will take the throne” is now in place of “i wanted you here, with me” (attempting to sync “you will” with Palp’s “with me” lip movement)
Even with the throne stuff and the scene after this playing out as usual, this change at least makes it so that Palpatine isn’t saying “psych!” directly to the camera right out the gate. Makes him a bit more menacing too maybe, not that I totally disliked the Evil Gramps stuff. Oh, and cutting “Palpatine” is just pre-emptive for Rey Nobody.
Another idea to potentially go along with this, although maybe it’s too distractingly on-the-nose: what if, the first time Rey sees the throne in person, there’s a very brief flash of her previous Dark Rey visions? Perhaps this would help cement how Rey fears the throne not just as a temptation, but as a prophecized inevitability. An audience member might even infer, in the spirit of Labyrinth of Evil, that it must have been Palpatine himself planting the vision in the first place, selling that this is [somehow] proceeding exactly as he has foreseen.