I was actually just thinking about that, Neerb! The way you’ve laid it out, with slowly learning more and more about Palpatine’s and Kylo’s deal throughout the film - that would actually be a great mysterious through line that would help to keep the audience engaged throughout the scavenger hunt. Slowly drip-feeding information and clues to them. I’m trying to think…are there other details that would prevent that idea from working?

There are some great double-meanings there. “She will never be a Jedi” - not because she’ll die, but actually because she’ll fall to the dark side. Maybe it would even be possible to add a line urging Ben to go to Exegol to help Rey? “You know what he’ll do. You have to help her.”

The one thing though, is that we would absolutely have to nix the “Every voice you have ever heard inside your head” line. Not to drag that debate back up from a few days ago, but Snoke was fully prepared to kill Rey. Palpatine wants her alive. They cannot be working towards the same goal, let alone be functionally the same person.

This is more subjective, but I would still like to try toning down Palpy’s monologue about “She ignites her blade, she prepares to swing…” blah blah blah. Sort of how I did it in my edit, focus more on Rey’s past Dark Side leanings. It pivots the moment away from Palpy and back onto our protagonist, it connects to the previous films in an “It was all leading to this” sort of way, it adds more nuance and uncertainty to the moment, and it also avoids copying The Last Jedi yet again?? Seriously J.J.! Stop it!