The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 359

I mean, maybe, but it seems cleaner to streamline it and just assume that Snoke equals Palpatine in regard to this point. If removing two lines can help it make intuitive sense, it might be worth it.

EDIT: The slight punch that ends Finn and Poe’s conversation is the ‘reveal’ that Palpatine wanted Rey alive. We already know everything else that conversation conveys.

What a mess. It will probably feel a little flat to cut away before that final like because as an audience member you’d say, “Uh yeah, I already knew Ochi was tracking Rey.” Without the final line, bringing her to the Emperor essentially is to say that he wanted to kill or at least get her.

I still feel like I’m missing something about the plot of this movie. Kylo tells Rey Palpatine wanted to kill her as a child and we see him ordering her to be killed in the present day. Not to mention his cloned proxy trying to kill her in the last movie, hand waving aside.

Then, suddenly Finn reveals that he actually wanted her brought to him alive, both as a child and in the present. Sure enough, he says as much and seems to hinge his plans on it when she does arrive.

“Kill her. Or, bring her to me. Y’know what, why don’t you just kill me?”

I edited my last post FYI so just want to make sure you see it.

I think the most important thing is establishing D-O has the poop on Exegol. And something that has enough of a kick to be a compelling transition to Ach-To.

From Reddit. Jeez, what a convoluted mess, little of it being meaningfully implied at all by the film itself:

“Palpatine’s plan for Rey and Kylo as explained by TROS novel

Since TROS didn’t explain why Palpatine goes from “kill the girl” to “strike me down” halfway through the film, the novelization was forced to come up with some pretty convoluted explanations. Let’s take a look.

Immediately after his first death, Palpatine’s spirit enters a Clone body on Exegol (which he rediscovered during the Imperial era), but quickly realized it’s an imperfect vessel as it starts to decay. The Sith Eternal, a several thousand year old cult, creates other clones which fail until one thrives, albeit non-Force sensitive and non-identical. Realizing that he is doomed, he calls this clone his son and believes that his grandchild would inherit his force sensitivity and be able to hold his spirit. (Side Note: His Son is created in 4 ABY and Rey is born in 15 ABY, so accelerated aging is probably used on the clones).

However, his Son and Daughter in law ultimately realize his plan and hide Rey on Jakku when she is 6. Palpatine’s assassin, Ochi, can’t find her after killing her parents (genius move) and ultimately dies on his other mission, recovering the Endor wayfinder to conceal the location of Exegol. Palpatine believes Rey is dead and accepts that his going to die and decides to groom a successor to the Empire and Sith. He chooses another Skywalker and starts communicating with Ben. He also commissions the creation of Snoke to rule the First Order for him and to seduce Ben, who proves himself a worthy Sith by doing what all Sith do- kill their master. Palpatine offers Kylo his forces once they are completed making Kylo Emperor and Darth Lord of the Sith.

Even though Palpatine learned Rey is alive and he could rule through her, he decides to kill her and give Kylo everything. Once Kylo redeems himself, Palpatine contacts Pryde and has the First Order merge with his forces and decides to fall back to his original plan and possess Rey. However, she kills him and unlike in ROTJ, he wasn’t prepared to essence transfer (an art form he learned from Darth Plagueis) and dies for the last time.

There’s many problems with this. The obvious being cloning force sensitives, non-identical clones, clones not receiving midichlorians but their offspring does instead, and Ochi being a dumbass. But it’s also weird that Sidious would just be content with dying after going through all that trouble and not only that but he’s still okay with it even after learning Rey is alive. And he could sense Kylo’s redemption from across the galaxy, but he couldn’t sense his own granddaughter.”

I guess it actually makes some sense related to rumors before the movie came out about Palpatine saying he was going to die and he was grooming Kylo Ren as a successor. Problem is the movie leaves us with a mess.

If we can flatten it to Palpatine wanting to kill Rey to resorting to her after Ben is redeemed, I think that’ll help a lot.

Moving the ‘spirit transfer’ line into the opening sequence already breaks the above plot outline, at least implying that Palpatine could take over more than just Rey in particular.

I think it would certainly be possible to end after Poe reacts to the now-last line “… a little girl he was supposed to take from Jakku to the Emperor.”

It may be news to them, and remains ambiguous about Palpatine’s plans. I’d imagine hearing that as consistent with what’s been established about trying to kill her.

(Even with the plot description quoted above, it still makes no sense why Palpatine decides at some point to kill adult Rey and just accept death. We’ve no choice but to alter that convoluted chronology with this edit. Now, Palpatine sensed her power as a threat and wants her dead. She reappears as a light-sider as an adult and still must die. Ben is redeemed and so he figures it’s worth trying to claim Rey as a vessel.)

EDIT: And as a missive, it helps a lot not to be additionally burdened by making sense out of Leia (and perhaps Luke) somehow knowing Rey was Palpatine’s granddaughter before TROS.

Damn, you’re probably right. I wonder what the point of that scene was then.

Neerb said:

lol, and we’re sure all this is the better option than Snoke just not knowing her identity and Palps never wanting her dead? (half-kidding)

I’d say so, for real, at least because he seems to want her dead at the start of TROS. And bonus points for keeping it practically Snoke = Palpatine.

And I imagine simply removing Palpatine’s line “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here” even though it could be interpreted as him improvising and lying. The rest can be theatrics; “Oh, it’s my wonderful granddaughter please help me with something.”

Palpy clearly has Dementia …

Man this trilogy was so mishandled. Lol.

I still find this new idea more intuitive than all that.

And removing the dyad lines, even though it’s a throwaway technical solution we know nothing about, would make the healing effect even more random and out of nowhere.

Neerb said:

Is the dyad related to healing? The first thing she heals is a snake. And going outside the movies while still in live-action, Grogu healed someone too.

Hmm, I guess so. But if he could’ve just done that at any time, why not do it before when either Kylo or Rey were standing in front of him?

Jar Jar Bricks said:

So to summarize:

1. Remove Finn saying that “He wanted her alive” because it doesn’t make a lick of sense and was clearly added in after filming.

2. Remove Palpatine saying “I never you wanted you dead. I wanted you here.” (And optionally remove “for my grandchild to come home” because it implies the same thing and is a really goofy line)

Yes. But I’m not certain about the optional part.

I’ll admit, I’m new to this discussion. Is this a discussion on how to go about the Rey Nobody version?