- I do like TestingOutTheTest’s interpretation of Rey’s arc, but I don’t think her giving the lightsaber to Leia (and then getting it back a few minutes later) actually does anything for it. It feels totally half-baked, like an idea JJ and Terrio had but then forgot to expand on and just left in anyway. I also prefer the implication that Rey has been struggling with her training and ‘making excuses’ about it for a while, whereas leaving it in sort of makes it seem like this is the first time.
I’m also not the biggest fan of the importance the films place on that saber to begin with; Luke only used it for a few years, long before he became a legendary Jedi Master, so it’s much more iconic in the real world than it ever was in-universe - it feels like another symptom of JJ’s love for the OT sort of meta-infecting the universe itself (see also “this is the ship that made the Kessel run in 14 parsecs!”), but that’s a whole different discussion.
Rey only gets the saber back for the trip to Pasaana because she needs something to defend herself with.
- I still believe editing TROS such that Rey’s parents were always bad people is feasible. Rey can still be mad that Palpatine killed them, even if they were terrible people. She does have reasons to hate him other than that too, such as him being Space-Hitler, his corrupting influence on Ben (to whatever extent she’s aware of that), and even surface-level stuff like Luke telling her she has to face him. I think the toughest question to answer with this change would be what was mentioned previously: why wouldn’t Rey’s parents give her up to save themselves? I think there’s a few ways you could come at that. Perhaps Rey’s Dad and his wife hated Palpatine so much they were willing to withhold that information just to spite him, even if it meant their own deaths, as someone (Jar Jar Bricks?) suggested earlier in the thread. It’s still essentially a sacrifice to save Rey, but it leaves them morally grey rather than having them be retconned into the loving parents that Rey wishes they were. Or maybe they did try to sell Rey out, but didn’t know exactly where she’d wound up - I’m sure there’s plenty of Jakku outside Niima Outpost - so Ochi killed them anyway. It does get a little contrived, I admit, but it’s not like this movie’s plot is rock solid as is, and I personally think it’s worth it to avoid undermining the TLJ reveal.
I proposed (mostly before) that, while they hated Rey for being a Palpatine and feared of what she’d become due to a combination of her Force-sensitivity and her heritage and wanted her to suffer for this, they also wanted to ensure Palpatine is unable to use Rey for the Sith ritual.
Also, to DC, how would “the birth of her son” be an effective motivation for Leia to quit her training, exactly?