Would it make sense to try restructuring the end of Exegol?
- Palpatine lightings the ships
- Rey hears the voices and ghosts arrives
- Poe says this is our last chance we need to hit those cannons now
- Maybe use the quote from the trailer: “Let your death be the final word in the story of Skywalker” as it has more impact with Luke and Anakin being there
- Rey protects herself with the lightsaber
- Cut to Finn and Jannah blowing up the cruiser
- Poe’s happy because the command ship is destroyed
- Rose says Finn didn’t board the ship
- Rey takes down Palpatine and rocks smash everyone, Rey drops the lightsabers
- Cut to Finn getting on the Falcon and the Star Destroyer smashing into the planet
- Rey falls and “dies”
- Finn reacts
- Ben saves Rey
Not saying this is ideal but it does flow better when Rey dies immediately after the duel. It would just suck losing Finn’s reaction
I definitely want Rey to die immediately after the dual. (Did you see my version above? What did you think?) My only concern with this version though is that blowing up the cruiser is effectively the “end” of the Sith Fleet, because “They’re stuck here! They’re toast!”
Basically, you have two battles happening, right? Take out the fleet, and take out Palpy. I think it would feel weird to solve one crisis, and then immediately get back to “Oh shoot, the other one is still going on.” You kids know me, I’m all about that tension, and I don’t know how the tension would work broken apart like this. I’d definitely be down to watch a mockup though. Maybe it would work in practice.
And I like the idea of the extra Skywalker line, if there’s a clean rip of it. Makes sense that Palps has a personal vendetta against the family at this point. (Although, was “story of Rebellion” removed for Ascendant? The other line may not be necessary then. I could go either way.)