This is an interesting idea. I’ll need to sit with it and think about how it factors in to the characters throughout the film.
I suppose since I’ve already cut the bit where Kylo tells Rey they’ll kill him and take the throne, this works. I guess if you think about it with the hangar line changes it’s kind of like Kylo is basically saying Palpatine doesn’t matter? I’ve suspected before that his line on the DS “the only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me” was a dub to remove an earlier version where Kylo doesn’t want Rey to go to Exegol at all. Hmm, how might that idea be accomplished?
Actually perhaps most important this change probably makes more sense in terms of my new version of Rey’s backstory.
These kind of logical questions speak to the frustration I’m having while trying to figure out how to make the Force bond duel scene (and the hangar scene) work in a logical way. Tbf, the original film has these problems too I think.
Okay, so Palpatine tells Kylo to kill Rey because he foresaw her killing him and taking the throne. Okay… so, how does Kylo factor into this? Palpatine tells Kylo that if he kills Rey, that he’ll give him the fleet and let him be the new Emperor. So, is he basically trying to tell Kylo that he wants him as his successor, but not Rey? And Kylo believes that?
Why do you think he eradicated the Jedi Order during the prequels? Because they’re a threat to his power, in the way Rey is, in this context. And he wants to possess Kylo Ren after he kills Rey to clear away his confliction - he has no use for Rey at this point since Kylo Ren’s this far into the dark side.
The movie makes you think Palpatine is telling Kylo he wants her dead because she’s a Jedi, but when Kylo says, “Because he saw what you would become. You don’t just have power. You have his power” that whole speech makes me think he is referring to this dark power inside her, that she will become evil like Palpatine.
Maybe it’s like this: Palpatine wants Kylo to think he wants Rey dead because she will destroy him and his Empire “as a Jedi”. But, Kylo doesn’t want to kill Rey. He wants to show Rey her power and her inner darkness in order to make her join him and destroy Palpatine together. But if Kylo fails to kill Rey and go full dark side, Palpatine wants Rey to actually be his new vessel (assuming if she kills Kylo instead).
There’s still less than two whole hours of the movie left. There’d probably be information yet to be revealed by the end (which, in fact, there is: Palpatine originally wanted to possess Rey, but her parents hid her and he turns Ben to the dark side and hopes to possess him, and wants him to kill Rey to clear away of his confliction, but Ben turns to the light and now Palps falls back to his original plan to possess Rey).
Also, isn’t weird that when Rey says that to Finn, Finn says that doesn’t sound like her? Like, isn’t finding Palpatine and destroying him the plan, though? I guess it was how she said it, since it is implying she wants revenge for him killing her parents? So weird. (This is a scene that I think would be improved in a “Rey killed her parents” scenario, because Rey could tell Finn she killed her parents, and Finn could say that doesn’t sound like her. Idk.)
Finn’s never seen Rey like this before.