Interesting changes Anakin! Some of your changes sound like they could be useful.
This is an idea in relation to Ascendant, but I don’t want to bog down the thread with Rey Nobody talk.
Even though I personally would prefer more extensive changes to a definitive Rey Nobody edit, I’ve still been wondering if we could potentially come up with a version of Rey Nobody that would allow people to choose Rey Palpatine or Rey Nobody audio track.
I know Hal has already cut some things from Ascendant that would help with this. For example, I think he is already cutting the line “for my grandchild to come home”. He might be cutting the Empress Palpatine line, but if he isn’t, you probably could cut “Palpatine” and get away with just “Empress” since it is in a wide shot.
• “It is your birthright to rule here”
This audio could be changed to, “It is your right to rule here”
• “It is in your blood, our blood.”
This one that you might have to cut. At the very least, you could cut the shot of him saying “our blood”, and just make him say, “It is in our blood.” He says that line in a wide shot, so you could just remove it for the Rey Nobody track.
Palpatine calling her weak like her parents, and then her saying her parents were strong and saved her from him wouldn’t have to be cut, since it doesn’t necessarily imply she’s a Palpatine. I hate this line, but it can be kept depending on how her parents are handled. It’d be nice if she could just say, “They saved me from you” if you had to keep anything.
• “Luke Skywalker was saved by his father. The only family you have here… is me.”
This line could be addressed with a slight trim. For the Standard Ascendant, you could trim it so when he says, “…is me” it has already cut to Rey. For the Nobody version, the line is cut, and the line is recontextualized. He says, “The only family you have here…”, pauses, then looks up, revealing the Resistance (her family) fighting for their lives. Palpatine even calls them her new family a few lines later, so this implication works well.
• Luke: Because you’re a Palpatine.
I actually think Hal said he changed this scene so you probably don’t have this line anymore. But I’m not sure if he cut him saying, “Some things are stronger than blood.” I feel like this line would need to be cut too. Maybe you have Luke say that line as he is sitting down if you felt like he needed to say it.
Or, you could just cut Luke’s Palpatine line, but in the the Nobody version, Luke says, “Leia saw it, too.” Now he is referring to seeing the vision of her on the dark throne, rather than knowing she’s a Palpatine. You can keep Luke saying that Leia saw her spirit and heart. And now when Luke says, “Some things are stronger than blood”, you could interpret that to be him saying that Rey and Leia’s bond was so close, that it was stronger than blood and she understood Rey completely, like a mother would understand her daughter.
• Kylo: Your parents were no one. They chose to be. To keep you safe.
“They chose to be” is the key line here. Without making any cuts, maybe you could change the line to, “Your parents were no one. But they chose to keep you safe.”
• Kylo: You’re his granddaughter. You are a Palpatine.
Not to toot my own horn, but Kylo’s dialogue could be changed to something like the two tests I have here.
Here’s a rough test for their hangar interaction: https://vimeo.com/447063673
And here’s an alternate line read for Kylo near the end of the scene, keeping closer to the original line: https://vimeo.com/447069546
After going back through this, I feel like this ends up being basically what Dom had planned for his TROS workprint.
So in this version of the film, Palpatine basically saw a vision of Rey usurping him in the future, and sent Ochi to find/kill her. Rey’s parents turn out to still have some love for their daughter and they don’t tell them where she is. It’d be nice to not contradict the “filthy junk traders” characterization from TLJ, but I think Hal has already done some work to keep it from being overly contradictory.
So really, you end up with maybe 7-10 audio changes, and maybe 5ish small video trims.