Nev, I do like the new lines. There is a cool Moses parallel with Rey being the child that survived a purge to avoid a prophecy from coming true.
I will say that I think you summarized my thoughts pretty well at one points: What do we want to communicate? Or, what idea is the most important to us to convey?
What is the goal of the Rey Nobody edit? To stick as close to canon as possible except making Rey a Palpatine, or maintain Rey Nobody concept as it was revealed/established in TLJ?
To me, an important aspect of the TLJ reveal wasn’t just that her parents were nobodies, but that they also didn’t care about her. I think with a lot of suggested Rey Nobody options, it still retcons the reveal that her parents were shitty people and makes them martyrs for Rey’s survival. So a part of me feels going with this type of option only half-succeeds at the potential goal. An alternative that people who wanted to sees TROS as a proper follow up to TLJ won’t be 100% satisfied with (what TROS edit would be though?)
Yes, that may mean you have to alter more of TROS, but I think that brings the conversation back to what we are wanting to communicate. What is more important, details related to plot, or related to character? If it is character, then I think it is worth changing plot details, like Ochi’s ship and Rey’s parents’ ship being the same ship. I personally have trouble believing that if Rey’s parents cared enough about her to die for her, they would choose Unkar Plutt, of all people, to take care of her. Why would they sell her? It still doesn’t make a lot of sense in the theatrical version.
To me, Rey being on the same planet as the Falcon is best left as a coincidence. Maybe Rey wasn’t actually inherently gifted or powerful with the Force from birth, but when the lightsaber called to her in TFA, when she connected to Kylo’s mind, when she began believing in the Force, the Force awakened in her. Maybe the Force chose her during the events of TFA. To me, something like this gels better with the whole point of making a Rey Nobody edit in the first place.
But again, I guess it depends on what the priorities are when it comes to this type of edit. Story vs canon, ease vs difficulty, etc.
A part of me wonders if an edit that goes “Your parents were no one, BUT…” doesn’t wholly commit to the Rey Nobody concept of TROS being a film that feels like a follow-up to TLJ in a way that doesn’t contradict it. A part of me worries of any version of Kylo’s lines/monologue that is related to previously unknown information about her past will feel like a conversation that should’ve happened in the last movie. To avoid that, I think you could go the route of Kylo’s goading and reveal being related to Rey’s future and not her past. With the way TLJ ends, it makes me think it wanted Episode IX to leave Rey’s origins behind. There’s nothing important there. What’s important is who she is now and who she chooses to become.
With all that said, I do like what you’ve suggested Nev and see the benefits to this option. I mean you would just really change Kylo’s dialogue, and wouldn’t have to make a lot of cuts. Again, a lot of the ideas people throw out are good. I even flip flop on which ideas I like the best. Since we have Nev’s creative mind and others brainstorming ideas I thought it would be worth bringing this up again. I just thought it would be worth having this conversation again.