Thanks for the encouragement! I can’t promise that these ideas will work in an edit, but I’ll do my best.
…
On that note, I think I’ve come up with a simple explanation for why the Emperor wants Rey dead. Here’s the Hangar rewrite:
“Rey….wherever you are…You are hard to find.
“You are hard to get rid of.”
“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it…I needed you to see it…who you are. Darkness is in your blood. Rey…”
“You’re lying.”
“You were right…your parents were no one. Junk traders desperate for money.”
“Don’t!”
“The Sith paid your mother to be a host to their dark experiment…”
“I don’t want this!”
“…it produced…you.”
“No!”
“But they wouldn’t give you up.”
(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)
“My Love…be brave.”
“You’ll be safe here…I promise.”
“Come back! Nooo!”
“They paid for your protection…in more than one way.”
“Stop talking.”
“Rey…I know what happened to them.”
(Cutaway to heroes capture)
“Surely you can guess the rest of your story by now. Your parents went to Jakku, seeking Luke’s disciples. They were desperate for his protection. But Palpatine’s assassin found them first.”
(Rey sees her parents get killed.)
“So that’s where you are.”
“You know why the Emperor’s always wanted you dead. I’ll come tell you.”
…
“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”
“Because you were created from the blood of the Emperor…to sit upon the throne of the Sith. Rey…you’re a Palpatine.”
“The Emperor wants you dead because he knows that only his power…your power…can truly kill him. Together we can finish what my grandfather started. We can destroy the Sith…and bring a new order to the galaxy.”
“You know what you need to do. You know.”
“I know.”
…
I don’t think that we need to even bring up whether or not Rey is technically a clone or just some weird experiment; the point is that she was created from Palpatine’s DNA to be a host for his spirit, but Rey’s parents didn’t want that for their child. Palpatine wants to kill Rey because only his power can kill him, and he thinks that Rey has his power. This makes Rey reflecting lighting back into his face a little bit clever instead of random, since she is actually acting on ‘knowledge and defense’ to defeat Palpatine, knowing that his weakness is just a faceful o’ lightning. It’s kind of amusing to think that this is the third time such a thing has happened in this saga, but it could be argued that in ROTS and ROTJ the process was interrupted by Anakin, first by unhanding Windu and then by throwing 'ole Palpy down the elevator shaft…which may have saved his life.
If we keep the clone angle vague, we can also get away with the physical similarity between Rey’s mother and Rey, since her mother may have been chosen based on her similarity to the Emperor, and/or there could have been some DNA from Rey’s mother in Rey.