The Starlight Project Addendum: The Rise of Skywalker (Freeform Brainstorming Session) — Page 5

Well, as I explained in my last post, it might give us more creative freedom with what he’s saying and prevent any retcons with TLJ at all. Purely expansionary.

A lot of people like the dyad concept, myself included. But I suppose I could see that working.

BTW, “Weak, like your parents” would still work too because they were so useless they couldn’t even remember where Rey was to save their lives lol. But not the part about them saving her from him, of course.

EDIT: After giving it a little more thought it may be best to stick with the “good parents” approach so Rey has a reason to be angry at Palps.

Something like the following as a WIP:

“You’re lying.”

“I’d never lie to you… your parents were no one… junk traders expecting a child they were incapable of producing.”

“Don’t!”

“Much like Vader’s own mother. An unknown slave with a miraculous conception."

“I don’t want this!”

“Palpatine chose you."

“No!”

“Your parents fled across the galaxy as he hunted you.”

(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)

“Why did the Emperor come for me?”

“Because clones are flawed hosts. He influenced the Force to create two dark bloodlines. My grandfather’s. Then, perfected with you. You… are Palpatine’s heir.”

“You were created to inherit the legacy of the Sith as a Palpatine. But what he doesn’t know is that we’ve become a dyad in the Force, Rey… two, linked by raw power. We can end him and the Sith, and create something new, together…”

Obviously the dyad is what I’d prefer but it isn’t strictly necessary as you’ve pointed out. It would just need mouth modifications and AI lines of Palpatine at the end there which might not work very well.

While I’d ordinarily agree with you, the purpose of explicitly calling out “a Palpatine” is only so that we don’t have to dig through the rest of the film to change the countless places where Rey is referred to as such. I don’t think that’s feasible with current technology. We also want her to be referred to as that so the upcoming Rey movie makes sense when (or if) it’s mentioned she’s related to him.

I do think that is an interesting idea, Nev. It reminds me of how Voldermort’s return does similar things to Harry Potter. But it does go against TROS’s logic that evil is apparently contained in your blood cells. We might have to be consistent with that. Especially since that’s the theme of the movie - rising above your evil nature and choosing your own legacy.

Let’s combine a couple things:

(By the way there is plenty of non-speaking space in the first paragraph here so I wouldn’t worry about what’s below being too long).

“Because clones are flawed hosts. He influenced the Force to create two dark bloodlines. My grandfather’s. Then, perfected with you. You… are Palpatine’s heir.”

“Created to inherit the throne of the Sith, he sees you as a true Palpatine. But what he doesn’t know is that we’ve become a dyad in the Force, Rey… two, linked by the power our families share. We can end him and the Sith, and create something new, together…”

EDIT: Also, if we wanted to we could shorten the last part and have “dyad in the Force” only be mentioned by Palpatine later on:

“Created to inherit the throne of the Sith, he sees you as a true Palpatine. But what he doesn’t know is that we’ve become linked by the power our families share, Rey. We can end him and the Sith, finishing what my grandfather started, together…”

I’d really like to do away with any specific mentions of bloodlines. It reminds me too much of Grogu’s blood being used in cloning experiments and how uncomfortably eugenicist Star Wars can be at times.

I mean… that’s kinda the point of Star Wars, no offense. The Emperor is based on Hitler and the Empire the Nazi’s. You’re not supposed to like what was done or the people who did it. But good people can overcome their dark nature/past. That’s what the theme of this movie is.

At some point, this movie might actually become logical.

Love these brainstorming, every idea is a bit better than the last one.

Well, it turns out “bloodlines” can be replaced quite easily to make the link to ROTS as clear as possible. I’m also wondering if we should return the dyad to something that they’ve always been? At least in this context, it makes a lot more sense than the original film. They technically could have become one as soon as Rey as born. Perhaps Kylo always had visions of a little girl in the desert, thus him asking his officer in TFA: “What girl?” As for Snoke, all he did was bridge their minds so they could have conversations with each other. Whereas we’ve made it very clear with our new definition of the dyad that it is only concerned with the power shared between them. So, technically, Snoke only made their dyad connection easier to utilize. Yet another instance of the bad guys creating for evil purposes, but used by the Force for good. Here’s the story so far:

“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. I share the darkness that lives in you, Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“I’d never lie to you… your parents were no one… junk traders expecting a child they were unable to produce before.”

“Don’t!”

“Much like Vader’s mother. An unknown slave with a miraculous conception."

“I don’t want this!”

“Palpatine chose you."

“No!”

“As with Vader, he arranged for the deaths of your family.”

(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.”

“I saw glimpses of you long before we met.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Your parents sought Luke’s protection, chasing rumors of his allies in the Jakku desert… but Ochi tracked down the ship they stole. They resisted fiercely, only to be forgotten by the sands of time."

(Rey sees her parents get killed. Perhaps a flash of Anakin cradelling Shmi’s body as Vader’s mask falls to the ground?)

“So that’s where you are.”

“You know why the Emperor wanted to capture you. I’ll come tell you.”

—

“Why did the Emperor come for me?”

“Because clones are flawed hosts. So he influenced the Force to create dark life. My grandfather. Then, perfected with you, Rey. You… are Palpatine’s heir.”

“Created to inherit the throne of the Sith, he sees you as a true Palpatine. But what he doesn’t know is that we are a dyad in the Force, Rey… two, sharing the power linking our bloodlines. We can end him and the Sith, finish my grandfather’s work, together…”

(Removes his helmet)

“You know what you need to do. You know.”

“I do.”

Some other miscellaneous changes compiled here, as well:

“Because you’re a Palpatine? Leia sensed your dark nature, as well.”

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared the darkness that had lived in our father, and lived on within us. She surrendered her saber to me and said that one day it would be picked up again…by someone with the strength to overcome that darkness.”

“I created you to rule… here.”

I would love to see a version of this that stays true to TLJ by making her parents careless drunkards. After all, why would a nobody junk trader want to raise a child? You would probably have to lose the Luke church but, but I think it’s ok that it’s a coincidence that she ends up near the falcon.

Sure, some of that flows a bit better, but I still think it’s worth stating at least one of the similarities between her and Vader’s story. Especially since they’re fighting right over Vader’s ruined mask the whole time. Also, it makes no sense how he’s trying to kill his own creation in this chain of events. That simply has to go. See my analogy below:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

It would be like making an exquisite painting only to use a blowtorch on it because somebody else made a similar one you might be interested in buying.

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it… I needed you to see it… who you are. We share the same darkness, Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right… your parents were no one. But your father had no part in your conception.”

“Don’t!”

“You are so like my grandfather. So like Darth Vader….”

“I don’t want this!”

“…destined for darkness.”

“No!”

“Palpatine hunted for you across the galaxy.”

(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)

“They paid for your protection…in more than one way.”

“Stop talking.”

“Rey… I learned what happened to them.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Your parents knew you were different, even then. They searched Jakku’s desert, seeking Luke’s disciples for his protection. But an agent of the Emperor tracked their stolen ship.”
(We have to explain why they’re flying around Ochi’s ship - this is also why Rey being hunted “across the galaxy” is necessary for them to steal it at some point.)

(Rey sees her parents get killed and the mask of Vader falls to the ground.)

“So that’s where you are.”

“Before you chose the Jedi, Palpatine wanted you alive. I’ll come tell you why.”

“Why did the Emperor come for me?”

"Because he influenced the Force to create two dark bloodlines. My grandfather’s, and then perfected with you. You’re his heir, Rey. You… are a Palpatine.”

"The Emperor told me to kill you so that the strongest of us takes the throne. But he’s unaware that we’re a dyad in the Force, Rey… a bond not of shared blood, but power. We can end him and the Sith, and bring a new order to the galaxy, together…

hinventon said:

I would love to see a version of this that stays true to TLJ by making her parents careless drunkards. After all, why would a nobody junk trader want to raise a child? You would probably have to lose the Luke church but, but I think it’s ok that it’s a coincidence that she ends up near the falcon.

I would ordinarily agree but there’s still too much later on in the movie which relies on them being good people. If Palpatine had them killed, he was merely doing her a favor, and their fate needn’t be mentioned at all. Then you have to answer questions like why they had Ochi’s ship, how their ship ended up on Pasaana despite them being buried on Jakku, etc. Rey also needs a reason to strike Palpatine down, and this is as good as we’re gonna get.

EDIT: One another important note since we seem to be going in the direction of removing the shift of “Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you” from the beginning back to where it was. Having that line at the beginning “The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be… unnatural” serves as an excellent hint for what’s to come.

I never said that. I said he wanted her alive before she became a Jedi. So he would have wanted her alive in TFA, but not TLJ, which lines up with those movies. But your previous post had several parts where it’s suggested Palpatine personally wanted to kill her all along. That doesn’t work. They aren’t pitted against each other like this (with a fair fight) until the beginning of TROS. And my version of events adequately maintains all of this.

I edited my post above to better reflect this:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

"The Emperor told me to kill you so that the strongest of us takes the throne. But what he doesn’t know is that we are a dyad in the Force, Rey… two, sharing the power he conjured. We can end him and the Sith, and bring a new order to the galaxy, together…