The Starlight Project Addendum: The Rise of Skywalker (Freeform Brainstorming Session) — Page 11

I agree that the Rey as a Force creation by Palpatine is the closest we’ve gotten to solving this puzzle. It is tantalizingly close to working for me, and solves a lot of other mysteries as well.

But there still exists that fundamental incongruity with TLJ.

Stepping back a bit, I just had a thought about TROS that seems obvious now but hadn’t considered before: Why do we assume that Palpatine’s children and grandchildren would be strong in the Force?

Granted the Skywalker’s power in the Force seems to be preserved through lineage, but that doesn’t seem to be true for anyone else. Well, perhaps Yoda’s offspring, if that is indeed his offspring, but that just raises the question of why the Jedi wouldn’t raise families if it’s likely their children would inherit their power. I think it’s better than even odds that any spawn of Palpatine would have no power in the Force. In fact, why would Palpatine have offspring if they could potentially become rivals?

I realize that this is somewhat tangential to the current discussion since we’re working off of a different theory now, but it may stand examining if we are to figure out just what sort of Force user Rey can be. By the methods in use by the Jedi Order for over a thousand generations, a powerful Jedi coming from a random family would be the norm, not the exception.

The point here is that the theatrical version of TROS is somewhat incoherent because Rey being a Palpatine shouldn’t be a strong predictor of her abilities, or her affinity for darkness. This means that Rey being a Palpatine must be something other than genetic for it to be strongly meaningful.

"….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. You are destined for darkness. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. They had no power in the Force.”

“Don’t!”

“But you did. Like my grandfather, the force had a great destiny for you…”

“I don’t want this!”

“…and Palpatine foresaw it.”

“No!”

“When his agent came for you, they had to hide you…”

(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 sought allies of Skywalker on Jakku. They never made it that far.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed)

“Were they trying to protect you, or themselves?”

“Stop talking.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“I wonder if you know the truth about my grandfather. Darkness has tempted my family’s bloodline since it’s creation… by Palpatine. Do you know why I’m telling you this, Rey?”

…

“So that’s where you are.”

“You need to know your destiny, Rey. I’ll come tell you.”

…

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“He didn’t want to kill you, Rey. He foresaw the great Jedi you’d become, feared the force awakening within you… so he planted a dark seed. Stole your great destiny and corrupted it to darkness. Made you his.”

“We are both creations of Palpatine, heirs to the dark throne. But what he doesn’t know is that we’ve become a Dyad in the force. Linked by the raw power of our origins. We can kill him, and free the galaxy of his influence… forever.”

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

“I do.”

I took the new dialogue and edited it into the hangar scene and I’m confident that I can work whatever dialogue gets produced into these scenes without issue. (I didn’t literally just slot together components for Ascendant; there was a great deal of audio work involved.)

I have not fully read the past several pages of discussion, but are these changes something Nev plans to implement in a TROS edit?

Hal 9000 said:

I took the new dialogue and edited it into the hangar scene and I’m confident that I can work whatever dialogue gets produced into these scenes without issue. (I didn’t literally just slot together components for Ascendant; there was a great deal of audio work involved.)

I have not fully read the past several pages of discussion, but are these changes something Nev plans to implement in a TROS edit?

If we come up with something that is amenable to everyone, then I can certainly try to do an edit, or at least help assemble a new version of the Hangar scene. But for the moment, I’m still happy to leave the ‘brainstorming’ part of the thread title in place as we spill sweat and tears over just what it means, philosophically, to be a Palpatine or a Skywalker 😉

It feels like the main impasse we’ve reached here is a debate over what the “most important part” of the TLJ reveal is: Rey being a nobody, or her parents being horrible people. I personally think the “bad parents” angle is the most important one to push, but I can see the argument for Rey having no blood connection to Palpatine as well.

So here’s an idea: what if we don’t have to choose? I think it’s perfectly possible to use most of Nev’s “Palpatine orchestrated Rey’s abandonment” angle, while still having Rey’s parents abandon her for entirely selfish reasons. Here’s a mockup of what I’m thinking:

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it. I needed you to see it. Who you are. The dark side is your destiny. Rey…”
“You’re lying.”
“I’ve never lied to you. Your parents were no one. Mere fools, easily influenced by Palpatine.”
“Don’t!”
“He promised them wealth beyond imagining, if they just abandoned you…”
“I don’t want this!”
“And they readily accepted.”
“No!”
“You remember, don’t you? How he took them.”
(Rey sees the vision of Ochi’s ship leaving)
“Come back! Nooo!”
“Your abandonment… it was all part of his plan.”
“Stop talking.”
“Rey… don’t you want to know why?”
(Cutaway to heroes capture)
“Palpatine saw your future, Rey. So did I. A girl from nowhere, awakening to power. But your parents would get in the way. So he ensured you’d never see them again.”
(Rey sees her parents die)
“No!”
“So that’s where you are.”
“You know why the Emperor always wanted you. I’ll come tell you.”

…

“Why did the Emperor come for me?”

“Because he saw what you would become. He saw the power latent within you. So he chose you… to be his rightful heir.”

“You’re a Palpatine. Like my family, you are bound to him by a power greater than blood, a power like life itself. You can feel it… for it connects us as well. But we can destroy him, and bring a new order to the galaxy… together.”

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

“I do.”

FWIW, skimming back through this thread, this is the most recent writeup of the dialogue that I personally think I’d have found more or less clear.

NeverarGreat said:

“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. You are destined for darkness. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. They had no power in the Force.”

“Don’t!”

“But you did. Like my grandfather, you were different, powerful…”

“I don’t want this!”

“…and the Sith took notice.”

“No!”

“Your parents couldn’t escape them.”

(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)

“Your parents heard rumors of a hidden settlement, a sanctuary of the Force. They took you to Jakku, hoping you’d be safe. But then their luck ran out. They were captured…by an agent of the Emperor.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are.”

“You know why Palpatine’s assassin was searching for you. I’ll come tell you.”

…

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“He didn’t want to kill you, Rey. He created you…through the power of the Dark Side. Just like he created my grandfather.”

“You and I are vessels for the Emperor’s spirit, heirs to the dark throne. That is why we are connected…to each other…and to him. But we can kill him, and bring a new order to the galaxy…together.”

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

“I do.”

Okay, I think I’ve figured out a way to reconcile these ideas about Rey and Palpatine, particularly with regards to Rey being some sort of vessel for Palpatine’s Sith spirit.

Going back a page or two, I suggested that Palpatine could have poured some of his power into Rey when she was a child, but as was pointed out this isn’t very Palpatine behavior. However, this could make sense if it was purely for the purpose of attaining immortality, explaining how he was able to cheat death in the first place.

We already want there to be a connection between what Palpatine created with Anakin and what he was planning with Rey. So maybe it’s a Harry Potter Horcrux situation, with Palpatine investing some of his life force into Anakin (and by extension his family) so that if he were to die, a part of himself could live on. He does the same thing with Rey once he comes back from the dead, since he is determined to destroy the Skywalker family who betrayed him. Thus he chose Rey, depositing some life force with her as well. Just like with Anakin, he knows that someday she will be important and so he plants this bit of himself so that even if he were to die at her hand, he could live on through her.

This is why Palpatine is in a crumbling clone body: he has given most of his life force to Rey and the Skywalkers, so he must gain that life force back from them if he is to be fully restored to life. And of course, this is what we see happen at the end of the film - he takes back what he gave them, reducing them in power while restoring himself. However, since he is now restored in this way, his insurance policy has been negated and he is mortal once more, even at the height of his power. This is why Rey is able to use his own power to destroy him, and why this death is final for ol’ Palpy.

Interestingly, this could also why Rey has the ability to give some of her life force to others - this is an ability that Palpatine discovered, and that she now uses for good.

The upshot of all of this is that neither Rey nor Anakin need to be created by Palpatine for this to work - merely that he has given some of himself to each of them at some point, presumably early in their lives, and this makes them powerful in the Force as well as naturally drawn to darkness.

Finally, this keeps Rey as a nobody born of nobodies while also being enough like Palpatine to be considered one herself.

Eh, this one already ‘borrows’ from Avengers Endgame enough that one more franchise can’t hurt 😉

You can’t deny that this has value for being able to explain how Palpatine was able to survive death and also why he is able to be finally destroyed at the end of the film. The movie even gives us a final reason why Palpatine is dead forever in the deaths of Rey and Ben. Once Rey dies, one could argue that that part of Palpatine died with her, just like in the Deathly Hallows. Then when Ben uses his life force to bring Rey back at the cost of his life, the circle is complete and the power of Palpatine is gone forever.

That’s also a clean idea. I agree with Hal about Nev’s recent script reading the cleanest so far- can that be built on with a light touch version of Rey Horcrux that doesn’t go too deep into exposition of the mechanics of this idea?

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Starkiller, I don’t think that’s the difference at this point. The difference is between Rey being conceived as somebody important all along and her being born as nothing but later ascending to greater heights. I personally believe the latter is incongruous with canon due to the nature of Force-sensitivity at birth and how powerful Rey needs to be in the end.

Wait, that’s the argument? Then in that case, I agree with Nev almost completely. The only two things I didn’t like from his idea were Rey not having Force sensitivity until TFA and Rey’s parents being good people, both of which I fixed in my draft.

But I don’t know if this debate’s even relevant anyways, because we’ve already moved on to a new idea. 😉 Geez, it’s like the TFA crawl all over again.

EddieDean said:

That’s also a clean idea. I agree with Hal about Nev’s recent script reading the cleanest so far- can that be built on with a light touch version of Rey Horcrux that doesn’t go too deep into exposition of the mechanics of this idea?

I can write up something.

Maybe a lot of the issues people have with the specifics of these ideas could be smoothed over with keeping things vague. I also think that if we keep the flashbacks to Rey’s parents, it would help matters if we put them back to back in the early part of the scene so that we could then move on to more important plot related matters.

…

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it…I needed you to see it…who you are. The dark side is your destiny. Rey…”
“You’re lying.”
“I’ve never lied to you. Your parents were no one. Junk traders from the outer rim.”
“Don’t!”
“But you were strong in the Force. And the Emperor took notice.”
“I don’t want this!”
“He was looking for you.”
“No!”
(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)
“My Love…be brave.”
“You’ll be safe here…I promise.”
“Come back! Nooo!”
“Your parents paid for your protection…with their lives.”
(Rey sees her parents die.)
“And you had something that Palpatine would kill for…”
“Stop talking.”
“…something that belonged to him.”
(Cutaway to heroes capture)
“Do you know how Palpatine was able to conquer death? It’s because a part of himself survived…within my grandfather…and my mother…and me. Do you want to know what he gave you?”
(Rey sees the dark throne)
“No!”
(Vader’s mask is destroyed)
“So that’s where you are.”
“You know why the Emperor always wanted you. I’ll come tell you.”

…

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“He didn’t want to kill you. In many ways…he is you. He gave you his life force, so that he could live on…within you.

“Like my family, you are bound to the Emperor through his spirit, a power like life itself. What he doesn’t know is that it connects us as well. We can destroy him, and bring a new order to the galaxy…together.”

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

“I do.”

…

It might be better to keep it unsaid here that Palpatine wanted Rey on Jakku, since if Rey knows that Palpatine wanted her there, she couldn’t later say that her parents protected her. It may just have to be implied that this was all part of Palpatine’s plan, or we could give Palps a line in response to Rey’s ‘My parents were strong…they protected me from you.’ with ‘I wanted you on Jakku, Rey. For it has brought you to me.’

Jar Jar Bricks said:

But if he was still clinging onto life through the offspring of the Skywalker’s, why would he even bother doing this with a random little girl, as well? She also cannot be called “a Palpatine” in this sequence of events.

Well we don’t know if he was just ‘clinging to life’ before TROS, just that he had returned at some point and was inhabiting a clone body.

My thought process on this is that Palpatine always wanted someone ‘far younger’ to inhabit, such as Anakin. He could have used the Force to create Anakin or not, but regardless, during ROTS he was probably looking to transfer his consciousness to him. Now, if life force transfer comes with visual changes in a person’s appearance, then we could easily see the moment when Palpatine went all-in with this plan - he used Windu’s attack as cover in order to mask the true cause of his transformation, while he transferred some of his power to Anakin. At this point, Anakin does almost a complete 180 and starts acting irredeemably evil. It was only Anakin’s fall on Mustafar that prevented Palpatine from going through with the full essence transfer, and it was probably Palpatine’s life force in Anakin that kept him alive.

Jumping forward to post-ROTJ, Palpatine probably reincarnated in a pristine clone body. Something after this transfer clearly happened to make this clone body deteriorate, and it may have been that he was transferring most of his life force into Rey in order that she could overcome her crises and be quickly drawn into the Dark Side. He probably planned to get her from Snoke during TFA or TLJ, but when Snoke failed he was forced to wait in a deteriorating clone body until Rey could find her way to him on her own.

The question still remains: Did Palpatine create Rey like he may have created Anakin? It could be that both Anakin and Rey had the Force from birth without Palpatine’s direct involvement, and he would only need to transfer some life force into them at the critical moments in order to corrupt them and their descendants. This seems to require the least effort on Palpatine’s part, and if Palpatine was able to survive his death due to his life force being bound within the Skywalkers, he would have been placed into a new clone body and so would have had the life force to begin this process again with Rey.

But why choose Rey? Perhaps among the Force sensitive candidates his cult could find at the time, she was the most powerful. Ben was doubtless heavily protected at this time, so Rey was the next best choice, a girl from nowhere whose parents wouldn’t be missed. He could have transferred his essence to her remotely, in which case her parents kept her from him, or in person, in which case he then sent her to Jakku to await her destiny.

In either case, the deterioration of Palpatine’s body seems to indicate that most of his power has been transferred to Rey by the time of TROS, and so she is essentially being devoured by Palpatine’s spirit. I’d argue that calling Rey a Palpatine here makes sense, and we could even keep it vague enough that she could have been created by Palpatine, it’s just another unknowable possibility.

NeverarGreat said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

But if he was still clinging onto life through the offspring of the Skywalker’s, why would he even bother doing this with a random little girl, as well? She also cannot be called “a Palpatine” in this sequence of events.

Well we don’t know if he was just ‘clinging to life’ before TROS, just that he had returned at some point and was inhabiting a clone body.

My thought process on this is that Palpatine always wanted someone ‘far younger’ to inhabit, such as Anakin. He could have used the Force to create Anakin or not, but regardless, during ROTS he was probably looking to transfer his consciousness to him. Now, if life force transfer comes with visual changes in a person’s appearance, then we could easily see the moment when Palpatine went all-in with this plan - he used Windu’s attack as cover in order to mask the true cause of his transformation, while he transferred some of his power to Anakin. At this point, Anakin does almost a complete 180 and starts acting irredeemably evil. It was only Anakin’s fall on Mustafar that prevented Palpatine from going through with the full essence transfer, and it was probably Palpatine’s life force in Anakin that kept him alive.

Jumping forward to post-ROTJ, Palpatine probably reincarnated in a pristine clone body. Something after this transfer clearly happened to make this clone body deteriorate, and it may have been that he was transferring most of his life force into Rey in order that she could overcome her crises and be quickly drawn into the Dark Side. He probably planned to get her from Snoke during TFA or TLJ, but when Snoke failed he was forced to wait in a deteriorating clone body until Rey could find her way to him on her own.

The question still remains: Did Palpatine create Rey like he may have created Anakin? It could be that both Anakin and Rey had the Force from birth without Palpatine’s direct involvement, and he would only need to transfer some life force into them at the critical moments in order to corrupt them and their descendants. This seems to require the least effort on Palpatine’s part, and if Palpatine was able to survive his death due to his life force being bound within the Skywalkers, he would have been placed into a new clone body and so would have had the life force to begin this process again with Rey.

But why choose Rey? Perhaps among the Force sensitive candidates his cult could find at the time, she was the most powerful. Ben was doubtless heavily protected at this time, so Rey was the next best choice, a girl from nowhere whose parents wouldn’t be missed. He could have transferred his essence to her remotely, in which case her parents kept her from him, or in person, in which case he then sent her to Jakku to await her destiny.

In either case, the deterioration of Palpatine’s body seems to indicate that most of his power has been transferred to Rey by the time of TROS, and so she is essentially being devoured by Palpatine’s spirit. I’d argue that calling Rey a Palpatine here makes sense, and we could even keep it vague enough that she could have been created by Palpatine, it’s just another unknowable possibility.

And herein lies the main problem with the horcrux idea. It’s such a complex, hard-to-explain concept that it would take several minutes to properly explain it in a film format: minutes that we just don’t have. The hangar scene was only intended to convey a reveal as simple as “Palpatine is your granddad”, not lay out some deep saga lore.

If we want a reveal that we can seamlessly slot into a fanedit with almost no issues, then we need to keep it simple: most of the previous ideas in this thread did a pretty good job of this. But as it stands, I think the horcrux thing will be a dead end if we actually try to work it into the movie.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I think that runs counterintuitive to how the concept of the clone body is presented, though. The reason it’s crumbling away is because of how many Sith spirits are present within it. Artificial lifeforms clearly aren’t cutting it when it comes to Palpatine’s spirit, just take a look at Snoke, too. Whether he always had those other spirits within him as a part of the rule of two or if they were summoned along with his own spirit from Force hell is irrelevant. If he portioned a part of that off to Rey from across the galaxy (which seemingly should involve a ritual with both people present), he should actually deteriorate LESS. But then he would have less power, and a potential rival, neither of which is in his character to desire. The reason why the idea that he created Rey and Anakin as raw Force beings makes so much sense is because he’s trying to find a person that has enough potential with the Force, and specifically the dark side, to accept all of his Sith spirits without instantly withering away. For a more detailed description of this concept, read Burbin’s last post on here.

Yes, I think I understand that concept, and Burbin’s explanation. Palpatine and the Sith are looking for a host powerful enough to contain their collective spirits.

The bit that confuses me is how Palpatine would be able to create a life form that is more powerful than he himself, since his body is unable to house the Sith spirits but Anakin’s or Rey’s bodies would theoretically be able to do so.

It’s almost like a bootstrapping paradox, implying that if a person is powerful enough with the Force, that they can then create someone more powerful than them, and then that person could create someone more powerful than them, and so on. Just imagine creating a potion that enhances potionmaking abilities so you can create more powerful potions…

That’s why I’m not sold on the idea. It just feels like it’s exploiting the rules of the universe to do something that shouldn’t make sense, and not in a ‘the Dark Side is evil and unnatural’ kind of way, more in a ‘this exploit should really be patched in the next bugfix’ kind of way.

StarkillerAG said:

NeverarGreat said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

But if he was still clinging onto life through the offspring of the Skywalker’s, why would he even bother doing this with a random little girl, as well? She also cannot be called “a Palpatine” in this sequence of events.

Well we don’t know if he was just ‘clinging to life’ before TROS, just that he had returned at some point and was inhabiting a clone body.

My thought process on this is that Palpatine always wanted someone ‘far younger’ to inhabit, such as Anakin. He could have used the Force to create Anakin or not, but regardless, during ROTS he was probably looking to transfer his consciousness to him. Now, if life force transfer comes with visual changes in a person’s appearance, then we could easily see the moment when Palpatine went all-in with this plan - he used Windu’s attack as cover in order to mask the true cause of his transformation, while he transferred some of his power to Anakin. At this point, Anakin does almost a complete 180 and starts acting irredeemably evil. It was only Anakin’s fall on Mustafar that prevented Palpatine from going through with the full essence transfer, and it was probably Palpatine’s life force in Anakin that kept him alive.

Jumping forward to post-ROTJ, Palpatine probably reincarnated in a pristine clone body. Something after this transfer clearly happened to make this clone body deteriorate, and it may have been that he was transferring most of his life force into Rey in order that she could overcome her crises and be quickly drawn into the Dark Side. He probably planned to get her from Snoke during TFA or TLJ, but when Snoke failed he was forced to wait in a deteriorating clone body until Rey could find her way to him on her own.

The question still remains: Did Palpatine create Rey like he may have created Anakin? It could be that both Anakin and Rey had the Force from birth without Palpatine’s direct involvement, and he would only need to transfer some life force into them at the critical moments in order to corrupt them and their descendants. This seems to require the least effort on Palpatine’s part, and if Palpatine was able to survive his death due to his life force being bound within the Skywalkers, he would have been placed into a new clone body and so would have had the life force to begin this process again with Rey.

But why choose Rey? Perhaps among the Force sensitive candidates his cult could find at the time, she was the most powerful. Ben was doubtless heavily protected at this time, so Rey was the next best choice, a girl from nowhere whose parents wouldn’t be missed. He could have transferred his essence to her remotely, in which case her parents kept her from him, or in person, in which case he then sent her to Jakku to await her destiny.

In either case, the deterioration of Palpatine’s body seems to indicate that most of his power has been transferred to Rey by the time of TROS, and so she is essentially being devoured by Palpatine’s spirit. I’d argue that calling Rey a Palpatine here makes sense, and we could even keep it vague enough that she could have been created by Palpatine, it’s just another unknowable possibility.

And herein lies the main problem with the horcrux idea. It’s such a complex, hard-to-explain concept that it would take several minutes to properly explain it in a film format: minutes that we just don’t have. The hangar scene was only intended to convey a reveal as simple as “Palpatine is your granddad”, not lay out some deep saga lore.

If we want a reveal that we can seamlessly slot into a fanedit with almost no issues, then we need to keep it simple: most of the previous ideas in this thread did a pretty good job of this. But as it stands, I think the horcrux thing will be a dead end if we actually try to work it into the movie.

Well I think JJ’s ‘Rey and Anakin were created by Palpatine’ idea has a similar complexity, and we were already planning on changing some of Luke’s dialogue to further help explain it. This idea is really just an adjustment of that concept, and one that that explains Palpatine’s return and eventual defeat, which are not insubstantial problems with the theatrical film.

A lot of what I wrote about the lore doesn’t need to be said in the film, I was just writing it there in order to think through the events myself. Consider how much people have read into the Plagueis conversation. Those few sentences were all we needed to turn Palpatine’s designs into a tantalizing mystery rather than a black box, and doing the same thing here without overloading the exposition could yield similar results.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

That’s the point of my wording: he doesn’t create them directly. They are indirect creations of his. He simply pesters the Force itself with enough dark magic for it to do it for him. This is literally how him and his master created Anakin in canon. That being said, there is probably a cap on how much power the Force can bestow on somebody to counteract what it perceives as a threat.

Well if there is no direct creation of Rey or Anakin by Palpatine, then I don’t see why it couldn’t be left vague in the final wording such that the audience could interpret it several different ways. Something like ‘My grandfather was intended as a vessel for Palpatine’s spirit…and so were you’. That sort of thing. Nothing that directly states they were created by him, but something that could easily point in that direction if you so desired.