In the scene with Finn, Poe, and D-O, a brief bit of offscreen dialogue is changed to make it clear that Rey told Finn what she had heard from Kylo about her parents, but that Finn later learned from D-O that Kylo’s story didn’t hold up.
“This droid has a ton of information about Exegol.”
“Wait, coneface?”
“D-O”
“Sorry, D-O”
“Rey said he went to Jakku with Ochi of Bestoon.”
“Why was Ochi going there?”
“To bring a little girl he was supposed to take from Jakku, to the Emperor.”
“But D-O never went there.”
I really love your brainstorming Nev, and I want this to work (I love the idea of Rey having visions of her death, nice callback to the DotF script). It’s just that I get hung up on this plot beat specifically, what’s supposed to come across. Is the idea that if D-O never went to Jakku, then Ochi never went to Jakku? Just feels like a slight stretch, imo, unless you have en earlier line of D-O saying “I went everywhere master went.”
I also don’t see how “Ochi and D-O not making it to Jakku” equates to “Rey couldn’t be Palpatine’s granddaughter” for Finn. Just because they didn’t look for Palpatine’s granddaughter on Jakku, doesn’t mean the theoretical granddaughter couldn’t be on another planet. Unless the idea is that they were never looking for Rey, but then the dagger not the hanger means even less? I dunno, maybe I’m just overthinking it, or underthinking it.
I do like Palpatine saying at the end “no, you’re not a Palpatine.” I’d like to marry that to your other idea, as instead of hearing the Jedi, Rey hears the voices of her friends & Ben encouraging her, and further saying that “your power is your own, Rey.”
As a minor note, I would love a reference back to her Awakening in TFA. Maybe something like this:
“Wherever you are, you are hard to find.”
“You’re hard to get rid of.”
“You’ve come a long way since Starkiller Base…and the dagger has shown me the rest*…who you are. Darkness is your destiny, Rey.”
*Referencing your comments about Ascendant, when you finally saw it.
Again, I want this angle to work, and am more than happy to refine ideas with you.