@Nev
I think something vague like, “forging a new destiny” could be good.
Kinda speaking toward your idea of making Rey’s potential death a part of the visions, I like the idea of the visions centering around the concept of either Rey or Kylo dying. Only one can survive, one can rule, according to Palpatine (Maybe speaks to the selfishness inherent to the dark side). And it makes their duel on the Death Star feel inevitable, fated even.
So, it pits Kylo’s two desires against each other. Does he wants to rule/win, or does he want to be with Rey? In TLJ, he tries to have it both ways, but Rey refuses him. So what if this time, he is explicitly telling Rey that he would rather be with her than to rule? This might surprise or shock Rey, but Rey still refuses him, because she would essentially be abandoning her friends and her mission. And even though it is still a selfish choice for Kylo, it is a step down from wanting to be a dictator, which helps ease the audience into his redemption and the kiss him and Rey share at the end of the film. Because saying he wants to run away with her is a stronger hint to the audience that his desire to be with her is more romantic than political. Him saying something like, “we can rule the galaxy together”, “forge a new destiny”, “nothing will stand in our way”, still implies to the audience that his interest in Rey may have more to do with the power their alliance could bring rather than being interested in Rey herself. I feel like this is why a lot of general audience members felt their kiss came out of left field. There wasn’t enough explicit dialogue about them actually wanting to “be” together in a romantic way.
The dagger stuff is interesting. I’m gonna have to think about it more/read more of your thoughts about it. I will say initially it feels like could be a complicated plot point to have to explain, but I’ve come around to your ideas a lot! It might work well for Palpatine lying about Rey being a Palpatine though.
I kinda lean toward the least amount time we spend talking about the MacGuffins, the better. And just accept Exegol, the Sith Throne, the Wayfinders, the Sith Dagger as all ancient Sith relics designed to hide Exegol from anyone who wasn’t worthy/a dark side user.
@Hadrian
I could see having to explain Abeloth would be really exposition heavy for audiences, and Abeloth wouldn’t really mean anything to anyone outside of Legends fans. But I don’t think Palpatine is necessarily obsessed with possessing Rey. I think he would have been more than fine if Kylo had killed her, but since she defeated him and found her way to Exegol, she proved herself a worthy enough vessel. But that could play differently depending on what angle an editor chooses to take.
@Eddie
This is something I’ve thought about a lot, and I think a lot of people, including myself, have felt the ST should have concluded in a way that makes it clear that something new will come along and this cycle is finally broken, but that’s not exactly where I’m at right now. For starters, I don’t know if there is enough content in the film to really paint that picture. And two, I don’t know if a potential future Rey film would contradict that, although I’m not letting myself be overly worried about stepping on the toes of a hypothetical future movie.
I don’t think the solution is that Rey breaks the cycle. I mean maybe she did, by destroying Palpatine, but it’s kind of left ambiguous. No one ever says, “the Sith are finally dead for good”. The solution, at least to me, is that the cycle is an inherent part of the Star Wars universe. Even if the Sith are gone for good, do you really think future Star Wars content won’t have other dark side users, or Jedi that will fall to the dark side?
The answer has to be that Rey, Ben, future Jedi, etc., have to accept that as long as people exist, there will always be good people and bad people. A perfect system that stops bad things from happening will never exist. There will always be selfless people and selfish people. But despite this constant struggle, the good in the universe is worth fighting to protect.
I feel like this Qui-Gon from the canon novel Master and Apprentice embodies this idea well, and maybe it could even be adapted in some form for the Jedi voices scene at the climax of the film.
Qui-Gon: It matters which side we choose. Even if there will never be more light than darkness. Even if there can be no more joy in the galaxy than there is pain. For every action we undertake, for every word we speak, for every life we touch—it matters. I don’t turn toward the light because it means someday I’ll ‘win’ some sort of cosmic game. I turn toward it because it is the light
You could even potentially expand on this issue further with Luke in TLJ. You could give him new dialogue where he says he thought that he had fixed the flaws of the old Jedi Order, but despite that Ben still fell. This fits with Legends too, because Luke did change a lot of the rules with his New Jedi Order, but many of his students still fell to the dark side. You could even explore the idea of Luke and Ben/Kylo coming to the same conclusion, and both wanting to break the cycle in different ways. Luke thought if the Jedi ended, he could snuff out the Sith’s fire and thus break the cycle, then maybe something pure can be reborn from the ashes. Kylo felt he must destroy the Jedi, and then the Sith, in order to start a new order in his image. But in the end they were both wrong. You can’t break the cycle, you can’t stop change, whether it be good and bad. That is a part of life. But that doesn’t mean people must sit back and do nothing about it.
Not super related but it makes me think of this quote.
Anakin: I don’t want things to change.
Shmi: But you can’t stop the change, no more than you can stop the suns from setting.
The dark side will always exist. Evil will always exist. And in times of peace dark forces will eventually rise again. But that doesn’t mean there is no point in fighting against that evil. So in my mind, that is why Rey proclaims herself a Jedi at the end of the film. Calling herself a Jedi is an act of rebellion against this absurd cycle. It’s saying, “I don’t care if I can’t stop the cycle, I’m going to resist it regardless”. She’ll fight for good because it’s worth fighting for, no matter how impermanent peace is. And that not only speaks to the issue of the Sith and the Jedi, but also with the New Republic/First Order.
But regardless, the movie is open ended enough to make the audience wonder if the cycle is broken, or has changed the state of the galaxy for good. Maybe it has, but whether or not evil will rise again doesn’t matter, because Rey and our heroes have accepted the fact that they will face whatever threats may rise, because it’s the right thing to do.
Does any of that make sense?