Took a few months away, coming back at this with fresh eyes.

I still love the idea of the film’s central conflict being Rey (& Kylo) dying to defeat the Sith & wiping out the Jedi or living as a Sith and condemning the galaxy. Like Nev said, either one has to happen at the end. It’s an enticing no win scenario and brings back a DotF concept (that Rey’s destiny is to die fighting evil) while giving it some teeth.

I also love the possibility that Palpatine is lying about being Rey’s grandfather. However, since we don’t know when/if the Fey movie is coming out & what it’ll entail, futureproofing an edit like this is priority.

I mentioned elsewhere that a good way to cast doubt on what Palpatine says would be to play around with color-coding on flashbacks/visions. Every time we flashback to a moment from the previous films would be in black & white, while every new thing introduced in Episode 9 (the dueling Exegol visions Rey has, everything related to Ochi & Rey’s parents) would be in color. This would come to a head when Ben talks with the memory of Han, who would be color-keyed black & white. This would highlight how you can’t live your life in fear based on what the future might be. You have to do what’s right based on what you know in your heart is true, damn the consequences.

You don’t need to reframe the dagger’s purpose or have Palpatine say he lied (although having him never refer to Rey as “granddaughter” would help). Just sew in a bit of doubt on Palpatine’s story because again, that’s not the central conflict of the movie. You can call it a “Rey Ambiguous” edit (or “Rey Mysterio,” if you’re a wrestling fan).