I’ve removed Rey’s line. Personally I’m not bothered by this one so much either way (I guess I’ve finally found my breaking point for “stupid, but not movie-breakingly stupid”), but I present this so that others can weigh in:
Removing Rey’s line actually gives a bigger focus to the whispers, perhaps they could be amped up, In fact… maybe the whole concept of Rey hearing her mum’s scream when near the dagger could be axed from the two scenes it appears in, in favor of focusing on her hearing sith whispers instead.
The second time we hear the ‘scream’ is in Kylo’s quarters, where she looks worriedly at the dagger. We could cut before she says “no” and replace the screams of lil’ Rey and momma Rey with more, perhaps louder whispers. This would offer a better setup for the change on the Death Star II and the “only this blade tells”, if we focus on the dagger constantly reaching out and talking to Rey. The idea of the dark side reaching out to Rey, culminating in her following that voice in the DSII would be a really nice way to convey her descent to the dark, and it would be a better/smarter parallel to TFA instead of a lame repeat of hearing someone screaming “no!”.
I’m not a fan of trimming 3PO though, how would he know the dagger is the clue Luke was looking for if he doesn’t know what it says?
He recognized the language as “the runic language of the Sith”; so, on a quest to find a Sith artifact, he would probably infer that a dagger covered in Sith-iness is relevant. Sith Wayfinder…Sith Runes…slap a blue paw print on that sucker, and you’ve got yourself a clue.
I don’t know, to me it seems like unnecessary obfuscation of something that’s perfectly fine and clear originally, without gaining much from changing it. Imagine going to Kijimi and erasing 3PO’s memory only for the translation to be some unrelated thing like “This is Ochi’s dagger, do not steal. Long live the Sith”.
_“It’s the clue that Master Luke was looking for!”
“How do you know that? Hey 3PO, I said how do you know that? How do you know that’s the clue Luke was looking for if you can’t translate it? Did you read the script? Hey what’s that in the sand next to those bones? Is that the script?”
Damn it, my weakness! RLM references! 😉 lol.
Well, here’s the tricky thing actually, with the new angle we’re taking with the Dagger, it doesn’t really say the “Location of the Wayfinder” anyway. Personally, I still think Sith Runes are enough of a giveaway to accept that the Dagger is important - I think that it makes better storytelling sense than “I’m programmed to translate it, sir; but I’ll never tell you what it means! Tee hee hee!”
Like, in National Treasure (the closest example I can think of to this scavenger hunt), we assume that the Declaration is important, when we don’t yet know the specifics of what’s on the map. We just know that it’s somewhat related to the end goal, and there are some strange codes on the back, so it’s the best lead we have. No one complains, “Ah, but maybe Ben Franklin just wrote his grocery list on the back in a mysterious cypher! Plot hole!”
But I really want RogueLeader to weigh in on what 3PO should be able to “interpret” from the Dagger upon discovery. This whole idea is his baby, after all.
EDIT: Besides, Rey senses something fishy about the Dagger, so clearly it means more than Ochi’s special knife. How many artifacts, carved with ancient Sith Runes, imbuded with pure Essence of Dark Side, discovered near a confirmed Sith Cultist, are we reasonably going to find?
If we remove 3PO’s ability to translate it, it’s something that, sure, could be nit picked if you really want to. If we allow 3PO to translate it, then it’s something that objectively makes no sense. (Just don’t program him with the Sith dictionary if you don’t want him translating it!)