The Starlight Project Addendum: The Rise of Skywalker (Freeform Brainstorming Session) — Page 9

EddieDean said:

I like the vast majority of that, JJB. I think it’s focused and clean. I’m on the fence about Rey’s force awakening bringing her to the attention of Palpatine, but i don’t think we need the idea that the two need to fight to see who’s best. Rey’s the preferred host, so once she’s available to Palpatine, he’s more interested. (Implicitly, if you like, Kylo’s less innately powerful because he’s third generation.)

The idea behind that is he would be convinced Rey is his strongest heir, anyway. The only reason it needs to be worded that way is because we’re trying to reconcile the idea that he initially wanted Rey dead in this movie with the idea of her being his preferred candidate the whole time. So think of it like this, he wouldn’t tell Kylo - “Hey bud, I need you to go get yourself killed by Rey so she can tap into the dark side again.” He’d say what he told him as motivation - “Go on and try to kill her, end the Jedi, and maybe you have a chance of being what Vader could not be (Offscreen: but I doubt it, in all likelihood my chosen heir Rey is going to kill you in anger, so I win either way here).”

The reason he’d say “The princess of Alderaan has disrupted my plan” is because he intended for Kylo’s death to cement Rey in the dark side, but instead Rey healed him and Ben returned.

EDIT: Alternatively, I could make this idea that he wants Rey more apparent and have Kylo’s role as a failsafe less apparent - “I know Palpatine only wants me to try and kill you so that you give in to the dark side.” But this just raises questions about how he knows Rey is his “chosen heir” over himself to begin with.

I like the idea that they need to fight because Palpatine has put so much effort into grooming Ben. Whoever kills the other will be cemented in the dark side and be a suitable heir. The plan is disrupted when no one dies and Ben is redeemed, making Rey the only option.

Yeah, I agree hinventon. I haven’t given it this much thought before, but it does make the most sense. It literally makes their duel on the Death Star wreckage another “duel of the fates”, because only one of them is going to make it out alive as Palpatine’s rightful heir. In my last draft, it’s clear both of them have seen that it is fate for only one of them to take the dark throne (Luke sees this vision of Ben in his mind from TLJ). That’s why playing the “duel of the fates” motif there now makes sense and isn’t just fan-service. Leia’s intervention allows both of them to walk away still on the light.

I like all of those changes except for a couple. The word “miracle” has too many positive connotations, and I doubt her mother was a virgin because she was assumably already in a relationship with Rey’s “father”. We don’t even know for sure if Shmi was one, either, we just know that “there was no father” at the time she became pregnant.

Also, I think defining their connection as something beyond blood and as something they share as creations of the Force itself is compelling because we haven’t seen something like that in Star Wars before, and it also immediately dispels any incest vibes. The line you’ve given is something that Palpatine himself will later state - we don’t need to repeat ourselves. I’d be down to replace “depth” with “strength”, though.

hinventon said:

Now we just need someone to make a clean version of the scene so we can plug in the dialogue - I would attempt it but I’m not great with audio.

I just remembered that whoever made Rey nobody probably already has this done.

Nah, we’re going to take that scene from the Rey Nobody edit so her parents are never mentioned, just that she wants to destroy him. But that edit isn’t quite seamless at the moment, the shot of BB-8 they recycle is off because the camera would be in the Falcon’s wall (Rey on the right and Finn on the left) and yet there is another wall behind the droid, contradicting the previous shot of the Falcon’s interior. Rey needs to be on the left, and Finn on the right, with the wall in front of them and the Falcon’s interior behind the camera. Mirroring the BB-8 footage solves these problems - plus makes it look different.

Here is a video of what I’m describing because it’s extremely hard to do that using text:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GJ8aiNZXjOmPOhNihXFpdfoTiPz2fNJA/view?usp=sharing

I honestly never noticed that shot was reused, it kind of bothers me more that BB8’s face is flipped because it’s immediately obvious that the shot is flipped. Not that important at all but it always bugged me when they did that with R2 and Boba in the OT.

Well, at least we’d be following a Star Wars tradition. I think having the surroundings of the character correct is more important than a minor continuity issue.

That wouldn’t be a problem to generate. I like your second one there. Although we’d probably have to remove the Sith whispers.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

The idea behind that is he would be convinced Rey is his strongest heir, anyway. The only reason it needs to be worded that way is because we’re trying to reconcile the idea that he initially wanted Rey dead in this movie with the idea of her being his preferred candidate the whole time. So think of it like this, he wouldn’t tell Kylo - “Hey bud, I need you to go get yourself killed by Rey so she can tap into the dark side again.” He’d say what he told him as motivation - “Go on and try to kill her, end the Jedi, and maybe you have a chance of being what Vader could not be (Offscreen: but I doubt it, in all likelihood my chosen heir Rey is going to kill you in anger, so I win either way here).”

The reason he’d say “The princess of Alderaan has disrupted my plan” is because he intended for Kylo’s death to cement Rey in the dark side, but instead Rey healed him and Ben returned.

EDIT: Alternatively, I could make this idea that he wants Rey more apparent and have Kylo’s role as a failsafe less apparent - “I know Palpatine only wants me to try and kill you so that you give in to the dark side.” But this just raises questions about how he knows Rey is his “chosen heir” over himself to begin with.

You could avoid some confusion by changing it to “you were his chosen heir… a rightful Palpatine.” That way it’s clear Rey was the chosen heir when she was created, but he also corrupted Vader’s grandson as a plan B, and now they’re both candidates for the throne.

Then I’d have to extend it back again. I only shortened it for fear that it would be too long, but with the whole “perfected in darkness” thing gone we might be good: “The Emperor manipulated the Force itself into creating life. First my grandfather, and then you. Both initially chosen as his heir. You… are rightfully a Palpatine.”

Nev, I don’t see too much wrong with your sequence of events. The only trouble is that it’s unlike Papa Palps to share his personal power with anyone. Your idea also begs the question much more than our current idea on why these random nobodies were selected for this operation. Surely there was a couple in his Sith cult with a child who he could perform this ritual with? That way he trusts them to do what’s in his own benefit. At least with our current idea, we have Anakin’s own birth being to a nobody to back it up, so we just have to take it as a fact that whenever Palps tells the Force to make a baby that it goes to some random woman across the galaxy. We also have the benefit of lining up with Rey’s TLJ dark side cave vision where she can’t see her parents. Our current line of “Your parents, Rey… they had no part in your conception…” suggests that was because she is genetically unrelated to them, only to the Force itself. We also make Rey a Skywalker in every sense of the word except exact genetic makeup.

I’m thinking about modifying the largest body paragraph for even more congruence with TFA. Honestly, anything that makes this reveal feel like it was planned out from the very beginning is welcome here IMO:

(Rey sees the vision of herself on the Sith throne)

“Luke saw the same fate in me. But you and I don’t want it.”

“Stop talking.”

“Why? I know you better than anyone else.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“The Force showed me glimpses of a girl like you long before we first met. When we fought, in the forest, the darkness inside of you fully awakened. You revealed yourself to the Emperor that day… just as he always intended.”

(Visions of Rey beating Kylo on Starkiller, falling into the dark cave, etc.)

“No!”

This way we can justify Kylo asking his officer “What girl?” because he has a specific girl in his mind that could have stolen the Falcon. Furthermore, his line “The girl I’ve heard so much about” takes on a different meaning. It also makes sense how he later states that the longer Rey is roaming about, the stronger she will become. Even at that moment, he knows that the two of them are somehow related.

I really live Nev’s most recent take on things, it’s the cleanest marriage of Rey Palpatine & Rey Nobody. Rey’s uniqueness wasn’t because she was born/made/conceived differently, she was inoculated. I also don’t have an issue with Palpatine choosing a scavenger over a Sith loyalist for a few reasons. The main reason is that foolhardy Force users in Star Wars put way too much stock into visions and sabotage themselves as a result.

The second reason requires some explanation. There’s an old DC comic called Armageddon 2001 that depicts a fascistic society where conformity is enforced & heroism is outlawed (being a vigilante, memorabilia, etc.). The dictator of this society, Monarch, wants to conduct time travel experiments to both protect himself from unexpected attacks and ensure that his form of peace will last after he’s gone. The only problem is that none of his subjects survive the experiments, and the protagonist, Matt Rider, explains that it’s a matter of willpower: by outlawing heroism and enforcing draconian rule, Monarch is eliminating the qualities in his society that are necessary for it’s survival. As a result, Matt becomes one of the subjects for the time travel experiments and actually survives the process.

I can see Palpatine doing the same thing, looking for an outsider like Anakin that would have the necessary qualities that his followers wouldn’t have and setting up the steps necessary for Rey to one day become his most viable host. Also, like I said before, putting too much stake in his own visions and trying to get the outcome he wants. After all, his overconfidence is his weakness.

JEDIT: If you do need an even stronger reason for Palpatine to target Rey specifically, you could always make Ochi’s knife a Sith Artifact her parents found, of which Child Rey would be very succeptible to it’s influence and put a big target on her back. Still keep in with that “right place, right time” angle.

I think that’s reading a bit too into things though, Raditz. Nowhere in Nev’s draft does it say that Palpatine had a vision which showed him Rey would be the most suitable person in all the galaxy for him to give most of his own power to. Nor should it, because that would be super clunky to implement. At the end of the day, I just don’t buy that a Palpatine barely clinging to life in a clone body is gonna give up most of his OWN power to supercharge some random little girl. I think this would end up being a problem for the majority of audience members. The far more likely thing he’d do is that he resorts to his old way of ordering a Force-empowered baby through the Midichlorian Express. The problem he then has to deal with is that the baby gets airdropped at a random location in the galaxy, so he can’t immediately come and pick her up. Which is another problem with Nev’s idea - he’d know all along where baby Rey was located. He would have come for her far sooner than the age we see her at in TFA’s vision. Probably would have killed her parents right after she was born.

It’s sweaty, yes, but any take on fixing TROS’ midpoint would be sweaty, as this thread has proven. What I especially like about this take is that it’s an angle on Rey Palpatine that circumvents if not outright denies the idea that the Force is specifically tied into bloodlines, like how later Mandolorian seems to imply. As Nev put it, all Palpatine did was “pour his dark power into [Rey]”, which could mean a number of things. Rey, her family, and the Skywalker family are all still victims of Palpatine’s machinations, which is a more important takeaway from TROS.

Not necessarily. Anakin would still be selected by Qui-Gon due to his natural propensity for the Force and mysterious nature of his birth aligning with prophecy. By Nev’s new idea, Palpatine’s actions would be why he becomes the moody and impulsive teenager in Episode 2, not explain why his bloodline is so gifted with the Force to begin with. And Rey must have had some natural propensity for the Force like Anakin to make her a viable candidate for Palp’s darkening of her, so to speak. So you still have to deal with powerful bloodlines created by the Force regardless. The only difference is in my current idea Palpatine is the one that actually wants the Force to make these bloodlines, and pushed it into creating them in the first place. Which explains significantly more in Star Wars canon, and doesn’t conflict with anything, as I’ve stated in my previous posts on this page.

This is what I mean about why trying to fix TROS’ midpoint being sweaty. I get that it’s hard to do something new/different in a movie where Palpatine has to be the main bad guy, but going back to the idea of Palpatine having a hand in making Vader does help tie the nine movies together. What I take issue with is intrinsically tying Force ability into genetics, which is where TLJ won me & TROS lost me (even TLJ Luke was sick of hearing about “that mighty Skywalker blood”).

I’m fine with Anakin’s virgin birth (in theory, at least), is because it plays on the Jedi’s expectations in their prophecy so much that they can’t see that Anakin’s going to lead to the Jedi Order’s downfall. I like the idea of Palpatine causing Anakin’s virign birth because then that creates subtext of Luke having to fight a destiny he had no say in. But if Palpatine is involved in a second virgin birth (whether or not he was actually involved with Anakin), it just creates a feeling of “wow, the only important people in the universe are the Palpatines/Skywalkers, huh?”

The reason I like Nev’s wording is because it is vague enough that Palpatine did something to Rey as a child that it could literally be anything when she was already born and new to the world. She didn’t start life as a Palpatine, her progress was affected by Palpatine, which makes the idea of brining Palpatine back and having him somehow connected with Rey go down smoother.

If Rey is only as strong as she is because she was born that way due to Palpatine’s machinations, it stops being a trope subversion for Anakin & Luke’s story, and just becomes more of the same, reinforcing what TLJ was trying to get away from by tying it back to blood, when the Force should be about mysticism, spiritualism, etc that should be accessible by everyone. For me, the less talk of blood the better.

But according to canon, you are born with your propensity for the Force. This is backed up by every canon source: movies, comics, The Clone Wars, Tales of the Jedi with baby Ahsoka. It’s unavoidable. Rey even says this in TLJ concerning herself: “Something inside me has always been there. And now it’s awake.”

I’m sorry, but this approach just isn’t canon friendly and it doesn’t line up with several other things established in the sequels as good as the other idea. Whether you like it or not, the Skywalker saga IS about bloodlines. TLJ merely set up another powerful bloodline in Rey. At least with this other idea Rey is genetically unrelated to Palpatine, as are the Skywalkers. Giving us 3 different powerful bloodlines (Rey’s, Skywalker, and Palpatine). They just are creations of his he seeks to adopt/possess.

I can already hear EddieDean saying that you guys are overcomplicating things again lmao. We seriously need to stop focusing on her parents, too.