The Starlight Project Addendum: The Rise of Skywalker (Freeform Brainstorming Session) — Page 4

Here’s an attempt at the hangar scene with a bit more wiggle room:

“Rey… wherever you are… you are hard to find.”

“You are hard to get rid of.”

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed you to see it… I was wrong… You don’t belong to the Light, Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“I’d never lie to you… your parents were no one. But they didn’t start out as junk traders.”

“Don’t!”

“As the Sith’s loyal subjects, they were assigned a child to raise…"

“I don’t want this!”

“…and then kill."

“No!”

“But they’d learn how to love, so they went into hiding.”

(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)

“Rey, my love… be brave.”

“You’ll be safe here… I promise.”

“Come back! Nooo!”

“Upon Palpatine’s revival, they became desperate.”

“Stop talking.”

“Rey… I learned what happened to them.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Your parents sought Luke’s protection, searching the Jakku desert for his allies… but Palpatine’s assassins tracked them down. They resisted fiercely, only to be forgotten by the sands of time."

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are.”

“See you soon.”

…etc

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“Because Palpatine needed a host. One that was modified with his genetic code. You don’t just have power…you have/rival his power.”

“Palpatine views you as nothing more than a leftover liability. But what he can’t see is that we’ve become a Dyad in the Force, linked by Snoke, but grown beyond that. We can end him and the Sith, and create something new, together…”

(Removes his helmet)

“You know what you need to do. You know.”

“I do.”

And as a bonus, some decidedly less vague D-O related dialogue:

“This droid has…thank you, I appreciate that. General?”

“General.”

"This droid has scanned every planet he ever visited.”

“Wait, coneface?”

“D-O”

“Sorry, D-O”

“Rey believes he went to Jakku with Ochi of Bestoon.”

“Why was Ochi going there?”

“To find a dead child he was supposed to take from Jakku, to the Emperor.”

I had wanted that last bit to be “To bring a child that untimely died on Jakku, to the Emperor” but didn’t think the words would convincingly match Finn’s lips. Essentially, Rey is making assumptions about what D-O knows, not realizing she may not be the child Palpatine was looking for. Finn, having a fuller picture, takes that to make the final assault on Exegol into a rescue mission for Rey.

Hal 9000 said:

As an audience member I’d have a lot of questions about why they’d be assigned to raise and kill a child, as that phrasing makes it sounds like a single overall assignment.

And I still have a hard time getting over that Rey’s mother looks just like her.

I agree with the first point. Currently trying to find a way to make it sound like there was a change in their directive after a few years. That’s what the next line should imply “But they’d grown to care for you…”

I can fix the second point quite easily. Deepfakes have become easier as of late.

Holy shit… I think I’ve figured it out. This is how we bridge Rey Nobody and Rey Palpatine. While this definitely isn’t canon, it’s what George Lucas would have actually preferred - according to a book he intentionally spelled this reveal out in ROTS but didn’t want to directly reveal it:

“Rey… wherever you are… you are hard to find.”

“You are hard to get rid of.”

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it… I needed you to see it… who you are. I know the darkness that lives in you, Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“I’d never lie to you… your parents were no one… junk traders burdened with a child they never planned for.”

“Don’t!”

“They grew to care for you, regardless. But someone watched them from the shadows."

“I don’t want this!”

“Palpatine wanted you."

“No!”

“Your parents were hunted across the galaxy. Remember them.”

(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)
“My love… be brave.”
“You’ll be safe here… I promise.”
“Come back! Nooo!”

“They paid for your protection… in more than one way.”

“Stop talking.”

“Rey… I learned what happened to them.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Your parents sought Luke’s protection, chasing rumors of a congregation in the Jakku desert… but Ochi tracked down the ship they stole. They resisted fiercely, only to be forgotten by the sands of time."

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are.”

“You know why the Emperor wanted to capture you. I’ll come tell you.”

“Why did the Emperor come for me?”

“Because his influence over the Force spawned two dark bloodlines. My grandfather’s. Then, perfected with you. You… are Palpatine’s heir.”

“You were created to inherit the legacy of the Sith as a Palpatine. But what he doesn’t know is that we’ve become a dyad in the Force, Rey… two, linked by raw power. We can end him and the Sith, and create something new, together…”

(Removes his helmet)

“You know what you need to do. You know.”

“I do.”

This way, we can keep every instance of characters referring to her as a Palpatine. We can also keep the Reylo kiss, because genetically they are two distinct bloodlines. The dyad existing between them makes sense because they are both products of Palpatine using the same manipulation of the Force. Later on, we’d need to reinstate “I never wanted you dead. I wanted you here, with me.” The goal would be to try to make it clear that he preferred Rey initially as his vessel, but when he lost her he shifted to Kylo. He wants Rey dead at the beginning of this movie simply because she has chosen the path of a Jedi - it’s not that complicated. He sent Kylo to kill Rey because he knew the superior bloodline would survive the encounter. Finally, Rey taking on the Skywalker name makes a hell of a lot more sense, because she was created the same way as Anakin.

For sure, that was always a problem I had with the clone angle. Because Palpatine would never want an artificially produced lifeform as his final host - that’s too scientific and weak. We see how his clones are falling apart when he possesses them. He’d want someone natural, constructed from the Force itself by influencing the midichlorians to produce a being like that somewhere in the galaxy. Whether his final choice is Kylo Ren or Rey, he doesn’t particularly care. This way, his clones were always a stepping stone and merely the first part to his resurrection.

As for the chosen one prophecy, it just makes it all hilariously ironic. Palpatine (and earlier Plagueis) thought he was creating the ultimate Sith host with alchemy, but instead they were creating the people the Force would use to destroy the Sith over and again.

EddieDean said:

The only thing I might consider adding, is making it clear he had other experiments (implicitly including the Palpatine clone he now inhabits), but that Rey or Kylo still would be better vessels. I’d also include an angle about Palpatine wanting to kill her if he couldn’t possess her - but I think this core principle is the right angle.

I’d love to include that as the first sentence of the final paragraph, but we’d miss out on “as a Palpatine” which is essential for the rest of the movie’s dialogue to make sense.

The problem with him wanting to kill her as a child is that he went out of his way to create her through the Force just a few years prior. She hasn’t done anything to warrant being killed at that point - everything would be proceeding exactly as he intended. It makes sense he would start corrupting Ben and want her dead only after she disappears.

Technically all Snoke says about Rey in TFA is to have Kylo bring her to him. The fact that he wants Kylo to kill her in TLJ would still line up with the idea Palps was fully invested in Kylo at that point after witnessing she “has the spirit of a true Jedi”.

As I said before, nobody ever wanted to kill Rey in TFA. Snoke just wanted to see her in-person to assess her, and Kylo wanted to train her. In TLJ, Snoke says she must die because she “[has] the spirit of a true Jedi!” Palps says the same thing at the beginning of TROS: “Kill the girl. End the Jedi.” It’s clear she was only ever a target because of her allegiance with the Jedi. When Ben turns back to the light, Palpatine has no choice but to bank on turning Rey from the Jedi path and possessing her. Wanting to kill her himself before her experiences as a Jedi just doesn’t make a lot of sense if he specifically decided to create her. It would be like making an exquisite painting only to use a blowtorch on it because somebody else made a similar one you might be interested in buying.

Dayum… I just realized it would even explain why Luke acts so uncharacteristic in TLJ to many people when he attacks his nephew. It’s the fact that the Skywalker bloodline was literally created to be evil Sith murderers. Yeah, like I said, this is going against canon, but in my conversations with several Star Wars fans over the past few years there are people that genuinely believe Palpatine created the Skywalkers. It’s heavily implied in ROTS, was supposed to be confirmed in that film, and was genuinely the direction George was going.

I’m proud of my rough draft posted earlier, but I like what you’re getting at with focusing more on the Skywalkers with the speaking time allowed to us. They are in the title of this movie, after all. Instead of Rey seeing visions of her parents, she could instead be seeing dark moments of the Skywalkers (Luke attacking Ben, Kylo killing Han, etc.) But we don’t want this to take away from Rey’s own backstory being filled in more. Also, I’d like to make it very clear that it’s still a bad idea for Palpatine to want Rey dead as a child if that wasn’t clear enough lol.

EddieDean said:

What is a Skywalker but a Palpatine heir who rose above it?

Bruh put this on a T-shirt asap lol

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Instead of Rey seeing visions of her parents, she could instead be seeing dark moments of the Skywalkers (Luke attacking Ben, Kylo killing Han, etc.)

If we did do this, we could actually just revert back to her parents selling her for drinking money. They had a child they never wanted, so it makes sense. Then they were too drunk to remember where they sold her to. Holy shit this is amazing. It’s the exact opposite of how loving Shmi was.

EDIT: Only problem would be their ship being the same as Ochi’s. But we might be able to fix that somehow.