Darth Raditz

Going with the idea of the Grogu rescue openinng Mando movie three, maybe you can establish in the crawl that while making the preparations to fight Gideon, he has the Armorer make the beskar chain metal, as if to say that he will rescue Grogu from the Empire and the chain mail cements it.

I think you could accomplish this by taking the scene in Boba where Mando gets the chain mail and split it into two scenes, one at the beginning and one near the middle. It always bugged me in Boba where after revealing to the coven that he removed his helmet that they didn’t immediately try and take the beskar back from Mando before kicking him out.

I don’t think that Rey being suddenly chosen by the Force is antithetical to canon, and in fact it goes back to how the Force might usually work in the galaxy according to the '77 film. Anyone can learn to use the Force, and anyone can be suddenly chosen by it to do great deeds, hence the ‘may the Force be with you’ benediction. In fact, it seems unusual for the Force to be passed down through bloodlines, with the Skywalker family being one of the few examples of this. For most people, most Jedi, the reason they have the Force is a mystery, even if it’s usually identified early in their lives. But remember, Midichlorians are only a symbiote with the Force, not the reason for it. A person could suddenly be chosen by the Force later in life and then accumulate Midichlorians that communicate with it. And Midichlorians aside, the Force choosing a person for greatness is a very Aurthurian legend way of the Force working, with Rey being called to the Skywalker’s sword.

Maz tells Rey that the Force has ‘always been there’, but Maz isn’t a Jedi, she’s just very old. There’s no indication that she has the desire or aptitude to be a Jedi, so I think it’s a fair expectation that Maz is just telling Rey that the Force is available to everyone in some capacity, at all times. She could just as easily tell this to Chewie and it would be true. When Rey later says that ‘something inside me has always been there…now it’s awake’, she could just be referring back to Maz’s statement about the Force and not that Rey was always special. In fact, the important part is that awakening, the Force choosing Rey to accomplish some destiny.

I think that’s the point of TLJ, in my opinion. Rey comes from nothing, no special creation or lineage, and it’s only a chance awakening in TFA that brings her into the story. I don’t think that Broom Boy was intended to have some special parentage, he just chose the Force or the Force chose him at the end of the film, just as it can choose anyone no matter how small. In fact, TROS itself continues this thesis when Finn discovers that the Force has awakened in him as well. No special parents with him either, and that’s what makes Rey’s special status so detrimental to all of this.

TROS’s revelation about Rey destroys TLJ’s thesis by saying that Rey always had powerful blood. Neither my Clone Rey idea or JJ’s virgin birth Palpatine creation idea is able to negate the destruction of TLJ’s thesis because both ideas state that Rey was singularly important from the moment of her conception, and always would be. The only way I can see to preserve TLJ is by establishing that Rey’s first moment of importance is her awakening in TFA, and the only way to do that while also talking about her past is if Palpatine foresaw this awakening and sowed the seeds of darkness in Rey before that happened.

And yes, in a perfect world Rey’s parents wouldn’t matter, but if we delete the flashbacks and that motivation for destroying Palpatine, well, that would just further diminish Rey’s motivation. We have to consider the practical impact of deleting more of this already eviscerated film.

I think the issue with Rey’s parents being good is less about their goodness and more about the way they are handled in TROS. It doesn’t make sense for her parents to sell her to Plutt to keep her safe, since no good parent would willingly do that. They almost surely could have chosen a better person than Plutt to keep her safe, so it just doesn’t fly that they would really have Rey’s wellbeing in mind.

However, there’s actually an issue with TLJ’s version of Rey’s past that ties in here. If Rey’s parents were trash who sold her the first chance they got, then they wouldn’t have sold her when she was six. They would have sold her as a newborn, as most people who aren’t able to raise a child would do. Even if they kept her until she was six, she probably would have been malnourished and sickly, not like she looked in the flashback. So this is a problem with TLJ, and this is actually evidence that her parents did care for her, at least a little. That is why I think there’s value in keeping the flashbacks, but just making it so that her parents were forced to give up their child. It is the best fit for the facts at hand.

Very, very well said, Nev. Your ideas and creativity truly convince me that a “Rey Spiritual Palpatine” take that honors TLJ is possible. It’s certainly what I’m going to keep advocating for, at least. With fanedits, I’m all for being as canon complient to the franchise as possible (it’s why I don’t generally gravitate Prequel Edits that drastically change Dooku’s motivations) but there’s got to a point where you musn’t be afraid to address acknowledge a the more problematic aspects of something you love (i.e., Indiana Jones is more or less a grave robber). Star Wars needs more nobodies who become somebodies, not an endless cycle of bluebloods.

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.

I can’t remember where I saw it, I want to say it was somewhere on this website, but Star Wars has always had an issue with time compression (the main example I saw was that the entirety of TESB was supposed to take over months, but you never get that idea from the movie itself).

Here’s an idea I literally had just now. How about after Luke rescues Grogu and takes him, cut the goodbye scene short, cut to Boba Fett taking over Jabba’s operations, then cut to Mando at Luke’s planet, asking Ahsoka to give Grogu the beskar chain mail. It makes a minor plothole of how did Mando get on and off Luke’s planet, but it would solve a major pacing issue, both in transitioning from Mando 2 material to TBoBF material, as well as all the waiting Mando & the audience have to do to even meet Ahsoka & drop off the gift. Just make the transition from show material as quick/engaging as possible and hope people don’t complain.

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.

For these revamped New Republic edits, I’ve always been in favor of ending Episode 2 with Grogu being captured. Lets you have a dark ending, you get to move most if not all of the Luke crap into one Episode, and you get to trim even more of Book of Boba Fett to your liking and avoid most of the bad stuff there as well.

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.

Rewatching Nando V Movies TROS videos, and I’m kinda convinced that JJB is right: there needs to be a potentially canon-altering twist that recontextualizes the Skywalker Saga, like the Skywalkers and the Palpatines being one in the same. Rey can even still be a Nobody, the big threat that Palpatine personifies for her is the idea of the Star Wars legacy being a colossal lie. The big reveal in the hangar could be Kylo saying “Palapatine…is the First Skywalker.” That way, her taking on the name Skywalker is her reaffirming the stories she grew up on still having value.

Le’s try this (not posting the whole rewrite since it’s well trod at this point)

Kylo: (Force Skype) Palpatine wants us to fight.

Rey: Serving another master?

Kylo: Please. He’s a decrepit fossil.

JEDIT:

Kylo: I offered you my hand once. You wanted to take it. Why didn’t you?

Rey: You could’ve killed me. Why didn’t you?

Kylo: I was missing a piece of the puzzle.

Rey : I see through the cracks in your mask. You’re haunted. You can’t stop seeing what you did to your father.

Kylo: I’ve been haunted since my Jedi days. Since I saw a vision of Grandfather & Palpatine, side by side. And it’s lead me to this moment. I’m going to find you…When I offer you my hand again…you’ll take it.

Rey: We’ll see.

END OF JEDIT

(Later)
 
“You were right…your parents were no one. Toys for the Dark Side to break.”

“Don’t!”

“But not you. Like my grandfather, you were different, powerful…”

(Later)

“Why did the Emperor come for me?.”

“Palpatine created Vader, Rey. And he perfected that trick with you. Your his heir to the Empire.”

“That’s why our bond is so strong, Rey. We’re connected to him…nothing but potential vessels. But we can kill him, and bring a new order to the galaxy…together.”

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

“I do.”

I’d really like to do away with any specific mentions of bloodlines. It reminds me too much of Grogu’s blood being used in cloning experiments and how uncomfortably eugenicist Star Wars can be at times.

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.

NeverarGreat said:

I don’t think that Kylo should tell Rey that Palpatine is lying to her, or giving her visions. I think that can be implied, however, if the visions first appear in some fragmented form when Kylo interacts with the Vader helmet and they share a vision, basically like the theatrical version of that scene.

In the Kylo quarters fight, it could be that Kylo is surprised at the new version of Rey’s past that he has seen, since he didn’t see that in her memories before, but I don’t think he should outright suggest that this is a device of Palpatine. Again, if Rey knows for sure that Palpatine is lying about her past, then she can easily discard it. So that interpretation should remain plausible but unconfirmed for the entire runtime, and the story should be about Rey choosing which story to believe.

I agree that Rey believing the story to be true should be held for as long as possible to maintain story tension. I just wonder if there’s a way to show that Kylo is confused by this new vision to better sell the idea. I might take a crack at wording the hangar scene to frame it so that the Palpatine story is just something Kylo heard, not confirming or denying anything, only to then reiterate all he thinks is important is the Dyad he and Rey form.

NeverarGreat said:

For this to be communicated, we would need to alter the D-O scene and maybe give D-O some new lines if we want to be fancy, in order to prevent confirmation of Rey Palpatine. Luke’s line of ‘Because you’re a Palpatine’ doesn’t actually need to change, since it could merely be that he is giving voice to her greatest fear, not confirming it. His next line could be ‘Leia sensed your fear.’

It would depend on what lines D-O would have, but the thread seems to be heading in the right direction so far.

NeverarGreat said:

The only other thing that is needed to pull this off is to give Finn a line where he pushes back against Palpatine’s story and tells Rey that she ultimately must choose her destiny, not the Emperor. For this, I think it would be interesting if we used this opportunity to give Finn some closure to his character arc as well. From a practical perspective, Finn would want to get to Rey in order to convey his doubt to her, which means that his mission at the end of the film would be similar to the one in TFA: he is involved in a Resistance attack but has the ulterior motive of wanting only to find Rey. However, he ultimately chooses not to find Rey and instead chooses to sacrifice himself for the Resistance, knowing that this time his sacrifice will not be in vain…

Removing the voices of the Jedi that Rey didn’t know in life will emphasize that she has rejected her desire to find belonging in the past, and will choose instead to take Finn’s advice and rely on the strength of her friends for her future. Burying the old lightsabers in the homestead is final confirmation of her new resolve.

Ooh, I really love this idea, since I think the only film in the Skywalker Saga where the final battle is a rescue mission is Phantom Menace? I think the only issue then is a lack of reaction shots of Finn sensing Rey’s death & resurrection, but I could just be overthinking it.

I think where I’m getting hung up on, as far as “Rey Palpatine/Clone is a lie/unconfirmed in-universe” is that as it stands is that we don’t have mock-ups of these ideas to see them play out in practice. Going over the past posts, the idea that Rey’s visions not being part of her childhood but Palpatine sending her specific images to manipulate her is a bit of a hard sell since we haven’t written a version of the hangar scene where Kylo tells her that’s what’s going on (not yet anyway).

I do like the idea of every time the Palpatine reveal comes up after the scene itself if people cast doubt on it (new lines for D-O, Luke saying “because of Palpatine” instead of “because you’re a Palpatine,” Finn telling Rey she knows the truth that Palpatine’s not her family, etc.) but I’m concerned there’s still too much evidence that points to Rey Palpatine being true.

I followed development of a Palpatine-less edit of Episode IX called “A Spark of Hope,” and one idea the edit toyed with was having Rey narrate the summation of her journey while burying the lightsabers. It ultimately went in a different direction, but it would be a clean way of having Rey state “whether what the Emperor said was true or not doesn’t matter. What matters is the future & moving forward” or something like that.

NeverarGreat said:

So then I thought that there is one other reason why Lando would be involved with Luke chasing Ochi across the galaxy, and that was if it had something to do with Luke’s saber. This would complete the whole ‘story for another time’ moment in TFA while also being relevant to Finn because he was there when that story was originally teased.

This. I’ve been meaning to post in the radical ideas thread that Maz’s line in TFA should be changed from “Another time” to “Ask Lando” or the like, and this would bring everything full circle.

As for other changes, it doesn’t have to be a lie, Rey Palpatine doesnt have to be a lie, just a truth “from a certain point of view.” Rey being inducted into the Sith cult would fit closer with the idea of Palpatine being a villain specifically for a Rey Nobody ve4r4sion of the story. If you want to future proof it, you can bring the line about Rey being his “granddaughter” up to his first meeting with Kylo, then when Rey’s on Exegol, you change Palpatine’s line from “It is your birthright to rule…here” to “I adopted you to rule…here”

Smudger, I sent you a PM regarding links for this and Ahsoka when possible. Thanks!

I was moreso referring to the line itself, not trying to overdub Luke’s line when you can see his lip movements. It’d more be a line that’s said offscreen, or transitions from the shot of Luke to the shot of Rey before the line is finished. If we’re solely talking about the next updates of Ascendant, I’d wait until the V4 changes are applied to the Rey Nobody version before trying something like that.

Is it ever said that Jedi become omniscient when they become Force Ghosts. Even then, going with the idea that Palpatine’s mere existence is a sickness in and of itself, it would make sense that Luke would go nowhere near anything related to Palpatine and thus wouldn’t know for sure. You just need to change “Because you’re a Palpatine” to “Because of Palpatine?”

Reconciling Rey Palpatine & Rey Nobody sounds good in theory, but it still reads to me that Rey being a Palpatine is the truth instead of, at best, ambiguous. If we’re going with Rey being a clone, then it’s fine, but maybe Finn needs more definitive dialogue about Palpatine having lied.

If you want to undercut the granddaughter idea and plant the idea of their being more to what he says, you could have Palpatine say upfront to Kylo that Rey’s his granddaughter:

Kylo Ren : What could you give me?

Emperor Palpatine : Everything. My Empire was not defeated…it was preserved…frozen at my command. And now…awakened. The might of the Final Order will soon be ready. It will be yours…if you kill my granddaughter.

Kylo Ren : (Confused look)

Palpatine : (smug smile)

NeverarGreat said:

The solution now appears obvious: Kylo Ren must be a force of good. Is there evidence for this? Yes, in fact. He is secretly drawn to the light, and all characters know how conflicted he appears. It takes only a little more exposition to establish that he has secretly been attempting to destroy the Sith for his entire life, ever since he learned of Palpatine during his training with Luke. In order to get close to Snoke, Han had to die. In order to find Palpatine, Snoke had to be destroyed. Ben followed the ways of the Jedi, divesting himself of attachments to all those whom he was afraid to lose and forging a new identity for himself as Kylo Ren, a false identity taken merely to complete what Vader could not and destroy the Sith once and for all.

I really like this idea in theory, but I wonder if there’s too much going against it. If Kylo were good all along, why would he consider Finn’s actions that of a traitor? What is his obsession with having Anakin’s blue lightsaber anything but a sense of entitlement? Why was Luke so concerned in the darkness rising in Kylo that he contemplated killing him in his sleep after “Snoke had already turned his heart?” Why did Snoke say “as [Kylo] grew stronger, his equal in the light would rise?” (Then again, Snoke was wrong about a lot of things). Why did he double down on letting old things die & destroying the rebels while also snapping at Rey for still holding on and telling her she’s nothing? Why did he sacrifice total victory over the Resistance for a chance to kill what he thought was Luke other than out of vindictive pettiness? Why is he so adamant about killing “the last Jedi” & saying he’ll destroy Rey to get under Luke’s skin?

To bring an idea from the Duel of the Fates script, maybe Luke’s been communicating with Kylo between movies/at the beginning of Episode IX. Saying things like “I know what you’ve been trying to do, but you can’t do it this way.” You can also always redub his lines with Rey with phrases like “You asked me why I killed my father: to draw him out” or “You think you belong to the Light, Rey, but you don’t.”

Love all of this, a great way to crystalize Rise of Skywalker in a way that truly doesn’t contradict anything that came before. As far as establishing Palpatine’s most loyal admirals fleeing, feels like the easiest place would be to put it in an opening crawl…meaning it’s time to once again rewrite Starlight’s opening crawl for two pages! XD

“Snoke was the only strand-cast who played Palpatine’s game: causing strife in the galaxy and destroying the Skywalker legacy. But you and I are more than that legacy, Rey. Let’s destroy the past and make our own fates.”

(removes helmet)

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

"I know.

I like this dialogue, since it fills most of the holes in the movie and gives Rey’s character more of an edge. My only qualm is that it doesn’t explicitly address why Palpatine’s followers stopped the process.

Obviously, we need to make a list of thematic & plot issues and see which ones are worth prioritizing (obviously, prioritizing themes over plot, but still).

Looking over old post-TLJ fan theories, one idea I saw floated is that before Rey was born, her parents scavenged some Sith artifacts on Jakku, not knowing how much they were worth. Maybe they sold the Sith blade, and Ochi tracked it back to them. If you want to add onto that, maybe Rey’s parents were loyal Imperial Officers, but were forced into poverty after the battle of Jakku with no way off the planet.

Minor break from the big picture stuff, but what about replacing Finn’s teasing of Poe about being a spice runner. Muting the lines would just be awkward and cutting altogether would hurt the pacing. Something along the lines of “From spice runner to Dreadnought slayer? Is there nothing you can’t do?”

I really love Nev’s ideas on the Sith Throne & the “Dark Chosen One” prophecy, so I took a crack at rewriting Kylo’s dialogue without directly contradiciting TLJ. I wound up watching the movie, which helped in figuring out the dialogue’s flow:

“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 rest of your story. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“The Jedi have a story…a prophecy, really. About the Chosen One.”

“Don’t!”

“Bringing balance to the Force at the cost of peace.”

“I don’t want this!”

“The Sith have prophecies, too.”

“No!”

(Rey & Kylo cross blades)

“My family…see them!”

(Rey sees flashes of the prior movies, specifically the Skywalkers suffering.)

“Palpatine…always the planner.”

“Stop talking.”

“Rey, please…you have to know.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Your parents did you a kindness if you think about it. You were spared the fate of so many children. Instead of becoming a stormtrooper, you got to make your own choices. And yet, you may not have any choice at all.”

(The Vader monument gets smashed.)

“So that’s where you are. You know why the Emperor’s come out of hiding. I’ll come tell you.”
…
(In the hangar) Kylo continues:

“You need to know the truth. The future depends on it.”

“Tell me.”

“The First Order scoured the galaxy’s children, Rey. To find the Chosen One who would destroy the Skywalkers. And it turns out that’s you.”

“Luke sacrificed himself for you. My mother’s living on borrowed time. And only now, with all of the pieces in place, Palpatine makes his revival known. If you kill me, then the Sith will be restored. But we can stop it…together. And take the throne.”

(Removes his helmet)

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

“I know.”