“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia felt that her passionate nature would make the easy path to power too tempting for her. She surrendered her saber to me and said that one day it would be picked up again by someone with the spirit to face that darkness.”

Maybe this aligns best with her characterisation as a little brash, sharp, quick to act on her passions? This way, she knows herself well enough to be wise about temptation, and preserves the idea that Jedi fight or seek power as a last resort (and normally train from a much younger age than this specifically to learn to manage that fear/anger/hate/suffering path), whilst keeping it as a smart decision she’s chosen to make. But here, ‘the easy path to power’ is a direct allusion to the dark side, as seen onscreen elsewhere, and implied in this dialogue as a part of the Vader bloodline.

The only other thing I still question is the reason for Kylo and Rey needing to fight. I agree that they need to, to solve some inconsistencies and to keep TFA/TLJ as part of Palpatine’s plans, but I think there’s an angle where we keep Rey as the intended heir and Kylo as the tool, but we can tie it into Kylo’s ‘other plans’ for his relationship with Palpatine and Rey too:

“Palpatine wants me to fight you.”
“Serving another master?”
“No. I have other plans…”

…

"Palpatine influenced the Force itself into creating life. First my grandfather, and then you. Both created to be his chosen heir. You… are a rightful Palpatine.”

"Now, the Emperor wants us to fight each other, so you can reach your full potential and can claim the throne. But he doesn’t know how much our conflicts strengthen our connection, Rey… a bond, not of blood, but of raw power in the Force. We can end him and the Sith, and create a new order, together…”

This way it’s all aligned with what we’ve seen onscreen, and with the idea that Palpatine’s behind Rey’s origins and also using Kylo to push her deeper into the dark, but he’s also inadvertently created and reinforced the Dyad bond, which Kylo believes makes them strong enough to challenge him. It also adds a little extra ‘meat’ to what Palpatine consumes from them when he’s suprised to see the bond - it’s a power that we can interpret as some mix of Palpatine’s ‘force influence’ and them amping each other up through their clashes. (We don’t need to get explicit about that, but it’s there as a possible read that works with what’s onscreen.) (And, very minor note, but it also adds a little further irony if we read that Snoke ‘bridging their minds’ helped forge the bond, since he was Palps’ puppet.)

I like the nod to sentinels, but it should remain an easter egg at best. Perhaps-

"She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia walked away from the temptations of power, and instead chose to serve the galaxy as her mother did. She surrendered her saber to me, and said it should be picked up again by someone with the spirit to stand sentinel against the darkness.”

I really like this. A few minor suggestions, with notes:

“…The dark side is your birthright. Rey…”
“You’re lying.”
“You were right about your parents, Rey. They were nobody. And nobody conceived you.”

This rewrite puts Kylo’s information further into the perspective of a continuation of the lines about her birthright. And I think it’s a little more elegant, if cryptic (though that’ll become clear in this conversation).

“Luke saw the same fate in me. But together we can resist that fate.”
“Stop talking.”
“I’m the only one who truly knows you.”

Slightly more elegant again, and maintains Kylo’s characterisation that he feels betrayed by Luke, and leads into his later “join me” line.

The only other thing I’m not quite sure about is Leia. I think we want to keep her in as high esteem as possible, even though she did reject the path. She shouldn’t doubt her own ability to resist the dark too much- but another of her positive character traits has been her pragmatism.

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia knew that she could do so much good without needing to tempt the dark within. She surrendered her saber to me and said that one day it would be picked up again by someone with the spirit to face that darkness.”

Not quite sure about the wording here, but open to iteration on this idea.

Exposed works. I like where we’re currently at.

Had quite a few downloads so far - does anyone who’s watched the new versions have any feedback yet?

Maybe we can have it both ways:

“When we first fought, in the forest, you reached out for the darkness inside you. You revealed yourself to Palpatine, and set yourself on the path toward your destiny… just as he’d intended.”

I tried to keep that a bit more ambiguous- I’m trying to convey that Palpatine wanted conflict to lead her down the dark path, not specifically the events of starkiller.

Ah, OK, if the Dyad is mentioned later that’s grand, it doesn’t need to come up here. As for the inconsistency of what Palpatine wants Kylo to do, I agree that it’s a mess that needs a bit of fixing. I prefer the angle of “Palpatine wants me to fight you”, because then we can use this idea that the challenges are driving her towards the dark, rather than keeping Kylo as Rey’s equal in destiny for so long. I’d rather that he’s the tool to bring on her darkness - I think that fits better with how we’ve seen him manipulated and used onscreen, both by Snoke and Palps.

What do you think about "Imbued with his power, you… are a rightful Palpatine.”? I think it’s right to say she’s got some Palpy darkness but leave it ambiguous exactly how- so it can be headcanoned in a couple of ways without explicitly introducing something too new.

I like where this is going so far. I especially like how we’ve dropped any further revelations about her parents altogether - it avoids having to deal with the inconsistency and her parents backstory is implicit enough. (Minor thought: In TFA Rey says her backstory is a “big secret”. Maybe she’s always had a feeling that something was off about her parentage?)

On JJB’s most recent script, from the last page, I wonder if saying Rey is “destined for power” is a little more subtle at that point in the dialogue than “destined to rule”. That leaves the implication a bit more open to interpretation- including Palpatine’s.

I don’t know if we need the angle about the Force Awakening being a specific event in the forest, and more so that it brought her to Palpatine’s attention, but I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue. I’m just wondering if we might use that for a slightly different revelation or clarification of some of the events of the earlier two movies.

Similarly, I don’t know if we need Palpatine to have wanted them to fight to see who’s best, though again I don’t massively object, and I appreciate that it explains some of the other inconsistencies. As a possible alternative I’d consider something along the lines of Palpatine using Kylo (via his puppet Snoke) as a way to force the darkness to awaken (further) within her, the idea that her passions in traumatic situations would make her delve deeper into the dark side abd make her a more viable host/heir.

I’d also like to keep the Dyad, just because it’s now a concept that the canon is likely to reference again.

Spitballing:

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Palpatine knew your power would awaken eventually. When we first fought, in the forest, you reached out for the darkness inside you, setting you on the path toward your destiny… just as he’d intended.”

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

…

“Rey, I know the rest of our story.”

“Tell me.”

"Palpatine influenced the Force itself into creating life. First my grandfather, and then you. Imbued with his power, you… are a rightful Palpatine.”

"Now, the Emperor wants your darkness to consume you, so you can claim the throne as his heir. But what he doesn’t know is we’ve become a Dyad in the Force. Bound by the raw power of our blood. We can end him and the Sith, and create a new order, together…”

I think this all strikes a nice balance between exposition and natural and relevant dialogue, whilst keeping enough vague or open to interpretation that we aren’t pinning ourselves down.

Yeah, I think the comparison is unavoidable, but JJB, those points make it about as distinct as it can be without us changing the canon.

I think we’re losing some elegance lately. We don’t have to explain the HOW of a lot of this stuff, since ‘force magic’ covers a lot. Dialogue needs to be snappy, relevant to Rey’s struggles in the moment, and easily understandable- without referencing long-forgotten context (or context buried in non-movie content), and shouldn’t introduce anything new that doesn’t directly solve our one or two core problems.

I honestly feel like iteration of the dialogue for the core idea is all we need here, without tangents and wrinkles. This should be a single one-size-fits all fix, rather than exploring new interpretations of minor prior elements.

Not suggesting this as actual dialogue, but for the sake of conveying an idea I’ve been noodling that might tidy some of these ideas up with what we see onscreen:

“Long ago, Palpatine used the force to create life itself- to create the boy who would become Darth Vader. My grandfather was to be his heir. But the Skywalker line proved too strong in the light- he lost Vader, and he failed to tempt Luke. So he created life again- created you. Only this time, he poured in a part of himself. A part of his soul loves in you, Rey. A part of his power.”

I wouldn’t explain much more than that onscreen. It gives you Rey Palpatine with nobody parents, the Dyad if you like, plus how powerful she is early with little training.

What if Palpatine created Rey, as he created Vader, but he used Kylo and Snoke in the prior two movies to lead her to the dark (so she’d make a powerful host). They put her under pressure, put the people she cared about under threat, so she’d turn in desperation to the easier, seductive power she has within reach.

That’s also a clean idea. I agree with Hal about Nev’s recent script reading the cleanest so far- can that be built on with a light touch version of Rey Horcrux that doesn’t go too deep into exposition of the mechanics of this idea?

"….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. You are destined for darkness. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. They had no power in the Force.”

“Don’t!”

“But you did. Like my grandfather, the force had a great destiny for you…”

“I don’t want this!”

“…and Palpatine foresaw it.”

“No!”

“When his agent came for you, they had to hide you…”

(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 sought allies of Skywalker on Jakku. They never made it that far.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed)

“Were they trying to protect you, or themselves?”

“Stop talking.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“I wonder if you know the truth about my grandfather. Darkness has tempted my family’s bloodline since it’s creation… by Palpatine. Do you know why I’m telling you this, Rey?”

…

“So that’s where you are.”

“You need to know your destiny, Rey. I’ll come tell you.”

…

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

“He didn’t want to kill you, Rey. He foresaw the great Jedi you’d become, feared the force awakening within you… so he planted a dark seed. Stole your great destiny and corrupted it to darkness. Made you his.”

“We are both creations of Palpatine, heirs to the dark throne. But what he doesn’t know is that we’ve become a Dyad in the force. Linked by the raw power of our origins. We can kill him, and free the galaxy of his influence… forever.”

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

“I do.”

[rewritten, see below]

I agree with Nev, I think his version is the truest to the other two parts of the sequel trilogy.

Let’s explore whether this can work with having her be a Palpatine from a certain point of view.

I still really like the ‘used the force to create life’ angle. What if Palpatine foresaw that Rey’s nobody parents would have a child in whom the force would awaken. A great Jedi-to-be. So instead, he used the force to create life. Either he ‘got there first’, causing an unexpected pregnancy in the mother, or he influenced Rey in the womb or as a child, pouring darkness into her. Replacing her destiny as a great Jedi with one he intends to be as a Sith.

He made her for the throne- apparently for herself, but later revealed as intended to be his own host. When she was young, he came to take her, but her parents fled, hid her, and died to protect her. But she survived on Jakku, with a poisoned destiny ready to awaken. The events of TFA then brought her back to his attention.

In TLJ, Snoke’s power of foresight is shown as flawed (as seen in his death scene). So when he sees darkness rising and light to meet it, that’s actually the other way round- Rey’s darkness rising, and Kylo’s light. We can still use the Dyad angle here, and even link it to them both being Palpatine creations. And use the bloodline creation angle to preserve all the good bonus stuff with Leia etc.

All of Kylo’s attempts to kill her have only made Rey stronger in the dark. That can be part of Palpatine’s plan too. This way, the revelation in TROS is that she’s made, built, to be Palpatine’s, and with a powerful dark destiny. She and Kylo face Palpatine trying to break the destiny of their bloodlines - with their suprise bond fueling Palp as a late game suprise as before. But now Rey’s declaration of being a Jedi is also her properly throwing off Palpatine’s false destiny, and reclaiming what the force always wanted for her.

What about the idea that the force did genuinely awaken in Rey at the moment she faced Kylo Ren in TFA, as a result of the Dyad bond kicking off? Her power is from Kylo, therefore it’s from Palpatine too since he created the Skywalker bloodline? The Skywalker saber being drawn to her could show that she had a really strong potential for this to happen.

“Your power comes from our bond. From me. That means it comes from him. Palpatine wants our power.”

Something like that?

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.)

My preference would always be for a longer runtime that preserves all the necessary scenes over a shorter runtime. So I’d argue for the inclusion of all of those things.

BoBF, Mando 3, and Ahsoka, can all fit in single movies. But I’d argue that Mando 1 and 2 could each make two great movies, when intercut with BoBF’s contemporary flashbacks. Acbagel did this to great effect in his similar edit.

His first movie was Mando episodes 1,2,6,3, which really works in that order and gives you more Mayfield and helps enhance Mando’s moral compass. His second concluded the first season and intercut with Boba. His third truncated the early Mando S2 content and included most of the Boba overlap, and then his fourth was the final few S2 episodes with plenty of breathing room to keep all those key scenes in.

I don’t think it diminishes the stakes in her confrontation with Palpatine, so much as it just doesn’t raise some already-low stakes. But I don’t think we need to be trying to increase them through this angle, I don’t think we’d be able to justify it with dialogue given the performances, and I think trying to enhance it by adding these new wrinkles is the wrong approach. No offence meant there of course - I just don’t think it’s the right angle.

I just think that the final confrontation works fine (and would require added clumsiness elsewhere to improve), and that the core concept of Rey being a Palp-manipulated birth is sufficiently elegant that it’ll give a huge amount of added value standing alone. In short, I think you already nailed this!

Anyway, I think I’ve made my argument as well as I can for my subjective preference, so I’ll respectfully step back now and stop repeating myself! Either way, I think we’re onto something very good here.

They are, but that’s as they were in the original files. On standard monitors they full screen naturally.

But the movies don’t imply she’s got a struggle about the dark, it’s only her origins and her use of lightning that we see. There’s nothing onscreen about her genuinely having a tendency towards evil deeds, she only ever acts to help her friends. She has dark power, and sometimes takes the easy (powerful) path, but only ever still for good. And she sees herself on the throne, but that’s not a temptation for her, because she says she doesn’t want it, and at no point do we think she intends to be some dark ruler from it. She has a grievance against Palpatine specifically (he killed her parents indirectly) but again that’s not something that’s going to bubble over into full evil, like Anakin slaughtering tuskens.

It’s enough that she’s facing Palpatine because he’s a huge threat to the galaxy and her friends, and confused and perhaps emotionally compromised by visions of the throne. Her challenge there is showing that she’s not a worthless scavenger girl - she’s a Jedi.

And I agree that that’s a less powerful conclusion than her storyline deserved, certainly less powerful than the temptation of Luke. But even with modified dialogue I don’t think we have enough onscreen performance to imply that there’s a genuine temptation to evil here.

I think we might be overcomplicating it a little. Let’s take the whole concept in a logical order:

There’s no true justification between Rey’s parents selling her for drinking money, and them loving her so much when they left her on Jakku to protect her. Her memory of them traumatically leaving her on Jakku is seen onscreen, as is the ‘corrected’ one where they showed their love for her first. Since them leaving her was so traumatic, and she was young, I think it’s acceptable that she misremembered that. But, them ‘selling her for drinking money’ is said by Kylo when he’s trying to manipulate her, so can be an exaggeration. I think the cleanest solution is to preserve both the knowledge Rey shows she has in TLJ (that they were junk trader nobodies and aren’t coming back) and that they likely died forgotten on Jakku, but they did love her (parents love their kids) and that Klyo’s correcting that information for her here. That whole concept, then, only needs to be further solved by giving the reason for them wanting to hide Rey.

Then, consider the larger issue that we’re trying to solve here, which I think we have a consensus on being the fact that Rey Palpatine in the original version of TROS requires her father to be a nobody-Palpatine, which really doesn’t work. And as JJB pointed out earlier, having Rey be a spiritual Palpatine rather than a biological Palpatine (by either cloning or using the force to create life) solves that.

I think there’s value to the clone angle, in that it helps explain Palpatine’s return and Snoke, BUT it has two issues. Firstly, that both of those are more easily explained by just explicitly having at least one line somewhere in the film about ‘cloning’ or ‘experiments’, which TROS v4.0 already does elsewhere, making it unnecessary here. And secondly, and more importantly, having Rey be a direct clone of Palpatine makes her arguably MORE Palpatine than less, even more Palpatine than being his offspring. And we’re trying to loosen that link a little - ‘spiritual Palpatine’ still leaves the most wiggle room and ‘certain point of view’.

So, back to the idea of Rey being a spiritual Palpatine. Again, I think JJB’s earlier suggestion of Rey being another case of someone ‘used the force to create life’ is the right move. Palpatine told Anakin that very overtly in ROTS, and we know Anakin was a virgin birth, so even if George’s intention was only implied onscreen, it’s clear enough that this is a valid mechanism established in the canon. So, in our new dialogue we could arguably just call back to ‘using the force to create life’ and have her parents (nobodies) influenced by Palpatine into birthing Rey. That, I think, needs to be the core of how we solve the two major conflicts, and also explains why her parents sought her protection - and anything beyond that is a bonus.

But onto that bonus. This is the area I think we’re overcomplicating, by adding too many wrinkles. The dialogue shouldn’t be too expository, nor add too many new angles. Remember, Kylo’s mainly trying to communicate ‘You’re powerful and I needed to confirm that, here’s the new perspective on your identity, I want us to work together to destroy Palpatine’. A large infodump risks muddying the waters here, so I’d strongly advocate for a light touch.

Consider: This is the end of a trilogy of trilogies, an episode designed to close down a lot of what came before. And Disney know there’s a huge audience sentiment toward something truly new, away from the Skywalker family mythology - they are unlikely to keep retreading this ground. So our meta-focus should be in using established canon to conclude this phase as cleanly as possible - to fix the inconsistencies, justify the existing choices, and wrap up outstanding arcs - not to introduce new interpretations and perspectives that overhang characters and concepts beyond this movie. This is the last suprising revelation that uses established context to carry us to the end of this era, so that new ideas can follow.

So, with the priority of solving those problems whilst keeping the dialogue in line with Kylo’s priorities and our need for elegance, I think acknowledgment of Vader being a Palpatine-creation is the most beneficial, but with a light touch only. As we’ve discussed, making both Rey and the Skywalker line spiritual-Palpatines gives us a load of great implications, including why Leia turned from the Jedi, a better explanation for the Dyad bond, and better later justification for Rey claiming the Skywalker name. And, in the moment, it serves Kylo’s dialogue as a further reason for the two of them to ally and see eye-to-eye, and permits the shades of grey between them.

BUT, I think we can avoid a lot of other plot threads. Getting too detailed about things like there being a ‘Skywalker bloodline’ and a ‘Palpatine bloodline’ I think is overkill, especially since new canon won’t reference that. Bear in mind also that Kylo’s information comes directly from Palpatine, who is both a potentially unreliable source of information, and not one to infodump beyond what’s necessary. And adding in the wrinkle of the (lightside) force being involved in creating the Skywalkers (or freeing their line from Palpatine), or getting into any detail whatsoever about the Chosen One prophecy, I think is also a step too complicated, and another thing that future canon won’t acknowledge. I don’t think we need to explain why Palpatine chose Rey’s mother (just like we don’t know why Shmi was chosen), or how Ochi plays into things beyond his existing appearance in TROS. I don’t think we even need to explain why Ochi’s ship appears twice - that could just be another of the same model (we also see one in Andor).

As minor additions, I think it’s elegant and ‘closing’ to explain the Dyad as ‘raw power’ as that’ll pay off later, and elegant to use the Lor San Tekka/Luke angle to justify the choice of Jakku.

So, in summary, I’d say all we need to convey is:

• Your parents were nobodies, Palpatine used the force to create life in your mother, they fled towards Luke to protect you, they didn’t give you up and were killed.
• That’s the source of your (dark) power, why Palpatine sees you as his heir, and why you dream of the throne.
• Due to our shared origins, we are powerful together, and understand each other uniquely. Palpatine is a monster, we have a grievance against him, and we should defeat him together.

Later dialogue covers the revelation that Palpatine wants to ritually inhabit these hosts (and the viewer can infer about the Vader bloodline if they want), and that he’s suprised he can consume the Dyad power, so these also don’t need to be covered here.

As final thoughts, aligned with this I’d use two other places to modify the dialogue to best support this. Firstly, by having Leia give up her training out of fear of her inner dark, as we’ve discussed. And secondly, when Rey visits Luke, I’d have him acknowledge she’s ‘a Palpatine’, but confirm that Vader (“my own father”?) was created by Palpatine too. That confirms what Kylo’s told her, but gives her hope too (Luke overcame his origins), continuing to line up her taking the Skywalker name cleanly.

All four movies are completely complete!

Feel free to PM for requests now!

Final movie titles are ‘Convergence’, ‘Declaration’, ‘Prisoners’, and ‘Sacrifice’.

I’m super pleased with the quality of these final (v2.0) versions. NFBisms deserves a huge amount of credit here. He produced over 20 audio transitions, including some covering multiple scenes. He also contributed a major structural piece to movie 4, and an even larger piece of work throughout movie 3, reordering and then fully rescoring whole sections. The last 5% of polish has taken the most work, and I couldn’t have done this without him. His efforts were huge and can’t be understated - thanks so much!