Jar Jar Bricks

This ^
I’m pretty sure they never were able to come to a solid plan while filming. Look no further than the fact that Palpatine’s original plan in the script was to get Rey and Ben together in order to drain their dyad (which would have been significantly better imo), and JJ also wasn’t sure if he wanted Rey to be a Palpatine even while filming.

If we had access to all the filmed material, I’m convinced we could have made a significantly better film. Instead, we have to make sense out of what we have (or otherwise gut the entire movie).

Hal 9000 said:

Actually… in this new streamlined approach, why the heck would he expect her to come there?

Probably because he has just sensed a massive shift in the force which he correlates with Leia returning Ben to the light. As a result, he knows Ben has a wayfinder still, and so he is probably hoping that him and Rey will come to him together (where he would theoretically want to kill Ben and thereby corrupt Rey).

Hal 9000 said:

In this way of thinking about it, Palpatine wanted Rey dead as a child bc he sensed her power as a threat. Her parents wouldn’t betray her location so he killed them.

Also because “he saw what [she] would become” according to Kylo. So basically he knew that whenever she returned she would be a powerful user of the light. Thus why he would want her dead so Kylo doesn’t come back to the light, or possibly get killed.

EDIT: Funnily enough, both of those last things happen to Kylo technically because she was allowed to live.

Thing is… Rey’s father isn’t force sensitive according to Canon. And for good reason. Otherwise he never would have been allowed to escape Exegol. While that might work, it would be simpler just to reduce it to Ben Solo/Kylo Ren as his first choice.

DZ-330 said:

Yes, however for it to work the “Long have I waited…” and assumptions that this always has been the plan needs to be removed.

Yes that is why I suggested to Hal that he removes the “for my granddaughter to come home” part after he says that because in the version we’re going for it wouldn’t have been a long time waiting for her to come home. He only just recently changed plans.

With that line removed and the “I never wanted you dead” line the conversation goes, “Long have I waited… you will take the throne.” So he’s really talking about how long he has waited for a worthy vessel to take the throne.

That is also never explained. Your guess is as good as mine.

All Lando says is that he and Luke tracked him “halfway across the galaxy” and then they found his abandoned ship on Pasaana with no clues to his whereabouts.

I believe Vader got his wayfinder from the Eye of Webbing Bog. It’s not explained why he had it to begin with.

As for Palpatine, you’re probably right that he was planning on staying on the second Death Star for a while.

Yup, all the pieces are there for the interpretation of the film we’re going for. The problem is that the original film, as stated previously, doesn’t do a good job settling on one.

Hal 9000 said:

It wouldn’t solve as many things as elegantly, as to me it still begs the question “why was Palpatines literal or figurative puppet so keen on killing her last time?”

Interestingly enough, Snoke’s reason for wanting Rey to die (“you have the spirit of a true Jedi”) would also be the reason Palpatine would want her dead. Essence transfer doesn’t work if the kill comes from somebody without hatred or vengeance (i.e. a Jedi).

These two simple line removals just make everything click so much better imo. The alternative is a lengthy procedure that removes large portions of this film to have things make sense.

RogueLeader said:

But if I had to guess, the filmmakers were honestly not sure what the answer was themselves, and left it ambiguous so someone else could answer it, or let the audience pick whichever interpretation they preferred.

JJ Abrams in a nutshell.

EDIT: To make myself clear, I still enjoy a good portion of what this film does. And seeing as how the interpretation that I call for with this movie are mostly the “canon” answers, I don’t really have a problem with this flaw in the movie.

nl0428 said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Nope. This is still the Rey Palpatine version believe it or not. The problem we’ve encountered is that Palpatine clearly wanted to essence transfer into Kylo because he put so much effort into corrupting him and calls for Rey’s death, and then suddenly at the end of the film it’s revealed that he always wanted her to live. Like, what?

I agree, I felt that was jarring, but like someone said, this could be because Ben has been redeemed. Afterall, you can tell he’s changing his plans when he made Pryde lead the Final Order on Exegol.

Yes, but that would imply it wasn’t always his plan to let her live, which is what him and Finn claim in the movie.

Nope. This is still the Rey Palpatine version believe it or not. The problem we’ve encountered is that Palpatine clearly wanted to essence transfer into Kylo because he put so much effort into corrupting him and calls for Rey’s death, and then suddenly at the end of the film it’s revealed that he always wanted her to live. Like, what?

So to summarize:

1. Remove Finn saying that “He wanted her alive” because it doesn’t make a lick of sense and was clearly added in after filming.

2. Remove Palpatine saying “I never you wanted you dead. I wanted you here.” (And optionally remove “for my grandchild to come home” because it implies the same thing and is a really goofy line)

You may also have to remove “For my grandchild to come home” after he says “Long have I waited…”

So he would say the following: “Long have I waited… you will take the throne.”

I always thought that line was goofy anyway. I distinctly remember people in my opening night showing laughing at that line.

Who knows lmao. It’s abundantly clear the process of creating this film was an absolutely mess though.

If you delete Palpatine’s line of “I never wanted you dead” as well, I think it makes this whole mess a lot more digestible.

True. And like I said, it’s EXTREMELY obvious the “He wanted her alive” line was added in during post. His face doesn’t move at all while he’s talking. Reminds me of the time Holdo talks in TLJ without moving her mouth.

Hal 9000 said:

I guess it actually makes some sense related to rumors before the movie came out about Palpatine saying he was going to die and he was grooming Kylo Ren as a successor. Problem is the movie leaves us with a mess.

If we can flatten it to Palpatine wanting to kill Rey to resorting to her after Ben is redeemed, I think that’ll help a lot.

Moving the ‘spirit transfer’ line into the opening sequence already breaks the above plot outline, at least implying that Palpatine could take over more than just Rey in particular.

Agreed. So I agree it isn’t ideal to go from Finn saying “What’s your name?” to Ahch-To, but unfortunately that’s the only easy way I see out of that situation. Unless you could edit around Finn and Poe’s lines?

EDIT: While watching the scene between them, I noticed something funny. When Finn says, “He wanted her alive” his lips are clearly not moving. So it was added in during post.

Hal 9000 said:

I edited my last post FYI so just want to make sure you see it.

Is it possible to delete that entire scene between Finn and Poe rather than just that one line? You say they are talking about information the audience already knows, so clearly it isn’t necessary to have.

Hal 9000 said:

I mean, maybe, but it seems cleaner to streamline it and just assume that Snoke equals Palpatine in regard to this point. If removing two lines can help it make intuitive sense, it might be worth it.

If it wasn’t clear enough in my post regarding those two lines, I agree that both of them should be removed.

Neerb said:

Just to play Snoke’s advocate for a second regarding the consistency in plans: could we potentially assume that Palpatine just didn’t know Rey was his granddaughter in the last two movies? Her first public appearance and the Battle of Crait are only like a week apart, after all. It could have been in the time gap that followed, after she’s shown her strength and Snoke has died, that Palpatine realized who Rey really is, not unlike Palpatine and Vader learning who Luke is between IV and V. Sure, Snoke probed her mind in the throne scene, but he was preoccupied with Luke’s location and died very soon after, and it’s not like her memory was a steel trap considering Kylo mind-linked with her and came away assuming her parents were random drunks.

An extremely powerful Force user like her? Unlikely that he didn’t know, especially considering he told Kylo to bring her to him in TFA (indicating that his suspicions were up regarding her true identity).

On another note, I may have found another line change that might be suitable for this edit. In the beginning, Palpatine says, “End the Jedi. And become what your grandfather Vader could not.” I am suggesting that the line is changed to, “And complete what your grandfather Vader could not.” This is because Kylo has already become in-part what Vader couldn’t do; killing his master and solely ruling his own faction. The only thing Vader could never do was end the Jedi because of his relationship to Luke.

By changing Palpatine’s line there, it makes it more clear that it is the final task he needs Kylo to do before he can essence transfer into him.

As for where the “complete” word can be taken from, look no further than ROTJ’s “…and your journey to the dark side will be complete…”

Hal 9000 said:

I think it’d be more consistent across the ST to go the other route and imply that Palpatine did want her dead throughout her life until Ben Solo is redeemed at which point he goes ahead and tries to corrupt her.

I think removing two lines would help make this clearer: Finn’s line after mining from D-O, “He wanted her alive,” and Palpatine’s, “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here.”

And, sherlockpotter, I think that could’ve easily been a good way to go if they’d had that approach when filming or possibly when editing, but I’m afraid it feels to muddled to go with.

Oh wow I completely forgot about Finn’s line about that. Haven’t seen the movie in a while myself. That should definitely be adjusted.

As for the “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here” line, Palpatine lies all the time. I don’t think that one is exactly necessary to remove as a result.

EDIT: Realized that if Rey is under the impression that Palpy has wanted her dead her whole life then she is much more tempted to kill him. So maybe that final line should in fact go.

I’m convinced the only reason JJ made Rey’s parents noble is because he needed a reason for her to WANT to kill Palpatine in an angry or vengeful way.

Thing is, arguably he has done a lot more than that to mess up her life (corrupting Ben, indirectly killing two of her father figures, calling for her execution, etc.) So it isn’t exactly necessary, per se.

Still, I would prefer it to remain intact, at least in this version of the film we’re making. That way, when Palpatine says she is taking her revenge on him in the ceremony some casuals in the audience don’t think, “For what? She should be glad he killed her parents!”

Hal 9000 said:

I also would not want to remove “As a Jedi?” because it colors the following sentiment: she cannot end the Sith as a Jedi because of her aggression.

That’s fine. I was mostly suggesting it because some people have a hard time understanding why she wasn’t possessed when killing Palpatine with his own lightning.

And also because the Jedi code says, “There is no emotion. There is peace.” Essentially meaning, “Yeah, you can kill bad guys to create peace, but don’t bring your emotions into it.”

sherlockpotter said:

It makes the Light Side/Dark Side dichotomy more apparent, true - that would be a big step up from the J.J. version. But it still doesn’t quite explain why Palpy would order her to be killed when that would ruin his entire plan.

Don’t want to get back into that argument again lol. I just explained his plan, so I will just summarize the answer to your question. Rey was his Plan B to transfer his essence into if Kylo didn’t commit himself fully to the dark side. The test to see if he would go to the dark side is if he killed Rey. Make sense?

EDIT: Realized you might be talking about him backing his crane out and having his guards attack her. In that case, he was concerned that her intentions in killing him truly were pure and Jedi-like, which would result in his actual death.

sherlockpotter said:

I still don’t buy the justifications for having Kylo kill Rey. If Palpy wanted to possess Kylo, he should have just let Kylo kill him in the prologue (like Kylo intended to anyway). Plus, doesn’t he say something to the effect of “I want to possess my granddaughter?” Maybe not, I’m not sure.

You’re correct that it may have been a better plan for Palpatine to let Kylo kill him, he possesses him, and then he goes and kills Rey. But as Brewzter pointed out, “if Kylo kills her, then he further deepens himself into the dark side.” We don’t know the exact rules of essence transfer, but it’s entirely possible that Palpatine recognized Kylo was not deep enough into the dark side for the process to work. He is a very conflicted character after all.

On another note, I believe I may have found a change that all of us can agree on. The original conversation goes like this:

Rey: I haven’t come to lead the Sith. I’ve come to end them.

Palpatine: As a Jedi?

Rey: Yes.

Palpatine: No, your hatred, your anger, you want to kill me. That is what I want.

I am suggesting that the lines “As a Jedi?” and “Yes.” are removed. This is because it’s essential to differentiate the two ways that Rey was going to kill Palpatine. When Rey says that she wants to kill him as a Jedi, we are more inclined to believe her than what Palpatine claims her intentions truly are. But if she never admits to that until the finale with the force ghosts, it not only is more powerful but it suggests that her original intentions would have actually resulted in Palpatine possessing her.

Most importantly, it makes it more clear why Rey killing Palpatine later is admissible compared to before.

I would like Hal’s opinion on this change I’m suggesting.