Jar Jar Bricks

It could definitely work, under the following conditions:

1. We’d definitely have to reinstate “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here, with me” AND “Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you, as all the Sith live in me” back to where they are. This is because we would have to remove Rey’s remarks about her parents being good (maybe not “Weak, like your parents”). Reinstating both of these would help their scenes feel less cut down.
2. Her visions of her parents would have to go. As Hal said, and I agreed with, the audience will ALWAYS believe what they’re being shown over what they’re told. Your idea of having the Sith throne being one of her brief visions is solid. But we still would have to deal with the other one.
3. TFA’s vision desperately needs its ship replaced with a different one. Unless we can come up with some crazy reason why they’d be flying around a Sith assassin’s ship.

How about this instead:

"Because he manipulated the Force itself to create life. My grandfather. Then, perfected in darkness with you. You’re his chosen heir… a Palpatine.”

"The Emperor told me to fight you so his strongest heir takes the throne. But he’s unaware that we’re a dyad in the Force, Rey… a bond, not of shared blood, but power. We’ll kill him, and finish what Vader started, together…”

This way it’s up to interpretation whether Anakin’s bloodline was even infused with that extra dose of the dark side compared to the average Force-user, giving more significance to Rey’s own origin. I think you mentioned earlier that Rey doesn’t use the dark side as much as Anakin, and this just isn’t true. Especially with Starlight, her whole journey in that movie is her tapping more and more into the dark side until going full Sith-eyes on Kylo. Meanwhile, Anakin in TPM is super innocent. In TLJ, she goes “straight to the dark” in search of answers multiple times. Her fight with the Praetorian guards is extremely aggressive. She also summons Force lightning without any training whatsoever in this movie. The only way that last part is even remotely possible if she is literally supercharged with the dark side of the Force.

Arguably, Kylo wants the same thing that Vader always wanted. Vader wanted to rule the galaxy as family (father and son), and end the Sith with Palpatine. Vader absolutely hated Sidious.

They don’t destroy his mask, either, just the pedestal it’s on unintentionally. I’d say the fact that he’s keeping Vader’s mask prominently in his quarters as well as reforging his mask from TFA indicates that he does still want to finish what Vader started. Many people just assume that what he states in TLJ was him dismissing Vader’s legacy, but ironically what he is describing in that scene is EXACTLY what Vader sought, after killing his master no less (what Vader always wanted). He wanted to rule the galaxy with his wife and children, Sith and Jedi be damned. Trust me, watch Anakin talking to Padme on Mustafar and then this scene from TLJ. And we get to confirm this correlation in this film, especially if we replaced “and create a new order, together” with “and finish what Vader started, together” as the final line.

With my previous draft, her journey would be different in that she is the one claimed by Palpatine as his own due to the fact that he “perfected” the method of creating dark life through the Force with her. So, take whatever evil predisposition Kylo has in him, and multiply that by whatever factor you deem fit.

That being said, the only way your approach works is if Kylo simply avoids talking about the Skywalker’s family origin at all - leaving it entirely up to the viewer’s interpretation whether Palpatine did the same thing with Anakin that he does with Rey. But this also removes the parallels that you mentioned, and makes the dyad forming between them less interesting in principle. There just wouldn’t be a lot to talk about in the second paragraph there.

I dunno, I’ve heard that many people didn’t like Vader being revealed as Luke’s father when ESB first came out. I think a lot of people voicing their distaste for the idea that BOTH bloodlines were created to be dark are experiencing a similar phenomenon. Once again, I’d like to make it clear that just because Palpatine’s machinations led to the creation of somebody who is dark-natured, that doesn’t mean that the Force itself can’t later choose that person after the fact to bring balance. I think that’s what makes this idea so powerful. You can take somebody that was meant to cause so much evil, and through fate have them overcome that and bring about good and balance. It’s also hilariously ironic in that Palpatine meant to create the ultimate Sith Lord twice in a row, but both times their spirit/heart overcomes their evil nature and kill him.

EDIT: Hell, the reason Palpatine created a girl the second time is probably because he’s a sexist and thinks she’d be a pushover to his will. It’s all just really funny to me how much what he intends blows up in his face (literally).

My problem with that is what I stated in a post on the last page. Kylo would NEVER admit that his grandfather was created by the light or that shatters his entire persona as Kylo Ren. He may as well just be Ben Solo again at that point, then. He says “the dark side is in our nature” on the Death Star wreckage. Plus, my idea is all too convenient not to include in the context of the sequel trilogy. I’m not going to repost what I already stated, but Ben, Luke, and Leia all deal with profound darkness in this trilogy that does not correlate with Anakin being a creation of the light, merely manipulated, and ultimately redeemed as a Jedi. None of that has an impact, and it demands an answer in my opinion.

Really? I had no idea that made it in. Well, once Leia knowing about Rey’s struggle is reinstated there it won’t be.

I’ve never actually considered the scene the third lesson anyway. It’s more or less a continuation of the second one, making it actually meaningful and impactful.

This would go at the beginning:
“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it… I needed you to see it… who you are. The dark side is in your nature, Rey…”

And this at the end:
"Because he manipulated the Force itself to create dark life. My grandfather, and then perfected with you. You’re his chosen heir. You… are a Palpatine.”

"The Emperor told me to fight you so his strongest heir takes the throne. But he’s unaware that we’re a dyad in the Force, Rey… a bond not of shared blood, but power. We can end him and the Sith, and bring a new order to the galaxy, together…”

Bobson Dugnutt’s edit touches up that specific shot a bit. Besides that, Hal’s prequel trilogy uses deleted scenes with more blatantly unfinished VFX regardless.

If nothing else, the scene confirms that he was actually well-versed in those Jedi texts. He wasn’t just bad-mouthing the Jedi, he’d clearly given it all a lot of thought. I’ve slotted it into your edit (along with the other deleted appearance of them) and it works great.

But the distinction I’m so desperately trying to make is that while they’re one in the same, that’s only because of the purpose and intention poured into their very being. Genetically, they would be completely unrelated. It’s all of that malice and cruelty which was influencing the Force to create this life that makes them so similar. In both cases, you could think of Rey’s father and Anakin’s father as the Force itself, but twisted to Palpatine’s desire. This process would then be perfected with Rey, and as a result Palpatine views her as his own daughter. They are all related in terms of their nature/disposition but not genetically (so Reylo is still at thing). It’s hard to convey these complex topics in words, though. I’m starting to see why George would potentially hold off on a reveal like this to make it more clear what exactly is going on microscopically.

One benefit of making this abundantly clear is that we shift away from everyone being related to each other genetically. With default TROS, there’s only two bloodlines - Palpatine and Skywalker. With this new idea, it would be Palpatine, Skywalker, and whatever name Rey’s parents claimed. Of course, Kylo never reveals this to her, which is what leads her to claim Skywalker because she is related to them in spirit.

We’re probably gonna have to bite the bullet here and just figure out a way to get a version of the dyad-duel scene and the hangar scene without Kylo’s dialogue present in the locations we want. Then we’d be free to diverge from there, although I’m sure applying the proper echo effects to his voice would be a hard thing to do, for me at least. Speaking of which, are we even sure this is something that’s possible to do? I’m pretty sure Kylo’s voice is present in most of the channels at least in the hangar scene due to the echos. And his loud-ass footsteps need to be in place.

As cool as this idea is, it may be more wise to focus our efforts on making v5 of Ascendant as good as possible first. I’ve already got the Leia knew about Rey’s darkness handled, which was my biggest problem originally. I haven’t started testing Zorri’s new lines for a Kijimi rebellion. And I think it would be an interesting experiment to place the Leia/Rose + Snap scene after the heroes have escaped the cave. I could also start ripping Kylo’s voice from their dyad-duel and hangar scene for a superior voice clone to improve the lines already in Ascendant. The lines currently there are based on LEGO TFA Kylo Ren.

Rey needs to be referred to as a Palpatine or the whole point of my original idea was for nothing. And of course, in order to do that he has to state she is his heir.

I’m also unsure about Kylo knowing about Palpatine’s desire to possess one of them at this point in the movie. Especially if we were to remove the “Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you” stuff and put it back where it belongs. This moment would then just be more about who Palpatine will see as his rightful heir when they fight. Then the dark twist that he just wanted to possess the “winner” would come later.

As a result I’d say what I have for my original last two paragraphs is what I’d prefer. It’s also not very clear now that the place her parents are looking for is on Jakku, I was under the impression we were trying to explain Lor San Tekka’s village? Also, Rey’s reaction of “Don’t” makes less sense to the generally inoffensive statement you have there.

Yeah I found the original post I just don’t normally go on r/fanedits funnily enough.

Where are you guys getting this unlisted video from? Lol. Clearly the two of you got it from the same source.

To also shift Palpatine out of the role of a father (which could lead to some of this misinterpretation in the first place) the following would need to be changed:

“You were right… your parents were no one. But no father was involved in your creation.”

I think it’s necessary only to convey that it was the same type of love that was meant to save Padme that saved Rey. Finishing what his grandfather started and all that.

I think I’ve cracked the potential misinterpretation of incest happening with their kiss with the following dialog:

"Because he influenced the Force to create two dark bloodlines. My grandfather’s, and then perfected with you. You’re his heir, Rey. You… are a Palpatine.”

“The Emperor told me to kill you so that the strongest of us takes the throne. But he’s unaware that we’re a dyad in the Force, Rey… a bond not of shared blood, but power. We can end him and the Sith, and bring a new order to the galaxy, together…”

EDIT: Oh, and this from the beginning - "I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it… I needed you to see it… who you are. I share the darkness that lives in you, Rey…”

That’s true. Palpatine is the source of this information, and Kylo is incentivized to believe it without question. As for the scenes on Ahch-To, those are about Rey’s lineage anyhow, and her being claimed as a Palpatine by name. There isn’t such a place to shoot down this news as it pertains to the Skywalkers. Leia would only fear the darkness that she associates with Vader in the flashback anyway, so it wouldn’t be a direct confirmation.

That being said though, have you seen the sly look Palpatine gives Anakin as he says “influence the midichlorians to create life?” It’s pretty wild. And what the opera show they’re watching looks like is a literal egg being surrounded by sperm cells.

Lol but that phrase was only used to justify a controversial (at the time) twist and keep it as fact.

The mainline Skywalker movies have always been able to change current canon, if that is what they wish. They aren’t necessarily beholden to anything.

I’m sorry, but I personally believe the final installment of a 9 movie Saga is not the time to be wishy-washy on things, no matter what. It needs to be firm in its convictions, revealing something that would make the rest of the saga be viewed differently. Some of my favorite movies have a twist in them that make you see what happened before in a new light. The fact that this twist would affect 8 movies-worth of content is pretty incredible.

Yes, this story idea isn’t for everybody. I seriously doubt George’s vision for the sequels would have been, either. People online say they would have preferred what I mentioned earlier about George’s sequels, but that’s only because it’s different. But at this point I’m pretty stuck with this idea. Hopefully it can be seen to fruition someday.

Another random thought. George intended for Leia to be revealed as the real chosen one in Episode IX. This could still line up with the prophecy, since when Leia was born Anakin Skywalker was dead thus “born to no father”. However, with Rey finishing Leia’s Jedi path in TROS and finally defeating Palpy, they both technically become part of the chosen one prophecy.

And the fact that George intended to dive headfirst into the microbiology side of the Force in his sequels screams to me that he intended to show how the midichlorians can be influenced to create life. He probably planned this dark Skywalker twist for episode VIII. I think this is why he planted those seeds in ROTS, because he fully intended on confirming it in a way that wasn’t just dialogue but rather visuals. But obviously that couldn’t fit into a movie as full as ROTS.

Yeah, I totally hadn’t considered those visions as lies she’s telling herself, either. That’s some strong character stuff, in theory. She’d be seeing these “visions” as Kylo alludes to her darker nature; this has been her soothing method her whole life more than likely. But I agree with Eddie that we don’t necessarily HAVE to take this approach for both of our edits. Plus, I could see people retroactively saying that it feels like a fan edit because people usually prefer to believe what they’re seeing over what they’re being told.

One important thing worth considering about whether Palpatine creates the Skywalker bloodline or not: it massively benefits Kylo’s character, Luke’s in the sequels, and even Leia’s if we modify her flashback a bit.

If Kylo admits to Rey that the Force created his grandfather as a counter to Palpatine’s darkness, then he’d be admitting that his whole persona as Kylo Ren is a farce. Remember, his whole argument here is that “the dark side is in our nature”. So this exponentially strengthens his own deluded beliefs.

Now onto the characters themselves. Firstly, there is one of two options. Either there was so much evil in a young Ben Solo that Luke saw absolutely no chance of redemption in him, or there are so many evil instincts in Luke that he was willing to strike down his nephew over some bad dreams. Or a combination of the two somewhere. Luke then isolates himself from the galaxy to protect them from himself and what he suddenly believes is a flawed Jedi religion. As for Leia, she uses aggression to take down the brother who’s trying to teach her, and she senses that there is a dark fate waiting for her if she continues being a Jedi at all. So she is too fearful of herself and that to continue at all.

None of this sounds like what should have happened to the offspring of who is essentially Force-Jesus. Yes, he turned into Darth Vader, but that took a hell of a lot of manipulation on Palpatine’s part. It wasn’t something that just switched or snapped like it seemed to in Kylo and Luke. Plus, Anakin was redeemed! He returned as a Jedi. That should have had a greater impact on the trajectory of his offspring.

Now, all of this is likely because the writers wanted to elevate Rey as the main character, so they had to write random reasons for the Skywalkers to be in more minor roles. But the fact that we could actually EXPLAIN why things turned out so bad for their family? It seems like one we should take.

Even if we decided to remove her parents being good, we’d need some visuals for Rey to be seeing in place of her previous visions. She clearly is making a face like she is seeing something throughout. Without access to our own film studio, this will likely have to be footage from elsewhere in the Skywalker saga. Which is why it was convenient to have both Rey’s origin and the Skywalker’s be the same - created by Palpatine.

We could repurpose footage of Anakin holding Shmi’s dead body, Anakin as a child slave, Luke attacking Ben, and other dark moments of the Skywalkers. And this is what would be used to represent what Rey’s lot in life is with her nature and Palpatine manipulating everything from behind the scenes. It’s an idea I have but in practice it might not be good enough.

If you look at some of the drafts we’ve already cooked up, you’ll see we’re more than capable of cleverly weaving around whenever she shouts something like that by placing something truly negative beforehand.

To remove her parents being good, we’d have to remove more content from the Palpatine and Rey conversation, which has already been stripped down a bit in Ascendant. We won’t end up with much left, and it will be felt, I guarantee it. Plus, unless somebody radically changes the VFX of Rey’s parents ship in TFA, and comes up with a compelling reason why Rey would harbor such intense hatred for Palpatine going into their confrontation, then it’s what we’re stuck with.

With our new chain of events, they are merely paying Plutt to watch over her while they search the Jakku desert for Lor San Tekka’s village. As for why they don’t take her with them, I probably wouldn’t want to take my child for a dangerous search through the scorching desert, either, especially with assassins hot on my tail.

My initial drafts of this idea placed a hard emphasis on the fact that, genetically, they are two individual bloodlines that Palpatine merely kickstarted. True, they’d be related through the Force, but that just ties in with the dyad side of things.

Regardless, I do see the potential of changing our narrative to only Rey being a successful manipulation of the Force by Palpatine. It’s easier to write in a semi-condensed way than I’d imagined - “Palpatine’s dark experiments led the Force to create my grandfather as a counter. But ultimately, his influence over it triumphed. You’re his heir. You… are a Palpatine.”

NeverarGreat said:

Granted this is the first story where the protagonist doesn’t have a family of any kind to raise her, but that seems like a good reason to focus the story away from the location aspect and onto the lack of parents aspect.

Yup, and the fact that Palpy’s the one that killed them serves 2 purposes:

1. It lines up with what he does to groom his followers - he isolates them and those closest to them always seem to die (Dooku - Qui-Gon, Anakin - Shmi, etc.) He is then able to swoop in to fill the void.
2. Most importantly, it gives Rey a tangible reason to hate the Emperor, which is essential for his ritual at the end.