NeverarGreat

In explaining the Emperor’s fleet, I think the best place to put it would be when it is established.

“What could you…offer me?”

“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 do what I ask.”

Then Poe could reiterate:

“He’s been planning his revenge. His followers have been building something for years. Upgrading a fleet of Star Destroyers that vanished after his death. He calls it the Final Order. Each ship has been modified with dreadnought cannons. The Emperor and his fleet have been hiding in the Unknown Regions on a world called Exegol.”

That’s a really evocative way to describe things. I like it!

And yeah, I think as long as we emphasize that this information comes entirely from Palpatine, it shouldn’t contradict the concept of having the Rey Palpatine story be a fabrication. In fact, the more evocative the story is, the better.

I kind of like the idea that in this current conception, Rey Palpatine and Rey Nobody are both plausible interpretations of events. Changing D-O’s information from being about a child from Jakku to being about Lando’s daughter doesn’t negate the possibility that Ochi had first tried to find Rey, merely that there was no information about Rey or Jakku within D-O’s memory. Similarly, changing Luke’s dialogue to suggest that he’s just going off of Leia’s feelings makes him as trustworthy as Obi-wan. Finally, if we gave Finn something to say to Rey in the final confrontation, his statement about family and belonging can be seen as metaphorical, and in fact maybe the point of the story is that it doesn’t matter where Rey comes from, because in the end she is the one who must choose what to believe and she must choose what ‘family’ really means to her. The final scene shows her rejecting the two stories put forth for her past and choosing a third, one that may not be factual but one that holds the most truth for her.

Wow, a lot happened here.

I don’t think I can address everyone’s points here, but in short: If we’re going for a Rey Palpatine version of the film, my go-to is the Rey as a clone concept. I think that is the best version of that story we’re going to get, so it’s well worth pursuing for a Rey Palpatine cut.

However, a Rey Palpatine cut is still kneecapped by the larger issue that this would mean that Rey isn’t nobody in this version, no matter how you slice it. And Rey coming from nothing is an absolutely essential part of what makes Rey interesting in this story.

The only other option I see to edit this movie and retain much of its existing dialogue is to reframe the Rey Palpatine revelation as a lie.

Rey’s Vision

So I’d say that we can keep the Hangar Revelation that Rey is a Palpatine, but with the caveat that this is information which comes directly from Palpatine, and isn’t presented as omniscient knowledge. It could even be that we use the Rey as a clone concept as part of the lie, in order to more clearly paint her parents as the innocent victims of Palpatine’s evil plan. The visions of Rey’s parents as good people who were killed by Ochi could then be reframed as parts of the vision that Rey had during her training, and which she is now recalling with Kylo’s goading. However, these are not memories from her childhood, but images given to her in a vision directly from Palpatine, including the image of her on the Sith throne.

“There was more to your vision, Rey. Remember it!”

This means that Palpatine now has a direct line to Rey, which is strange because she has never met him. However, Snoke was able to bridge Rey and Kylo’s minds without meeting Rey, so this means that Palpatine would be able to get to anyone if they were in contact with one who was under his influence, however briefly. This explains why Ben turned to the Dark Side: he was being trained by Luke, who had confronted Palpatine years earlier. It even gives greater threat to Luke in ROTJ, since he had already confronted Vader who was under Palpatine’s control.

As a bonus, Luke blaming himself for Ben’s turn to the Dark Side becomes completely understandable, as he may view himself as contaminated by his contact with Palpatine, necessitating quarantine on a desolate world. Rey fleeing to Luke after learning that she is contaminated with this mental link is a natural conclusion.

Kylo could explain to Rey that Palpatine is bringing Rey under his control through their mental connection, as Palpatine can already contact Kylo. Perhaps the original version of the Vader mask scene would be used here, since it shows both Rey and Kylo sharing the vision when Kylo touches the mask.

Luke’s Response

If Rey being a Palpatine is a lie, then Luke’s statement to her must change.

“What are you afraid of?”
“Myself.”
“Because you’re a Palpatine. Leia felt your darkness as well.”

This means that Luke doesn’t confirm or deny that Rey is a Palpatine, since he probably wouldn’t know either way. He merely tries to support her.

D-O’s Information

The scene between Finn and Poe could change to explain that D-O has information about Ochi’s mission that contradicts the story of Palpatine:

“This droid has a ton of information about Exegol”
“Wait, coneface?”
“D-O”
“Sorry, D-O”
“He was going to Exegol with Ochi of Bestoon.”
“Why was Ochi going there?”
“To bring a little girl he was supposed to take from Jakku, to the Emperor.”

It could be changed to:

“To bring a little girl he took from Lando Calrissian, to the Emperor.”

D-O’s reaction shot would mask the line change. This could imply that it was Lando’s daughter who was captured by Ochi, perhaps to be used as bait to lure Luke into a confrontation on Exegol. Rey would never have been on their radar.

In the reunion scene, Jannah appears to glance down at something that Lando could be holding in his hand. If there was an insert shot of Lando holding a photo of himself and his daughter, it would put a button on this subplot which was originally meant to be in the film, as well as make it clear what Lando’s intentions are in this scene.

Finn’s Response

Because Finn knows that Ochi is unconnected with the deaths of Rey’s parents due to D-O’s information, he is able to convey this to Rey. When Rey reaches out to the spirits of the Jedi, she is greeted not by the Jedi, but by the voice of Finn, who tells her what she needs to know: that she wasn’t a Palpatine after all.

“Rey, you know the truth. Palpatine isn’t your family…we are. We are all with you…forever.”

This is why Palpatine says that she is nothing after this point, that she is merely a scavenger girl who is no match for the power in him.

Final Confrontation Reorder

-Rey arrives on Exegol, meets Palpatine.
-Poe arrives on Exegol, the battle begins.
-Finn lands on the Command Ship.
-Palpatine makes an ultimatum, Rey prepares to strike him down.
-Finn destroys the first beacon.
-Ben arrives on Exegol, battle with the Knights of Ren/Praetorian Guards.
-Civilian Fleet arrives.
-Finn destroys the Command Ship, is rescued by the Falcon.
-Rey and Ben defeat their enemies, confront Palpatine, are drained of Force, Palpatine rises and attacks the fleet, Rey calls out to the Jedi.
-Finn responds from within the Falcon, tells her about her past.
-Rey’s friends join Finn in helping Rey, who confronts Palpatine for the last time.
-The fleet gains a reprieve, attacks one last time.
-Palpatine is destroyed, Rey dies, Ben returns and restores her.

Rey Palpatine?

Rey’s identity is by far the most tangled web of confusion in the story, so disentangling them starts with determining the overlap between what is possible and what is thematically resonant. The most resonant part of Rey’s identity is that she was a nobody abandoned by her parents. However, this is not sufficient because it merely says what Rey is not: she is not a Palpatine, not a Skywalker, not anyone of any importance. TLJ establishes that her insecurity and grief over her abandonment drives her actions, and her deepest desire is to find a family to call her own.

Therefore, if the story of TROS is to remain relatively intact, the most promising tactic would be to establish that Rey’s Palpatine heritage is a lie created by Palpatine in order to tempt her with the one thing she desires most: belonging. This is easily done. The only object tying Rey to the Sith is that Ochi’s ship appears similar to one that left Jakku with her parents many years ago. However, the solution to this puzzle is staring us in the face: They are simply different ships. This is demonstrably true by comparing TFA’s vision with Rey’s memory in TROS, where the designs of the ships are quite clearly different. Palpatine can latch onto this similarity and tell Kylo Ren the lie that Rey is a Palpatine, and he can convey this to Rey. There is also dialogue between Finn and Poe where they discuss the information in D-O that appears to confirm the Rey Palpatine connection, but that can be deleted.

Rey Nobody

Now that Rey Palpatine is established as a lie, a problem arises. There still needs to be some dark revelation about Rey for her to doubt herself, beyond the Rey Palpatine lie. This is because all Rey needs to do is reject the lie in order to resolve the problem, which isn’t thematically resonant. This was the problem in TLJ as well: if Rey is a nobody, it isn’t particularly devastating. Rather, the film establishes that she is a force of light to rival Kylo’s force of darkness, as described by Snoke, so by rejecting Kylo’s hand she is establishing herself as good in opposition to Kylo’s evil. This can be viewed as a victory, rather than an insurmountable obstacle.

Dark Revelation

Any revelation about Rey must be about Rey herself, rather than her lineage, and must cast her story into doubt. The strongest way to do this is to flip the script and paint her as an underdog in her own story, a force of evil rather than one of light. This is what TROS attempts to do with Rey Palpatine. Yet the issue, among others, is that it is established that Rey is Kylo’s rival in the Force, a counterbalance to an equation of light and dark.

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.

Rey’s Darkness

Kylo can reveal to Rey the truth, that she was always driven by the Dark Side. Her insecurity and need for a family is founded on selfishness, which is the core of the Dark Side. She wears a mask just as Ben does, but instead of an evil visage she wears a mask of false benevolence. Deep down, she is driven by a desire for a family, and Palpatine’s lie secretly appeals to her because it allows her a belonging that she has never allowed herself to feel with Luke or Leia or her friends.

Rey’s blazing fast rise in power is only possible through the use of the Dark Side, giving her a quick and easy path to a place in the story and the family she has always wanted. She knows, however, that only Palpatine would really accept her, and so Kylo reveals to her in the hangar that though she may not be a Palpatine, she undoubtedly has the spirit of a Sith. This is why she is unable to contact the spirits of the Jedi.

It seems I can’t help but think about this mess of a movie, so instead of cluttering other threads I’ll just put the ideas here for now. 😃

The Final Order:

The Ascendant edit has Poe explain that Emperor has a stockpile of old Star Destroyers leftover from the war, and further says that they have been updated with dreadnought cannons.

I would alter this dialogue to convey that directly after the Emperor’s death, his most loyal captains from across the galaxy charted a course into the unknown regions and eventually regrouped over Exegol, and this is where they have remained all these years. This contingency plan was known to his loyalists as ‘The Final Order’, to be executed in the event of his death. This explains why the Rebels were victorious even when the Imperial Starfleet was undefeated in ROTJ; much of it disappeared into Hyperspace after the Death Star was destroyed. This further explains Finn’s statement that the Death Star was where the last war ended. Even if the battle of Jakku was the official end of hostilities, the war was decided when the Emperor died and much of his starfleet vanished.

The dreadnought cannons addition can be conveyed in the Kijimi destruction scene, which can be altered to indicate that only the primary city was destroyed in the attack.

Maybe, but I’d just delete it altogether.

EddieDean said:

His second major objection was the pacing. It’s a very relentless film, really quite overwhelmingly fast throughout. He really liked how we’d given moments more time to breathe, especially Chewie’s ‘death’, C-3PO’s ‘irreversible’ memory wipe, and Hux’s betrayal. He liked the Mustafar minute. He had nothing negative to say about the mention of ‘lightspeed skipping’ - it didn’t really register as a noteworthy thing to him, which I think is a good sign. (Note: You could maybe drop the dialogue here, or go with something even softer than ‘ramming’ - though didn’t you intend to cut the word ‘ramming’ in for v4? It’s still ‘skipping’ in this version.) But he did dislike how fast that early scene with the Rebels getting the transmission went - “like being on a Star Wars rollercoaster”. There were many other quick cuts and quick scenes too. I wonder if we could improve the pacing any further - my immediate feeling is that more re-establishing shots would go a long way.

This part got me thinking about that early transmission scene and how it could work better, and I thought, why not reincorporate some version of the chess introduction? There were some shots left on the cutting room floor when Ascendant put the scene at the end of the film, so what if we just make that scene into a little Chewie-Poe-Finn subplot?

Here’s a quick mockup of the idea: https://mega.nz/file/WYlgQYTR#KycySILs6E4dRdoSSiQyLNPd4JIIoCDtwBc_8-3U-5A

By muting Finn’s cheating accusation in the first scene, we can just establish that they are losing to Chewie and don’t know why. Either the mouth movements can be edited out or new dialogue could be generated, like ‘He was stalling.’ ‘Definitely’.

In the final scene we get the accusation, and by keeping most of the ‘just kidding’ shot, it keeps the tone jovial instead of antagonistic as we wrap up the film.

That’s probably partly my fault, switching back and forth between these versions so much. Sorry about that.

Here’s an unrelated idea that I’m throwing out before I forget it, concerning Poe and Korri’s subplot. When we see the Captain’s medallion, I imagine the assumption is that Korri stole it somehow and will use it to escape, and this makes it feel like a convenient get-out-of-jail free card for our heroes.

So what if instead of that she has dialogue indicating that the First Order used it to buy off her crew so they could continue harvesting Kijimi’s young unopposed?

“That’s a First Order captain’s medallion. I’ve never seen a real one.”

“That’s how they bought our silence, Poe. Free passage through the blockade, landing privileges, any ship. Want to come with me?”

Now the medallion takes on a darker meaning, and her giving it up isn’t just her giving up a ticket off-world, but rejecting the First Order’s hold over her.

Awesome write-up, Eddie! It’s really great to hear a fresh perspective, and in such detail as well.

I agree with you that something feels off about the pacing of the final confrontation. Were the scenes shifted from the theatrical version? It just felt noticeably weird.

But yeah, the pacing and dialogue really is one of the worst aspects of TROS, it’s something that is almost shocking when I go back and watch sections of Ascendant.

Related to this, I was thinking about the Leia scene after our heroes encounter the sinking fields on Pasanna. The scene offers nothing from a plot perspective and serves only to preserve a bit more of Leia’s leftover TFA footage. Furthermore, I abhor Snap’s rejoinder to Leia’s suggestion. I hate to suggest cutting the scene because that means less Leia, but the scene feels pointless and bad, even by TROS standards, and if the sandworm cave scene were allowed to play out in full it may help to repair a bit of the hyperactive pacing.

Burbin, I agree with most of what you’re saying, and it is definitely a more interesting take to have Rey be a nobody who comes from nowhere. Unfortunately, as Jar Jar said, it just can’t be done without changing a lot of the original film. And that’s fine, there’s a Rey Nobody version sitting alongside the Rey Palpatine version of Ascendant. But as much as I wish it were true, I don’t think that the two versions can be reconciled or that most people would be happy with a version that excises the core of TROS’s plot revelation and supporting structure.

But the nice thing about having two edits of the film is that we don’t have to reconcile these contradictory visions. Heck, I’ve offered suggestions for Rey Palpatine and Rey Nobody edits in this thread on the same day. It’s confusing, and frustrating, and because of this dumb movie everything is going to be a compromised salvage effort from the outset.

I do like your idea about Rey being a nobody who nevertheless is chosen to fulfill the saga’s prophecy. That’s a really strong concept, but not for a Rey Palpatine edit. So all I’m saying is that we need to be clear what vision of the story we’re working with, because from what I can tell is that we’re arguing about what are essentially two different films at this point.

Just a few changes then:

“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. Darkness is in your blood. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Used as livestock by the Emperor’s cult.”

“Don’t!”

“The woman you called mother…she was merely a host…”

“I don’t want this!”

“…carrying a dark experiment.”

“No!”

“But she loved you nonetheless.”

(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 know what happened to them.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“They sought sanctuary on Jakku, among the friends and disciples of Luke Skywalker. They almost made it. But your parents couldn’t escape their destiny.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are.”

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

…

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

“Because his spirit chose another vessel, out of the hundreds his followers had created. Rey…you’re a clone.”

“You were created to sit upon the throne of the Sith, a vessel for the Emperor’s corrupted spirit. But what he couldn’t foresee was our connection in the Force. We can kill him, Rey, destroy the Sith…and bring a new order to the galaxy.”

(Removes his helmet)

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

“I know.”

…

One thing that I think should be different from Ascendant is to keep Palpatine’s line about spirit possession where it is in the theatrical version. In Ascendant Palps uses the spirit transfer threat to prevent Kylo from killing him, but that isn’t strictly needed and it may make more sense if only Rey is intended as a host to his spirit. And because we’re establishing the concept in the hangar scene, it doesn’t come out of nowhere when Palpatine refers to this later on, but it becomes a further wrinkle in how Rey must destroy him.

There is still the issue of how Rey can kill a spirit that won’t stay dead, but maybe she can do it as a Jedi with their help. That’s still a thing that doesn’t sit right with me.

“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. Darkness is in your blood. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Used as livestock by the Emperor’s cult.”

“Don’t!”

“The woman you called mother…she was merely a host…”

“I don’t want this!”

“…for a dark creation…”

“No!”

“But a creation that they loved.”

(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 know what happened to them.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“They sought sanctuary on Jakku, among the friends and disciples of Luke Skywalker. They almost made it. But your parents couldn’t escape the shadow of the Sith.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are.”

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

…

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

“Because his spirit could possess only one body, out of the hundreds his followers had created. Rey…you’re a clone.”

“You were created to sit upon the throne of the Sith, a willing vessel for the Emperor’s spirit. But what he couldn’t foresee was our connection in the Force. We can kill him, Rey, destroy the Sith…and bring a new order to the galaxy.”

(Removes his helmet)

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

“I know.”

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

“Because you, like Snoke, were created by the Sith in the image of their fallen Emperor. You…are his clone.”

“Our masters tried to destroy us, fearing what we could become. But the bond between us is something new, something they did not foresee. A Palpatine and a Skywalker together, balanced in darkness and in light.”

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

“I know.”

I guess we’ll need to try and mash these two sentiments into one Frankenstein’s statement. It will take judicious word choice and a lot of editing, but perhaps it can be done.

Indeed! There will always be two versions, Rey Palpatine and Rey Nobody, but now the Palpatine version can stand as a worthy alternative to the admittedly more interesting nobody version, and be perhaps more robust because it uses more of TROS’s plot scaffolding.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

A lot of that is an improvement over what I wrote, but you definitely need to replace “unwanted children” with “dark children”.

I’m also not sure what Kylo’s motivation is in your version. Yeah, he wants to kill Palpatine with her, but then what? That’s why I did a callback to TLJ in my version. He still clearly wants to let old things die, and wants Rey by his side regardless of the recent revelations.

Fair points.

Kylo’s motivation is a bit of a black box for sure. He’s being pulled in a bunch of directions, with his desire to be like Vader and serve the Emperor, his desire to let everything die and do his own thing with the galaxy, and his desire to be with Rey even though she is a Palpatine and will presumably be a continuation of Palpatine’s rule if she accepts Kylo’s offer.

Maybe since she is revealed to be a Palpatine, he considers that their union is something new, and like a political marriage in the Middle Ages, the union of a Skywalker and a Palpatine will bring true peace to the galaxy.

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

“Because he saw what you would become. You don’t just have power. You have his power. You’re his clone.”

“For generations, this war has pitted Skywalker against Palpatine. But we are connected, Rey, and we can heal these wounds of war. Let’s destroy the past…let it die, and write a new future for the galaxy.”

“We can kill him, Rey…together.”

(Removes his helmet)

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

“I know.”

“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. Darkness is in your blood. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Two out of thousands used by the Sith cult.”

“Don’t!”

“The woman you call your mother…she was merely a host…”

“I don’t want this!”

“…for a dark experiment…”

“No!”

“But they grew to love you anyway.”

(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 know what happened to them.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Your parents had traveled to Jakku, chasing rumors of a hidden village…allies of Luke Skywalker who could keep you safe. But they couldn’t escape the long shadow of the Sith.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are.”

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

…

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

“Because he saw what you would become. You don’t just have power. You have his power. You’re his clone.”

“Snoke was a twisted experiment in Palpatine’s quest to conquer death…and so were you. When he was reborn he destroyed his dark children one by one. Now only you remain.”

“We can kill him, Rey…together.”

(Removes his helmet)

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

“I know.”

It’s possible, I haven’t edited these sequences either. I think the only way we’ll know is by getting into an edit.

Hmm, maybe it would be best to cut those flashback shots after all. It’s not like they are essential for conveying information, they’re really just reinforcing what we are already told in the scene.

Yes, the fact that they are a Dyad allows him to regain his power, but he already says it without needing that term:

“The life Force of your bond…a Dyad in the Force…a power like life itself.”

it could easily be rewritten as:

“The life Force of your bond…a power like life itself.”

In fact, reviewing that shot, it looks like Palpatine’s mouth doesn’t move correctly to form the words ‘a Dyad in the Force’. It looks like there was something a bit shorter there before, but the Dyad line was added later. Something like:

“The life Force of your bond…incredible…a power like life itself.”

Then just cut the ‘unseen for generations’ line, since it’s said offscreen. I genuinely think that cutting those two instances would streamline the whole plot.

I like it! Well, I’m still not sold on the Dyad, since there are already a lot of terms being thrown around here like ‘genetic strand-cast’ that may confuse a general viewer. I think it’s enough for Kylo to say something to the effect that Rey was originally meant to take the Sith throne before Palpatine’s spirit returned in the rotting clone body, so she’s fulfilling her destiny by killing him.

And Snoke being one of the first experiments is also a good idea! Maybe he was being tinkered on by Palpatine before he died as a backup plan, and when the Empire fell Snoke took over the First Order while the Sith cult began work on bringing back the Emperor with the surrogate clones.

Maybe the biggest benefit of this whole idea is that it circles back around to address the most inexplicable aspect of the film…“Somehow, Palpatine returned.” Now Rey’s backstory serves as a direct answer to the question of just what sort of Sith science was involved in bringing Palpatine back to life, connecting TROS with the rest of the trilogy.

Scavenging the Sith blade is similar to an idea I suggested some posts back, but the issue is that the plot now rests on this blade which was created just for this film. It doesn’t feel particularly earned as a revelation.

Making that list of plot and theme issues, here are the major ones as I see it:

1: Rey needs some inner darkness, whether that be from early life experience or from an ‘evil’ bloodline.

2: Rey needs a reason to have been left on Jakku, living next to several plot-important ships/places.

3: Rey needs a reason that choosing the Skywalker family name is important to her.

4: There should be a reason that Palpatine in particular is a fitting nemesis for Rey.

5: There should be a reason why a Jedi Hunter would wish to find Rey as a child.

Considering all of these, maybe the best idea would be to return to a pseudo ‘Rey Palpatine’ backstory. The big problem with this is that it directly conflicts with the idea that Rey’s parents were ‘nobody’, and it also creates a massive plot convenience if Rey just happens to wind up on the planet where the plot of TFA begins.

Here’s a concept:

After the Civil War, the Sith cult attempts to resurrect their fallen Emperor. They have his genetic material, so they use his DNA to grow almost identical clones of the Emperor within surrogate mothers across the galaxy.

While this experiment is ongoing, the cultists manage to revive the spirit of their Emperor within the body of a rotting clone, and their revived Emperor gives the order to have these experiments destroyed, lest they grow up to threaten him.

However, Rey’s parents have come to love this child and want her to be raised far from the influence of the Sith. They discover that churches dedicated to Luke Skywalker and the Jedi are arising on planets across the galaxy, with one allegedly located on Jakku. They make it to Jakku but Palpatine’s Jedi hunter meets them there.

Rey’s parents sell Rey to Unkar Plutt in the hopes that he will take Rey to this hidden enclave, and then they face Ochi and are killed defying the will of the Emperor.

…

In this concept, the dark revelation is that Rey is not just related to Palpatine, but in a very real sense she is Palpatine, or at least a female version of him. This sidesteps the issue that we’ve already had the plot about the offspring of an evil guy choosing not to be evil. Furthermore, anyone who knows the lore concerning cloned Force sensitives will know that madness is a common fate, so this is another problem potentially confronting Rey.

Rey’s parents here remain nobodies, and since there could have been thousands or millions of surrogate mother experiments, Rey isn’t terribly special as a person either. More critically, it isn’t a huge coincidence that Rey happens to live near the Church of the Force on Jakku, since that was the destination of her parents.

Lastly, we can keep almost everything concerning the ‘Rey Palpatine’ cut in place, including the flashbacks to her parents.

Yeah, it’s not super well developed. Moving to fill one thematic or plot related issue just exposes two more.

Another day, another idea for the duel and hangar scenes:

“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.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Junk traders from the outer rim.”

“Don’t!”

“Your parents had no power in the Force. And neither did you.”

“I don’t want this!”

“Yet they were killed…”

“No!”

“…by the Emperor’s assassins.”

(Rey sees her abandonment.)
“Come back! Nooo!”

“They took your parents ship…and left their bodies to rot.”

“Stop talking.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“You never found their bodies, so you convinced yourself that they were still alive…and would return someday. But deep down, you always knew the truth. And the truth…the guilt…has eaten away at you your entire life.”

“So that’s where you are. You know why the Emperor wanted you dead. I’ll come tell you.”

…

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

“Because a six year old girl had told everyone she met that she was a Skywalker. A child’s dream…to be a hero like Luke.”

“You blame yourself for your parent’s death, but it was Palpatine who killed them. There’s no need to blame yourself any longer. Just reach out and take your vengeance. We can kill him, Rey…together.”

(Removes his helmet)

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

“I know.”

Fascinating, it really does sound like him!

I’d be interested in hearing the variants you came up with. It’s also gotten me thinking about other lines for that scene. The trouble with it is that if the Falcon isn’t in Hyperspace in the next scene, there’s really no place that it could be that feels right. It can’t be still escaping from the Death Star because the tone of the scene is very much that they have already escaped and can breathe easy, nor can it be that they have already traveled to the Yavin system because they are talking like the escape was only moments or at most minutes ago.

But here’s an idea: What if the Falcon went into Hyperspace immediately after escaping the Death Star, only to quickly drop back out of Hyperspace and calculate a new course to Yavin? That would make sense because in ESB it is established that a ship can be tracked to its destination based on its course entering Hyperspace, so a multi-legged journey would be implied here. It also would explain why Han seems so cocky about his escape and his conviction that the Empire can’t track his ship, since it’s making multiple jumps to get to its destination.

Vader’s line could be:
“They’ve made their first jump through Hyperspace”
or
“They’ve completed their first jump through Hyperspace”.

Now we can have the next scene happen moments after escaping the Death Star while Han waits for the navicomputer to give him new coordinates. In fact, with this concept, Vader’s line doesn’t even need to change, but the change would at least hint that this multi-hop technique is being used.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I like the ideas. Granted, it does give Kylo less of a reason to reforge his mask which Ascendant fixes pretty well. Then again, I never had much of an issue with that to begin with. I’d be curious to see what else you can come up with here.

Sure, Ascendant gives us flashbacks to ‘a creature in a mask’, but I don’t think that is a reason for Kylo to reforge it. If anything, I’d think Kylo would want to connect with Rey without the mask to interfere, so that Rey would view him as more of a person.

I think the most coherent reason for the reforging (other than rule of cool) is simply that he’s ‘serving another master’ but with an ulterior motive, so the helmet would mask his expressions while also visually signifying that he’s taking the role of Vader in Palpatine’s orbit. I don’t think we can get a deeper character reason, so to go from meeting Palpatine to the mask reforging would strengthen that concept.