TestingOutTheTest

RogueLeader said:

You can say it doesn’t necessarily contradict TLJ, but it was totally unnecessary, in my opinion.

Your answer is beautifully thought out, but I guarantee you that Abrams nor Terrio took the time to rationalize their choice as much as you have.

I think they made Rey a Palpatine for a few reasons.

1. To give fanboys a reason why Rey was so powerful.
2. To give her a personal reason to hate Palpatine.
3. To mirror Luke’s own connection to Vader, creating another needless parallel to the OT.

Again, you can rationalize it, but there was no legitimate reason for them to go back on Rey’s parents being bad people that didn’t care about her. Even you’ve admitted that could’ve been handled better. For Abrams and Terrio to say they actually did love her, and abandoned her for a reason? And they sold her to Unkar Plutt, of all people? They couldn’t have thought of a dozen other safer places to take her? It is just ridiculous, and treats the audience with no respect. To totally go back on what the previous movie established.

Her being a Palpatine, in my subjective opinion, is just so much less interesting than what TLJ on its own set up. Giving Rey this answer makes her path so much clearer. Everything you said about her character arc could have easily been accomplished without her being a Palpatine, and been less muddled. But I guess the only way Rey could be that powerful is if her power came from a man…

I’m glad you’re getting something good out of this movie. You’re clearly a intelligent person. I just hate that you’ve probably put more thought into this idea than I think the actual filmmakers did.

Regarding as to why J.J. made Rey a Palpatine, he believed it would be more shocking for Rey than her parents being nobody.

And for other reasons as to why I like Rey Palpatine, think about the symbolism of a Palpatine AND a Skywalker standing against the true mastermind, the one who fucked everything up (I’m referring to THAT scene). Also think about Rey taking on the name of Skywalker, she’s basically shitting on Palpatine (and in my headcanon, her father who, alongside her mother, threw her away like garbage because of her heritage), her own grandfather who started this mess in the first place.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Testing is right. That is actually his true form. The ROTS novelization describes it as the “face of Darth Sidious” or something. He decides at that moment that it could be advantageous to keep it that way since it would appear that he was injured by the Jedi.

As for the clones, it’s correct that Rey’s dad is a completely different thing than those clones in the vat in canon (strandcast). However, even without the whole strandcast thingy (which I don’t care for myself) one could rationalize him as an unmodified clone, similar to Boba Fett.

Just two points. The RotS novel is non-canon, and I think the only reason Palpatine has that ugly face is because of the dark side.

EDIT: Just read RogueLeader and Brewster’s respective comments after publishing this.

How about Palpatine SENSES that he has a Force-sensitive granddaughter?

You act as though Palpatine knew where his son was all along.

It’s an inference.

The dyad fight can be about “I know the rest of your story, Rey, and why your parents threw you away.” Kylo Ren doesn’t reveal the rest of the information yet, similarly to in the film.

The hangar scene remains, but with the dialogue I suggested.

I did suggest the tweaked “Rey Palpatine” reveal in the Redux Ideas Thread.

Also, change the previous conversation with Rey and Kylo Ren so it isn’t about her parents being good people, maybe just something along the lines of, “I know the rest of your story,” as well as, “I know why your parents threw you away.”

Peonthegrate said:

I was thinking about this earlier. Shouldn’t the cloned palpatine faces in the liquid vats shown early in the film be younger versions of him and not disfigured?

Because Rey’s father was a clone of palpatine and was obviously show to be young. Unless I’m not remembering something correctly.

His ugly face is his real form. It’s why he doesn’t turn young when he sucks up Rey and Ben’s life force, and why he turns into that abomination in RotS.

I have an idea about TLJ: during the first lesson scene, Rey not only sees the entrance of the cave, as usual, but also sees the mirror itself.

SparkySywer said:

I wonder if it would be a good idea to show Luke’s lightsaber retracting in the final Academy flashback. To make the point of the scene more clear and dispel the misreading of the movie of Luke trying to kill Ben for having a bad dream. He’d have to re-ignite it when Ben attacks him, too, of course.

Luke clearly changes his mind about killing Ben at the last minute. And it needed to be on so Ben would realize, “Oh shit, Luke found out that I’ve turned to the dark side and he was gonna stop me!”

So you don’t like Kylo as well?

Yeah I think I’ll probably stick with the whole “Rey is Palpatine’s daughter” thingy.

Would you rather do that, or reinforce Rey and Palpatine’s respective motivations as described above?

Speaking of Rey’s parents, a while back I proposed the idea of removing the idea of Rey’s parents being good people who loved her and wanted to protect her - the retcon that her parents actually loved her undermines her arc in TLJ of moving on and learning to stop caring about her parents who threw their own daughter away like garbage, because in TRoS it turns out Rey stopped caring about her parents in TLJ all for nothing.

The idea consisted of removing hints, scenes and lines about Rey’s parents being good people who loved her, and at one point I came up with the idea of having it so her parents abandoned her because she is a Palpatine (combined with her Force-sensitivity).

REY: You said you knew the rest of my story. You knew why my parents threw me away. Why? Tell me.

KYLO REN: Because they knew what you would become. You don’t just have power, you have his power. You’re his granddaughter. You are a Palpatine.

I have a suggestion, do not retain the idea of Mr. Rey (not a Finding Nemo reference) being a clone of Palpatine. Rey being the actual granddaughter of Palpatine - a familial, hereditary connection between the two - solidifies her belief that her being his blood, direct granddaughter is the reason she is continually giving into the dark side, that no one is going to give her any validation because of her heritage, you get the idea; not to mention in the actual film it streamlines Palps’ motivations…

Palpatine is suffering in a clone body and hopes to possess a Force-sensitive, so he decides to conceive a child, acknowledging that biological children are not clones in the way his failing body is, hoping for that child to turn out to be Force-sensitive; his son, however, turns out to be a non-Force-sensitive — the mere fact alone he does not teach him in the ways of the dark side implies he is not Force-sensitive, and if he were Force-sensitive then the events of the sequel trilogy would not have turned out the way it did.

The man goes on to conceive Rey with a woman, Palpatine goes after her, the man and woman abandon Rey and the both of them are killed by Ochi, and Palpatine goes after Ben Solo instead, yadda yadda.

Not my idea, but I’ve seen one headcanon idea that Mrs. Rey was named Solana, after “Rey Solana” in Duel of the Fates.

CamSMurph said:

How would I re-edit TRoS? Well, for starters, I’d throw out the concept of force healing since it pretty much came out of nowhere. Then, I’d have Palpatine kill Kylo by throwing him into the pit. Lastly, I’d have Rey proclaim, “Just Rey,” at the end of the film, and her arc would come full circle.

Firstly, Rey has the Jedi texts, so of course she’d get something from that.

Secondly, killing off Ben at that point misses the point; having Ben heal Rey makes sense from a thematic perspective, he’s fulfilling what Vader started.

Lastly, “just Rey” also misses the point; “Rey Skywalker” is there to show how the Skywalkers’ legacy will live on after the actual bloodline becomes extinct, which is the point of the entire trilogy.

jedi_bendu said:

TestingOutTheTest said:

Irrelevant, but have you read my Rey Palpatine defense yet?

Now that you’ve asked, I just have. I agree that it doesn’t necessarily contradict the decision in TLJ, but I agree with the other responses that Rey’s arc around accepting that her heritage doesn’t define was mostly completed in TLJ - she just needed a film where she finally gains confidence in taking on the Skywalker mantle (which she does in TROS) and not a whole new plot development. I mostly dislike the Rey Palpatine decision because I love when Star Wars has an everyman/woman theme around standing up for what’s right, and Rey Palpatine means Rey doesn’t have her own power but “his power”, as well as reinforcing the feeling of the main star wars characters being interconnected within this small, elite group.

But as I say, I agree that it doesn’t contradict the theme about Rey learning that heritage doesn’t define her.

Hmm…

I never got that impression about the “heritage in general” thing in TLJ, Rey just simply stopped caring about her parents - the ones who birthed and conceived her. She needed to stop caring about them and move on, because they thought she was completely worthless. Also, just because Rey’s PARENTS were… every people, doesn’t mean her GRANDPARENTS or other ancestors were.

Irrelevant, but have you read my Rey Palpatine defense yet?

Yes, I am going to be putting out a long defense of The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, in the form of a single essay similar to that one rebuttal to Plinkett’s review of The Phantom Menace — it is designed to refute almost every single criticism I have seen be used towards these movies, I am also hoping to explain it in much detail in a way for people to understand as to where I, alongside fellow prequel and sequel fans, are coming from (yes, I enjoy and defend both trilogies). I am still in the process of writing it, I am more focusing on the sequel trilogy at the moment.

Below is a draft of the opening section…

The Skywalker saga. The trilogy of trilogies. One of the most popular film franchises of all time, alongside the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth saga, the Harry Potter film octology, and many more. And sadly, one of, if not the most misunderstood of them all…

For so long, many seemed to have misunderstood the Skywalker saga — I am sorry if it comes across as… uh, harassment towards that particular group of people, but usually as a result of not paying much attention to the films — , to the point where misconceptions regarding the movies had been spreading for the past few decades and those who had internalized these turned against much of its installments, more specifically the prequel and sequel trilogies, respectively, because of these.

It has been getting me on my nerves for quite some time now, and in response… well, here is a long response to this, addressing each and almost every common criticism I have seen for the prequel and sequel trilogies, respectively, and put these to rest, for better or worse.

One might call out many of these explanations as “headcanon,” “mental gymnastics” or things that “are not supported by the films at all,” even though neither of these are the case — instead, they rely on inference.

For those unaware of what “inference” is, look at this scene from Infinity War. Here, Thanos is communicating with a younger Gamora after activating the Infinity Stones with that snap of his fingers. Given that Thanos had sacrificed Gamora for the Soul Stone earlier in the film, and that the location the both of them are residing in at that point is of the color orange, the same color of the Soul Stone, one can infer that Thanos is literally inside of the Soul Stone.

On the topic of inference, I am going to be bringing up pieces of evidence (from which information is inferable) in a large amount of my responses to specific criticisms, as a way of preventing others from accusing me of reaching or creating “headcanon that is not in the movies” or using “mental gymnastics”.

There are no uses of “maybe” or “perhaps” anywhere throughout the essay, to avoid the risk of people acting as if I was saying something that is plausible but did not actually happen, regardless of whether it is surface-level information or an inference — for example, any time I respond to a supposed plot hole such as, “Why did X do this or that?”, I am not going to say, “Perhaps/maybe X was, say, motivated by this or that!”

Regarding the sequel trilogy, the responses to criticisms for each film relies on information from its prior installments and itself, it does not use information from its follow-ups, I am trying to frame it as if the film was recently released which was when the criticism would have to first… pop up; for example, when I am discussing The Last Jedi in this essay I am only going to be using information from itself as well as its prior installments, I am not going to be using information from its follow-up, The Rise of Skywalker.

As for the prequel trilogy, well… the films are supposed to be the prequels to the original trilogy; any responses to criticisms directed at supposed plot holes and continuity errors use information from the prequel and original trilogies.

I just want to mention that I am not trying to convince any of you that any of these movies are “good,” I am just trying to say that all of the things I am going to be addressing throughout this essay all make sense within the context of the movies and are capable of being justified by applying logic and closely analyzing the films, inferring information from dialogue, visuals, acting, character backgrounds and already-established facts while also using evidence that is explicitly shown or told to us.

In short, it isn’t to say that, “The prequels and sequels are good movies,” but it is to say that, “Saying ‘X does not make any sense’ is false, given from what is inferred from, shown or told in the films.”

It is fine if you do not like any of these movies, in fact, go ahead, but I just want to help you guys understand them better, to see what George Lucas, Jonathan Hales, J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, Rian Johnson and Chris Terrio were all going for, whether it was intentional or accidental.

I would like to note that the information stated throughout the essay is only from the movies, there is not going to be any mention of information from ancillary material such as the movie novelizations, as I agree with the notion that one should not have to go outside of a movie and rely on ancillary material in order to fix major story flaws so the movie would make logical sense and be enjoyable by itself.

Throughout the essay, you are going to be noticing things in bold with others usually being in a regular font emphasis; anything that is in bold represents the criticisms I shall be dealing with, and anything that uses a regular font emphasis represents the responses themselves to the criticisms — italics will appear every now and then, but only in the case of, well… putting titles in italics, as well as emphasizing some of the more specific points.

For each film, the criticisms and their respective responses are going to be lined up in a way as if you are going through the movie from start to finish.

And be warned, I may come across as a little stern, but I just hope you guys understand the points I am trying to make throughout the essay…

I really want some feedback for this draft; I feel it needs a bit more elaboration, or I might be framing or wording things incorrectly, there also might be things you could add to this.

Anyway, thoughts? Suggestions for the draft of this section?

Wait, why is the Skywalker lightsaber becoming unstable in Ascendant? To symbolize Rey’s struggle with the dark side?

Do you plan on doing the same for TESB and RotJ?

I can kinda see what you mean when you say that if he’s Force sensitive it kinda diminishes the idea that anyone could defect from the First Order.

Not necessarily, I said that it diminishes the idea of him BEING your average Joe who learns to stop running away and start fighting for the cause, it’s part of what makes Finn so great.

After what I said, how do you plan on dealing with Finn’s Force-sensitivity alone? If you do remove it, I did suggest having Jannah be Force-sensitive to preserve them sensing/locating that thing on Exegol.

@SparkySywer

I shall clarify.

In TFA and TLJ, Rey focused heavily on her parents, they were the ones who conceived her, birthed her and abandoned her on the hell that is Jakku. She hoped there has to be some reason as to why her parents abandoned her, like being important in a way it would, for example, motivate her parents to abandon her, showing how they loved her. Of course, Rey comes to terms with the truth in TLJ and stops caring about her parents, but just because she stopped caring about them doesn’t indicate as to whether she cares about her grandparents or not.

Rey is absolutely scared of her Palpatine heritage in TRoS, because, due to her lack of self-worth, she fears being rejected by everyone, she fears about what everyone else would think if they find out of her heritage, she fears that no one is going to give her validation if they find out her heritage. This is implied in some later scenes, including her following conversation with Finn (“Rey, I know you…” “People keep telling me they know me. I’m afraid no one does…”).

Your point that “Rey overcame her low self-esteem in TLJ” and that “TRoS undermines this” is like saying that “she stopped caring about her parents in TFA just because she stopped waiting for them on Jakku and that TLJ undermines/undoes this by saying that Rey still cares about her parents.”

Just because Rey stopped waiting for her parents to return for her on Jakku in TFA, doesn’t mean she stopped caring about them entirely; in the exact same way, just because Rey seems happy at the end of TLJ, doesn’t mean she’s overcome her core belief that she is worthless (in fact, we see her happy in several scenes in the trilogy, especially BEFORE the TLJ reveal, but that doesn’t mean she ISN’T held back by this core belief).

Now, you’ll probably say the same thing about her TRoS arc, that “just because Rey defeated Palps, doesn’t mean she overcame her core belief that she is completely worthless,” but I digress. In fact, there’s a few indications she’s overcome her core belief of self-worthlessness by the end of TRoS:

• Her pulling in the Skywalker lightsaber and grasping it at that moment alone implies she finally feels worthy, especially since this is the same lightsaber she felt unworthy of using twice, during one of her scenes with Leia and during her time on Ahch-To before Luke showed up.

• Basically this entire Reddit comment.

• At the end of TRoS, Rey finally feels worthy of naming herself “Skywalker” and continuing their legacy, whereas on Pasaana during that interaction with that little girl basically this happens: “What’s your name?” “Just Rey.” Note that this is before the climax on Exegol, so at this point on Pasaana, Rey is still held back by her core belief.

It’s not that Rey cared about her grandparents, it’s that the reason her Palpatine heritage is such a big deal to her, personally, is because she is related to the Sith Lord who murdered trillions; on top of that, it’s part of the reason she exiles herself onto Ahch-To until Luke pointed out that she is still valuable and can still do the right thing regardless of her heritage.

I meant that Rey was “unaffected” at the Battle of Crait in the sense that, well… there is a criticism that Rey should have been heavily affected by the parental reveal itself (warning, it’s from /r/saltierthancrait), which I disagree with since the reason she seems happy during Crait is because it means she has finally stopped caring about her parents themselves entirely.

Rey’s relationship by itself with Palpatine isn’t the point, the point is how the reveal of her Palpatine heritage affects her, and that she overcomes it when she learns from Luke that she is still valuable and can still do the right thing regardless of her heritage.

I think you should try re-watching TRoS (and by extension, TFA & TLJ), at least several times, with my interpretations in mind, in the hope that you can see as to where I am coming from regarding everything I said about Rey in this thread and the comment section.