The Force Awakens:
We meet Rey, abandoned on Jakku. She’s maintained hope for decades that someone would come back for her.
Most of The Force Awakens plays out the same - with Rey meeting Finn who is escaping the storm troopers. They run into Han and Chewy while escaping with The Millennium Falcon.
Rey bonds with Finn, Han, and Chewy as they work together to fight thieves and fix the ship. When she gets to meet the rest of the rebels, however, she becomes quiet. She lacks social skills and she doesn’t do well in groups.
She runs into Leia while trying to escape the crowd. The famous force sensitive rebel princess can see her in ways no one has ever seen her before. Rey is both drawn to and afraid of Leia. Right away she wants to impress her. Leia starts pulling up Rey’s buried memories - she can sense the pain and fear of being abandoned and feeling so alone. Leia warns that such feelings are a path to the darkside. They are interrupted with news of a map leading to Luke Skywalker.
Rey jumps at the chance to get away from the group and do a mission on her own. Finn, Han, and Chewy insist on going with her.
“You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
On this mission Rey demonstrates raw, untrained force abilities that are very destructive. They cause concern in her friends and draw Kylo Ren’s attention.
Kylo starts trying to pull Rey to the dark side. He uses past moments of destruction to make her feel even more alone. He says that he understands her. He tells her about his own destructive nature. She rejects this first temptation, then turns it on him. She tries to draw him back to the light-side. For a moment Ben Solo reacts to this tenderness. Kylo rejects her violently. Rey returns to her friends with the key to finding Luke Skywalker.
Force Awakes ends with Rey still on the light-side but conflicted. She is firmly bonded to Finn, Han, and Chewy. She’s impressed Leia by showing that Ben is still alive inside Kylo. Leia emotionally adopts Rey. She feels at home for the first time and never wants to see Jakku again.
However she’s still uneasy around the other rebels. When they find the coordinates to Luke, Rey is happy to leave on her own. This time R-2 wakes up and comes with her. She likes droides and is happy for his company.
The Last Jedi:
Luke refuses to train Rey at first. He detects the fear in her. She assures him that she is only concerned about the fall of the rebel forces, but she fears nothing. He doesn’t believe her.
Kylo confronts Rey via some weird force trickery. They duel in front of Luke. Once again she tries to pull Kylo to the light-side, and once again Ben shows himself. But the sight of Luke brings back Kylo and the connection is broken. Luke sees that Rey is, at her a core, is good, honest, and kind person. She is worthy of being a warrior for the Light. It’s obvious too that Kylo sees the potential in her could be turned to the Dark Side. Luke agrees to do more tests.
He introduces her to the Dark Side Well on his sacred island. Here is where Rey gets her first glimpse of what she could become if she gave in to her destructive nature. The seed Palapatine planted finally germinates.
She comes out a little shaken but able to show cheer and fearlessness to Luke. He trains her for a while. But her training is interrupted, just as Luke’s was, by news that her friends are in danger. Phasma has captured Finn and several other former Storm Troopers. She is attempting to reprogram them all back into the soldiers they were. They know things about the rebel forces that could get millions killed.
Under this torment Finn’s force powers blossom. He calls out to Rey, Luke, and Leia.
Luke warns Rey that she is only partially trained and that she shouldn’t leave. But she believes in her heart that Ben Solo can be saved and that Kylo can not be allowed to turn Finn to the Dark Side. She leaves hoping to save everyone all by herself.
Once she’s around other rebels, in a crowd and without her friends, she starts hearing voices. She starts hearing other people’s thoughts about her. She’s un able to turn off the voices and becomes trapped in other people’s toxic opinions of her.
These voices tell her that no one can trust her, that she’s a bad person, that she doesn’t belong with these people. She fights it. She wants to be good - do good. But does she want to do good because it’s the right thing to do? Or does she just want to be loved and respected? How selfish of her. The more she feels outcasted the more she behaves like an outcast - the more she shies away. She isn’t listening to the instructions or the dangers. She wants to be on a ship. She’s looking for someone to blast.
“How deliciously violent of you.”
Someone lays a hand on her shoulder. She lashes out at them. As a result she accidentally wipes their memories. The person is shocked and confused. So is everyone else who witnesses this. Rey apologizes but everyone looks at her more afraid than before.
Later we hear voice in her mind has become more familiar. It’s the crackly stale voice of an old man whispering evils into her mind. It shares visions of her being abandoned. Some of these are not her true memories, but those of another little boy. It opens her mind up to the minds of others. She can hear people whispering about her, thinking about her.
Kylo asks her to join him during a battle over a prison ship that has captured Chewy. He brings up Rey’s discomfort around the rebels and says he felt the same way. He tells Rey that her skills for destruction would be valued on the Dark Side. His words are the same thing the voices in her head have been whispering. Kylo then says that he knows who her parents are and why they left her.
“They were filthy junk traders. They traded you for drink money.”
He’s trying to weaken her, but suddenly she’s more angry than anyone has ever seen her. Lightening shoots from her fingers and the ship Chewy was on is destroyed. Everyone witnesses his death. The are shocked that Rey just killed their beloved Chewy with Palpatine’s old lightening finger trick.
Fear consumes her. She runs. The old man is laughing inside of her head; she can’t escape him.
Everyone is so stunned by the sight of Chewy’s ship that only Finn and Kylo run after her.
Finn finds another Storm Trooper defect, a woman he met while being held by Phasma. She has escaped the First Order and needs help.
Rey is curled up into a ball hiding in the wreckage of a ship. Her mind is being taken over by Palpatine. The audience can hear the struggle as horrible visions of the past and present flood her mind - not all of them are her memories. Palpatine’s laughing voice takes over, drowning out Rey’s horrified screams.
When she looks up Kylo Ren is there. He offers her his hand. The dream falls away. The voice is silenced. All she sees is Kylo. For a moment she is herself again, but she is afraid. Rey takes Kylo’s hand. He takes her trembling body into his arms and carries her, willingly, to his ship.
The Imperial march plays as the credits roll.
Rise of Skywalker:
Chewy was actually on a different ship. He’s alive but being held prisoner on a ship called the Black Star. The rebels have a meeting to find a way to rescue him. He’s obviously bait in a trap. The rest of the rebel forces are busy. A planet that has been friendly to their efforts is under attack.
“We can not spare our fighters to save one, when trillions are at risk!”
Finn, Poe and Rose slip away on the Falcon to find Chewy. The others warn them that he is being held in the lair of the Shadow Empress. No one who sees her can recall her face. And no one taken to the Black Star ever returns.
Poe trades the Falcon for a less familiar ship. They use Rose’s skills as a mechanic and Finn’s knowledge of the First Order to get inside the Black Star base.
Finn is able to get the gang into the prison where they set Chewy free. Before they can get back to the ship Captain Phasma captures them.
The rescue party is brought before the throne of the Shadow Empress. Their eyes are covered at first. Then Kylo orders them to have their blinders removed. They shout insults at Kylo as they believed that he killed Rey in the last movie.
The Shadow Empress appears. The gang react in shock and horror at Rey’s new outfit. She explains that her new power to wipe memories has helped them recruit more troops than ever, even some of Finn’s new friends have been brought back to the fold. She’s also been able to help the current soldiers sleep better at night with their minds whiped clean of the deeds they’ve done. So the troopers are well rested, resolved of any guilt, and are much more dangerous. They also have better armor, more like Phasmas, so they are a much harder to defeat.
They shout insults at her. It makes her laugh in Palpatine’s voice. He speaks directly to their minds.
He tells them Rey’s back story:
Rey’s backstory
Palpatine researched the forbidden Dark-side methods of “Life Jumping”. He figured out that he could only hop into bodies that are closely related to him. His clones work but they are only temporary fixes as they age rapidly. Palpatine had fathered no children. Instead he had special clones made that would age more slowly.
With more research he learned that a female body would carry with her the possibility of continuing his Mitochondrial DNA into future generations. Infinity was his at last. So he made a female clone that would age slowly. She needed to be put someplace safe in case something happened to all the others before she was ready for him.
Good thing to because the Skywalkers nearly ruined everything. When the empire fell Rey’s caregivers fled. They were not the most scrupulous people - after all they worked for Palpatine. They thought their meal ticket had dried up so they traded Rey to Unkar Plutt on Jakku for drinking money as Kylo had told her.
Learning the truth about her lineage and why she was abandoned, also that she was nothing but an intended vessel for the Dark Emperor - finally broke poor Rey’s spirts. She lives in the shrunken place inside of her own psyche unable to control her own body as Palpatine prances around with her face, and runs his empire.
The only good she can do is to help the storm troopers forget their guilt and pain each night.
Back to the story:
Her friends speak past Palpatine directly to Rey. Finn shows that he’s discovered his force sensitivity. Some part of the real Rey surfaces but only for a moment. Kylo and Finn sense the change before she is shoved back down. Rose, Poe, and Chewy see nothing but the bubbling rage of yet another trader.
Phasma escorts the prisoners to their cells to await torture and execution. Before they are killed something strange happens. The doors to their cells are opened and they have a clear path back to the Falcon. Ben Solo has intervened and saved them. He doesn’t like being married to Palpatine. The reveal that she is still in there somewhere turns his heart and he has to try and free her.
Finn refuses to leave without Rey, but the others think she’s a lost cause.
Finn turns back and is captured and held by Ben. The darkness in Rey has brought the clarity of the light back to Ben Solo. Ben explains that Rey is fully possessed by Palpatine but killing her won’t kill him. He has other clones. But he is trapped as her husband - as Palpatine’s husband. He doesn’t want to abandon her either.
Finn presses to know why. Kylo doesn’t answer but Finn figures it out.
“She’s pregnant!?”
“I have to be here to kill them both when the time comes.”
“There must be another way!”
Ben helps Finn escape the Empress’s lair but in doing so he is ousted as a trader.
Ben and Finn must work together to help Rey find herself again.
First they track down and destroy all the hives holding additional Palpatine clones on a planet called Biss. They are well hidden but Ben had been spying on the Empress. He knows the location of the master control room which supplies the clones with life support. They reach that and destroy every one of the tanks and the clone guards which protect them.
It’s sort of a fun let loose moment as these two heroes are allowed to destroy ever single living thing in this building, and blow up the buildings.
As they travel together Ben is training Finn in the ways of the force so that when the Empress catches up to them again he will be better prepared.
Together they lore Rey-patine to a sacred Force Temple which is heavy with Light & Dark side energies. They bait her with the Darkness, but reveal their true location during the battle.
Rey-patine easily out fights Finn physically. But Ben balances the battle. The proximity of the Jedi Temple helps Rey find the will to fight for her body and she joins the battle from within. Finn holds Ben back from destroying Rey-patine for fear of the ghost jumping before the job is complete.
Instead they speak kindly, gently to Rey. They remind her of the love she has felt for them, and that they have felt for her. They tell her that the rebels miss her. This makes her laugh, but they continue even as Palaptain regains control over her, hisses opposing words of abandonment and betrayal.
Then Ben asks Rey if she really wants Palaptain to raise their child.
She fights with the love for her unborn child. She holds on to that desire to be a mother. The real Rey is able to at last take control. She warns Ben and Finn that besides her there is one body left. One clone left to age slowly and return Palpatine to youth. She tells them vaguely where to find it. Then she submerges to do battle with the Emperor in her mind.
Finn leaves to tell the rebels about the “weapon” he’s discovered. Poe, Rose, and Jannah accompany him in his search but he doesn’t tell them exactly what he’s looking for. The coordinates lead them to a house with a family in a poor slum of a city planet. Finn tries to detect where the body might be but he senses nothing.
Rey remembers kindness. She remembers meeting Finn, and their adventures. Then she remembers Leia and her kindness towards her. Leia who was a mother to her, and wrapped her in the light no matter how much others were afraid of her. She remembers the embarrassing moments with the women in the rebellion as funny. She laughs away moments that were shameful. She forgives herself for feeling so lonely among potential friends. She feeds that warm glow to her baby. It feeds love and trust back to her.
Palpatine hisses hatred and fear at her. He demands that she focus on her hatred for him.
She turns that kindness towards him instead.
“I pity you really. You’ve been in my mind. But I’ve been in yours. I’ve seen what made you - what filled you with so much anger.”
Palpatine’s dark and terribly tragic childhood plays before his own eyes. He is brought to his knees weeping and powerless as she walks him further and further into the Light Side of the sacred temple.
She shows him tenderness as he ages before her mind’s eye. She embraces him and calls him grandfather. She cries for his pain and his suffering. He can’t handle the agony of the Light side flooding him. He is taken back to that sad and terrible childhood where only horrible things ever happened to him. She says
“I forgive you.”
Palpatine cries out. He flees from her mind and her body. She can since that he is gone, totally gone.
When she emerges from her trance she finds the ghosts of ancient Jedi holding the still struggling old man between them.
“You’ve purged the evil from your blood. We’ll take it from here”
“We’ll keep this one imprisioned here where he can do no harm to anyone else for an eternity.”
“But what about his other clone?” Rey asks.
“It’s fate is yet to be decided. The choices it will make will determine it’s future.
“Perhaps a guide can steer it away from the Darkness.”
“Perhaps not.”
Finn sences the presence of a force sensitive being. He runs away from Rose and Poe, prepared to strike down he last clone. But when he finds it he discovers that it is only a ten year old boy.
Rey rejoins Ben and assures him that she and their baby are safe with a kiss. Finn communicates that he’s found the last clone.
Rey and Ben race to meet Finn. When he introduces them to the boy child Ben instinctively reaches for his lightsaber. The moment reminds him of his master Luke Skywalker raising a saber to kill him. He remembers the darkness that flooded his soul in that moment. He pauses.
Rey steps forward and asks the boy who he is and where he’s from. He’s a slave as is his family. He is another cast off clone left to live a hard life, forgotten by all. His past is very similar to the young Anikan Skywalker. Rey takes pity on him and shows him compassion. She sets him free, and his parents, and all the slaves they are with. She then vows to the boy that she will work to end slavery in the galaxy. She takes the young boy under her wing as a charge to make sure he knows kindness in his life.
He will live with his loving parents. But Rey, Finn, and Ben check on him and watch over him.
In conclusion
This isn’t my usual content. This blog is for reviews and essays about books that influenced me, not movie re-writes. I just had to get this idea off my chest. This is how I would have written the sequel trilogy, please share your thoughts and comments down below. Tell me what you would have done differently.
Did you like Rise of Skywalker?
Tell me about your favorite Star Wars experience!
If you’re a writer like me please check out my picture book breakdowns at PB&JellyfishTalez blog where I breakdown the latest and greatest picture books for young readers.
If your tastes are a bit more adult please sample my fiction in the Jellyfish Cove
I tweet at PB&Jellyphish
All of these links and more can be found my website: pbyeary.com
Thank you for your time.
I’ll see you on the next page!
View all my reviews
