It's also been brought up, that Snoke could have still worked if they went with that cloning angle, just axe Palps involvement. Soo....Snoke could have still been the big bad, there's a missed opportunity there.
You should read George Lucas last biography, where despite his claims of planning this movies well out in advance, for the OT he was still flying by the seat of his pants and butting heads with creative collaborators like Gary Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan. Making Leia Luke's secret sister was as random as bringing back Palpatine in TROS, and done just to satisfy narrative demands. Repeating the Death Star plot wasn't something forecasted well in advance, Lucas just decided to do it. Boba Fett got a rather anticlimactic death because Lucas couldn't come up with anything better.
Things always swirl and change behind the scenes making these films, this is not just something the new heads at Lucasfilm do. If there was less of that for the Prequels, it's because the destinies of most of the characters were already locked in, it was about the journey instead.
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Apparently his son didn't have The Force, soo...yeah, I guess it skipped him for whatever reason. Because you'd think his son would be the more logical choice since...well he's right there, but Palps just ignored him for whatever stupid reason.
Difference is Lucas didnt panick and change plans. It was all part of the creative process for him. And all his singular vision. Which is why it doesnt come across as an inconsistent mess.
The ST was more like the DCEU. Lose audiences, get hate then panic and change plans.
That's really weird to me because I thought force sensitivity had a lot to do with ones bloodline - that's why the Skywalkers and Palpatines are so powerful.
So I don't get how his son just wouldn't inherit those abilities?
Lucas is given too much credit for Star Wars. He started it, but he didn't make the best parts of it.
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Yeah I can accept Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter. Heck People have been suspecting this since TFA came out in 2015 from what I remember because Daisy Ridley's jabs somewhat resembled Ian Mcdiarmid's jabs, and they both had posh English accents. At the time, the theory was dubious, 4 years later... It's now canon.