Instead of "Rey Nobody" or "Rey Palpatine" it could have been different...

[Jackalope89]

Rey Kenobi.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...072232263.html

Which, in the pre-Disney EU, Obi Wan did have a brother named "Ben", hence his alias. I don't know about her being his granddaughter/great-granddaughter, but a niece?

[Celgress]

Anything would have been better than "Rey Palpatine" (puke) so I'd have been cool with the above, although "Rey Nobody" is still my default position (I feel it would have been the best option possible for a fresh start by playing down the dynastic aspect of the old movies).

[whitecrown]

Rey Kenobi is equally as problematic if not worse because there's no story potential for conflict there. It's just making her related to a legacy character for the sake of it. Rey Palpatine, as badly executed as it was, at least brings up some sort of struggle and has deeper parallels with Kylo and the Dyad. However Rey Nobody is still superior.

[BeastieRunner]

1. Rey Palpatine
2. Rey Skywalker or Kenobi
3. Rey Nobody

Offered the most story potential.

Skywalker and Kenobi are very problematic unless the opening of TLJ with Luke was ... "You're alive!?" And that Kylo caused some kind of Force trauma to Luke to cripple him.

Nobody to me was the laziest but opened the doors to widen Star Wars.

Palpatine was the most inspired of those. I enjoyed what we got but do wish they telegraphed more of it. There was loads of potential there.

[Sacred Knight]

Any of these would have been fine if they had just decided earlier on which it was and went with it. Its the indecision till the 11th hour of the trilogy that made it land with an overall thud. I'm all for being loose with telling a story. The original trilogy worked the same way. But there's some things that still need adequate planning to some degree. For example, their change in regards to Vader's ultimate identity was something that happened in the middle, not at the end. So it still worked even if it wasn't the way it was internally in the first film. Things that big you just gotta work out earlier on. Not keep flip flopping till the journey's almost over. She was going to be a Kenobi in the first part, a nobody in the second, then by the third they'd decided she was a Palpatine. That lack of structural building shows.

[godisawesome]

Skywalker would have still been superior as it would have smothered any Reylo nonsense in the crib, and prevented Kylo Ren from being a concept that singlehandedly screwed over the Skywalker story.

[ChrisIII]

Rey Kenobi.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...072232263.html

Which, in the pre-Disney EU, Obi Wan did have a brother named "Ben", hence his alias. I don't know about her being his granddaughter/great-granddaughter, but a niece?

Sure you're not confusing this with the old thing about Owen being Obi-Wan's brother? It's something that was in the ROTJ novel, but possibly was cut from the movie, but was sort of semi-canon for a while until AOTC made it clear that he was actually Anakin's stepbrother.