My idea to salvage the Canto Bight sequence and cement a real bond between Finn and Rose
When Finn is in his bacta medical suit at the begining of the film we need Finn to have a flashback sequence that runs through his experiences as a character starting from childhood, giving us more details of his background.
In my mind, a dream/flashback would go something like this.
We hear a voice saying “you steal Children?” “we rescue them to serve the 1st order.” ominous music plays while we initially see children playing with Jedi wooden toys, and then we hear a child scream. A woman’s face comes to frame IE Fin’s mother, and then we hear “FN2187” a fast montage of footage from episode 7 plays (Fin’s trooper friend dying, imperial propoganda, etc.) and then the last moments of finn seeing Rey taken away, or his duel injury. He awakes as he does in the movie screaming Rey!!!
If we had this flashback as part of Finn’s introduction, it would tell the audience that he was once just an innocent boy who admired the Jedi, their stories, played with friends, but was kidnapped, and his family was killed before he was brainwashed by Phasma.
This would make Finn’s impulse to run and be afraid initially very understandable. Rose’s story of losing her sister would also now have an emotional effect on finn at the same time. A bond between two unknowns now exists.
Releasing the Fathiers, and seeing the Opulance of Canto Bight, and the suffering of animals would now (in the audience’s mind) have a personal effect on Finn, because of what we have been reminded about his beginings, and what he himself has been reminded of in his coma flashback.
-audio from battlefront II with Admiral Hask could be used because he talks with Iden Versio about how children of the galaxy are being “rescued” IE stolen to serve as the 1st order Stormtroopers.
-Footage in episode 8 of the kids playing Jedi adventure can be used to imply that one of those innocent boys was a young Finn. (foreshadowing that he chooses the resistence later in the film.)
-The deleted scene "Finn and the villager"could be used where the villager is implied to be Finn’s mother.
- The rest of the montage from The Force Awakens.