Somebody had the idea of opening the movie with canto bight. Finn is simply awake. You cut maz Kanata explanation. Cut the drippy Finn scene. Cut scene with rose and him in the escape pod and she zaps him. The last scenes (minus the ring) could set the stage as part of the canto bight sequence either at the front or at the end of it. Truncate this sequence a lot overall. Cut the chase. Cut the beach landing. They find DJ in jail and get on the stolen ship back to the fleet. Then cut to TFA chewie and Rey landing on achto.
I like he idea of Finn already being awake. That would imply time has passed. I’ll have to think about this one. The crawl would need to set these scenes up but I’m not sure we have a reason for this to happen without he opening scenes.
I suppose this movie could start with the implications that the Resistance is going to cut off the snakes head so to speak. Finn could be locating a slicer that will allow him to infiltrate the flag ship of the First Order and destroy it from within. That could go wrong and they could trace the Resistance base through the band Finn is wearing leading to the opening scenes. Hmmm, I’ll have to think about this one more. Thanks for spurring on this thought. 😃