The Maz scene was the only truly offensive thing in this movie. I imagine that this was the intent though, since Rian has no qualms with destroying the stupid aspects of The Force Awakens in the most savage way possible. What better way to tell JJ that Maz is a videogame NPC than by literally putting her in one?
Ugh, you’re probably right. Same reason it doesn’t work to try to parody Road Runner or Tom & Jerry shorts.
Pragmatically, though, I don’t see this scene successfully being cut. I don’t suppose it would read well to replace the visuals with some sort of audio-only interface, with the equivalent of a floating holographic waveform.
JEDIT: To keep from having three posts in a row. Interesting that Rian Johnson used the same font for his title in the crawl as ROTJ and the prequels, again making TFA sort of an odd one out. What do you think JJ will do for IX?