I’ll look around for some music!
Although I like the idea of changing Starkiller to a factory of sorts, I wonder if that would bring up some confusion with the whole “selling weapons to the First Order” plot in TLJ. I can imagine people asking, “Wait, didn’t the First Order build their own weapons?”
I personally don’t think the “race against the clock” aspect is really crucial to the third act of the film. It works for Restructured, if they’re targeting the Republic, because we expect the Rebels to blow it up in the knick of time, but that doesn’t happen. They fail, and it’s surprising. With the theatrical, we know they’ll succeed because we’ve seen it before. We know Leia isn’t going to die that way, especially right after Han just died. To me, blowing up Starkiller is the least interesting thing in the third act.
What if you could somehow divert that tension to the fight between Kylo Ren vs Finn and Rey? Once Poe destroys the oscillator, one could possibly intercut between the planet falling apart and the battle, and the suspense is created because we don’t know if they’ll get off the planet in time. In my opinion, the audience is more invested in those characters rather than the trench run 2.0, so it might be an interesting test.
But like I’ve said before, I feel like Starkiller should either be a weapon or a factory. Restructured makes the weapon work well, but if Starkiller could be made into a foundry, it would be really interesting to see. It having weapon-capabilities could work as a reveal, but I’d like to see it. I just imagine people thinking, “It looks like another Death Star. Oh! It’s something different! Oh wait, it is another Death Star after all.” If that makes sense.
Maybe the weapon dealers plot point could still work if Starkiller just built the capital ships and then other dealers manufactured the fighters and weapons. The smaller stuff.
I totally agree about how to end the movie. I think your idea has a great adventurous feel to it that would still retain TFA’s ending, but still give the audience a sense that it took some time to get there.
The idea of starting TLJ with Canto Bight is pretty interesting! I’d like to hear your thoughts on that. It almost makes me think of how the Indiana Jones movies start with a different adventure rather than the main adventure of the film.