There may be a way to easily fix this, however. During the Resistance briefing scene, simply re-insert the line from Leia that ‘our system is the target’ (eliminate ‘next’, obviously). This way, the Republic will assume that the First Order means only to destroy Leia and the Resistance, a group that the Republic dislikes anyway. Then we could record a line that is said by someone in the crowd to the effect of ‘The Republic won’t help us!’, and then re-insert C-3PO’s line: ‘Without the Republic fleet, we’re done for!’.
I’m not sure I follow. If we are to believe that the Resistance is the target, won’t it be confusing when they turn up fine but the Republic is demolished?
This does actually reminds me of a suggestion that I had in mind when I watched the Restructured version. One of my biggest sticking points with the restructure is that when the base succeeds in firing which pretty much kills any stakes and tension the rest of the non-Kylo Ren climax has. The X-Wing battle/trench run already feels a bit like window dressing in the theatrical, and here it’s nigh pointless. What’s it supposed to be, you destroyed our planet so now we destroy yours? I don’t know, doesn’t sit right with me as something the heroes in a Star Wars movie would do. Personally, I think that the implication should be that, after they harness the power of the sun, they have an undetermined number of shots. So right after the Hosnian system is destroyed, SKB sets it’s next target as the Resistance system (D’Qar is it?). That way you keep the high stakes of the trench run (if anything higher stakes as we’ve just very recently seen what the SKB is capable of) and it feels like they’ve accomplished something beyond just saving Rey.