Why not stitch together the two scenes before and after they call Maz into one? I wish I had the script, but there should be enough there to show they need a specific codebreaker, and if you cut canto bight entirely, you don’t need to explain why they need to go there.
Finn: "No one can get in there, they scramble the shields code every hour."
Poe: “I think I know someone.”Cut to Finn and Rose leaving on the shuttle. That’s all you need.
It’s all about the dialogue. I recall him just lifting his head up and then we cut to maz but if he says “I think I know someone” then you can cut straight from there to the radar blip and then you see them pick up Poe’s call on the ship that they found a code breaker. And then you have the scene of him stealing from the ship after that before they arrive at the supremacy. You could also cut down them sneaking around (iron joke, evil BB-8, jokes).
Good thinking Handman, I think that’s the best way I’ve heard yet to cut down Canto Bight.
Thanks, to further develop this, we can rearrange the sequence a bit more.
Finn: "They scramble the shields, it’s impossible"
Poe: "I think I know someone"
Maybe cut to another scene of Rey or Ren.
Threepio: "General Twin Peaks will never agree to this plan"
Poe: "That’s why it’s a need-to-know plan"
Poe gets up and starts walking here, we cut to the radar blip.
Next scene with Rey or Ren. Then we see Poe talk to Finn and Rose, asking how things are going, maybe we can use some of Finn’s dialogue from the casino but we don’t have to see it. The next time we see Finn and Rose is “We got A codebreaker, not THE codebreaker”. The scene where DJ steals from the ship can serve as a good introduction to his character.
The ship subplot with General Twin Peaks is shown from Poe’s perspective, if we see Finn and Rose from his perspective as well it helps resolve the way we see the General, makes it feel a bit more natural. This is my hope.