Your cutlist sounds very close to what I’d want to do, HAL, which makes a lot of sense considering how highly I regard your prequel edits.
Your ideas for trimming the humor are nicely balanced - this movie needs some comic relief, but everyone seemed to react so poorly to certain specific jokes that they want to gut all of them, including the ones that worked.
Thanks! Hopefully you’re right; it’s hard to guess how the tone will be affected until I can sit down and watch a rough cut!
Personally, I’d also cut the “clothes iron” bit and I’d definitely get rid of the “cowl” joke. I don’t mind the Jakku joke, but so much important shit happened on Jakku in canon after Endor that it isn’t really “nowhere,” so I have no problem seeing it go.
I like the clothes iron joke; reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazi takes out a device and seems to be preparing to torture Marion, but it turns out to be a hanger for his jacket. However benign the joke is, it is still one of far too many fake-outs, so perhaps removing it could help alleviate that.
What are your plans for handling that Leia scene? I like the idea of cutting away after the explosion and the next time we see Leia, she’s being carried away on a stretcher.
I don’t think I’ll alter it. It was not one of the things that bothered me when I left the theater, and were it not for Carrie’s real-life death, it wouldn’t stuck out at all. (Actually, Carrie’s death may have been what MADE that scene work for me; impossible to tell.) It is our one and only opportunity to see Leia wield the Force onscreen, sadly. I’m sure IX would have capitalized on this.