krlozdac, I like your outline. I feel like the film really doesn’t need to be drastically restructured, just trimmed here and there to tighten it, like you said.
There’s really nothing I seriously disagree with, but I do wonder what could be done with the Leia scene. I don’t have a problem with it myself, but there does seem to be an execution issue because it didn’t seem to work for a lot of people. Honestly, I think it is the initial shot of her starting to “fly” that throws people off. I don’t know what can be done, but I’d rather not anything be changed if a good solution isn’t introduced, because I think just trimming it could throw off the music. But hey, might be worth experimenting with once it becomes available just to see.
Daxtreme, I think your hesistation regarding the droid fight is understandable. It might be weird interrupting Finn and Phasma’s fight with a more comedic droid fight, but I can also understand how adding it back in might make BB8’s ATST hijack feel less out of nowhere. I initially felt just removing the ATST gag might be better and not include the droid fight either, but I guess we should wait and see the deleted scene first.
On another note, a YouTuber, EC Henry, posted this video earlier regarding some people’s issues with the Holdo plot. He basically suggests, like others have, that if Holdo felt that there was a spy on board the Raddus, it would better justify her not wanting to openly discuss her plan. Henry suggests an addition of just one line from Holdo that could’ve helped with this, but obviously we can’t get Laura Dern to record a new line. I wonder if there would be another way to accomplish this if people felt the idea could be useful. Here’s the video link:
https://youtu.be/sNpayCpXCFM
Alternatively, I thought maybe Poe and Holdo’s interactions could be trimmed to have Poe interrupt her once or twice, maybe giving the idea that Holdo might have done more to make Poe understand, but his impatience got in the way of that. This might be most useful in the scene where Poe knocks the chair over.