I’m considering a change to Sir Ridley’s excellent version of the Maz Castle attack.

In that version Rey runs into the woods, then we see the First Order arrive, then Rey talks to BB-8 and sees the incoming ships, then Maz hands off the lightsaber and the attack starts, then Rey sees the destruction.

The trouble is that it’s a chaotic and somewhat disjointed collection of scenes, with a lot of character decisions that are made quickly or must be inferred. Rey decides to run away, then almost instantly chooses to return. Same with Finn.

One way to solve this could be to insert some version of Kylo praying to Vader between when Rey runs away and when Finn sees the destroyer. Perhaps just edit out the Vader mask (and maybe the Grandfather line), since I was planning to save that visual reveal for Rey and Kylo’s Force vision battle.

With this scene placed after Rey’s sudden decision, it gives the audience time to process her decision, as well as re-contextualizing Kylo’s thought process. Perhaps he doesn’t want to commit these atrocities, such as the destruction that he has planned for the castle, so he prays to Vader to give him this strength.

Also, it might be better to cut Maz’s ‘those beasts’ line, and replace it with the first few shots of the deleted scene where the crew is running through the tunnel and end with Han’s ‘Oh no’, accompanied by a very large crash from overhead.