I’ve had the same thought about cutting Leia’s reaction into two. Although I wonder if you would need to replace that one shot of Leia that we see as the Starkiller laser is racing toward Hosnian Prime. Not sure what you could replace it with.

I don’t know if the audience would put two and two together with that idea, but regardless I think the idea of radio chatter being cut off when Hosnian is destroyed could add to the weight of all those deaths.

I think it would be difficult to get this idea across with the spy’s subtitles, though. I guess we would have to just throw some ideas out and see if anything works.