Okay. So I’ve thought about it some more, and before we try to tackle a very radical edit like removing Starkiller Base completely, let’s try to take some baby steps.

Personally, I wanted to come up with a way to keep the third act of TFA still relevant to finding Luke Skywalker. As Dom has said as well, we can still have the super laser, but we can also have them go to Starkiller to get the map. ROTJ and TPM both had multi-objective climaxes too so it can work.

So I’m going to suggest a way to make the map relevant to the third act, but still be compatible with TFA: Restructured. Think of it as a possible additional change for a Restructured V4, for example.

Let me lay out the necessary changes:

First, while not necessary, you could have Kylo Ren tell Poe that they have the rest of the map, recovered from the archives of the Empire, during his interrogation. Take the line from Rey’s interrogation, add the sound effect, and stick it in between two of Ren’s lines, around when he lifts his hand to dig into Poe’s mind. Like I said, not necessary but it is an option.
The next big change would be to the Resistance briefing. Basically, we will be removing the shield-lowering objective and replacing it with getting the map. I also want to mention that a few scenes prior, we would have heard Kylo tell Rey they have the rest of the map, so we would know it is on Starkiller.
Keep everything up to and including Poe’s line, “We’ll go in there and we’ll hit that oscillator with everything we got.”
First necessary cut would be Ackbar’s line, “But they have defensive shields our ships cannot penetrate.”
Cut Han’s line, “So we’ll disable the shields.”
Insert OTS of Han looking at Leia, who turns left to look at someone offscreen. We will be cutting this shot where it originally was, so we can reuse it here. During this shot, we will insert a new voiceover line of a Resistance officer asking, “Can we get [rest of] the map?” or simply, “What about the map?”
Han looks at Finn and says, “Kid, you worked there, what do you got?” Finn, “I can do it.” Han, “I like this guy.” Finn, “[CUT I can disable the shields] But I need to be there, on the planet.” Han, “We’ll get you there.”
Cut Leia’s line, “Han, how?” and cut Han’s line, “If I told you, you wouldn’t like it.”
Cut shot of Leia looking toward Poe (reuse for earlier), and cut Poe’s line, “So we disable the shields, take out the oscillator, and blow up their big gun.”
Keep shot of Chewbacca roaring in agreement. (With new context, he is agreeing with Han saying “We’ll get you there.”)
Keep shot of Poe saying, “All right, let’s go!” End of briefing scene.
Later when Han, Finn and Chewie are in hyperspace, cut Finn’s line, “How are we getting in?” and Han’s line about the shield having a fractional refresh rate. Start scene mid-conversation with, “We’re making our approach at lightspeed?” Later, Han says, “If we get any higher they’ll see us!” which provides the needed context: they did it to stay hidden.
Cut Han’s line, “Then how do you know how to disable the shields?” and Finn’s, “I don’t.” Instead, it goes from, “Sanitation?!” to “I’m just here to get Rey.” or, Finn could cut Han off around, “Then how do you know how-“ “I don’t…”
When they enter the base, Han says, “The longer we’re here, the less luck we’re going to have. The shields?” I’ve watched this a few times and Han barely opens his mouth when he says “the shields”, and he turns as he says it, so I honestly think if you just changed the audio to remove that piece of his line, people wouldn’t notice. Worst case, vfx could be use to deemphasize his mouth movement.
Once they capture Phasma, change the on-screen graphics to display the larger galaxy map with the small chunk missing from it for two or three shots. This will probably be the only major VFX work needed. Another benefit to this change for Phasma is that giving them an old map seems less offensive than lowering the entire planet’s defenses.
Cut Finn’s line, “Lower the shields!” You actually don’t see Finn’s mouth when he says this, so it should be as simple as removing the dialogue with no visual cuts necessary.
Replace line of Resistance officer saying “General, their shields are down!” with new voiceover of, “General, they’ve retrieved the map!” Which continues with, “Han did it! Send them in!” assuming Leia didn’t want to blow up Starkiller until they got the map. OR, this scene could be cut altogether and just start with Black Squadron jumping out of lightspeed. No communication between D’Qar and Black Squadron. Which would also remove the question about if they were just sitting in lightspeed. The one benefit to redubbing the officer is that we get an additional indication that Finn and Han now have the map, since we can’t see them grab a data drive without a brand new shot, but I don’t think it is 100% necessary. Could also start scene with “Han did it!” Han just sent Leia a text, I guess.
I don’t think an additional change is needed until they’re back on D’Qar. When Finn is being put on the gurney-tram, have a new voiceover for a Resistance Officer say, “He has the map!” or “Get the map to yada yada” Just another indication that the map made it to the Resistance, implying that Finn has a digital copy of the map on his person. You could even add a little Chewie growl if you wanted to imply the Officer is just translating, but not necessary.
I would suggest cutting the sad shots of Chewie and Leia mourning, which ties in to my next change. If you think about it these shots kind of drag out the ending anyway, and these little moments aren’t totally necessary either. And also, in this version they know they have the map, so they’re not sitting around waiting for R2 to wake up. They gotta move move move.
The last and other tough change is how to handle R2. This version doesnt use Nev’s great idea to visualize R2’s memory search, so we don’t see that in his first scene or his second. Instead, we see BB-8 roll up to still-sleeping R2, say something exciting which spurs R2 to wake up. Now, the implication is that BB-8 tells R2 they have the rest of the map, R2 wakes up all excited. C-3PO enters and says “R2! You’ve come back!”
Cut, “You found what? How dare you call me that!” and “Find Master Luke how? Come, R2! We must go tell the others at once!”
Or, possibly rearrange that last line a bit to say, “Come, R2! We must find Master Luke.” Depends on if it sounds right. Earlier in the film, when they first get to D’Qar, 3PO does say, “locate Master Luke.” So the tone of that might work better too.
Cut the scene with Leia mourning and R2 and 3PO approaching her about “good news”
Now, we go from Rey and Leia’s hug, to BB-8 waking up R2, to R2 and BB-8 putting the map together. It would be nice to see R2 have the map inserted into him, but honestly I don’t think it would be something the audience would have even questioned if we didn’t see it theatrically, either.

Aaaaaaand, I think that’s it. So, to make this change work, you would just need 2-4 VFX shots, 2-3 new voiceovers, and some clever cutting and sound mixing.

I would like some second opinions, and I may have missed something, but I honestly think this is totally possible, and something I could see a lot of people wanting to use for their own edits. We don’t really lose anything from removing a planetary shield that we never even see in the movie, and this change has a lot more importance to the overall narrative while also removing deus ex astromech.

Whew, I’m going to sleep.