I personally think the perspective people have on the B Plot, with Canto Bight and everything, is going to depend if those lessons carry over into Episode IX. How will we see Poe handle being a leader, will Finn act on the lesson of “saving what we love”, and will there be some kind of resolution to this original sin of war that TLJ sort of paints? Will they break the cycle? As the second act in a trilogy, I wonder if these things could be set ups that have pay offs in Episode IX.
And if they do, it could add value to all of those scenes. I could change my mind after Episode IX comes out, but atm that is personally why I disagree with cutting any important scenes of the B Plot.
I understand that the space chase feels slow (I’ve heard others suggest looking at it more as a siege rather than a chase), and the Fathier chase feeling pointless. Maybe the chase would’ve been more visually interesting if they were jumping in and out of hyperspace, or I can understand wanting to trim or cut the Fathier chase. I just think a lot of the conversations between characters add value to the story, and it might be important for what’s to come, too.
Even if the themes from those B plots carry over to IX, the way those plots are implemented is still flawed and bogs down the movie IMO. All it needed was some tighter writing. But I know it’s impossible to perfectly fix those kinds of things in an edit, just like you can’t 100% fix how convoluted rescuing Han from Jabba in RotJ is, or how ridiculous the 100+ Jedi running around in the arena in AoC looks.