I really need to clean up the first post again, since about half of these ideas have either changed substantially or been removed entirely, as the latest few pages attest.

However with regards to the new ending sans Rey actually finding Luke, there are several recent previews where you can judge how this works for yourself. I’m not particularly concerned with giving Rey the power of prophecy because she already displays this power in the original version since she has dreams of the island (and in TLJ it’s established she has specifically dreamed of the Jedi Tree), and when she touches the lightsaber she sees events that haven’t occurred yet in the movie. Also, and I’ve touched on this before, but this new ending of TFA would lead into an edited TLJ where Luke never appears in his Jedi robes and she instead finds him hiding in his hovel. This changes her ‘prophecy’ into a thematically resonant bit of subversion.

Another issue for me when approaching the end of the film is that Rey, a person with only a vague connection to Luke and entirely new to the Resistance, is chosen along with Chewie to go on the most important mission in the galaxy without even a Resistance operative to accompany her. With the new sequence of her repairing R2 and specifically dreaming of Luke, there is a much stronger argument for her to complete this mission.

Finally, TFA definitely ends on a cliffhanger despite her technically finding Luke. There is no way that this movie could stand on its own without the resolution of the scene in the next installment, hence why Rian chose to reshoot the scene. Besides, I would make the argument that the quest to find Luke is basically over once the map is complete. There’s no reason to think that Luke will not be found after this point, so the mission is a success. Everything else is just fanservice.