Here’s some initial ideas from me for an edit:
Opening crawl to remove Leia recon mission and direct mentions of Palpatine. Rather, Kylo Ren is tracking the source of Snoke’s power or something. We still find Palpatine right away, but in the body of the movie rather than in the crawl.
Space out the triple-voice line to sound more like the trailer for dramatic effect.
If deleted scene is available and suitable, add evil Palpatine broadcast as he lifts the fleet. Hopefully it makes it clear that it’s a broadcast, so later scenes still feel right as they allude to characters already having some idea of what’s up.
Add a Wilhelm somewhere I guess.
I’d like to remove the 16 hour time clock, but it offers some explanation for why everyone is in such a hurry.
Maybe remove light speed skipping by ending as they jump the first time, removing TIEs jumping. Or let them jump and we just cut to the next scene. If the former, remove reference to light speed skipping later. However, this would cause a problem as Finn only has one other thing he notices Poe do before referencing all the “shady stuff” he does.
When Kylo and then Rey get flashes of scenes from TFA when they touch the Vader mask, add some stuff from TLJ and color correct Ach-To. Kylo should get flashes of Luke from Crait.
Remove line about how R2 backs up 3PO’s memory.
I don’t like “whoever this Chewie person is, this is madness.”
Possibly remove the destruction of the planet.
Seems dumb that once he turns to the Light Side, Kylo doesn’t take advantage of his role as supreme leader. Research of mine indicates that the emperor sensed this and put General Pryde in charge at that point. If a deleted scene is presented to this effect it would be welcome.
Remove the line about the Holdo maneuver. If it is something legitimate then someone who lives in that universe shouldn’t have the same misconception as we might.
It’d be very nice to somehow link the massive fleet arriving to support the Resistance with the legend of Luke Skywalker, but I’m not sure how. Adding it to the crawl wouldn’t compliment the film up until the end seeming like the Resistance was still pretty much alone.
I think one could successfully remove ‘Rey Palpatine,’ but it would be unusual for me to deviate from the lore to that degree. I don’t like it, but I think I’d be better off accepting it and maybe tweaking TFA and TLJ to fit in better.