Not sure how to make you understand, I guess. None of those other things are happening in a vaccuum with regards to the story. Starting with Carrie’s footage needing to be repurposed, and further deciding to make her self-sacrifice the reason he turns as the justification for keeping Carrie’s footage is just that: The start. That’s the foundation the rest of the story (and most of the decisions afterward) follow from. Those are the first two cards pinned to the board, and they never came off.
Obviously each scene necessarily effects the others. I guess what I’m saying those is I don’t see how the problematic aspects of the story are affected by this one aspect. I feel like there are a lot of different things they could have done while keeping this aspect intact. Obviously if you don’t like this aspect I can see how it’d be the “start” of the problems for you. But for me, the problems seem unrelated and avoidable, even with these scenes ‘locked in.’
I also don’t understand why you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to “not doing a CG Leia” when they actually did it, and word is the sequence was even longer initially.
I guess I am giving them the benefit of the doubt simply because they didn’t really, except for that one scene which, as I said, they would have done as CG regardless.