Here’s another wacky, radical idea no one asked for, so bear with me.
This is definitely radical in the sense that it would require to shoot new footage. Technically, maybe you wouldn’t have to, but it would add clarity by making the stakes more apparent.
So, in the film it is mentioned twice that the First Order is harvesting more children in order to man the new fleet, but based off what we see in the film, it appears that the fleet is preparing to invade the galaxy within what seems like a few days upon discovering it. How are they using these children exactly? I mean, it will still take years to train and indoctrinate them until adulthood, so my only guess is they mean it will bolster their future army, but bolstering their future army seems less important than the immenent invasion of the Sith Fleet. So, what if these two things could be tied together?
What if, out of desperation, the First Order is kidnapping children and “Lobot”-omizing them? Imagine children with those Lobot head implants manning the bridges of the Sith Star Destroyers, basically acting as living computers to help navigate them out of the Unknown Regions.
So now, the final mission changes from destroying the control tower that they’ll use to help navigate the ships out of the UR, to destroying the tower that is controlling the cybernetic implants on the children. After it is the destroyed, the children would “wake up”, and the Star Destroyers would be dead in the water.
Cons: Like I said, this would definitely require dialogue changes and additions, at the very least to the Resistance briefing and the final battle. I could see a benefit of inserting new characters into both the First Order meeting and the Resistance briefing. Secondly, if you wanted to show the kids you would have to create a few new shots. At least one costume, two to three kid actors, and at the very least a green screen. Luckily I have some younger cousins that I already know would be more than willing to do it, if it ever came to trying it out. But hey, this is the Radical redux thread!
Pros: To me, this could tie everything together really well, plus make for a more compelling final battle. Now their goal goes from “stopping the Star Destroyers” to “save the children”, which becomes challenging for our heroes since the children are on board the ships they want to destroy. Think of how wonderfully this would play into Finn’s arc as well, and add more reason for him and Jannah to work together on this mission. We never got a Stormtrooper rebellion, but this could be the next best thing to help bring Finn’s arc full circle.
Also, it ironically would parallel Episode I, where the objective of the final battle was to destroy the command ship that controlled the battle droids.
Obviously some shots of Star Destroyers being destroyed would need to be changed, but luckily many shots focus on the Resistance destroying the laser canons (not planet-killing laser cannons), rather than destroying the Destroyers entirely. So their actions could be reinterpreted as them disarming the ships rather than destroying them.
I’ll definitely have to wait until I go through the movie again to determine the overall feasibility, but this idea is really interesting to me.