Hal I like the list. As for the holochess, I am curious with Sir Ridley. I personally didn’t mind the holochess, but I understand people may find it fan-servicy … but Ridley’s approach could be a good “meet in the middle” approach.

I just watched Neverar’s edit and his approach on star killer base and when it fires is a nice approach. Both approaches between the two have merit. For yours, the “climax” of Kylo killing Han with the base firing really packs a punch since in that moment, a beloved character is slain AND the “good” guys for the most part failed. Then we have Snoke say “Ok, let’s target the resistance now” which is the motivator for the X-wings to stay in fight. It works much better than what the original movie had, but still not the strongest explanation, especially since the weapon had to “charge up” again. (This is not a knock against it since your edit’s restructure is INFINITELY better than the original.

For Neverars, Poe finally get into the oscillator to take it out and causes good damage … but the plan failed since it still fires … but because of the damage the base essentially destroys itself. This approach may not have the huge impact as your approach, but there is a bit more of a logical sense in the timing of events and flow of the story. What’s neat about this, is the “plan” was assumed by damaging/destorying the oscillator that’s all they had to do! … but it wasn’t!

So all in all, your approach has the bigger emotional impact and Neverar’s has the more “logical” flow. I like them both.

This is my long response about the “retreat” idea with Poe and the others in space. It’s almost like you gotta go Neverar’s route to add some explanation. I need to watch it again and compare the two!