Outbound, I absolutely love that! That’s exactly why I posted what I did, in hopes someone could take those thoughts further. I wonder if some other reorderings might work with that too.
For example, you could possibly put the DS2 fight as the very end fight. Kylo and Rey kill Paplatine (Rey dies, Kylo heals her - force healing is a DARK power), Kylo and Rey kill Snoke (Kylo’s true master - he’s coming to the light but still wants to rule), Luke shows Kylo the power of the light on Crait, then Kylo flees to the DS2 wreckage (for what? not sure. power?), only for Rey to fight him, Leia to distract him, Rey to nearly kill him, Rey to heal him (having learned it from him, and deciding to use a little of the dark), but then ultimately to leave him. Then Han’s memory makes him throw his blade into the sea - the end of his tale.
We also have the option of making the Snoke’s flagship hyperspace destruction into something Luke does with the force, for those who don’t like the complications that adds to SW physics.
I’d also edit the scene of Snoke clones in Palpatine’s tanks to Palpatine clones.
Also, a massive advantage of your structure like that is that we get the best character development for the side characters in the final chapter. For Poe, across the films his arc becomes: Heroic > Possibly murky past > Heroic to the point of being a bad leader > Good leader. For Finn, it’s: Flees First Order > attached to Rey > joins rebels loosely > properly commits to rebels > ‘saving what we love’.
This was my initial idea because I felt it weird at first to have the final fight of the trilogy be between Luke and Kylo. You could cut out DS2 in 8 and move it to right after Crait. But I found it too complicated to explain why we are going from Crait to DS2, particularly when you consider who Crait is framed, it is the emotional ending to the saga, even if it doesn’t have the thrills to make for a good trilogy climax.
Also, you’d miss out on Jannah for Finn, because they all take place on the same planet as DS2.
Ooft, here’s an idea for an ending. On the back of Outbound’s flipped movies idea, with Luke only dying near the end of the third movie, how about this:
- Kylo has his memory intervention and throws his lightsaber into the sea. End for him.
- We cut to a truncated version of the Rey/Leia training - this is happening as an epilogue. Leia sends Rey off to train, and we get that training montage cut to match the following (cut from her training with Luke and a couple of other sources) “Who am I? No-one. Someone. Light. Darkness. Life. Death. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence… Balance. Energy. I am the force.”
- Cut to credits.
[I’m not trying to imply she’s the living force, with that, so much as accepting that she’s accepting that the force is balance, and flows through her. “I am one with the force, the force is with me”]
NGL I prefer the idea of Rey and Ben finally getting together at very end, adapting the final scene of TROS… the force montage is a cool idea, I just think it should be second to last. Then Rey goes to bury the lightsabers and finds Ben waiting for her.