Apologies if this has been brought up before…but has anyone experimented with taking the “Chewie fakeout death” issue completely in the opposite direction, and just have the First Order transport get away clean? (i.e., no Force tug-of-war or lightning at all) They know from the start Chewie’s just been captured, but they can’t do anything about it until Rey senses him over Kijimi.

I suppose that might risk the possibility of having the whole thing feel like an even shallower detour from the heroes’ main mission, but I would argue that a plot thread without the pretense of angst is still preferable to a plot thread of phony angst that’s undone in the next scene. Besides, Rey’s arc would still have more than enough weight if the film went with the revelation that Rey accidentally killed her parents.