I think this is the kind of approach that Lord & Miller were originally going for. I even heard somewhere that they wanted the scenes on Correlia to be at the end of the 3rd act. Pitty, seams like the higher ups thought it was too much of a risk. I guess that’s why the finished cut ended up feeling so… generic.
By most accounts from others on set, they were wanting to go more in the direction of Spaceballs than Bebop. They also didn’t give direction to the actors and wouldn’t follow the script, forcing them to do improv rather than the rehearsed and written scenes. The film is generic because 80% of it was directed by Ron Howard, who is generally a fairly generic filmmaker.