I’m completely in love with how all of this sounds, man
Have you thought about removing the superweapon aspect of Starkiller Base? I think it was RogueLeader the one who suggested to turn the mission into getting the the other half of the map to Skywalker, and rescuing Rey (But this would mean that the Republic isn’t destroyed in VII)
Anyway, I will watch how you structure your edit with great interest
Thank you. While I do believe another Death star-like superweapon is a tired trope, unfortunately I do find it necessary to the bigger picture of the politics in the galaxy for Starkiller to destroy the New Republic. I have seen cuts that remove any mention of the superweapon and just frame Starkiller as the First Order base, but in my opinion they didn’t work as there isn’t enough dialogue to justify our heroes and the fleet going to Starkiller for any other reason. So while it’s not something I like as a storytelling device again, it’s also not something that I feel interferes with any of the themes from Legends that I want to be highlighted. I think the NeverarGreat structure of the superweapon sequence creates enough variables that it doesn’t feel as much of a copy of ANH.
I want my cuts to feel much darker than theatrical, so having the Resistance fail to stop Starkiller’s laser in the last battle is really an irreplaceable dark moment for our heroes, and also differentiates the movie from ANH.
I will be trimming the briefing scene to remove the jokes about other Death Stars and such. There are a lot of lines in this movie that are written to give the viewer a quick chuckle at the cost of lessening the seriousness of the events that are about to occur. I like humor in Star Wars, but I want it to contribute something to our characters personality rather than be a nostalgia plug for the audience to snort at for 2 seconds before moving on.