These are great ideas and I hope no one minds that I’m going to use them 😄
Hal I like saving the reveal until Chirrut says it. It makes his character stronger (in the force) and adds weight and urgency to the following scenes where Jyn is attempting to save her dad while Casian battles with his inner demons.
Oh crap, I didn’t realize that really props up Chirrut more too. Man, this is good.
You still could decide to remove or leave in the Cassian intro scene based on your preference, but this fairly “simple” change helps out a lot of characters and plot. Part of RogueLeader’s thought on his edit, which also included making the initial briefing room scene about just finding the pilot, is this movie is having a narrative about “trust.” By removing Bohdi, the pilot’s reveal until “we” see him in jail, we don’t know if his intel is good/trust him yet. By removing the killing orders until the very end, do we trust Cassian, after either seeing him killing a guy at the beginning (or not based on the editors choice) and the conversation he had with Draven, can we/Jynn trust him fully?
Very interesting narrative and helps keep the mystery of things without showing or telling us everything at the beginning.