Might be too much work, but since Zorri wears a mask the whole time, we could redub her to fit whatever new narrative we wanted. For example, we could have her say Poe was just working as a spice runner undercover for the Republic, which is why Zorri is so pissed off at Poe (and would help alleviate some of the stereotype issues of making the Latino character a former drug runner.)
When Poe asks how long Kijimi has been like this, she could say not long after Crait or Skywalker. And when Poe starts getting down in the dumps about people losing hope, Zorri could tell him that these people have actually regained hope and are resisting.
And I don’t think the mask has to be perfect MR. Once we have puppets there, it’ll probably distract from any imperfections. Plus, it’s such a short shot anyway.
A couple of thoughts on everything. RogueLeader, that’s a fantastic idea of Poe working undercover for the Resistance - especially since the Spice Runner thing was a retcon anyway. It was previously established that Poe was born to members of the Rebel Alliance, and grew up in that environment. Wookieepedia has two sentences about him being a spice runner; and one of those is just “He eventually stopped running spice.”
Rogue’s line switcheroo would help to put Poe’s backstory back in order.
If we wanted to build up the “Rebellion on Kijimi” angle, that could be accomplished with a few crowd-supplied ADR lines (like was done with “For Skywalker!”) such as “Take them down!” “For the Resistance!” “Down with the First Order!” Etc.
Also, for everyone saying, “We only have one second to shoot the puppet show,” I don’t think that’s true at all. Obviously, we’ll all be hugely grateful for whatever puppet segments can be created - and I’m not saying we have to add anything super long or complex - but imagine: We have our quick, one-second establishing shot of the puppet show. Then we can cut to a close up of just the puppet stage (using MR’s fantastic clean-plate backdrop (Seriously man, great job!). You don’t need to see the audience in the same shot anymore. Loop some sound effects underneath of the crowd, and it should all feel pretty seamless, I think.