Reintroducing Palpatine in song would certainly be an improvement from “The dead speak!”
The navigation tower makes a certain amount of sense. I think if the changes you suggest were made, it may as well become the self-destruct button. The way it is here, they’re buying a window of time in which to open vulnerability to the fleet. It’s unclear whether other ships than the lead could take over that role. By simplifying this aspect of the plot even more I think it would make it feel dumber rather than less dumb.
It’s not my intention to remove Finn’s Force sensitivity altogether, just the awkward “OMG RAY I NEVER TOLD Y—“. He still has his conversation with Jannah, senses the nav tower change, and senses Rey’s death. There are more hints besides, and hopefully we get stories to come that capitalize on them.I wouldn’t mind changing the line to “I will earn your family(‘s) saber,” and I think “the birth of her son at the end of her Jedi path” might work. Dunno if either are feasible with what we have at our disposal.
Darkening the color of the saber burial cloth is a good idea, I’m glad you brought that up again. I don’t know about Rey’s clothes though; it’d make more sense to me to have her wear black until that scene instead.
To be fair, Star Wars is no stranger to self-destruct buttons. “Fire a torpedo at this exhaust port and the Death Star will explode!” “Destroy the core and the Death Star II will explode!” “Fire on the Oscillator and the Death Star III will explode!” It’s just a staple of the universe. And the tower is already inherantly a self-destruct button anyhow. How is it less dumb that there’s a fully working tower on the ground, and no one thinks to reactivate it? I’m just trying to streamline the concept and chip away at the obfuscations.
Heck, even the Prequels, in all of their convoluted glory, kept their space battles pretty straight forward. “Blow up the donut ship’s core and every droid on the planet will shut down!”
And as for Finn, just because we don’t directly imply that he’s Force sensitive at this exact moment, doesn’t refute any Force sensitivity that might happen down the line. And since John Boyega said he’s done with Star Wars at this point, that’s a big “might.” I’m not saying let’s have Rose slam Finn against the wall and scream “You’ll never be a Jedi!” while slapping him across the face; you can still read Finn and Fancy Free down the line, where Finn Force Pulls a lightsaber to him, and it won’t ret-con anything already set up. (Kathleen Kennedy’s very big on not ret-conning anything.) Besides, you removed Yoda using a lightsaber in your Prequel edits - doesn’t that implicitly contradict existing Expanded Material things (like Clone Wars), where he uses a lightsaber a lot? Not just some hypothetical future project that may-or-may-not actually happen. Why draw a line here?
I’m just saying, doesn’t it make more sense to try and make the most cohesive story possible here, rather than trying to set up hypothetical future projects for Disney down the line? Whether it’s introduced here or later on, Finn’s Force sensitivity comes out of nowhere with absolutely no setup; why force that crutch onto this story, rather than one in which it’s actually relevant?
Well, that’s my opinion, and Hal’s opinion. What does everyone else think?