Burbin, I appreciate the defense, I do; but I still can’t get behind it. Finn was all set to leave after disabling the signal - everyone was leaving - and then he was like “Hold up, they’re resetting their systems. The nav signal is coming back online! I have to stop it!” The way he says it definitely implies that they weren’t expecting the nav signal to come back online.
And look, even if you’re right - that Chris and J.J. wrote the entire thing to temporarily stop them from leaving (which is nonsensical), and then the Rebels managed to defeat an extra 7,000 ships off-screen (which is bad filmmaking) - why do we have to prescribe to that? If it’s possible to tie everything up in a nice little “They can’t get off the planet” bow, and cut through all of the obfuscation, why can’t we do that? Even if it’s not 1:1 with the filmmakers’ original intention. That’s sort of the point of this edit, no?
I think I’ve layed out the logic of the Exegol assault pretty thoroughly, and why I can’t get behind the removal of those lines. Yes, Finn acting so surprised is the only bit that might seem contradictory, perhaps the signal on the command ship would come back sooner than expected, since the plan was to hit the tower on the ground, or perhaps Finn gets a last minute idea to take down the ship while they reset their systems.
The thing is everything else points to the stall being temporary, and I don’t see how that’s “nonsensical” but making it permanent makes perfect sense, seems to me like it’s the opposite. Changing this would contradict everything else. The main plan, as clearly laid out in the briefing, is to hit the Fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol since shields don’t work on it’s atmosphere, and without shields hitting the cannons causes a chain reaction that brings down the ships. Deactivating their nav signal is only step one on the plan, as a means to stall the fleet from leaving the planet, step two is Lando riling up the people and step three is taking down the Final Order. You seem to be under the impression that the plan was to leave the fleet stranded on Exegol, while taking out a few ships on the way, but it’s explicitly stated the main goal is to take the ships down.
Changing this also turns Poe’s POV of the battle into nonsense, as every line he speaks clearly indicates he believes the ships won’t be stuck forever:
“We’ll have to hit them ourselves! Except… they’re stuck here and we’re horribly outnumbered, so we could just leave and regroup with Lando!”
“This is our last chance, we’ve got to hit those cannons now! Or… maybe later! They are stuck here guys don’t worry!”
“Poe, the command ship!”
“Oh, cool, it blew up, the fleet was already stuck here anyway, but hey, they’re toast, come on!”