How about editing TFA’s dialogue to remove references to Han and Leia being estranged following Ben’s fall? It doesn’t seem like it would require cutting much, and it would go a long way toward alleviating complaints about both character regression and the OT heroes all having miserable lives by the time the ST comes around.
EDIT (10/4/21): a rough outline of how this could work:
- Cut references out of Takodana conversation so it now reads:
- MAZ: A map to Skywalker himself? You’re right back in the mess… The galaxy has been running away from this fight for too long. [Alternately, “we have been” if “the galaxy has” can’t be constructed from other dialogue.]
- REY: What fight?
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Cut out “new hair/same jacket,” maybe replace some of C-3PO’s lines. Han’s awkward silence when seeing Leia here is now because he’s still reeling from seeing Ben and is bracing to raise the subject with Leia, not because it’s been a long time since he’s seen her.
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Edit conversation at Resistance base as follows (note: Leia’s “no, it was Snoke, he seduced…” isn’t related to removing the estrangement; I just hate how unnatural & exposition-y it sounds):
- HAN: Listen to me, will you? I know every time you… every time you look at me, you’re reminded of him.
- LEIA: You think I want to forget him? I want him back! I just never should have sent him away. That’s when I lost him. We both did.
- HAN: There’s nothing more we could’ve done. There was too much Vader in him.
- [wordless pause here as Han and Leia look at each other sadly]
- LEIA: We can still save him. Me. You.
- HAN: If Luke couldn’t reach him, how could I?
- LEIA: Luke is a Jedi; you’re his father. There’s still light in him. I know it.
- Maybe cut “I did miss you.” Unsure if anything would need to go here, or how much.