It doesn’t really sound like there’s a lot there to do. And the theatrical has artificially large stakes by having a huge fleet of essentially Death Stars. If lowering the stakes means removing those I’m okay with that. But after the huge things happening in 7 and 8, and especially how the latter feels like a halfway decent ending in its own right, I’m okay with a more character focused epilogue. (Not that that’s what we got.)
I definitely agree that it’s not what we got. It really seems like the initial intention was to go for scale over character, as evidenced by the sheer amount of planets and locations in the film, but things like the final battle fall flat and it feels like it was because of things getting cut. For example, when you look at behind the scenes footage and TV spots they initially had more filmed for the cavalry charge on the Star Destroyer, a sequence that felt half-hearted and choppy in the final version. You can tell things were heavily cut here, for example, as soon as the Sith landing craft touch down it cuts straight into a heated battle, even as the ramps have barely opened and the Sith troopers haven’t even come out and dispersed. Also, we see Finn and Jannah riding an orbak and the next time we see them they’re on foot with no sequence of events showing as to how this happened, which was probably shown before heavy cuts were made.
Also, would it be possible to PM me a new link to your edits? The old link from a few months ago doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. Thank you!