I haven’t been on the script writing thread in weeks, so I was surprised to see that you recently posted something!
This was a nice write-up! You’re a great writer, man. Definitely thought that after your IX rewrite but I like the way you write prose. I remember you mentioning different how you had gripes with the apparent contradictions Rogue One’s climax had with ANH.
Some of the things you did, like sort of changing their mission, actually is reminiscent to some of the changes I was playing around with in a Rogue One edit I was doing. I think I changed Bodhi’s dialogue with Raddus to say that they need to take down the shield gate so they can escape with the plans. Cassian is checking on Bodhi’s status when he hears his ship explode over the comm, so at that point they decide to transmit the plans through the broadcast tower instead since that was their only means of escape.
On the subject of fan editing, another idea I had about resolving transmission/hard copy and the Tantive IV’s plausible deniability issue, would be to go from the fade to white of the explosion, and fade back into the interior shot of the Tantive IV after they’ve escaped the Profundity. This way you skip the Vader hallway scene, which means you avoid the issue of a physical data tape being brought onto the ship (which Vader sees) instead of being transmitted like ANH suggestsz. It also clears up the issue of Vader literally watching the Tantive IV fly away with his own eyes. In this version, the Tantive IV wasn’t in the Profundity, it was just the only ship that escaped the battle with the plans.
You could potentially still show the Tantive IV leave the battle (using the shot of the ship flying away before it cuts into the interior), but place it before Jyn and Cassian die. I think I would keep the shot of Vader’s back on the bridge, but cut the rest of that shot, maybe replacing it with the shot of the Tantive IV flying away. After all, there are several Corellian Corvette’s at the battle, so I think that would give the Tantive IV and Leia some deniability.
But to gel closer with your idea, you could replace the imperial officer and Vader dialogue on the bridge to imply something like what you said. Maybe the officer could say their flagship is beaming a transmission to another ship, and maybe new Vader dialogue could be constructed where he could say, “contact the Senate” or “find the location of Princess Leia”. All of the officer dialogue is off screen, so I think it would be a doable change.
I really like your new combat rewrite as well. Although seeing a big battle is cool, I like your intention of displaying information and characterization that will be useful to understand going into the Battle of Yavin. One could argue though that because they lost their fleet at Scarif, that is why their attack force on the Death Star only consisted of two starfighter groups. You could argue this was intentional because the Empire didn’t consider starfighters much of a threat to their battle station, but I think the argument could go either way.
Anyway, just some thoughts but I definitely think your write up addresses those issues. Kinda sucks when you come up with good ideas that can’t really be executed in an edit.