I decided to put this here instead of cluttering the Ascendant thread:

https://mega.nz/file/zZ8ymRhK#bOaY2n6P4k-Z3vXm0WNg1L8TbTUQ_Xr4DGJ3bknJsbg

This is a rough alternate implementation of the Rey and Kylo Death Star duel. The only other thing that is necessary to make this work would be to change one word of Maz’s dialogue so she says “To save her son now…will take all the strength she has left.”

The big change is to have Han call out to Ben instead of Leia, and this leads to his distraction and mortal wounding. At this point, Leia senses his peril through the Force and decides to spend her remaining power to help him survive his wound. Leia and Rey work together to heal Ben, and upon doing this Leia dies. Rey runs away, believing (with good reason) that she led to the death of Leia.

I think there are quite a few benefits to this change:

Han’s scene is foreshadowed, and it is implied that Ben is incapable of killing Rey due to a manifestation of his guilt, rather than merely being distracted by a convenient visit by Leia.
Related to this, Leia now has a reason for deciding to act at this moment, since the mortal wounding of her son is a far more notable event than simply ‘Rey and Kylo fight again’.
This change removes both shots of Leia holding the medallion, which I believe merely detracts from the scene.
The Force Healing ability is less overpowered now, since it requires the sacrifice of a life to heal a mortal wound, and this also foreshadows Ben’s use of the ability to bring Rey back from the dead.
For this change, I placed Rey’s statement ‘I did want to take your hand…Ben’s hand’ right before she leaves, which was how it played in the original shoot.
Most importantly, this change gives Rey an enormous amount of guilt due to Leia’s death being arguably her fault, making it completely understandable that she would want to run away.

So what do you think?