I expected someone to have mentioned making Kylo Ren’s lineage into a surprise, and perhaps his face reveal as-well but that would be a lot more work. That said I’m not bothered by how it is now.
Han & Leia’s awkward conversation could do with some trimming. In-particular the “dealt with it in our own way” stuff came off very unnatural to me.
Something should be done about Maz Kanata’s scenes. A few things rubbed me the wrong way. Specifically when she’s talking to Rey after she has the flashback/forward. She goes on about the force and I felt that we have no reason to believe her authority on the subject… then Rey abruptly declares she wants nothing to do with it and flees after taking her hand, listening and crying etc. I laughed out loud in the theater.
I almost wanted the movie to end on the shot of Rey holding out the saber but you kinda need the music to swell fully so I’m not sure if that’s possible.
The RLM guys spoke about including more explanation of the backstory of the new republic and first order in the crawl. A complaint I keep hearing is the confusion of ‘how did we get here?’ The existing crawl could possibly be condensed into a single paragraph. Something like:
“Luke Skywalker has vanished. His sister, General Leia Organa of the RESISTANCE, has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts…”
With 2 paragraphs dedicated solely to describing how the first order and the new republic came to be in a little more detail.
“In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire” almost makes it seem like it’s Luke’s fault The First Order exists at all…
Regarding the alien smuggling, I don’t mind it, as the creature design feels Star Wars-y to me. One thing that might help though is cutting out Rey running around wondering where Finn has gone. It’s a stretch to believe that they haven’t just eaten him outright like all the pirates so she should find and use the door panel a little bit sooner. Although it might have a side effect of making her seem even more capable.
What I didn’t get about the trash compactor joke is that we don’t get to see what they actually did with Phasma, and she’s appearing in the next installment so it’ll appear to be an oversight when she starts ruining their day in the next one that they didn’t follow through on killing her when they had the chance.
Rey and Kylo hold the sabers against each other for way too long at the end of their battle. I don’t know how it could be mended considering that she kinda needs to have that force insight moment? But I guess if you make it seem as if she is losing and then the fissure break up the battle?
Remove the rope tied to the TIE Fighter idea. I thought this was ridiculous. It would make more sense if there is no security measure at all because
A) It’s a rope tied to the damn thing, this is future-space-past after all
B) He disengages it from on-board the fighter anyway!
Cutting it back to them just shooting the place up a bit before speeding off would be better imo.
I felt better about the music the second time I saw it. No lightsabers should be changed imo. I don’t think removing many character moments with the new cast would improve things. I like your ideas nightstalkerpoet. If you remove the planet destruction completely then it makes even less sense that there is no order at all in the galaxy after RotJ, it wouldn’t be a threat etc.