Absolutely, the TIEs need to be very distant to explain people gawking, as well as giving Han and Finn time to get to the basement before Maz exclaims, “They’re here!”
I described at length some of the changes I’m planning for myself in a couple of posts on page 24 recently - but as it looks like I may also end up doing a 2nd version where the Starkiller planet fires AFTER Han’s death to see if I prefer it, I thought I’d go into how I’d re-structure the various ‘Finn/Han & Chewie looking upwards at the sky fireworks’ shots for myself.
The only TFA fan edit that I’ve watched so far is the early one by ‘Noodle_Finger’ which shows the Starkiller planet firing AFTER Han’s death - but the way he handled things looked like this - we saw Finn leave and exit out Maz’s ‘palace’ doorway with the 2 ‘space pirates’, as Rey then had her ‘bad visions’ in the lower levels, and then ran away from the ‘palace’ into the woods as normal…but the ‘Hux’s speech’ scene was moved to a point LATER ON in his edit (where the initial ‘sun-sucking’ shots were then added directly onto it AFTER the stormtroopers raised their arms), and instead, the scenes of ‘Rey running through the woods’ were JOINED TOGETHER at this point, where she was followed by BB-8, before eventually looking up at the ships overhead, and then began to run back…at which point ‘Noodle_Finger’ then cut back to the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIES approaching in close-up against the sun, before continuing with Maz being followed by Finn, Han, and Chewie in the lower level of her ‘palace’…
While this worked well enough, we just had to ‘assume’ that Finn had not left yet after all when we last saw him exiting the ‘palace’, and things had just ‘jumped-ahead-in-time’ to a point where he had regrouped with Maz, Han, and Chewie as the ships got nearer to them.
However, I have a slightly different re-arrangement of this scene for myself -
It’s been neat to see the recent test shots of Finn and Han looking up at additional FX of ships in the distance, but I’ve always tried to re-edit/re-arrange scenes and shots for myself using only existing, unaltered shots and audio. COMPROMISE is something I’ve had to accept quite a few times when working out certain alterations in this way - for instance, it’s annoying to find that the background score of a certain shot is too jarring when matched to another shot I wanted to join it directly onto…OR for another example, finding that a character’s spoken dialogue annoyingly overlaps briefly onto another shot, again rendering that option of a direct join onto another shot useless to me (J.J. did a LOT of ‘dialogue overlapping’ shots in TFA, by the way), and so there’s been a few times I’ve had to come up with an alternative edit along the way instead due to this.
In this case, I really happen to like the reaction shot of ‘Finn looking around as he’s about to board the ship at Maz’s palace’ (which Noodle_Finger didn’t include), especially as it helps to explain why he didn’t end up leaving after all - so here’s the way I’m planning to include it in the hope that it make’s the shot’s accompanying music blend in okay overall -
We see Rey eventually looking up at the ships overhead, as she then begins to run back as normal…and then cut to Han and Maz’s denizen’s starting to look upwards (missing out the ‘sky fireworks’ shot afterwards)…and then cut directly to the slightly earlier reaction shot of Finn turning around as he loads the ‘pirate’ ship (again, missing out the ‘sky fireworks’ shot afterwards)…and then cut to the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs approaching in close-up against the sun, as we then see Maz followed by Finn, Han, and Chewie in the lower level of her ‘palace’…EXCEPT after they feel the explosions she will not say the whole sentance “Those beasts!..they’re here!” at the end of the shot…but instead, the shot will end on her only saying the words “Those beasts!”…and then we continue with Rey finishing off running back through the woods to witness the TIEs attacking it.
In this new sequence, there’s no need for Maz to say the words “…they’re here!” whatsoever, as everyone already knew about the ships arriving due to their ‘looking upwards’ reaction shots beforehand. And while the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs is very ‘stylized’ compared to the lighting in the shots before and after it, I’m willing to ‘compromise’ on that fact to keep it in…especially as it serves to indicate the ‘jump-ahead-in-time’ between the shots of Finn looking upwards, and the shot of him having rejoined the others.
So for anyone else wishing to edit the Starkiller planet firing AFTER Han’s death, this is a straightforward way to replace the existing ‘fireworks in the sky’ sequence which Finn, Han, Chewie, and the rest are implausibly looking up at…WITHOUT the need for additional SFX of any sort.