Really cool concepts here! My only concerns are:
Thanks! I share your concerns. Thanks for prompting me to talk about them.
-the destruction of Hosnian right after Han’s death leaves Kylo, Rey, Finn, Chewie, and a stormtrooper all just standing there in shock for a lot longer than they originally were. It feels weird for Chewie to take so long to do something.
It’s a little delayed as it is, with Kylo having a lingering moment to contemplate what he’s done (not to mention cutting away to Leia) before Chewie takes a shot at him. The transition to SKB firing feels emotionally right, but cutting back to Chewie’s reaction rips us back to the present moment. A good question would be, “How would this have struck audiences if it had been what was shown on opening day?”
-Chewie blowing up the room right after SKB destroys the system made me think “you couldn’t have pressed that button a couple minutes ago?”. He could’ve prevented the whole thing, even if he was distracted by the situation on the bridge.
Yes, this touches on a new irony induced by the restructure. Han and Chewie presumably would have been successful in taking out the oscillator had Han not taken the risk of confronting his son. This is a dark mirror of Vader taking a risk out of compassion for Luke, though in his case it ended up helping save the day.
-the dogfight happens relatively close to the laser cannon. Assuming it just fired really close to the ships, you’d think Poe and company would either get the hell out of there, or at least say something about the planet-destroying lasers they just saw right in front of them.
I attempted to wedge in a few shots (horrible pun, sadly, intended) of the X-wing fighters reacting to the red beam. All I had was a very quick shot of Poe turning his head (reversed), and the woman looking dismayed at a comrade being shot down. Both had to be given an obvious slow motion treatment to be plausible, and the whole thing struck me as kind of ugly. You are right, though; reaction shots of the fighters would help cement this change, but I don’t think there’s enough source material to do anything worthwhile.
-minor, but in the spliced together Snoke scene, he’s sitting one moment, and then standing the next.
Yes. This is a side effect of keeping the exposition about hitting the Republic by name, and tying it in with Luke. I guess one would have to assume he started to stand up during a cutaway, but yeah, it’s definitely an extant minor continuity problem.