After seeing this again in the theater, I have further ideas on how to approach this edit.
There’s little reason to keep the opening battle, since the only players of importance in this are Leia and Poe. I believe that it’s still necessary to open the film on Luke’s island, but the film can still have much of its intercutting between the island and the chase. Here’s a rough idea of what the crawl could look like:
Hope is gone. With
the Republic in ruins,
the First Order has
driven the Resistance
from their base and
tracked them across
the galaxy.
Searching for a way
to evade Leader Snoke’s
relentless pursuit,
two Resistance agents
seek the location of a
skilled code slicer and
ally of the Resistance.
Meanwhile, on a solitary
planet in the depths
of uncharted space,
the last Jedi has
finally been found…
The scenes might follow this order (I still don’t have a good memory of every scene, so apologies if there are missing scenes):
-Luke and Rey meet, Luke throws the lightsaber.
-Rey argues with Luke, Chewie breaks down the door, Luke boards the Falcon, meets R2, Rey follows Luke on his daily routine.
-Rey discovers the Jedi Texts.
-Rey practices with the lightsaber, introduced to the Caretakers in this way.
-Luke decides to train Rey, the first lesson.
-Leia in hyperspace, the First Order arrives.
-Attack on the bridge crew, Leia unconscious, Holdo hints at secret sources of hope (It might be possible to make Finn and Rose Holdo’s secret backup plan).
-Rose and Finn arrive on Canto Bight, are put in prison (maybe give Rose a flashback of her sister dying in battle so we understand the significance of her medallion).
-Rey and Ren, darkside cave, Luke’s flashbacks.
…and so forth.
The rest of the movie would play out as it does. It would be simple to cut out Finn’s superfluous battle with Phasma, and cut from them running to the shuttle to escaping the destruction. It would be nice if Luke had his green saber at the end, but it’s probably more work than it’s worth.