YOU're in charge of 45 extra minutes put into TFA

More Finn and Poe bromance. Honestly, if that was the whole movie, I wouldn't complain.

 

Putting 45 minutes worth of cut content into TFA will not neccessarily make TFA a 'better' film. You may actually make TFA a worse film by editing in rejected content. More does not always equal better.

Adding 45 minutes into AOTC will still result in AOTC. Just more of it.

 

I am advocating for 2 extra General Leia and Korr Sella scenes in TFA. They would be just about 30 seconds, maximum.
Maybe show Hosian Prime with Korr Sella and some City life.

Starkiller Base needs also a similar ANH-Deathstar Charging my Lazor Scene.

And at last: Rey discoveres her Force powers in various ways and moments. 3-5 minutes.

 

Here are a few things that I would add that I think would have made me see TFA as an awesome movie instead of just meh.

1-Maz and Han having more time with Rey and explaining the Force to her.
With just some simple lines letting Rey know some of the things you could do with the Force, her character would have seemed more realistic and not just an almighty girl who learned all her Force powers on the fly.

2-More views on the destroyed Republic planets and more character reactions to them.
5 planets were completly destroyed in this movie and people didn't seem to care. TFA gave us the worst massacre the bad guys could ever do in SW history and JJ managed to make it really unemotional when this scene should have been deep, sad and very emotional for both the Resistance and the viewers.

3-More of our favorite aliens.
I knew that JJ and Disney were making something new but I never expected them to outright dump everything we had come to love about the aliens we grew up with ever since the OT graced our lives. No Rodians, no Nikto, no Quarrens or Twi'Leks, nothing but just Ackbar and Niem Numb and maybe a hardly seen Ithorian wich I think was in the crowd as the resistance saw Rey off when she left to find Luke. There were no familiar beings to bridge the gap with the other movies and for me this made TFA seem like it was just a totally different sci fi movie with some some SW guest Stars.

4-More time to explore the surroundings.
One of the things that hurt me the most about TFA was JJ's horrible camera work. Apart from being extremly dark in some cases, that darn camera flew so fast that you could hardly see anything other than the main cast. When you look at scenes like the cantina, Jabba's palace, the Pod Racer race or even plain walking around Tatooine in both the OT and the PT, Lucas let us marvel at the wonderful worlds and creatures that he created. He would just let the camera focus on guys like Hammerhead, Dice Ibegon, Tessek, Ree Yees, Gasgano, Sebulbe ect and you would just fall in love with as much of those awesome background characters as you did with the rest of the cast yet TFA's darn camera wouldn't stay still as all was action after action and it's hard to believe that we got a whole new planet to visit in Jakku and a whole new cantina in Maz Kanata's castle and we barely could catch a glimpse of anything. Even the two characters from Jakku that looked interesting who were Sarko Plank and Constable Zuvio were deleted and we had to swallow Unkar Plutt as the only Jakku resident that we could clearly gaze upon.

5-More Captain Phasma.
Wow I never thought that anyone could beat Boba Fett as a cool looking main character that almost did nothing but Phasma won that without even trying! I'm not a Fett fan at all yet even I have to admit that Boba Fett looked cool, had some lines, showed us he wasn't scared of Vader and even took a shot at Luke! He was even going to take down Chewie if not for Vader and we even got to see his ship as he stole Solo away. Phasma just looked cool and that's it end of story. She never even fired a single shot in the whole movie and to make matters worst she just ended up in a trash compactor.

6-More dialogue to bridge the ROTJ and TFA gap.
To many things were left in the air in TFA and by this I don't mean things that are meant to be a surprise like Rey being Luke or Snoke's daughter or Finn being Lando's son. What I mean is things like letting us know why there is a resistance and a republic at the same time, why the rebels created a republic in the first place if they were going to have to leave to form a resistance, where did the New Order come from if they are the old Imperials who operated under Sheev or if they are a totally new group that mimicked the Empire, what became of they loyalist Empire that didn't agree with Snoke's vision and why are there no other ships like Y-Wings, A-Wings or B-Wings in the hands of the Resistance. Ackbar is there so at least it would make sence if they had B-Wings with them.

7-More Luke.
This one is self explanatory.

 

45 first minutes of Episode VIII

 

I agree completely! The only thing I would add would be more character development for kylo. I would like to see more of him unbalanced. Flesh out his character more.

But you got all the high points for me, great post!

 

Thanks my friend!

 

I would have liked more detail and planning for the attack on Starkiller. They had it sussed how to do it and a plan formed in about 1 minute! In ANH they spent the whole movie getting the Death Star plans so they could analyse how to attack. In TFA it was all there on a plate.

Then, for the Finn, Han, Chewie infiltration to have been harder. Again, in ROTJ it took a long time and was hard (requiring Ewok intervention). In TFA all they did was open a door and were faced with ONE stormtrooper guard. All seemed too quick and easy.

But, overall I still loved it and would worry that additional footage could impact on the pace.

 

More time with Rey alone on Jakku.

More time with Finn and Rey in the falcon while broken down in space.

More time inside Maz Kanatas castle. Need to know why spies were there. Maz should've known there were spies if she knew Han came through the door. I'm sure she wouldn't want her castle destroyed by FO. This part bothers me the most.

Rey and Finn hijacking the snow speeder outside Starkiller base.

Rey meeting Poe.

 

Ok, thought about this. Briefly.

Add 45 minutes of brand new stuff immediately after the crawl/scroll to explain what actually happened between VI and VII. Include some slow-motion montages of critical battles across the wider galaxy, the fall of the Empire and the rebirth of the Republic and their effects on the galaxy. Conclude with the final Battle Of Jakku, with a star destroyer crashing on Jakku a la "Battlefront".

Then slow fade out to black. A long pause. It implies time has since passed.

Then slow fade in to a view of Jakku from space. The sillouette of Kylo Renn's Star destroyer passes by....

 

If I could add only one thing it would be a scene where Han and Leia talk privately / shared an evening at a campfire under the stars whatever.
This could have:
- make me care for the tragedy of their relationship and have real impact when Han dies instead of caring out of mostly nostalgia reasons
- make the whole 'we have a son and he is now the bad-guy' more relatable instead of 'ehh wtf..ok ill go along as the movie pacing gives me no room to linger on it. (Kind of crazy still that such an important moment wasn't set up more)

 

Honestly, I just want a quick explanation of the politics in the current Star Wars timeline (Like who were the New Republic). That, and more Captain Phasma.

I would also like some better pacing with some scenes like how Finn met up with Poe, but that's just nitpicking at this point.

 

What you say has been perfectly clear in my mind from the start my friend as I too have told many people who were waiting for this movie to be for the OT characters that this movie was about a new generation. I liked that as well and I'm perfectly fine with movies with just Rey, Finn, Poe and BB8. That said, I have to admit that I greatly disliked the treatment that the OT characters got in TFA. If JJ and Disney were not going to do anything worthwhile with them, why use them in the first place? The movie would have been fine without the OT heros as many things regarding them just seemed out of place and shoehorned just for the sake of nostagia and fan service. Try to see it from my point of view and let's use Lord of the Rings as an example. If after many years, Peter Jackson sold the rights to LOTR to Ree Yees and he were to do a new trilogy and he doesn't use any of the original characters, many fans would be perfectly fine with this and would greatly enjoy the new movies but imagine that Ree Yees tells us that he is a great LOTR fan ever since he was a kid and he told us that the new rings movies were going to take place 10 years after ROTK and that all the original cast Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and even Frodo and the Hobbits would be there and that apart from them, the main cast would be an unknown son of Azog that turned good, a female wizard named Morgana with strange powers and an Elf named Carl. Then Ree Yees starts making trailers and shows some of the main cast, Aragorn's castle, the Shire and what not. Don't you think that fans are going to get really pummped to see their heros again? More so if many fans even grew up with these iconic characters. Now, everyone knows that the new story focuses on Azog's son, the female wizard and the Elf but they know that their heros are still an important part of the movie but on the moment that the movie comes out, we see that Aragorn failed as a king and the Orks burned down his kingdom and ate his wife wich made him turn into a bum and we only see him 3 minutes in the whole movie, Legolas married Gimli and somehow got him pregnant, Gandalf lost his powers and is just a horse tender and Frodo and the Hobbits had a party and got so drunk and burned down the Shire by mistake and killed everyone there and now they are gloomy and sad all the movie, how do you think that the original LOTR fans would feel? Can the excitment of seeing Azog's son and his two friends be enough to make them forget that Ree Yees just ruined their childhood heros and just trampled everything that happened after ROTK? How can Ree Yees call himself a hardcore LOTR fan? Then to add insult to injury, the plot of the movie was about a new bad guy that forged a powerful ring in the past that controls more rings but now his is the only one left, Azog's sons roll is to take the ring to a molten pit and burn it, Carl the Elf reforges a sword that can kill the main baddie and the female wizard turns from being Morgana the grey to Morgana the white! Then Ree Yees has a Troll sit on Sam by mistake and kill him and walla! There's our new LOTR movie! Wouldn't it then have been better to leave the original LOTR characters out of it instead of making then losers so that the new three characters could shine? Wouldn't it have been much better for die hard rings fans to have at least seen Aragorn more than three minutes even if he was a bum? That is how many OT fans feel my friend.

 

1) More Exposition so we set the scene for the state of the Galaxy
2) More Finn Focus in the opening so we know why him breaking mindcontrol is so major and maybe show him and red hand print dude together so I see why he cares dude died
3) Change the Han Intro cut the Rathar Stuff and Pirates
4) More Phasma
5) More Poe
6) big Point more time to breathe so I actually think these characters have real time to bond.

 

45 minutes of Rey alone on Jakku. Rey eating, Rey scavenging, Rey watching the stars, Rey watching paint dry (someone else mentioned it would be interesting and I completely agree), Rey talking to BB-8 or herself. What a character!

 

That's cool my friend and I respect your opinion as well. Let's hope the 8th movie turns out to be awesome and I have to say that I really want to see where Rey, Finn and Poe's journey takes them and at least for me, the less I see of the OT characters in that movie, the better I will feel. Don't want to see Leia get accidentally run over by a Happabore walking home one night from the Boonta Eve.