Restricted Scene Summary –

The team meets with Maz as standard with Finn wanting to flee for his life from the First Order. I did drop the reference to Chewie being Maz's boyfriend.

The story continues as follows...

Rey watched Finn get up and leave the establishment with the aliens. She was about to return to the table with Han and Poe when she felt something odd; it tugged at the edges of her perception, but she couldn't figure out what it was. Heading in a different direction, she followed the strange sensation as it got stronger.

Going down a flight of steps, she reached a lower level storage area. BB-8 had noticed her departure and rolled along beside her, navigating the stairs with surprising agility. A wooden box, reinforced at the corners with black metal, sat in the corner of the storage basement. Reaching out, Rey carefully lifted the latch and opened the lid. Situated among several items was the gleaming silver handle of a lightsaber.

With more wonder than fear, Rey took hold of the weapon. The room went dark, and a fear more intense than she'd ever know filled her. Her instincts, sharped by years of avoiding and fighting scrap thieves, told her someone was behind her, someone evil. In that moment, she heard the intake and exhale of a deep and ominous breath through a respirator unit.

Rey let go of the lightsaber and spun around in terror, but no one was nearby except BB-8. She was surprised a droid with no facial expressions could manage to look concerned, but with the way its dome head was tilted to one side, it certainly looked concerned.

"I'm alright," she promised, but her rapid heartbeat and breathing seemed to counter her statement.

"Find something interesting?" Maz asked from the stairway.

"I'm sorry for intruding," Rey offered. "I just had a feeling about something down here."

"Luke's lightsaber," Maz said, noticing the gleaming weapon in the box behind Rey. "He lost it, along with his hand, while battling Darth Vader. The trauma of that event left an impression in the Force. You felt it, didn't you?"

"I don't know what I felt," Rey denied.

"Only someone strong in the Force could sense that residual impression," Maz stated with conviction.

Restricted Scene Summary – Rey runs away, and while she's gone, the First Order fires their superweapon, destroying the Hosnian system.

One of the things that really bothered me in the original movie is when Starkiller fires its weapon, the beam lances across the galaxy in a straight line. When it reaches the Hosnian system, the beam breaks into multiple smaller beams and angles outward to strike different targets. What?! How does a singular laser beam from one cannon fly between star systems light-years apart and then split at the destination? What caused the individual beams to bend outward toward different targets? I never understood it, so I could never explain it.

Additionally, I changed the weapon of Starkiller base from a laser to a solar projector. The harnessed energy of the sun is released in a blast of fire and radiation, exploding through a target system like a giant solar flare and burning away everything in its path. There will be more about Starkiller base in a later chapter.

When Han and Finn are offered Luke's lightsaber by Maz, in order to give it to Rey, Han inquires how she got it, and the question is never answered on film. Here's mine –

"My repair teams found it while doing a survey of a Tibanna gas mine I bought from a mutual friend of ours," Maz explained.

Being a better shot than a Stormtrooper isn't much of an accomplishment considering their record. However, Rey lacks enough experience to turn off the safety before going into a fight, and yet she can hit targets perfectly center mass at dozens of feet away before they can shoot her.

The altered version would go like this...

Rey drew out the blaster Han had given her and stepped back behind a wide tree where she couldn't be seen. Although Sentis had trained her to use the weapon, she'd never fired at a person before, only targets. Rey had more practice hiding from scrap thieves than shooting it out with them, so she fell back on her old habits and tried to avoid a direct confrontation. When the trooper turned to look at the explosions taking place near the base of the fortress, she took the opportunity to get away with BB-8 rolling along with her.

The scene shifts back to the First Order attacking and Finn being told to use the lightsaber by Maz. I removed the fight between Finn and the soldier with the shock baton because I couldn't figure out a good reason for the weapon to even exist. Why would the murderous First Order have non-lethal means of pacification? Wouldn't they just shoot people who gave them trouble? Also, why have weapons that can counter lightsabers if Kylo is the only one still around who uses one? I couldn't answer those questions, so the scene changed to this...

Finn held the weapon uncomfortably but thumbed the power switch to activate it. The lightsaber surged with energy, letting off an audible hum and a glowing aura of blue-white light.

Han crouched behind a partially collapsed column, firing at every stormtrooper in range and taking down the majority of those he aimed for, the rest retreated behind cover of their own.

Finn ran toward the battle lines, but he wasn't certain what he was going to do when he got there. He'd been a trooper, his identity hidden behind the white helmet and armor. The idea of killing others who might be trapped as he had been didn't sit well with him, but he decided to see what he could do, if anything. A stormtrooper spotted Finn, bringing up his blaster to aim. Finn charged his opponent, but he knew he'd never close the distance fast enough to get within range of the lightsaber before he was shot.

The stormtrooper kicked over backwards as a blaster bolt hit him square in the chest. Finn stopped his reckless charge and looked around. Han stepped out from behind cover, picking up a fallen stormtrooper's blaster and handing it to him.

"Unless you're a Jedi, it's no match for a good blaster," Han told Finn.

Finn shrugged, feeling foolish. He switched off the lightsaber and hung it from his belt before accepting the offered gun from Han.

A second wave of stormtroopers arrived and reinforced their depleted forward ranks, surging out from cover to surround Han and Finn.