Two Options to have made this a much better movie..IMHO

Rating: 5/10 (16 December 2017)

OK...Hindsight is 20/20 and we all no that Carrie Fisher has passed away...Hollywood does last minute re-shoots ALL THE TIME for this circumstance but in this case the production team was just LAZY.
I get that the point of this new trilogy in essence is to kill off all the old Heroes and introduce new ones to continue the Star Wars journey for the youth of today and I am fine with that. I even agree with it to an extent as long as their deaths make sense. Han dying in the last movie was a perfect example of a "good way to go"...His death was a tragedy and furthered the plot. IN my opinion they could have handled this movie in 2 different ways from what was on screen to deal with Leia. One if they wanted her in the next movie and the other a small reshoot after her real life death to give her character an onscreen end.
1) Carrie Fisher doesn't pass away in real life: Keep the movie the way it is except instead of having the STUPID flying space scene, they should have just had her off the bridge when the attack happened. This scene makes no sense at all. If someone not trained in the force but has it in them can fly through space and live, then why can't a fully trained jedi master survive a laser blast or falling off a high structure (the way more jedi died than I can count in the Clone Wars)?
Also instead of having the new character of Laura Dern sacrifice herself they should have given that job to Admiral Ackbar (who would also have had to leave the bridge during the attack). Admiral Ackbar has been an Admiral and leading troops in all the Star Wars movies up to this point. In this film he is seen in the background in like 4 scenes and has like 4 lines of dialogue before he is sucked into space...BAD WAY TO END A LEGEND.In this scenario fans are pleased because one of the characters from the original trilogy makes a sacrifice and Laura Dern is still around as a leader for the next film so we can grow more attached to her. Also, Leia is still around for whatever way they originally had planned for her to die in the next film.
2) Carrie Fisher passes away after filming: Fix the film in one of two ways EITHER end her last scene with the closeup of her face in space and her last breath. Then have Admiral Ackbar make the sacrifice going to lightspeed and you keep Laura Dern for the next movie (since there will be a female lead missing without Carrie Fisher OR do some reshoots with a stand in and some clipped footage and have Leia be the one to sacrifice herself jumping to light speed through the other ship. Same as before Laura Dern is saved to fill the female lead spot in the next movie.
Since they didn't change the story after the news about Carrie Fisher fans are going to be left with one of two things happening in the next movie and both options are going to be a let down. EITHER she will die off screen in between the two movies somehow OR she will be on a ship that is blown up in someway and we will only hear her voice on the radio clipped from other movies or something right before it happens.
I understand what their original plan was...3 new movies and each movie has 1 of the 3 main characters from the original trilogy die. 1.Han 2. Luke, 3. Leia but they should have been willing to change this slightly with Carrie Fishers untimely passing.
There is so much more I could go into about the fact that Finn hasn't helped the story AT ALL since breaking Poe out of jail, or what they did to Luke, etc. but in the end I don't beleive the 8.1 current rating on IMDB at all. There is no way this movie is a 1, 2, or 3 but also no way it is an 8,9, or 10!!