>Although "General, we've located the Resistance. They're in
>escape pods heading to ___." Solved it.

I think Poe's protest regarding the plan to evacuate would've carried *way* more weight with the higher-ups had they known the escape pods could be spotted. They never would've made themselves even *more* exposed like that.

Besides, and this ties into the thing you wrote next, basically every narrative thing in every movie *could* be written around with one or two lines anyhow. It's all about what those narratives reveal about character and theme. And the codebreaker subplot has plenty to say on both of those things. So I really liked its inclusion.

>But I'll admit that you are definitely right about the first
>part. It kind of put a new light to the fact that there was
>the First Order, the Resistance, the fat cats getting rich
>from them both...then the "little guys" that were actually the
>true victims of all this, that the Resistance was supposed to
>be saving/protecting. Then yes, showing that the big
>opposition could come from these victims/nobodies, not from
>the bloodline of the legendary Skywalkers.

Yeah, this is the beating heart of the film for me. And I don't think the conclusion of the film, especially re: Rey's bloodline, works nearly as well if we don't have any of the Finn/Rose stuff before it. (And we certainly don't get that absolute doozy of a last shot.)