Hell, the picture could have opened on Han’s memorial at the rebel base, with Leia and gang lamenting his death. In the midst of the ceremony, explosions suddenly roar in the distance- the First Order have somehow discovered the location of the secret Resistwnce base and have begun their attack. We then pick up right where TLJ starts.

How easy was that?

This approach would have been way more logical than “the First Order are magically right on the Resistance’s tail directly after their Starkiller Base was destroyed.” We would get the impression that, while not a whole lot of time has passed, the First Order were able to regroup after a huge defeat and gather their remaining forces to hunt down the Resistance. It just didn’t play out logically in the actual movie.

Rian Johnson is such a hack.