Dragonspartax

This is exactly what I thought about the score. Your problems are identical to mine. The "RCP" percussion adds absolutely nothing (and as you said sounds like How to Train your Dragon) to what's going on and in fact covers up his work. I also thought the call backs were too heavy handed during the Kessel Run. I would have preferred an original piece specific to the Kessel Run similar to how Williams writes different pieces for action scenes. The percussion just annoys me and I'm a percussionist myself. As a good friend of mine said way back in the 7th grade, "Percussion is like salt, too much and you ruin the plate. Too little and the food needs a little spice. When you get it just right it's perfect", or something along those lines. All that being said, I thought the soundtrack was fantastic without the RCP percussion as it sounds distinctly Star Wars and retains the tone and style of fast moving brass and strings perfectly.

Maybe someone has already pointed this out but recently I went to see The Last Jedi again and noted this time that there is a ton of uses of Poe's theme that are not present on either the FYC soundtrack or the original. It's bizarre and I don't know why they weren't included. The most obvious use that I noticed every time I've seen the movie is when Poe is talking to BB-8 in his cockpit on the way to the dreadnought, it's a fun take on the theme. Then later when he is talking to Leia it plays again in a different tone. Williams being the master of this of course and it sounds great but like I mentioned, no where to be found in any recordings, sad.

I listened to it and there is a part that is edited awkwardly to fit the credits. Nothing new that I could hear though.