Ahh, I forgot to mention recolouring will be a big part of this edit, so hopefully that will help sell some of the changes.
regarding the ‘3 padmes’; The Queen of Naboo will be portman in episode 1 in makeup and will only show up as an ‘ally of palpatine’ in the opening coruscant scenes (maybe at the end as well). Princess of Abaddon will be played by knightley and will only be a bit part in scenes with quigon and obiwan (really just the escape from Abaddon). “Padme” will then be Portman from episode 2 who looks and sounds completely different anyway. there might be some confusion between the bit part characters but hopefully that can be smoothed over. At the moment it cuts straight from “The Queen” on coruscant saying she’s returning to naboo to “The Princess” on Abaddon being rescued by the jedi, so hopefully that will make it clear that they’re not meant to be the same character.
likewise we never actually see naboo in this edit, only ‘Abaddon’ where the princess is rescued, and ‘Alderaan’ where Padme and Anakin travel in act 2. Because the locations used in episode 1 and 2 are different I’m hoping through different establishing shots that these locations can be effectively separated (Abaddon becomes monumental ancient Italianate city, Alderaan mountainous lake country town. ‘Naboo’ would just be a random planet (that’s also been invaded by the rebel’s) that Palpatine and “the Queen” happen to come from.
I’ll also be completely recolouring ‘Geonosis’ (including the bits stolen from tatooine in episode 1) to a dark grey twilight landscape to help distinguish it from Tatooine. And yes, ‘Duku’ will be rocking a purple lightsabre. Hopefully the sith in this movie will be a kind of ‘what the?’ spooky forshadowing for their real revelation in the next film, so you kinda think maybe maul is with Duku until the end, when Mace reveals he was a sith and you’re like ‘oh shit’
Yeah the ‘romance’ is horrible and I’ll be trying to cut as much of it as possible and leave it at looks/brief comments and an implied history that the two shared before the film for the most part. The trick will of course be doing it and not having it come out of nowhere at the end. And I sorta like the criticism of the Jedi (I’ve always seen the prequels, or at least what they should be, as ‘the OT from the perspective of the empire, but 2/3rds through obiwan and yoda and maybe a few others realise they’re working for the baddies’ which implies some moral ambiguity on their part) but I understand why you don’t like that direction for characters that were always just ‘good guys’ in the originals.
And yeah, there may need to be some work to get the ‘Control Code’ to function as a proper Macguffin. There might need to be some scene accompanying the rescue where the jedi get the princess but the Federation get away with the code, perhaps showing one of their ships jumping to hyperspace? that would then initiate obiwan’s “follow the code” and a pursuit to geonosis.
thanks for the feedback all 😃 its been good to have some extra things to think about. I have a very rough clip of the third act that I’ll hopefully be able to put up somewhere soon, as well as some screenshots of the colour changes.