Unrelated, but another thought I wanted to share.
I know Hal’s version of the scene where Anakin returns to Tatooine and speaks to Watto has subtitles, but did the theatrical version have subtitles too?
I was thinking, what if Anakin’s Huttese dialogue was changed from “I’m looking for Shmi Skywalker” to “I’ve come to free/purchase Shmi Skywalker.” Don’t know if it would be any better or worse, just a thought.
The subs on Hal’s Episode II edit are burned-in on the HDTV source he used, so they’re the theatrical subtitles with no alterations. He styled his Episode I subs to match them.
But the Blu-Ray has soft subtitles, so you can either use the BR to mask out the HDTV subs, or just use the BR as a source, and change the subtitles however you like.