In an effort to give Phantom Menace a more down-to-earth, cheery vibe:
A lot of edits cut out this scene, which is a great shame. It’s one of the few times characters genuinely smile.
Huh, I like what you’ve done with it.
I personally would tone down the grain a little. Maybe try to match the grain of the 4K projects or the 35mm prequel trailers. I don’t know. Maybe black grain wouldn’t stand out as much as white.
Also, did you do something with audio? Like, add room tone and foley? If you did, I really like it.
I think the reason some people cut it is because the decoy Queen orders specifically the real queen to clean the droid, which raises a few
questions.
Honestly, though, you could still keep R2’s intro, but cut the Queen ordering Padmé to clean him. You could splice two shots together to have Padmé still be behind her when she says, “It deserves our gratitude.” Then just use the shot of Padmé walking over to R2, but during that shot have the Queen say, “Continue Captain.” Then it can continue as-is.
I personally don’t think the close up of Padmé cleaning R2 works, but that’s just me.