Well, since I haven’t talked about changes lately, I think now’s a good time to return to that.

Sleeping with the fishes…

When I last left our heroes, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Jar Jar met Boss Nass. Now, we approach an entirely useless grouping of scenes where they travel underwater and get attacked by a bunch of fishes. Yeah. I’m cutting those scenes out in their entirety. I’m not even saving Jar Jar’s supposed character background about how clumsy he is. Not that anybody cares about that. The whole thing is unnecessary, so what’s the point of keeping it in?

Scheduled invasions and naive queens…

Somewhere in between the above mentioned useless scenes is one that I’m having a debate over. In this scene, the Neimoidians are talking with Sidious about the invasion being on schedule, how the senate will have no choice but to accept the invasion, and how Queen Amidala is young and naive. This is an exposition heavy scene, and on the one hand, I suppose it might have some useful info for the audience. And I also think the mention of Queen Amidala being young and naive adds a bit of superiority to the villains, since it implies they know how to deal with this situation better than the queen. But on the other hand, it’s a scene that is so boring and filled with a lot of stuff about the senate. I’m sorta leaning towards deleting it, but it’s currently a toss-up for now.

However, if I do choose to keep this scene, I have still removed the last two lines, “you did not tell him about the missing jedi”, and “no need to report that until we have something to report”. These two lines make the Neimoidians look like idiots, and anything to make these guys smarter is a good thing.

Feel free to express your thoughts on this scene.

Invasion

It says a lot that this scene now occurs 10 minutes into the movie, as opposed to 20 minutes in the theatrical cut. We’re now in this scene in about half the time.

So, I have kept the droids taking over the palace, as well as Amidala by herself as the droids invade outside the window. However, I’ve taken out the short conversation with the Neimoidians and the droid about how the queen has been captured. I think the previous visuals made that point clear already, so the two lines “Viceroy, we have captured the queen”, and “victory” are out.

I’ve also removed the stairway scene where the Neimoidians talk about the treaty with Amidala and how she won’t cooperate and how the Neimoidians tell her she will cooperate when she sees the suffering of her people and blah blah blah. Yeah, it’s a boring scene, and it does nothing but give us more political dialogue we never asked for. And in case you’re wondering, the droid dialogue in this scene is also gone because I removed the whole scene.

Escape from Naboo

So Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Jar Jar arrive at the palace. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan make their move, jump down and attack the droids while Jar Jar just… gets caught in something and starts yelling about it. I’d like to remove that Jar Jar bit, but the shot in question is the only one that shows Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan jumping off. I do plan to learn sound editing on Resolve soon enough, so there’s a good chance I could remove Jar Jar’s annoying yells during that shot. In fact, I’ve cut out Jar Jar’s annoying line “Meesa got bombat” or whatever he was saying at the end of the confrontation. I have no idea what he said, and I don’t care.

I’m keeping the moment where Qui-Gon talks with the governor about what’s happened. However, I’m taking out the line, “We’re ambassadors for the supreme chancellor” because I intend to change the opening crawl so that Chancellor Vallorum isn’t the one who sends the jedi, but the governor. This places less emphasis on the senate, and more emphasis on Naboo, which is where the central focus should’ve been on from the start (Not saying it’s perfect, but at least there’s no “taxation of trade routes”-level boredom going on).

Before Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon slice up some more droids and free the pilots, I’ve made quite a few changes. The first change I’ve made is the removal of Qui-Gon’s line, “won’t be a problem”. That line ruins the tension instantly. If the jedi aren’t worried about this, then it only stands to reason that we aren’t worried about this, since we’ve been following these two since the beginning. The governor’s line “They wouldn’t dare” has also been removed, since it’s a pointless and cliched line. I’ve taken out most of the end of this conversation, since it doesn’t get to the point. I started off by taking out Amidala’s horrible line reading “Either choice presents great danger… To us all” and took everything else out until Amidala says “Then I will plead our case to the senate.” That gets the point across much faster.

As for the actual confrontation with the droids, I decided to rip off the l8wrtr edit here, take out all of the droid’s indecision, and go straight to the droid saying, “You’re under arrest.” Straightforward, and to the point. With that said, pretty much all of the action that happens in this scene is intact. I would cut out more from this scene if I could, but I can’t find anything so extremely bad that it warrants being left on the cutting room floor.