The inferiority of the federation has always been a tough one for us faneditors, including myself. I ended up keeping the scene where Nute Gunray threatens the governor in my fanedit. It’s not because it was a good scene, but because it was one of the few scenes that showed the sinister side of Gunray. My logic being that anything that shows this side of Gunray is necessary to understand why the federation is a threat to the Naboo.
One of the biggest and most unavoidable downsides of Episode I is the fact that there is no footage of the actual conflict on Naboo. I ended up having to find ways to work around that problem, and I still have no idea if I succeeded on that front. Just the reality that I tried.
Bottom line, don’t beat yourself up too much over it. It’s always been a tough issue for every fan edit.
Eh, I guess. It’s been pretty much the biggest thorn in TPM really, we never really have any reason to fear the Trade Federation, we never really have any reason to fear the Battle Droids. I think I might have some ideas for how I could potentially manipulate footage from the cut first act, though not certain how well it’d work.
Something I have briefly considered is using my limited Blender knowledge to do the scenes myself, but environments aren’t quite my forte, and I don’t quite have the tools to replicate Battle Droids’ movement (They appear to be primarily motion captured in TPM)