To really cut to the chase and centre the movie around Anakin, you could begin on Tatooine, with the party having just met him. In order to pull this off you’d need to substantially alter the opening crawl to convey the events of the now-excised first act. Perhaps something like this:
EPISODE I
THE PHANTOM MENACE
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy
far away, Naboo was under an attack.
And I thought me and Qui-Gon Jinn
could talk the FEDERATION in to
maybe cutting them a little slack.
But their response, it didn’t thrill us.
They locked the doors and tried to
kill us. We escaped from that gas,
then met Jar Jar and Boss Nass.
We took a bongo from the scene,
and we went to Theed, to see the
queen. We all wound up on TATOOINE.
That’s where we found this boy.I’ve been managing to watch like, twenty minutes of the movie a day but keep getting interrupted. Once I finally finish I’ll post something that’s not a stupid joke.
This is perfect for the worst edit ideas thread.