Very interesting thread and idea, EddieDean. Inevitably this is something I caught myself wondering - what if we had the tech and community we have now back when the PT was coming out? What amazing things could we have done? But I guess the enthusiasm has died down, now, 20 years and hundreds of fan edits later. But I guess not!

One thing I’ve not seen mentioned here and that as I toyed around with TPM in Premiere a few months ago I realized might be feasible is:

If you, like me, wish to remove both the moment that the fake Queen orders Padmé to go clean R2 and the scene where she actually is cleaning him and meets Jar Jar, you only miss two things:

The first part of a small subplot where Panaka gets impatient/distrustful with the Jedi
Padmé’s name.

The first one doesn’t matter very much, is arguably even good since there’s no payoff anyway, but the second one can be a big problem. We’d only learn her name when Anakin seeks her out in Coruscant before he’s rejected by the Jedi, which is a bit too late for us to gain a degree of intimacy we should already have with her character.

With that in mind, a possible thing would be to attempt to add her saying “I’m Padmé!” after she apologizes for calling Anakin a slave.

ANAKIN: (angry) I’m a person, and my name is Anakin.
PADME: I’m sorry. (looking around) I don’t fully understand. This is a strange place to me. *(small pause) I’m Padmé.*

She says that line twice in the movies, once in the scene with Jar Jar, and then in AOTC when she introduces herself to the Owen and Beru.

Dunno if there will be any interest, but might as well throw it out there.