I’ve updated the OP to aggregate the stuff created and requested so far.
I’ve taken the battle droid dialogue (trimmed down) about searching for hidden underwater villages and put it in the mouth of the droid captain in the tank right before we see Qui Gon running. It fills in why they have landed so far from the cities and makes finding Jar Jar feel less random.
Could you share this, Mrebo?
If I were to want to cut any scenes, I think I would cut a lot of the scenes between Nute Gunray and Darth Sidious. There’s a few reasons for doing this. 1) I feel like the pacing just halts every time we cut back to what the bad guys are doing. 3) It feels like a lot of information is repeated in other scenes. 2) I actually think it would serve the narrative more if we kept the Sith’s involvement in the plot as mysterious as we can. I actually wonder how much it would actually hurt the movie if we cut all of Sidious’ scenes. Would it be better if the actual phantom menace was a figure only alluded to in the first film?
I think the only thing to be wary of with this idea is that Maul needs to be in TPM and he needs to be introduced by someone, he can’t come out of nowhere. So we at least need some mysterious figure to put him into the film and then be the shadow behind the threat, which can then become a hanging plot thread.
Other thoughts for the community:
- A few people have mentioned Maul fan-films which are apparently very decent. Can anyone share them, or the relevant clips? I’d be interested to hear how people think they could be included.
- Let’s mock more stuff up! Even if it’s placeholder stuff, it’d be good to visualise more ideas. I’m going to try to finish the Jar Jar voice tool tonight, then I’ll either play round with his lines or try some ideas for the Gungan battle scenes.