I like it, especially the thread about the ambassadors and some of the new JarJar lines, but the following still stand out to me as (unavoidable?) issues:
- The number of quick scenes make it feel a bit choppy.
I’ve not shortened any scenes here, at least by much, so that’s an interesting one. I wonder what gives it that feeling?
- How did the Jedi get to the planet? Why are they in the woods?
For reasons! I don’t know, to be honest, because this was more about seeing whether or not the scenes flowed in this order without the Jedi on the Neimoidian ship. (Logic should be present, but it’s secondary to the energy and interest flow of the movie itself, or at least wasn’t the first goal of this test sequence.) I’m open to suggestions for how to justify it. I don’t think we need to explain how they got there necessarily - there’s no explicit reason why they shouldn’t be, and we don’t need to explain everything. But why they’re in the woods? I don’t know. I dropped the word “secretly” into the crawl to imply they’re heading in secretly for whatever reason (maybe they fear that there’re already Trade Federation agents in the city?) You could pretty much stick anything in the crawl so long as it’s not too convoluted, supplemented with Jar Jar lines if possible.
This leads a little into how to handle the Jar Jar angle. I’ve got a lot of alternate voice lines to play with, but it’d be nice to think about our options. With this introduction, the invasion is NOT already in play, nor is Padmé already captured. Plus, they definitely appear to stumble upon Jar Jar by chance, and their dialogue is less flexible than his so it probably needs to remain a chance meeting. I’ve always liked the idea of changing Jar Jar into already being a representative (as he becomes by his next appearance), but perhaps that’s one coincidence too far, and the better motivation for him sticking around is just ‘Jar Jar likes Queen Amidala’.
In that case, having Jar Jar audibly identify the Jedi early is good, and then having him say “I’m going to help the Queen” before Qui-Gon replies “That won’t be necessary” would fit nicely for both characters, with them accepting him temporarily when he explains he can guide them into the city later (“City? Can you take us there?”) That, plus Jar Jar’s help in Naboo in finding the Queen, is probably the best path to explain why he sticks around that isn’t a radical change.
- Do we have to tip our hand w Sideous so early? I’d ideally like to see Dooku instructing them, setting up the overall Separatist threat, then reveal that he’s secretly taking orders from elsewhere in Ep2.
In terms of adding Dooku, we’re walking into more radical territory here. If someone had workable Dooku footage that’d certainly be worth consideration, though it’s certainly beyond my abilities.
We don’t need Sidious necessarily, though, and you could trim him out easily enough, though you would lose some context in so doing. Personally though, I like Sidious early, because the Neimoidians aren’t particularly threatening on their own, and it’s interesting to imply that there’re darker politics at play during this crumbling Republic. As much as I’ve presented a fairly significant change with this intro edit, I think a fairly conservative approach is quite sensible. The more I watch TPM, the more I understand the decisions made during the process - I’ve come to believe it’s mainly just the editing that’s not very exciting, rather than the collective bag of ideas.