Star Wars Episode II: The Approaching Storm - The Purist Cut

Some time ago, I opened a thread to ask someone for help in creating my personal fan edit of Attack of the Clones. In that thread, Hal 9000 came forward and he helped me. Now that the fan edit is definitely finished, I decided to open a new thread, so the goal of my edit and the changes can be more clear to everyone.

My fan edit is essentially a purist version of Hal’s The Approaching Storm. I used Hal’s edit as base for my edit, however many of the scenes deleted by Hal in his edit have been put back in the movie, to make this edit as similar as possible to the original version, and also because I don’t really have many problems with the original version itself. This edit was meant to be a stand alone edit, which works in the context of the other two Prequel films. It’s not part of a trilogy, but is meant to be a valuable replacement for the original version. So, if you like The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith as they are, but at the same time you have some issues with Attack of the Clones, this edit could be what you’re looking for.

The major changes are:

In contrast to many other edits of the film, in this version Anakin remains an annoying, rebellious and impulsive teenager. However, his impulsiveness and rebellious behavior increase in intensity as the film progresses. In contrast to the original version, Anakin seems to be more mature at first, but turns out to be the Anakin we already know gradually, as the film goes on. In the opening scenes, he seems to be calm, slightly rebellious but still calm, while in the Battle of Geonosis he shows all his impulsiveness.
The love story is pretty much the same as the original, but I decided to eliminate the first kiss on Naboo, and I put the deleted scenes with Padmé’s family in place of it, turning their kiss on Geonosis in their first kiss. This way, the original intentions of George Lucas are preserved, but at the same time the love story becomes slower and more gradual. Anakin and Padmé now experience their growing feelings for each other, until they confess their mutual feelings in front of the fireplace and eventually kiss on Geonosis, eliminating the hasty kiss on Naboo that actually never made any sense.
In this version the scene in which Anakin confesses to Padmé his massacre of the Tusken has been deleted. The reason I did it is very simple: that scene doesn’t align with Padmé’s character and with what we see of her in the other two Prequel films. Padmé would have never accepted that Anakin commit a massacre, no matter how madly in love with him she could have been. Her reaction in that scene doesn’t make any sense. In fact, in Revenge of the Sith Padmé is shocked and distraught when Obi-Wan tells her that Anakin has killed men, women and children in the Jedi Temple. That reaction aligns better with a Padmé who knows nothing about what Anakin did to the Tusken, rather than with a Padmé who, despite the massacre and despite knowing what Anakin was capable of, still decides to marry him. So, in this version the massacre still happens, but Anakin never confessed it to Padmé.
The fight between Yoda and Dooku has been deleted. Not because I don’t like it (I love that scene actually), but simply to give more importance to the fight between Yoda and Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, since in this way it becomes the only time we see Yoda using a lightsaber in all the films.

These are the major changes, the rest are small, quite irrelevant changes. If you are interested, PM me for the link.