Intercutting between the escape from Naboo and Podrace is an interesting concept, definitely looking forward to seeing how it plays out in the full film. Sorta reminds me of how ANH was scripted and initially edited.
That was kind of my idea was to use Anh as a template in how they fixed it in the editing and changed when Luke was introduced. In my case, im introducing Ani earlier. This helps establish him as a good pilot before meeting padame and flirting with her. It takes the slow mid section and divides in between the attack and escape of Naboo, allowing those sections more time to breath. It cuts away from ani, allowing for a lil suspense to build as we come back to him. Then, by time Ani meets Padame and Quigon, they are off the planet not too long after. This should help drive the narrative more along with cutting it down more to the length of ANH. The Attack and Escape of Naboo will be more impactful too with the damage done to the city and such, adding more stakes.
I didn’t want to run the whole podrace through cause it just lags too much with nothing to cut away to. Ive seen it introduced into the beginning of the movie, and this works alright, but with out cutting the race up, I just feel it lags to much and affects the overall pacing of the movie.