The first act ends with the decision to race Anakin in a contest to get the parts for the Queen's ship. That happens at about minute 40!
The story is so poorly structured that the movie basically flops around trying to cover all the bases --
But picking a story to tell makes a lot of that stuff unnecessary.
It would actually leave room to add some of the basic OT ingredients that are missing -- like the charming droid sequences and the long panoramic shots that established Tatooine in ANH. All the stuff Trooperman is trying to work back in.
"Gunray. Carl Gunray. At your service. You killed my brother. Prepare to die."