On Grievous/Maul: I like having our first view of Grievous/Maul be with him descending from his ship, while the Grievous theme plays in the background. But I also think it needs some set up. So why don’t you keep the hologram scene, but not show any close-ups of Grievous/Maul. So we see Nute talking with this hooded figure (“Move against the Jedi first. You should then have no problem bringing the queen back here to sign the treaty”) but we don’t reveal who he’s talking to until we see Grievous/Maul land his ship and send out the probes. I also like the idea of giving Anakin a Padme dream, but I think Grievous/Maul needs to reach Tatooine before then. I just re-watched TPM last night, and realized just how long we spend on Tatooine before Maul shows up, and how boring that makes it. Maybe you could just cut enough of the Tatooine stuff, so it doesn’t feel so long, eh?
A couple other ideas…
What if you reversed the scene where Amidala decides to go back to Naboo, and the scene where the Jedi are ordered to? This shouldn’t be too hard. Just cut Mace’s lines so they go like this (brackets indicate cut)…
Mace: Now is not the time for this. The Senate is voting on a new supreme chancellor [and Queen Amidala is returning home], which
could put pressure on the federation…
Ki: And draw out the queen’s attacker.
Mace: Go [with the queen] to Naboo and discover the identity of this dark
warrior. This is the clue we need to unravel the mystery of the Sith.
If you play this scene right, you could even make it look like the Jedi Council is sending Qui-Gon back to Naboo as punishment for disagreeing so publicly over Anakin, making Anakin feeling both guilty about Qui-Gon’s eventual death (gives “I don’t want to be a problem” a deeper meaning), as well as possible making him even more mad at the Jedi Council for their vindictiveness.
Then just change Jar-Jar’s lines so they talk about the Jedi (“Are all you’re people going to die?” “I don’t know.” “The Jedi are going to get killed trying to save them.” “I hope not.”)
One final small suggestion: cut the last part of the Obi-Wan/Yoda scene near the end. End it with “Qui-Gon’s defiance I sense in you. Need that, you do not.” This way, the audience doesn’t know what the council has decided about Anakin until Obi-Wan tells him. Just creates a little more tension, and eliminates a little redundancy.