Thanks to everyone for your wonderful comments.

MTH:

Great ideas on the wedding- you nailed down the problem exactly (which I couldn't explain).

What makes th wedding/kiss so bad? It feels awkward to me. They kiss like teenagers on a date. The sequence has no grace in its cutting-- a moving shot cuts to a static shot that starts moving a fraction of a second later, then to another static shot that starts moving a fraction of a second later. Then more awkward, hesitant kissing and "meaningful" glances that convey no meaning.

Exactly. The only issue with cutting it as you described is that I'll need to come up with a couple more shots to pad out the time for the music, which I can't cut.

guess the reason that scene has never stuck out and bothered me was that there was a lot of other crap that came before it.

That is a VERY good point- in fact, it might be why it didn't stick out as much until this late in the game (although it was noticeably bad). But now, contrasting it with the rest of the movie, you get to this scene and realize how pathetic it is.

I hate how the camera is constantly moving in the PT!

It's because they were worried the CGI wouldn't be credible (and they had every right to be). Of course I don't mind good camera-work (I've added several zooms and camera moves myself, but it's been on scenes involving the actors), but I too like more static shots when we're dealing with SPFX.

The most crippling aspect, imho, is how the camera moves around so much-- those computer made mattes allow the camera to do things that weren't possible during the OT-- so we get stuck with footage that will never match (unless Trooperman pulls off some magic).

Maybe I can pull on a little magic

Here's a quick test (the shot with the clones marching was original a moving camera shot, but is now more stable): test

Maybe hit some of your female friends up for advice on this particular element of your edit. While this might seem a crazy hair brained idea, remember distance from a project and fresh eyes (namely audiences who don't frequent SW forums or who aren't as familiar with the films) can offer great insight into something you might have otherwise missed.

Actually not out of the question. When this is done, I may be able to arrange a screening with about a dozen people who have never heard about this edit before (but in general are Star Wars fans). It would be interesting.

As for the scene with Padme pleading to the Senate, I agree that the acting was a little better than normal. The only two issues are: A) I already used a couple crowd shots from this in the "Emergency Powers" Senate scene, and B) I lose the great transition from Corde's death to the man responsible, Palpatine (which I've indicated in the soundtrack). The only way around this would be to place the deleted scene BETWEEN Palpatine's conference and the arrival of Anakin/Obi-Wan, but then you might tend to wonder why she changes into new clothes for the Senate and then changes back into the previous ones for meeting Obi-Wan in Anakin. A continuity problem unless this takes place over the span of a couple days. I just wish they did it like the OT, rather than having Padme wear something completely different every scene- it starts to create problems.

I have a totally tech-ignorant suggestion. Use the HD version (which should be available soon) of this scene and do a handmade "pan and scan". Figure out what portion of the scene you want to focus on, then (the hard part) zoom in on just that part and stabilize it as the camera moves.

Good idea....

Why do I feel a July release date coming soon... =)

Not going to happen. I know I've pushed the date back a couple of times, but this is really it. It's just a lot of footage to color-correct, crop, and etc., and then I'll have to go back through and fix the encoding glitches, and then I'll polish the audio mix, and then the film will be ready to serve.

A better idea might be to utilize the HD version when I do a dual-layer version, and replace the shots that will suffer in quality, because the DVD resolution might not hold up so well when I crop and zoom on shots and encode to dual-layer. I think this is a good idea....