Bingowings said:
So one possible alteration would be to start the film on Coruscant with Queen Amidala protesting about the blockade of her planet. She goes (with a Jedi escort and the Gungan Ambassador Jar-Jar) to effect a liberation of her planet but is hijacked on route and forced to land on Tatooine which has already fallen to the Federation. They meet up with Anakin, gain the parts they need, Anakin joins the Jedi hoping to liberate Tatooine at a later date (giving Anakin a noble intention for leaving his mother behind rather than just seeing the stars).

They break through the blockade and create a hasty alliance with the Gungans. The Gungan's attack the bulk of the droid army, The Jedi attempt to shut down the shields for Trade Federation command ship and encounter battle droids (which should rarely if ever speak and certainly should not be the comic relief goons as seen in the theatrical version...incidently they do sound good in German) and finally the Sith Lord they first encountered on Tatooine, the Naboo fighters clear the path for the Jedi and take on the full Federation fleet (not just one ship making it an more hopless fight) and the Queen and her troops storm the palace.

Love the idea of restructing the story like this - it always bugged me that the film has the main protagonists going from Naboo>Coruscant>Naboo - with no reinforcements. So the trade federation have invaded, you've told the senate, they've actively tried to kill the 2 jedi ambassadors, but you're happy to let them go back with one unarmed cruiser and start a war.

I'm looking at ways to do this in my cut, but I'm struggling with justification/scenario to have them hijacked and forced to land on Tatooine. I'm toying with the idea of having a republic/jedi escort up to a point, then have Maul attack them, damage the hyperdrive, then trigger the "not enough power to get to //naboo//" scene. The space combat scenes I'm confident enough doing anew spliced with the existing cruiser being damaged footage, but it's the dialogue and character scenes that will prove problematic. I figure there's a good amount of generic 'escort cruiser' dialogue in the X-Wing series of games that I could grab, but having the Cruiser's crew communicate is the issue.

The alternative is have Maul attack the cruiser as they leave coruscant...but again, it's a tough sell to have them land on tatooine rather than just go back to the capital...