timdiggerm said:

Questions:

Why does Threepio sneak down to the planet if he's a TF droid? It might work better to make him the Jedi's droid, not replacing the TF Welcome Party. (Note: This might make "Nice to see a familiar face" in ESB a little funnier, if you get what I mean?) If they're ambassadors, why shouldn't they have a protocol droid?

How do they get from the swamp to the city, if they don't visit Otoh Gunga at all?

If we're talking about no gungans, when/where/how/why is the Padme/Amidala thing revealed effectively?

1. He might has his own reasons. It may be explained in one or two phrases from him, and that be enough. All we need is to create a new dialogs for droid in the beginning and shoot some new scenes where he sneaks on a ship. All this idea relays strongly on dialogs. If we make a nice new dialogs, no one would ask "why".

2. It's simple. Ships should land near the city, not on the oher side of the planet (like RLM said, it's plain stupid). Threepio just "knows" a short way to the capital.

3. No idea. But I'm sure, something could be done. Meditate on this, I will :)