darth_ender said:

I am a bigger George defender than many on this site. He has said (yes, he's said lots of things) that he intended to have the droids in all 9 films, even years ago before he began denying that he ever had plans for 9 films. I'm a bigger fan of George's true original vision than the one he has promulgated in more recent years. I think it's not such a bad idea. It's sort of a link between movies. The problem is that the droids probably should have somehow introduced us to the main characters as they did in ANH. Somehow the plot follows them for a bit till we met Obi-Wan (who should have been the main character of the whole PT anyway). Sadly, I see no way to pull this idea off, but it would have been the best way to use them if one were to use them in the PT.

I know Ady has said that he's toying with the idea of having 3P0 only show up in Ep III........but an alternative idea would be to have them both around from the very beginning but not necessarily together from Ep I. Possibly have them both present but never meeting in TPM, actually meet in AOTC, and then together for the whole of ROTS.