Yeah to be fair, I just skimmed through, I haven’t watched the edit in full yet. I’m planning on using your edits for a saga watching with friends before TFA so I’ll see what kind of feedback I receive. It’s just hard for me to imagine a context in which that scene works.
The “first time” scene I never minded, it seems more natural than 90% of the romance scenes in this movie and seems like something young lovers might actually talk about. I also think it might take the edge off the “creepy” political talk that occurs right after.
I also wanted to recommend a few dialogue trims in the Padme’s family scene from L8wrtr’s edit. Particularly the line “our relationship is strictly professional”. In this scene we should see Padme’s barriers start to break down. That line smacks of the “will they, won’t they” nature of the romance in the original that has largely been removed in this edit. imo It’s a lot more effective to hear “Anakin and I are friends…” then Sola gives her a look and she looks doubtful. The other lines are mainly lines from the parents that just come across as a little hammy in the original. I’d recommend giving the L8wrtr version of this scene another watch.
Last thing I wanted to mention was the scene with Anakin in the Lars garage. I’ve noticed you chose to totally excise this scene but I believe other editors such as L8wrtr have proven that this scene can be downright effective when edited down. I definitely miss it in your edit. I think it’s more essential than say, Cliegg’s speech at Shmi’s funeral which is 100% skippable imo.
That said, I don’t want you to feel like I’m unnecessarily comparing your edit to L8wrtr’s. Honestly, I’m just trying to give input in what I feel would make the best edit possible. I listened to your commentary on EpI and I really liked what you said about your edits being a sort of “curation” of the best decisions from various fanedits so my suggestions are totally in that spirit. I hope they help.
EDIT: I also wanted to ask about the removal of the Droid Factory scene and the substitution of the war room scene with Padme, Anakin and Dooku. Right now it doesn’t work for me. Essentially Padme’s “diplomatic solution” is to walk in and ask Count Dooku to set Obi-Wan free. Beyond that she has no plan, essentially gives up when Dooku says “No” and they both get themselves captured. Imo, this makes Padme look stupid and weak-willed. You could argue that they are intentionally getting themselves captured in order to free Obi-Wan later, but if that were the case, you would expect there to be some discussion about it beforehand. In the original, it at least seemed like maybe they were trying to sneak in and find Obi-Wan covertly and in the original context of the deleted scene, the diplomacy was a last ditch effort after they had already been captured. Imo I would STRONGLY recommend reinstating a cut down version of the droid factory for this reason.
