I just watched the Phantom Menace edit. It’s quite good, though I think that some parts now feel rushed. The podrace could be cut quite a bit shorter, however. The way that the Nemoidians are portrayed in this is rather cool.

This was the first time that I genuinely FELT the villainy of Palpatine. That we don’t get a chance to see the villainy on screen is one of the biggest problems with The Phantom Menace, even if that is implied in the title. If we saw the suffering of the people of Naboo, just one shot of the overcrowded camps at night with a mass grave in the distance, it would go a long way to making the stakes real. Then the Nemoidians could be subtitled to order the death of Sio Bibble in the scene where they say ‘tuck him away’, and we could perhaps hear the laser blast.