So I finally got round to watching TPM with my daughter. It’s amazing how we didn’t feel like anything was missing. I thought I’d feel the lack of C-3PO or midichlorians, but it works really well. Jar Jar is one of my daughter’s favourite characters (one of the reasons I wanted her perspective, she’s 11), and she really appreciated the slightly more deliberate, but clumsy version of him. So many editors try and remove him entirely, but we felt this was a great balance.
The additional scenes were great, I really appreciated the probe droid deleted scene, and the fist fight. Keeping Maul out of the picture between Tatooine and Naboo is also brilliant as it lends more weight to Ki Adi Mundi’s “draw out the queen’s attacker” line.
Anakin’s role in the battle of Naboo is now much more consistent with the character, which is great, and his destruction of the command ship allowing Padme to turn the tables in the throne room is inspired, albeit I felt that scene comes in a little abruptly. Is there any way to use some of the battle shots in the throne room but mask the blaster fire to show the droids breaking down before launching into Padme’s “new treaty” line? It only needs a couple of seconds I think.
There was an audio shadow we noticed from one of the deleted lines during the podracer build; you can just hear C-3PO’s line about Jar Jar being an odd creature. I think the only continuity error I noticed was during the podrace; Anakin does his barrel roll over Teemto Pagalies, but then a few shots later we see Anakin moving up the field to pass him again down the canyon.
I know the above is a bit picky, but please be assured that overall we had a great time, and this is now our favourite version, so it’s going into our anthology playlist. We can’t wait to see your AotC and RotS edits!