Time for a little update. This fan edit has evolved somewhat as I've been working on it. I'm keeping the Sand People murder after all, but it will remain Anakin's secret for now; Padme will not know. She seems pretty adamant about NOT killing innocent people in Episode III.
I'm keeping, though trimming in a similar way as L8, Jar Jar addressing the Senate in order to not have the film come across as a fan edit.
Jango Fett will still die in the film; removing his death doesn't really gain me anything. My editing goals are to 1) Tell the basic story of the prequels, and 2) Bend them to match the originals in continuity. Removing his death doesn't really help either of those goals.
I surveyed, and re-surveyed several prior fan edits of this film, since Attack of the Clones fan edits have a lot of variation. My take on the romance plot is modeled after Slumberland for the most part. Does anyone have a strong opinion, and reasons for them, about Slumberland's or L8's "fireplace" scenes? Slumberland has the two of them eating dinner at dusk, then going out next to the lake at nighttime and sharing a kiss. The next time we see them is the 'morning after.' L8 has the lakeside scene occur earlier, then we see them eating dinner at dusk, then we see a couple of shots of them next to the fireplace and it wipes away abruptly to imply they are going at it with each other. The next time we see them is the morning after. I'm inclined to structure it as Slumberland did.
Also, let me throw this out there and see if anyone has any thoughts: Palpatine is behind the assassination attempts on Padme. In the original version of the film, Count Dooku seems to simply appease Nute Gunray by killing Padme. That seems pretty weak, especially since the film portrays Padme as leading the opposition to something Palpatine wants. But the final cut of AOTC seems to jettison what I suspect was the original motivation for her being killed in favor of a simpler plot where Nute Gunray wants her dead out of delayed vengeance, and there's a bunch of action scenes. So, in my cut, the goal is to make it look like, indeed, Palpatine's behind it all! The opening crawl will state that Padme works to oppose the creation of an army, whereas the original crawl implies she is promoting creation of an army to assist the overwhelmed Jedi. (This film is a MESS, as we all know.) By including the early scene of Padme addressing the Senate, we clearly see what her role is in all this. Palpatine is also quick to delay her from going further, and gives a hollow sympathy to seeing her alive in the next scene. (Why he wants to place her under Obi-Wan's protection is still a mystery; maybe he thinks the dark side is making the Jedi into fools.) When Obi-Wan eventually traces the assassination attempt back to Count Dooku, we do not hear Nute Gunray calling for her death. He still enjoys the execution arena, but it's not like he's holding out on signing a treaty because of her. The audience may wonder why Dooku would want to kill the primary person who is preventing the creation of an enemy army, unless he wants to start a war. Then at the end of the film, Dooku returns to Coruscant and we finally meet Sidious for the first time. Then we realize Palpatine's behind it all. (Please note, however, that Palpatine does not take an apparent interest in Anakin in this film. I'd rather not get into that until Episode III. It puts more nails in the coffin of the subplot that Palpatine 'invented' Anakin.)