I haven’t gotten all the way through yet, but here are my thoughts on the first half of the AOTC workprint. I think the overall pacing works really well and doesn’t need tweaking so all of my comments are specific nitpicks:
-There were some establishing shots I found a little wonky with the new scenes they were attached to. For example, The establishing shots of Sheev’s office and the senate building ought to be swapped in order to make sense with their respective scenes (I think this is a change Hal made in a late version of the Approaching Storm). There’s also an establishing shot of the Naboo palace that’s pulled from Phantom Menace and I don’t think it really works, since the scene it precedes doesn’t take place in the palace. I would consider maybe reshuffling the order of events so that the establishing shot isn’t needed.
-The cgi in some of the deleted scenes is very unfinished. I realize that you can’t do much about that, but I thought some other edits I’ve seen do a better job of at least cutting around it. For example, there are some pretty distracting shots of JarJar in the senate deleted scene, which I think could be easily cut around.
-There are a couple instances (from the original movie) where characters seem to talk “at” each other instead of actually holding a conversation. A good example is when Yoda tells Padme that “seeing (her) alive brings warm feeling to (his) heart” and Padme seemingly has no reaction, instead launching into talking about something else. Another example is when JarJar tells Anakin he’s happy to see him and Anakin launches into his own concerns about Padme. The latter can arguably be considered a character choice but the Yoda example I think is really jarring since we’re supposed to think of Padme as a kind and caring person. I think this is easily solved by cutting Yoda’s line
-I don’t think all the transitions between Anakin and Obi-Wan’s storylines work in this cut. Maybe it’s due to familiarity with the original movie or other edits, but there were a couple of moments where transitions felt jarring.
-I would cut Padme’s line in the family deleted scene “our relationship is strictly professional”. If she just said “Anakin is a…friend” it leaves more ambiguity about their relationship and it makes her quick falling from him feel more gradual and believable.
-When Lama Su gives Obi-Wan numbers of clone units, I think it is playing the reveal too early, and it detracts from the later scenes when we see more and more clones. I would cut out this mention of numbers.
-The goofy cgi villain roundtable when Obi-Wan is spying on Dooku has always bothered me, and I’ve seen other edits cut down each leader pledging their allegiance to the count. Similarly I’ve seen other edits cut Nute Gunray saying he wants Padme’s “head on (his) desk” to just “I want her head”. These are just moments of camp that I think go a little too far. Obviously it’s your decision to make based on taste, but they are little moments of friction with the movie for me.