'ATTACK' AT 20: TO SAVE THE REPUBLIC...

Bail Organa with Mas Amedda and Senator Ask Aak  in the Supreme Chancellor's Office, discussing the fate of the Republic. Art by Paolo Puggioni.

Sent prior to being captured by the enemy, Obi-Wan Kenobi's urgent warning message about the assembling Separatist army on Geonosis has been received by the Republic, whose key leaders and the Jedi Council watch with alarm and decide their next critical course of action, an action that will surely need the intervention of the mysteriously created Clone Army on Kamino...

Several sequences of dialogue were trimmed from the scene with the final editing- Yoda tells Palpatine that only two hundred Jedi out of a thousand are readily available to go to Geonosis, whilst Jar Jar Binks would lose several lines that would ultimately be held over to his important senate chamber scene.

The disturbing message from a now captured Obi-Wan Kenobi triggers the need for action against Count Dooku and his new army.

Master Yoda's concerns grow for both the Republic's dire situation and the building aura of the Dark Side of the Force. 

Jimmy Smits proves a well cast addition to the saga as Bail Organa.

Pondering the decisions alongside corruptible Twi'lek Senator Orn Free Taa (Matthew Rowan).

Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and Mas Amedda (David Bowers) wonder who can boldly represent the Senate's need for the newly discovered Clone Army during Senator Amidala's absence?

A behind the scenes publicity team capture Orn Free Taa and his lovely associates on set.

Matthew Rowan and Jay Laga'aia enjoy a break between filming.

The Clone Army usage idea is discussed in senate.

A duped Senator Jar Jar Binks coerces the Republic into accepting and using the Clone Army residing on Kamino. An important turning point for the doomed Republic in the Prequel saga.

THE 'PHANTOM' AT TWENTY: SENATE WATCHERS!

Largely unseen bar in extreme longshots, many aliens delegates had close-up and reaction shots filmed for the Republic Senate meeting debating the Naboo Crisis. All of these characters, part of one hundred and forty separate creations - both new or classics revisited (such as Rodians and Twi'leks) - were brought to life by Nick Dudman and his team of fifty-five craftsmen, filmed by a second unit at Leavesden, mostly headed up by Roger Christian. Some unseen creatures would ultimately appear in new environments, like the Tatooine Pod racing sequence, playing spectators, or appear in future films, once again in extreme background shots. The Twi'lek Bib Fortuna (played by Alan Ruscoe) was to have been seen here but was ultimately deleted and replaced with Matthew Wood in the role for a scene opposite Jabba the Hutt on Tatooone, a move handled in EPISODE I's post production phase.

Bib Fortuna (Alan Ruscoe) listens to the drama.

The many practical creatures were built with little pre-production time-literally six months from January 1997 onwards, due to Lucas ironing out what creatures were to be handled via CGI, and what would be more cost-effective built as puppets and masks.

Nick Dudman and colleague supervise the care of an actor in the creature suit.

The greedy Twi-lek senator Orn Free Ta (Jerome Blake) and one of his aides (possibly actress Daisy Donovan) - his scene never made the final cut.

In honour of Steven Spielberg, E.T. and his friends made a special one-off cameo.

One of the most important returning species cameos would be from the Wookiees. Actor/puppeteer John Coppinger would play Yarua, and his character would be filmed/ superimposed three times in one scene to make it look like there was a trio of them in their senate pod. One of the surviving original Chewbacca costumes was loaned from the Lucasfilm archive and given restoration and re-working to serve as the new character. Three all-new Wookiee masks were seemingly rejected.

John Coppinger as Yarua the wookiee.

Specially made Wookiee masks by for the three senators were ultimately unused. 

Though not an alien creature, another important character cut from the movie's senate related scenes would be rising star Alderaan delegate Bail Antilles, as played by Adrian Dunbar, originally inhabiting the role as Bail Organa, Princess Leia's adopted father.

More info here:
https://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.com/2013/04/classic-blog-2007-adrian-dunbar.html
https://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.com/2012/09/deleted-scene-speaker-for-alderaan.html

BEHIND THE SCENES: IN TWI'LEK COMPANY

In the corridor outside the Supreme Chancellor's office set at the Fox Studios, Australia, Matt Rowan as Senator Orn Free Ta enjoys the company of some of his fellow Twi-lek companions, in a fun moment shot by the EPISODE II documentary team during filming in 2000.

DELETED SCENE: POLITICAL TIME-WASTING!

In his senate podium on Coruscant, the greedy and quite repulsive Twi'lek senator Orn Free Ta (played by Jerome Blake) and his equally dubious retinue observe political goings-on, in unused second unit footage filmed at Leavesden Studios, for EPISODE I.

CLASSIC IMAGE: "STRESSFUL TIMES"!

Finally, EPISODE II revealed the all-important, politically savvy, later brave defier of the Empire, Bail Organa, to the Prequel Universe, as played by Jimmy Smits, seen here with Captain Typho and a Republic delegation to the Supreme Chancellor at the movie's start. Smits was a fine addition to the STAR WARS universe- and I wish that he'd had more screen time in the final episodes than he eventually got.