I have never seen those pictures before, either! Thanks for sharing.
So they did film the ending for the eventual “Episode III” during AOTC’s production, but they didn’t use it and just reshot it in-studio during ROTS’ production? Is that correct?
Interesting find! Padme never returns to Naboo alive in Episode III, so what could this scene be? Was Padme’s death originally going to be a hoax to help protect Luke and Leia? Maybe someone should ask Natalie Portman about it.
See, this is what I am wondering, too. The only other known scene shot for Episode III during AOTC’s production was meant to be the ending for ROTS, which apparently Lucas’ had in his mind for a while. So, is it possible that this is something similar? Was she originally going to survive and go into hiding?
I’m probably going to try and reach out to the twitter user who posted that picture and see if he knows the source of that image. I might also go back and look at The Secret History of Star Wars and see if there is ever any mention of Padme’s fate changing during the writing process, although I do not recall anything like that at the moment. Maybe some insight could be gleamed from the Rinzler books, which I don’t have at the moment.
If it is what I think it is, it is possible Lucas originally planned to have Padme survive for a few more years offscreen (which ROTJ implies), but while writing ROTS or just further developing it, he realized that having Padme die would be a stronger ending, despite the continuity error.
Then again, I kind of want more proof that this is what he says it is, first, and that it is not just some other deleted scene for AOTC.