Anakin’s confession is the heart of that scene; it seems pointless to me to reinstate part of it and leave that out.

I’m no fan of the droid factory sequence, but I can see the continuity drive for it at least. And I’m NOT committed to it as of yet. I still think it works reasonably well to suppose Anakin and Padme go all in for diplomacy after finding the only door they could.

Guys, I did an AOTC edit in 2004, and so I have a long history of kicking the droid factory to the curb. Perhaps I best honor the textual lineage of this and all prequel edits by doing so now.

Or maybe I should go to bed and consider more than 5 hour sleep lucky.