SomethingStarWarsRelated said:
I’ve always thought it’d be great if there was someway to reveal that Padme = the Queen basically immediately, so that we’re never left in the dark and are able to follow Padme’s emotionally journey coherently throughout the film.
Certainly makes sense. You think just we as the audience should know, or the other main characters as well (minus the villains)?
Hmm…what if the reveal was as they were about to enter Mos Epsa?
Panaka: The queen wishes it. She’s curious about the planet.
Qui-gon: The queen doesn’t need to know.
Padme: I am queen Amidala.I don’t know how one would address the queen’s body guard…
Unfortunately that whole section of the film relies upon Padme being just a handmaiden, not the Queen. Qui-Gon’s basically using the fact that Padme is unwilling to reveal herself to get his own way.
It would have to be some way that the audience knows right away, even if the characters aren’t explicitly told until later in the film. Usually a change like this is executed easiest in a crawl but that doesn’t seem possible here.
One of the workarounds is just removing the third person speak from various bits of dialogue, for example when they first land on Tatooine, Captian Panaka says “Her highness commands you to take her handmaiden with you” you can make a tricky cut to “Her highness commands you to take her with you.”
This also requires some really careful watching for implications of many scenes throughout, but from my rough cuts it’s doable, the trick is making it NOT confusing upon the first watch, I’d have to test screen in order to see if it still works that way.