***
As quick as possible -- one last shot at the bedroom scene:
(My reason to keep it, put briefly, is to show one more step in this weakly presented romance. "Girl revealing herself to boy" is an important and missing beat from this movie. Here is the only sort of natural moment they get where she says something completely personal-- something about a part of her life that has nothing to do with the main story-- it's a window into who she is. It's a big deal that she feels like sharing something personal with "little Anni" whom she knew so little about just a day or so before.)
Of course, the scene has to be good enough not to grind the movie to a frickin' halt-- so if no way to make it more interesting occurs to you then let me suggest a way that I like-- Then you can try it, toss it out, etc.
To recap: the scene has a good purpose; but the scene is clunky and lacks elegance. Solution: add elegance. I say reduce the dialogue by 1/2 or so. First, pick the best/most romantic music you can to lift this scene and carry it. Second, start the scene just after Anakin's first line and let him look around wordlessly. Let Padme pack/unpack wordlessly. He looks at the picture on the wall and half-laughs, wordlessly. She notices and they look at it together.
Then she finally says the first line: "That's when I worked for a relief group. Their sun was imploding and the planet dying..." (I'm approximating the dialogue here) She keeps talking and says the one kid's name means "sweetheart."
Then she crosses back to her bags-- but we cut this dialogue-- nothing about how they were so full of life. Cut the movement and the over the shoulder shot on Anakin so that her next line (and it could be more powerful if read as we look over the shoulder at the picture) is "...They all died."
This way it's a little more brutal-- reveals more pain in Padme and therefore more of a surrender on her part for actually sharing this painful story in an honest way with Anakin.
I believe this more natural dialogue and ragged emotion (and better music) can lift the scene to being worthy.
Then comes the decision of where to put it-- I still say it should be the first of the scenes at Padme's house. Followed by meeting the parents and discussing things over dinner and then cleaning up in the kitchen-- This ordering lifts the importance of this scene to me too. It emphasizes the Anakin/Padme relationship. Rushing right into the dinner puts a wedge between these two which doesn't support the "look out the kitchen window" shot so well that's supposed to be romantic. The dinner scene puts Anakin in a weird spot-- he has to meet all these strangers and he has to disagree with Padme in front of them-- and embarrass her. It's not romantic-- but if the bedroom scene happens first, then we feel more about the romance that lies beneath the surface.
In my mind, anyway. See what you think. Great work TM!