I had a bizarre dream about TPM last night (it was a pretty tasking day and I was suffering from sleep deprivation).
I dreamt that Ewan and Nat were trying to film scenes set on Naboo.
The Queen in that dream version was older and more like the sort of decadent royals found in films like Cleopatra.
Nat was moaning about how the whole decoy buisiness doesn't make any sense as the decoy doesn't get put in enough danger for the two characters to actually feel like seperate people and pay off as a surprise.
She said that it would be a better twist if she really was the decoy pretending to be the Queen and the real Queen was on Naboo and she had to get back to be seen to be doing her job (which she was doing much better than the real queen) or the Federation would figure out she wan't the Queen and didn't have the authority to be passing Senate motions or sign treaties anyway.
Ewan was chirping in by saying once in a while saying if he was doing it he would cut to the real Queen of Naboo being beaten and abused in a Federation run prison camp and mixing with ordinary people for the first time. If she died the Federation would actually destroy their chances of getting the treaty signed.
Lucas was just playing with some 1970's Star Wars figures and trying out different unrealistic chroma-keyed backdrops and said something like "nobody goes to a Star Wars film to be told a story they just want a new backdrop to tell their own".
Then Timothy Dalton turned up and said something that sounded really good at the time but I forgot it as soon as I got downstairs to have breakfast.
I really shouldn't eat cheese before bedtime but I kind of liked the idea of doing the Queen/Decoy thing more like The Prince And The Pauper only with the handmaiden being a better ruler than the Queen and the Queen learning from suffering with her people.
I haven't a clue how it could be put into the film without shooting all new scenes and replacing Kiera Knightly with a new actress.