Question about Padme and her decoys

Okay, I've watched TPM many times, too many I think, and I must be a total idiot. I know Padme uses clones, and I know it's her who goes to Mos Espa with QG, but can you guys just spell a few things out for me:

1) When is Padme actually the Queen?
2) When is she a handmaiden?
3) Do her other guards know of the decoys (cuz Panaka sure acts like he don't know)
4) When she has a decoy Queen, are they allowed to make any executive decisions?

Call me stupid, but this has been buggin the crap outta me.

Sorry if there's another thread on this, but if I could just get an answer, I'll go away quietly. =)

A good rule of thumb is that whenever the Queen is wearing the black travel dress (with the feathers on top), it's the decoy. Otherwise, it's the real one. The only exception to this is at the end battle when the real Queen is wearing the same purple dress as the other handmaidens, and the decoy has the red and black dress on. As for who knows and who doesn't, I've heard a lot of conflicting things from many different sources. I personally think the handmaidens and Panaka were the only ones that knew because they were in on it; others (like Qui-Gon) figured it out for themselves. The decoy Queen was chosen because she was so close to the real one, and the real one trusts her to make decisions. However, the real Queen is usually the one that does it (she goes to the Senate on Coruscant and she chooses to return to Naboo, for example). Also, it was the decoy that was dressed as the Queen when she had to decide whether or not to leave Naboo upon the initial Trade Federation invasion, and the decoy did not want to make that decision for the real Queen. So she said "Either choice presents great danger..." then turned to the real Queen, who was disguised as a handmaiden, and continued "...to us all." I'm sure you recall the rest of the scene, I was just pointing it out as an example of a time when the real Queen decided something while disguised as a handmaiden.

Thanks! That's already a lot more than what I knew before! =)

Also edit to the the first post, that shoulda said "decoys" not "clones"...too many friggin clones runnin around here...

The one with the feather black dress and the make-up battle dress is Keria Knightley the other times it is Natalie Portman.

Ciao!

I noticed that Portman's cheeks seemed to be more defined than Knightley's. That may help. It's particularly evident at the parade scene at the very end when Padme is the Queen.

Panaka knows. You can tell by the way he speaks to Qui-Gon and looks at Padme as if, "are you sure about this? You're the boss." He also says something very sternly like, "The Queen wishes it!". I don't know. I wish Hugh Quarshie would have been in AOTC instead of Captain Typho...

It officially states in the TPM Visual Dictionary that Panaka knows all about the Queen and her decoys.

Well they did a good job i could not tell...i mean watching the movie for the first time i could not see the difference between Natalie and Keira...

I could, without even knowing. I was wondering what the hell was up. I figured that she couldn't be there for filming and they had a stand-in with make-up, hoping nobody would notice.

Thanks folks!