I feel that, but the footage just doesn’t look like Star Wars, and takes me out of it every time. I don’t buy that that’s Leia and Padme, I have to accept that it is because the movie said so.

I love love love the idea, but I think the execution of it is at odds with this edit’s goal to make ep III less expository. I want things that happen in it to be felt, not just told to the audience to accept. For example, it’s not like Anakin and Obi-Wan aren’t “brothers” as stated in the original cut, but do you actually buy that with what we’re given? So one of the biggest goals of the edit is to make that relationship feel more like that. (Which is why some things people would usually cut are staying).

I barely even buy that Padme and Leia are from the same movie with Hal’s Boleyn Girl footage, (not to mention, I’ve personally seen that movie lol) and in the meantime, the original Padme’s funeral scene has emotional pay off from earlier in the movie, and the trilogy. Even if it contradicts a few lines in the OT. Besides, as the “New Canon Cut” of RotS, there is a dumb explanation in the nuCanon explaining how Leia remembers her mother that this edit can fit with.