Just finished watching. I think it is a very fine edit. However, while it’s of course just subjective preference, I suppose I wish you had taken more cues from L8wrtr’s edit and fewer from Hal9000’s. Hal deserves a lot of credit, to be sure. I think the best thing Hal9000 did for RotS is take out the part where Anakin draws his lightsaber on a youngling. That always seemed a bit too much to me for a Star Wars movie. And Hal’s contributions to the fanediting community, including TRoS:Ascendent, cannot be overstated. However, I have always had a slight preference for L8wrtr’s RotS edit. I find it more nuanced and understated than the theatrical cut and other fanedits, and it depicts Palpatine as more devious and clever, his manipulations more subtle. For example, in your edit (and Hal’s), I find that Palpatine reveals too much of his evil side to Anakin at the beginning, gleefully urging Anakin to kill a defenseless Dooku (I like it better when Anakin simply kills Dooku in the moment, and then Palpatine reassures him). Then, moments later, he twice insists Anakin leave Obi-Wan behind, which Anakin-who is still a hero at this point-would never do. It’s careless and seems to run contrary to what Palpatine is trying to accomplish.
As for the end, I think Vader’s “Nooooooo”, even if it’s the Russian dub, is still massively cringe. L8wrtr once again handled this part with more subtlety and grace. And on that note, thank you for letting Padme die. I think the goal of preserving canon should be secondary to keeping intact the message and theme of the film. Anakin is afraid of loss, and of course, the irony is that he loses Padme by the very act of trying to prevent it. To that point, I will add that Padme essentially dying of a broken heart is unnecessary and, frankly, a little sexist. Sure, her husband turned bad, but she has two beautiful new babies to give her all the reason she needs to hold on. In my headcanon, Anakin dramatically weakened her when he force choked her, and that, in addition to the labor, are what killed her. This is what L8wrtr’s edit does, and it really just makes the most sense.
A couple of other points that are just nitpicks:
-While I wholeheartedly agree with your desire to retain some of the camp and humor, Anakin and Hayden making fun of the droids for saying “Roger” at 8:25 seems a little out of place and almost like improv. It’s funny, but it doesn’t seem Star Wars funny.
-I know this is alluded to again at 1:05:00, but I don’t like Mace Windu saying outright at 36:30 that he doesn’t trust Anakin. Given all they’ve been through in The Clone Wars, it just seems like a huge dickslap in the face. At least when he tells Anakin later “…you will have earned my trust”, it can be taken as ambiguous, i.e., possibly referencing Anakin’s incredible assertion that Palpatine is a Sith Lord.
-Near the end, while I love to see Yoda get back at Palpatine for catching him off guard with force lightning, throwing him him over the chair just looks ridiculous. It is a humiliating moment for Palpatine when by that point we should be terrified.
This last point illustrates the overall major problem with RotS in my opinion. It’s tone is all over the place. As the viewer, you feel like you’re being jostled around by certain parts that are very dark, and others that are very silly. You’re not always sure how you’re supposed to feel. It’s confusing, irritating (worse than sand). Conversely, I think L8wrtr’s edit really succeeds at being tonally consistent throughout the movie.
I don’t love everything about L8wrtr’s edit of course. Again, it retains Anakin killing the youngling. I also disagree with cutting out or even truncating Yoda’s lightsaber fight with Palpatine. I like your idea that Yoda should only pull out his saber in significant instances, but he is a Jedi after all, and the lightsaber is the Jedi’s weapon. Some people think it looks silly, but to this day I still think Yoda looks totally badass moving around like that. L8wrtr’s edit is far from perfect, but I would invite you to take yet another look at it, and consider it’s strengths, including the ways it may be superior to Hal’s edit.
I will add that I really like your placement of the deleted scenes. I feel like your TPM and AotC edits are landmark fanedits because they take the best of what has come before to balance, refine, and improve these films even further. Furthermore, as attitudes towards the prequel films have softened over time, your edits represent a more modern take that reflect current fans’ inclination to esteem these films more highly. Once again, this is a very fine edit, but I believe if you gave more weight to L8wrtr’s edit, your RotS edit would also be a landmark fanedit.