That’s exactly what I was thinking, RL. George makes it so incredibly obvious who the Sith Lord is that it retroactively makes the Jedi seem like idiots. Then again, there is the canon explanation that they were blinded by the dark side of the Force, but that’s kinda a cheap, cop-out explanation.

I don’t think you’d necessarily have to remove all of Sidious’ scenes so much as you’d just have to darken his hooded face and distort his voice in any hologram scenes. The fact he doesn’t do that already as a public figure in canon is kinda strange. The scenes he has in-person could still have the darkened face but his true voice, serving as a subtle hint before we’re even introduced to Palpatine. Ian already does a slightly different voice as Sidious. Plus, we never actually hear Dooku speak until about halfway through AotC.

Do we know if Sir Christopher Lee did some movies in the early 90’s that we could take footage from? That would be a decade before he recorded AotC, which matches the timing properly.