^Some brilliant ideas in there.
I was musing the other night about adding more paranoia to Anakin at his turn. Usually people who suggest a false love triangle go for Anakin being made to think Padme and Obi-Wan are seeing each other.
Anakin uses the Force so he would presumably get a heads up on anything like that unless another Force user was using his powers to hide this. But Anakin would be able to detect someone doing that ergo the suspicion.
Palpatine knows about the concerned Senators that will eventually become the core of the Rebellion and he is a Force User. So maybe he is casting some sort of Force spell over Padme and Bail Organa to get Anakin suspicious of them which has the added benefit of making some of their more rebellious acts less obvious to Palpatine himself.
The lines about Padme being with “him” could be turned to be about Organa. This would later fuel Vader’s more shouty attitude to house Organa in ANH. Something that would be intensified if Padme sought refuge on Alderaan before dying young.
I don’t agree with everything in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2BNdF_NCVQ but I do think the guy makes some valid points which could help make a good edit. The Jedi are still shown to be stupid which is a cardinal error but I see no problem with intensifying the hypocrisy of certain Jedi and the sinister nature of the code. Ben shows himself to be capable of deception in the original films so extending that to an institution they may not be the great heroes of the Republic Ben tries to sell to Luke as an idea. Maybe the reason they chose Luke to train rather than Leia is she is educated and knows her political history better than the naive young Luke.
The Empire are evil but with the footage as it stands making the Republic already flawed without the Sith seems an easier route and consistent with the previous films.
As for Cushing look-a-likes I noticed watching Doctor Who last week that Capaldi is beginning to look like Dr Who from the films so he could be a stand in maybe if footage from his earlier career was re-purposed. James Marsters has the cheek bones of a younger Cushing too but rarely the accent.