I’d say this is a perfect place to voice frustration about the situation. Blow off all the steam ya want, we’re all pals.
I think the mind of “We want the version we like” is coming across stronger than “Erasing history is wrong” & that makes some view the frustration/anger as silly/misplaced. Many conversations lately have revolved around this, and I think some are reading that as aggression.
Yeah point taken, but let’s take your statement about “Erasing history is wrong” you can look at that as the theatrical cut of a film not being released in high quality as is the main cause for Star Wars.
But you can also take this as the film was tampered with by the studio perhaps due to time restraints bums on seats in cinemas or imposed re-shoots.
You can also secondarily count censorship as another factor of History being erased could be a shot a sequence or a trim.
All in all there are many, many instances of erasure of film history for reasons other than “The film” itself being the main concern and most of the time either money, politics or censorship are the worst offenders for erasure of film history before you even get to see them.
If we take say Tarzan the Legend of Greystoke for instance is now only available in a slightly extended version with a overture and prologue. The director claims the film is at it’s best with the extra 20 minutes of scenes never before seen cut from the Jungle and Tarzan being raised by the apes… The studio is nervous and does not feel comfortable with this version and feels it is more / too graphic. So we don’t get to see it. They can sit on the footage and refuse to let you see it self censoring perhaps what they may feel is something they will and won’t put their name to.
But as a normal person who likes films and especially Rick Baker’s Make up and creature effects my opinion is basically “What the hell are you cutting that stuff for?” It’s probably really good like the rest of the scenes in Africa was where the film really did shine the most.
So you must also remember that “Theatrical Versions” are not immune either to film history still being erased for various reasons. All in all, it is perhaps a messy business film making but I think generally the 70’s and the 80’s where Directors on the whole had way more control over the films they were making than Directors do now especially big budget projects today. Almost Everything now is a re-boot re-tool re-imagine of franchises originally made decades ago with Studio execs rubbing their hands whilst being even more self conscious and self censoring and pretty much lacking in creativity that it’s pretty undesirable apart from a few decent films every year.
You could Argue films are being erased by their remakes or reboots slightly but it’s natural I suppose but Greystoke is still the Best Tarzan film to this day in my opinion. When you look at Star wars it is the same effect with the sequal trilogy re-boot re-tool so on.
So better you call it “version you like” yes. I doubt it applies to Star Wars particularly on anything being imposed studio wise some censorship is it play though but George Obviously is not Happy with Star Wars for some reason that is why he Changed it. Like I said though it feels more a promotion of ILM than any other film he really wanted to make though we see small glimpses of stuff that changes into full blown CGI feast on the most part and that is not a good reason for releasing another version of a film particularly based on revisionism and nothing to do with planned at the time apart from a few fixes here and there.
One I came across today goes on the political spectrum “Poltergeist” is not available in it’s theatrical version because there is a scene where the small girl says “I hate Pizza Hut” or something like that. Removed for political reasons against corporate franchise. Pizza Hut should just make an halloween advert promotion and waive the cut imposed I suppose for slander. Could they have even gotten away in todays world with just “I hate Pizza” cutting “Hut” who knows… Un-creative thinking perhaps but that perhaps still might not wash as it slanders still the product. Lawyer with lawsuit in hand imposes changes to the film.
But I hope you get the point “Version you Like” is the best way to go.