Acknowledging that there are bad fan-edits (and a lot of them) isn’t cynicism, nor is it lack of imagination or “belief in possibilities.” It’s just… how it is. There are bad fan-edits. There are great ones too. And many of those great ones were concieved of and executed right here on this forum. And a lot of the “amazingly great” leaps in VFX and sound also happened here, and are happening almost daily anymore. That has nothing to do with my belief system or my imagination (or lack thereof) either.
Anyway: there’s no secret cut of The Rise of Skywalker. Never has been. And if there are deleted scenes, there’s no guarantee (until we see them) that they’ll be good, or usable, and even if they are, it’s up to whoever is making the new edit to implement them well.
The idea that fan-editors are somehow infallible or not susceptible to the same sort of bad decisionmaking professional filmmakers are just as prone to doesn’t make any sense to me. Fan-editors can get lost down rabbit-holes and lose the forest for the trees and make bad calls based on poor instincts just as easily as any of the people who turned out Rise of Skywalker or Batman v. Superman.
It’s what makes the successes (of which there’s been many) that we see here that much more enjoyable. If it was so easy to do, and so regularly done, it wouldn’t be as exciting and rewarding to watch a good one get made. That’s appreciating imagination, not evidence of lacking it.
Of course there are some not-so-great fan edits, I was pointing out how negative your post was and you still keep going. No one said that “fan editors are infallible”, etc. But whatever makes you feel better, bro. Peace out.