I'd be willing to accept the theory that somehow in the mad rush to finish the film, George didn't get the shot he wanted. As I've said elsewhere, if the scene was really bugging George that much, he passed up several opportunities to reshoot. The best time to have reshot it was during production on the Holiday Special, second and third windows would have been during the sequel shoots. If there was time and money to shoot a new crawl for the 1981 rerelease , there should have been time to do the other "fixes" he wanted.