Harmy said:
I am however a purist in that I think that any official release of an unaltered version should be really absolutely unaltered beyond some basic cleanup. I actually hate the idea of a version that wouldn't have all the most obvious changes but have the "invisible" fixes such as recompositing or removing wires etc. An official release like that to me would be more offensive than an obvious Special Edition, unless again it would have the original original alongside it.
This goes for other films as well; it bothers me that in the BD of Aliens they removed the hole in the ground where Bishop's real body is hiding or that they removed the cobra reflection from the Raiders Blu Ray. It doesn't bother me to a point where it would taint my enjoyment of the movie because they are small changes but it does bother me.
Couldn't agree with you more. It really bothered me when word got out that there'd been changes made to Aliens and I saw that screenshot comparison. Pretty disappointing considering James Cameron's comments about finding the changes made to Star Wars "disturbing" and even saying that the version of his own movie Avatar that won all the oscars should be considered the definitive version, not the extended cuts.
To then turn around and pull a modern digital fix while still calling these the versions from 1986/1991 felt disingenuous. Plus, as people have mentioned in forums such as the one you linked to, that wasn't the only fix they made. They blatantly re-ordered the shots in that one scene (no, it didn't make sense, but that's how it was originally) and I remember reading something about a matte shot that's been digitally fixed, but I haven't seen a screenshot comparison.
What I thought was kinda dumb about the bishop fix was that it's not like we don't already know that bishop is an imaginary character played by Lance Henricksen. He obviously didn't actually get torn in two (now that would've been dedication!). So, when you start fixing visible stuff like that, stuff that's flashing by in an instant anyway, you're going down a slippery slope in my opinion.
Evil Dead, interestingly enough, hit blu-ray right around the same time, and also had similar digital fixes, also at its director's behest. This kinda angered me even more than the fixes made to Aliens. To digitally fix Evil Dead is to take away part of the charm of that movie, imo.
But, like you said, it's not until we're seeing a version that's vastly different editorially (like an extended or director's cut) or blatantly different content-wise (like the SE's of Star Wars) that we actually consider it a different version of the movie. Modern day audiences who don't know a movie like its die-hard fans will never realize they're watching an altered version. Hell, it bothers me that Disney got rid of the original cgi Disney logo and fanfare for the Toy Story blu-ray. Once again, it's kinda ruining the "charm" of it all, not for the entire movie, mind you, but it now feels like the movie is starting several seconds too late.
I wish filmmakers like Cameron and Raimi (and corporations like Disney) would just leave well enough alone, but what are you gonna do.
I'll share my story about when/why I became an OT purist later, just had to get my thoughts out there on this.