There's a place for this, and I think it's fine as long as we're not replacing the originals.
I think many of us can probably come up with personal equivalents; I know after losing children many parents aren't able to watch movies where children die, and I've got similar feelings about personal trauma. As long as this isn't some orwellian government-driven replacement I don't think there's much to worry about, film can at times be far too pretentious about this kind of thing.
> There's a place for this, and I think it's fine as long as we're not replacing the originals.
When the film is copyrighted (as The French Connection is for the next 45 years), it is effectively replacing the originals.
So far this change only seems to have been made to streamed copies. Physical copies are unaffected so far, but the next physical release may well be censored too, meaning the original out‐of‐print edition will only be legally available through deteriorating secondhand copies. Refer to theatrical Star Wars for another example of that kind of erasure (by the original creator, no less).
This is replacing the originals. If you bought the original on iTunes and try to play it you’ll find your copy has been replaced with an edited version.
I think many of us can probably come up with personal equivalents; I know after losing children many parents aren't able to watch movies where children die, and I've got similar feelings about personal trauma. As long as this isn't some orwellian government-driven replacement I don't think there's much to worry about, film can at times be far too pretentious about this kind of thing.