Who Should Own Creative Content?

Something that the combination of this BAD uncut film and the Vox article "This is the best version of Star Wars--and watching it is a crime" got me thinking, is who has a right to create something, contribute to it, and benefit from it? My first reaction to watching Star Wars uncut was that it was horrible, and there is such a thing as giving fans too much power in fandoms. In the past, some films or television shows have listened too heavily to fan theories and input, and have sacrificed the integrity of said media entirely. But on the opposite end, some creators have completely gone overboard and ruined their own creative work in certain ways--for example, George Lucas in the case of adding in terrible CGI to the original Star Wars and other terrible additions he made, and JK Rowling tweeting unnecessary additions to the Harry Potter world that none of us asked for (also for her blatant transphobic tweets...but that's another issue entirely). I'm all for world-building, but these extraneous circumstances are completely unnecessary! My first reaction is that someone should limit Lucas' control over the original films and I'm glad Rowling has no power over any of the HP films, but then as a writer...I would want all creative control and ownership over my work that I created! The Vox article accurately talked about how out of control copyright laws are, so my question is...

Should copyright control be limited to the creators of said creative work? If so, what does that look like?

Is the Original Always Better?

While watching Star Wars: A New Hope Uncut, I started to think about "originals" and why there's typically a stigma that comes along with sequels, remixes, or revisions. Why is that, exactly? Who's to say that content that is derived from something else is "bad"? While I do have to say that I believe Uncut to be worse than the original (sorry Dr. MB), I think there are some really creative and interesting takes on the original scenes. That doesn't mean that the film was "bad" per se, but it was just different. Honestly, I believe that's what people struggle with the most.

With films and franchises like Star Wars that have such a strong fan base, there are certainly people out there that want their movies to remain intact. They feel uncomfortable with anything that is different than what they know and love, so they automatically shut their minds to the idea that what is produced could potentially be interesting, and maybe even better. People really don't like change; it makes them uncomfortable and upset. Perhaps that's why we struggle with sequels and remixes so much - we liked the original the way it was, and nothing could be better. Maybe we're just afraid that the new content could potentially make us think about the original in a different way, which would be even more devastating to us.

There are, however, remixes and sequels that are MUCH better than the originals - Jaws the movie was way better than Jaws the novel. The Dark Knight was way better than Batman Begins. The Scarlet Letter (the movie) was definitely NOT better than the book. We still love Demi Moore, though.

But given all of the above, my question still stands: is the original really always better, or are we just uncomfortable with things that are different?

Heath Ledger's Joker from giphy.com