You're fairly consistent with the notion that Edwards is being hijacked, despite the clarifications stating otherwise.
There's a weird inclination on the part of film fans in the last 5 years to believe a movie's trip from page to screen is somehow fraudulent unless it sails through production/post-production without anyone but the director laying hands on it. As if the concept of revisions is poison to "true" creativity.
A film's first cut is almost always painful to sit through. Even the best directors see shit they need to pull out, discard, reshoot, and reinsert to make sure the story works the way it needs to, and often a storyteller will notice what they thought it was going to be when they started isn't at all what it needs to be in order to work.
So when stories about reshoots hit, everyone immediately turns it into a behind-the-scenes soap opera pitting the evil executives against the angelic creatives, and while film history is littered with examples of that very thing happening, it also contains a multitude of examples wherein the executives and the creatives are actually working together, collaborating in the hopes of making the best possible film.
Suggesting that the only "real" version of the film is the first draft is weird. It is a really warped, inaccurate reflection of reality.
