Just finished the "Butcher's Cut" (spoilers)

A few points on the "Butcher's Cut":

It has a running time of approximately 107m and is located here:

http://extension765.com/sdr/16-heavens-gate-the-butchers-cut

I'll qualify my "review" of the "Butcher's Cut" of Heaven's Gate by admitting that I have not seen the original 5hr+ version nor the 219m version of the film (though I have seen clips of many scenes). I'm having trouble finding it for "free" on the internet. If anyone could direct me to a "free" streaming version of the 219m film, I would greatly appreciate it.

I have seen the documentary of the making of Heaven's Gate, entitled, Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. It is well-worth watching and can be found on youtube, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdcRiPLp4oU

In my opinion, the film, at 107m, felt rushed. The pacing of the action felt too fast, with not enough exposition for its many plot points. Moreover, the main characters were flat, and, I think, the film could have benefited from an additional 20-30m+ to flesh them out, especially the characters played by: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, and Sam Waterston.

I found it curious that the epilogue was cut and that the graduation prologue was placed at the end of the film.

In the graduation scene, I found the then-40-year-old John Hurt (he looks closer to 60 in this film) playing a 22-year-old to be rather off-putting, though I love John Hurt (in Alien, 1984, the Elephant Man, Midnight Express, Rob Roy, Dead Man, 10 Rillington Place, etc.). It just seems an odd choice by Cimino.

The battle scene was cut by about 20m+ (and by about 80m+ from the original 5hr+ version). I feel that this drastic cut did the film a disservice. This was what the entire film was leading up to and, due to the editing, it felt like an afterthought.

I have read about the real Johnson County War. In reality, Jim Averell and Ella Watson were both lynched; however, those scenes were not included in the "Butcher's Cut" version of the film (I'm not sure whether they are included in the original cut of the film). Those scenes might have added a greater impact to the end of the film, which felt anticlimactic in the 107m version.

I am in Cimino's corner in terms of auteur theory and complete director control (I'm a huge Stanley Kubrick fan); however, I must admit, 5hr+ or even 3hr40m films are, for the most part, unwatchable. Also, practically bankrupting a film studio is rather irresponsible, no matter how great the end product is. I wonder which films United Artists had to pass on because Cimino went $32 million ($103 million in 2015 dollars) over budget.