Thought of another. As in Brazil, Criterion could do what neither Fox nor Fincher would do: Release a 2 disc set of
Alien3, with the
theatrical version on disc 1, and the
pre-release rough cut on disc 2. It is a shame that Fincher was abused too much to want to go back and recreate a director's cut, but, as long as the pre-release rough cut still exists in some form (and I don't care if it has to be from his personal VHS copy or from a VHS copy bought at a sci-fi convention), they can at the very least release that, with a disclaimer to the effect of "it's a rough cut."
Found a site that details the rough cut:
www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~naflande/cut3.html
I had planned to try to edit the two versions together myself, in an effort to get some quality back into the multi-generation-down copies that are traded around now, but it seems like a very complicated task, with too many judgement calls for me.