I'd like to weigh in

There was supposed to be some improved rendering such as in the Thunderchild sequence and also I gather, the dancing skeletons were supposed to be digitally morphed to the live actors so that the skeletons only appeared at the end of the incineration of the dying victim. None of this happened and instead it was as you pointed out. Moreover and ridiculously, the same, recognisable actors were shown more than once being torched by the heat ray so not everything that (obviously) should have been cut was cut. This was so inept that whoever edited it must have little grasp of editing for the producers to be claiming that this was an improved version in any other way than it was on the screen for less time. I think it could have been improved but it needed Dreamworks or someone to do the enhancements. But even then, the film suffers from a poor script, amateurish acting and inept direction, the hallmark of the heroic one man band approach. The script, supposedly written by someone who loved the original book showed a lack of comprehension of the content of the book. For example, Ogilvy is given lines taken straight from the novel's introduction to say which were totally out of context, so that he describes what they are seeing at that moment as if it happened six years ago. This is because of a cut and paste screenwriting technique. Similarly, when the writer is telling his wife about the Martians he says, "We will peck them to death tomorrow." But the writers have here misunderstood the original text which was - in context - a simile about a chicken's response to human invaders.It is possible that this second example was an intentional adaptation but not the first which rather implies that both were - on a guilty in part, guilty in whole basis. Some of the actors overact and their accents are painful attempts at received pronunciation. The blame for this, at least in part belongs with the director for not correcting the actors' excesses and gaffs. It could be claimed that this was an attempt at reproducing a nineteenth century style of acting but I think this is unlikely as some of the lines sound as if the actor had not understood them so that they are delivered with wrong emphasis. Any actor can misunderstand a line but it is downright odd that the director did not intervene and explain the line to the actor.

The movie has some charm. It could be possible to re-edit and re-tool the original so as to improve it but I think this could only be done by someone totally distanced from the project and - dare I say it - from the novel itself. It would require post-syncing many of the actors' lines and extensive reshooting rather than retooling of the effects sequences. Even then it might be easier to reshoot the whole thing. But then would enough people actually go to see a version faithful to the book to recoup the costs? I would say no. This project was only ever going to be a minority interest and unless it attracted Spielberg or Lucas it was unlikely to get the promotion that would turn it into a Summer blockbuster and it would be seen as too high risk to merit the expense.

The heroic approach carries the risk of hubris but it also suggests a failure to delegate. If you are thinking of several things at once, writing, directing, storyboarding, fundraising, promotion, editing and so on it is easy to make a rod for your own back. If people pick up that rod and use it against you you have only yourself to blame.