True, I'm making an assumption about the de-aging but it's blatantly obvious that after that length of time people are going to look different. Abbie Cornish was in the most recent season of Jack Ryan and she's changed quite a bit from her Sweet Pea days. Time marches on for everyone. And regardless of whether "they" (the actors?) do it for free, bottom line someone, somewhere will need to be paid to make it happen. Many someones, in fact. No one in that business does anything strictly out of the goodness of their hearts. Also, I DID say that Snyder wasn't alone among directors in doing this (Ridley Scott is another as Kebron has pointed out), I was just citing it as one reason ZS can turn people off. As a fan of the genres he frequents perhaps I just hear more about his director's cuts (or he's using social media more to drum up support)?
As for "why I care", I'm not a Snyderette but I have enjoyed some of his movies in the past (Watchmen, 300, MoS) so I don't just write his stuff off. As I've said, he makes movies in the genres I like so if it's a film that looks like it has potential I'm going to check it out. But frankly, recently I've found his thought process quite baffling. It's fine that he has another, longer cut of Rebel Moon coming in the Spring, but WTF did he announce that before the first version drops on Netflix? All that did was annoy the majority of the target audience, unless he only views his diehard fans as the target audience. Somehow I don't think Netflix would agree with that. It seems to me that dropping the PG-13 and R versions simultaneously would have been a better call - his complete, true vision is available for critics to see (if it's truly a better version, the ratings might improve as well) and viewers can pick which one they want to see (or allow their children to see).