If my mom got plastic surgery to look exactly like Gillian Anderson, she would look amazing, too. But does that mean I should want her to? Is that how I express my love for my mom, by withholding affection from her until she gets surgery to have the face she always already had?
Aren't you the guy who attacked Kumail all the time and drove him off the board? And also attacked people who wanted more women guests?
Who the fuck are you- or any of us including me- to say whether Carter (or more to the point Kim Manners or Rob Bowman or the cinematographer) intended or didn't intend to convey meaning? We can't know- we have to assume that, consciously or not, every single frame conveys something. That's probably true even in fucking Full House. Every frame conveys something whether intended or not. Do ANYTHING to it, you are changing it. It's art- it might be terrible terrible art- but it's art nonetheless. However, in practicality, we have to allow for a degree of change because otherwise it is impossible to convert older works to newer formats and nobody will see them anymore. Lots of compromises of the original are already happening, but aspect ratios are an area that should never be changed, because it changes the entire work.
"Cubric"? Please. Don't pretend you know about this subject- you've clearly never read a single thing. PT Anderson has made some good movies and while not exactly the best, is trying to do interesting stuff, but I have no problem in saying at least a few episodes of The X-Files are every bit as artistically rigorous (and waay less fussy) as most of PT (or Wes for that matter) Anderson's work. If your only awareness of cinema is PT Anderson, you won't understand these issues because he is working today and obviously he uses today's formats (even when he shoots in 70mm- actually wider than HDTVs, and requiring letterboxing on them- he still shoots with the theatrical and HDTV 16:9 ratio in mind at the same time, knowing those are the main formats today). What about movies made in earlier times- should they be altered in their aspect ratio to suit today's fashions? Most people would say no, so why do we think it's appropriate for The X-Files? Why do we fucking not take this show seriously as cinema? Fucking Alain Resnais (look him up- only the most innovative and influential art filmmaker of the 20th century) took The X-Files seriously as art. Why the fuck don't we, if we call ourselves fans?