I don't think this gives the movie a free pass. If you have to make it less good in order to cram more into it, that's still a bad thing and a mistake on the part of the filmmaker.I also find it a bit interesting that in one segment the author also readily admitted that the live action movie was trying to squeeze two stories in one and then in another segment, complains about how the live action movie had to trim down some scenes.
Oh yeah. Totally agree. Sometimes with story telling, there's a lot of truth to the maxim "Less is more." I think though, that in this one, the author is kind of cherry picking things he wants to point out (and that's totally okay) and injecting his own personal bias into things (which is also, totally okay). I think he just started to scratch the surface area of the subjects in his piece and I bet that if he was willing to go deeper with his analysis, there might be some pretty insightful things to be found. I think if I had the time, I'd try to watch both films in the same week and see how I feel about each one, positive and negative. Honestly though? It takes a lot of effort for me to watch sci-fi and there's just something about it that really keeps me from enjoying about 90% of it and I'm not gonna put myself or Hubski through the pains of that experiment. If I was ambitious, I'd do a breakdown on The Seven Samurai and both Magnificent Seven films, but shit, that's like comparing a gem to a lump of wood and an overly violent bowel movement.