I didn’t mind that both ‘Wyatt Earp’ & ‘Tombstone’ compressed the timeline when they depicted the Cowboys shooting Morgan and Virgil, it was clearly done to help the narrative run smoother and was more effective than sticking to the real dates would have been.
I can’t imagine why both films decided to turn Fred White into an old man except that it may have been seen as a way to elicit more audience sympathy - “Look at that S.O.B. gunning down that poor, harmless old guy!”
Mind you, I’m kind of glad it worked out this way in ‘Tombstone’ since I’m always happy to see Harry Carey Jnr.

Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp does a couple of things very well, and a lot of things badly.

It wastes Gene Hackman, for a start, but it initially sets up Wyatt as a fairly likeable, naive young chap, with Costner playing the early Wyatt not too removed from his turn in Silverado.

What the film then does, in its attempt to be myth-busting, is (almost overnight) have Wyatt become a charmless, dour, exceptionally violent man whose interest in the law seems almost purely tied to his need for his family to be entrepreneurial. We see no great belief or respect in the law - in their rivalry with the Clantons, the Earps are essentially portrayed as slightly better-dressed thugs, with no moral superiority, other than a badge, to those they’re putting down. The OK Corral confrontation is depicted as essentially being a blood feud between two gangs - no epic showdown or bringing the law to the lawless. The film also explicitly shows what Tombstone only hints at (i.e. when Ike calls the Earps “pimps” in Tombstone – in Wyatt Earp, we see one of the Earps whoring out his own wife, which Wyatt vaguely objects to, but not particularly vocally). Hence, the Earps are simply protecting their own rackets (prostitution, gambling) in Tombstone under the shield of the law.

Whilst Tombstone vaguely goes down this route, Kurt Russell’s Earp is significantly more “heroic” and far less mean-spirited. He’s harsh, sure – it’s a tough town in a tough time, but there’s never any uncertainty that the Clantons are scumbags and the Earps are in the right (and that the other brothers countenance Doc Holliday’s viciousness because of his pull with Wyatt). Russell’s Earp also comes out of the Mattie/wife thing considerably better than Costner’s Earp: by this point in the film, we can already see that Costner’s Earp is a fairly disconnected guy (“blood before anything else”, etc). We still think Russell’s Earp is a bastard for running off with his bit of fluff and leaving his wife to die an addled death, but not that much is made of it, whereas Costner’s Earp never gives much of a crap in the first place.

In Kasdan’s version, the Earps are all pretty brutal, with Morgan quite happily premeditatively advising Doc to “let them have it” (whereas, in Tombstone, outside of Doc, they’re all pretty firmly on the side of right and want to take them in – “It’s not what I want!” exclaims Virgil). Tombstone pretty much lays the blame on Doc provoking the Clantons. I’ve said it previously, but I adore Dennis Quaid’s Doc – I wish he had more scenes, but he gives the film a much-needed shot in the arm when he’s onscreen, and it’s too often moribund and glum when he’s not.

Johnny Ringo is also virtually unseen in Kasdan’s film – the only time you would even be able to pick him out is when Doc shouts his name before killing him at Wyatt’s famous showdown with Bill Brocious (incidentally, I prefer how this is depicted with Costner and co. than in Tombstone – that slow-motion scream sets my teeth on edge every time).

It seems bizarre, especially considering the car-crash of a production that Tombstone was (if you read Kurt Russell’s accounts of the making and how much was rewritten on the fly) that the films share so many similarities; not being American and that familiar with the elements of the “legend” that have been changed or blended over the years – like Morgan and Virgil being shot on the same night in both films (they weren’t); Fred White being an old man in both versions (he wasn’t, and he’s pretty pathetically doddery in Tombstone) who was callously shot by Bill Brocious (he wasn’t, it was a genuine accident, although Tombstone bends to this slightly more); that they both carry on well beyond the OK Corral.

The extended scenes on the DVD add somewhat to Wyatt’s first marriage, which is depicted quite abruptly in the theatrical version, and flesh out the other Earp brothers (and Big Nose Kate) somewhat. You also get a nice showdown in the street where Wyatt faces down a cowboy looking for vengeance. They don’t make it a particularly better film, and their running time doesn’t nearly equal the extra material in the full extended version (which is over 30 mins, I believe).

I still think it was fairly “brave” of Kasdan and Costner to depict Earp as being so unappealing, and hence a lot of the criticism of Wyatt Earp comes from Costner’s performance being so one-note and grim. He barely changes expression in the last half of the film, even when emptying 20 bullets into the corpse of one of the Clantons.

It’s probably clear that I’m no great fan of Costner - I did think ‘Open Range’ wasn’t bad although that was more for the performances of Duvall and Gambon than it was for Costner. I think the age when one is exposed to films/actors does play a part in how much you appreciate them. Since I wasn’t a kid when I first saw any of Costner’s films they hold no nostalgic value for me.

I guess that crack about Fahey was a bit of a cheap shot but the point still stands that the casting of the villains was one of the most serious weaknesses of the movie.

I admit the performances were not all top notch, but, if you look at the current movies (and its stars) cranked out by Hollywood, big names do not always equal talent.

“Let’s just say it’s never good news when one of your principal baddies is played by Jeff (straight-to-video) Fahey”

And yet many say he was a wonderful western baddie in his first film, “Silverado”.

Considering Costner, I was quite surprised recently to discover how many of his films I own and/or enjoy. “Prince of Thieves”, for example, is massively flawed in many ways but I still love it. I suspect this primarily comes from having seen it when quite young. That and Alan Rickman, of course. But I even enjoyed “Waterworld”. Maybe I’m just easily pleased… or was, at least, as I haven’t seen the latter for years.

Re: the DVD, I had a quick read around and it seems that, while the extended edition isn’t available on DVD, many of the additions are included in the deleted scenes.