If you haven’t seen The Fall Guy yet, do yourself a favor and stream it on Peacock — but watch the original version, not the extended cut. As is so often the case, the storytelling was tighter in the theatrical version.

In a restless mood this weekend, I clicked on the extended cut tile without taking a few extra seconds to look for the theatrical version. Before long, I started to wonder if various segments were added scenes because they seemed to slow down the momentum. What can I say: Once an editor, always an editor.

Sure enough, I then watched the original version, which is 20 minutes shorter, and the pacing seemed better. To me, at least.

I get why studios release extended cuts or director’s cuts — they can potentially appeal to fans and bring in additional revenue. During the height of the DVD boom, studios would regularly release extended cuts of newish releases and those deep in their respective catalogs, in many cases targeting the fourth-quarter holiday shopping period. Those of us covering the biz would joke about the umpteenth version of The Wizard of Oz that Warner Bros., owner of pre-1986 MGM catalog, was releasing that year. Along those lines, I discovered while going through our home DVD collection a while back that we had multiple versions of The Christmas Story on our shelves, each tin with a different promo add-in such as holiday cookie cutters to sweeten the potential gift purchase.

But I have found — and your mileage certainly may vary — that original, shorter theatrical releases tend to be better. So it was with The Fall Guy this weekend.

Either way, the movie has a lot going for it — a disarming performance from Ryan Gosling as a stunt performer with hidden emotional depths and great rapport between his character and Emily Blunt’s Jody, a camera woman turned director. The script is amusing and chock-full of inside Hollywood jokes; there are more than enough action stunts in the shorter original version.

Best of all: I did not miss whatever was added to the extended edition, which to me demonstrates the craft involved during the theatrical editing process.

There are definitely examples of less felicitous editing. Harvey Weinstein earned the sobriquet Harvey Scissorhands for his propensity to aggressively cut movies that his company distributed. And as a journalist, I have experienced brutal edits upon occasion — something I try and keep in mind when I’m polishing or reshaping another writer’s work.

There is a delicate balance between allowing work to breathe and allowing it to breathe too much: Work can all too easily lose shape or energy — be it film, TV or prose.

And The Fall Guy is well worth a watch if you have access to Peacock.