Telling a different story that's consistent with the established lore is fine. Dedicated fans get annoyed when established lore breaks; especially when it's something important.
And about writing original stories: I'm all for it! That's not what's happening though, is it? They use the original work as a platform to tell their lame/modified stories or spread some political message (bait&switch the audience basically).
A more honest thing to do would be to put into credits something like "Original stories (loosely) based on {series title}". Then at least people would go in with the correct expectations, and maybe even be pleasantly surprised by the semi-original story.
> are you really going to defend how developers make essentially the same Call of Duty and Halo over and over again and sell it for $60?
Isn't this happening with TV shows and films recently, though? They're all the same cookie cutter TV shows with nearly identical ensemble of characters and the plots look like someone just filled out the same rigid story template.
> I never said that games have no replay value, and now you are the one attacking a straw man. I’m criticizing when new entries in a series bring nothing new to the table. > > I can see how my wording there could lead to misunderstanding, but still, I thought it was clear based on context what I meant.
Right. Sorry then; it wasn't clear to me what you meant. We agree, then, I think. But the point you tried to make is even muddier now. I know you're not saying JK Rowling wrote seven Philosopher Stones, but I'm not sure what you mean. I sure everyone understands it's normal for stories to evolve over the course of a series?
I just pointed out Watchmen as a rare example where the producers took a big risk by making it about racism and violent extremism. Even though it was a superhero show, it felt fresh due to the new take and ideas.
It rankled a lot of feathers in the process, likely reinforcing Hollywood’s desire to continue making cookie cutter shows instead.
And about Harry Potter - it did a great job of evolving throughout the series to stay fresh. The kids grew up, learned new types of magic, and had constantly changing relationships for one thing.
Also, the series constantly introduced new and interesting characters or killed off extremely popular characters as well.
There was even an installment that heavily made use of time travel, which I thought was depicted in a really cool and satisfying way.