It isn't a moral failure, but there is a real question - if one is retelling a classic, and there's little novel in the retelling, why is the audience expected to take in yours, rather than one of the previous versions that made the thing a classic?
Hopefully because it's well executed and enjoyable.
There are a few places where this question works out - live theater, for example, in part because the live experience is ephemeral.
But Hamlet isn't just good live. The live experience is different, for sure, but if I watch Brannagh today, I won't enjoy David Tennent any less a week from now. Nor do I enjoy movies that are takes on Hamlet any less than I enjoy the "real thing".
Running with that…
There’s been countless renditions of Shakespeare’s works for stage, TV, and film. Not all of them are good. Some are quite bad. Some are excellent.
And my 2 favorite versions of Melville’s Moby Dick are Of Unknown Origin and Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. Most of the rest are...meh.
One of the dynamics is something Umbran was saying- basically, if you’ve seen it before, why see it again? That’s where novelty comes in.
And this is what I guess I don't get. Why is novelty desirable as an end in itself, which it seems this idea relies on? If I enjoyed it, why wouldn't I see it again?
And one of the reasons why novelty is in such demand right now is that, in a lot of pop culture right now, there’s all kinds of concept recycling without a lot of innovation. Which means that any new ideas seem better in contrast, even if they aren’t really good at all.
The weird thing is, a lot of the remakes are wildly underrated, and only do poorly because people don't take them seriously because they're remakes. Then, some remakes blow people away and get good reviews and everyone ignores that they're remakes, like It, but I feel like that mostly happens when people remember a thing fondly but also have some strong criticism of it, like It.
I mean,look at the past decade of TV shows and films: how many movie reboots? How many game shows have returned to the air after 30 years of slumber?
Sure, people love those things, so they come back. Exactly what I don't get is
why this is supposedly a bad thing?
Well, I think one thing we can say WRT
@Umbran's point, which is good, is if you are going to run an RPG of something, that's kind of a reason in and of itself. Much like putting on a play, the performance is the thing. Hamlet always ends the same way, but you can do it with style, and recontextualize it some without losing anything, which can be worth experiencing.
So, how to code myth into the DNA of a game? Maybe that's a question that deserves a thread of its own.
Yeah I've watched a lot of versions of Hamlet, and without any real deviation or novelty involved beyond "oh hey new actors", it...didn't lose anything in the retelling. The really good stories don't, generally. I mean, there is a reason people re-watch/read/consume stories, and listen to their favorite songs over and over. There is a reason the classic stories managed to get to us at all, and it's because when the storyteller sat down to tell stories, certain stories were in high demand, and folks expected it to be the same story.
Novelty has it's value too, of course. "Why is this thing so dominant in media criticism" isn't the same thing as "this things is bad, actually", obviously. I like new experiences. I like the way time stretches out when I listen to a totally new album for the first time, and every song seems to go on forever, and my entire cognitive bandwidth is taken up by the experience (if it's a good enough album).
The first time I listened to Opeth, I had to sit down and just listen. When I got a really solid mixed CD to introduce me to The Mountain Goats, I spent literally weeks with my only hobby being listening to that packed to the brim CD of Mountain Goats songs.
It's just...like, if someone made music similar to The Mountain Goats, and the music was good, I wouldn't care that it isn't as novel as The Mountain Goats were when they dropped, nor do I care that they aren't really
that novel in the first place.