I think this is the result of narrative structure falling by the wayside in lots of popular canons. You can tell a million variations of the odyssey because Ody

I think this is the result of narrative structure falling by the wayside in lots of popular canons. You can tell a million variations of the odyssey because Odysseus is nobody. You can plop just about any set of characters into the story and it works. We still have stories like this, the Mission Impossible series is the same story told differently, the new Twister is a retelling, anyone can be James Bond. But if you want a long running series you need an interesting universe to explore (which requires rules and consistency) and/or compelling characters people want to put in situations. It's why Family Guy can do a Star Wars episode but Star Wars can't do Family Guy, it's why the Ghost Buster's retelling flopped because they thought it was a narrative story but it was actually a character story.