Do you hate stories that copies and reform elements from other stories because they seem unoriginal? Or you don't care as long as it is entertaining and familiar. J.J Adams is best known for this method. He did it with Super 8, Lost, Star Trek, and Star Wars the Force Awakens. Although he borrowed many elements, he still made a lot of money. I hate it when reviewers think one of my stories are similar to other stories that are popular, but why does that matter? Writers burrow elements all the time to make new stories and sometimes original stories are hard to write. I believe as long as it is your own story with some familiar elements, it should be fine. We should all be allow to write whatever we want because we are like artists. And stories will always be familiar or different.
I'm fine with it as long as the author doesn't claim it's that story. For example, if someone were to remake Star Trek TNG with all the characters I'm already familiar with, but take them and/or the universe out of character, I'd be pissed. I don't often like remakes for that reason, but a "remake" that's a similar plotline with different characters entirely? Yeah, I can deal with that and even enjoy it. There are TONS of Cinderella remakes and I enjoy pretty much all of them because they don't claim to be the original, just based on it.
One story idea of mine is essentially this. I mean. Not to name the material and start a flame war but there was this popular media that I just thought was litered with plot holes. I tried to think of fixes just as a fun excersice. Once I had what I considered enough fixes. I noticed that my version would almost be unrecognizable to the original at least directly. Thus I decided I would make that my story inspired by the other story. Though not even trying to write that at the moment. Just sort of a idea sitting there waiting til I would be good enough or in a position to present it to the world.
