I would argue that franchises are the modern descendent of the oral-tradition mode of storytelling.

This is an excellent point. I guess my caveat is that I think stories are essentially about people, but that the modern way of re-telling a story gets distracted by plot and convention. Plot is easy, even really complex plot; characters and dialogue are hard, and it's easier to get plot and special effects right.

This movie, for example, did an excellent job depicting the character of Magneto, but did a horrible job with some of the supporting characters like Angel. She was handled in a very rote way and it felt like her primary motivation was... doing things the way they happened in the comic books.

But I definitely concede the point about "meaningful" not being equal to "original."