Not a very hot take, only corpo bootlickers pretend that Nintendo isn't squandering the franchise.

It's supremely frustrating that franchises like these get enshittified to hell and there's fuck-all anyone can do about it if they are not willing to work completely for free (i.e. fanfiction writers). Same with the Star Wars content mill which also went to shit while we're forced to sit and watch or give up on the franchise entirely. Or LoTR which in the past 20 years only gave us The Hobbit (🤮) and the Amazon show (🤮🤮).
Human stories were meant to be evolved and expanded on; that's how all of our ancestors built a rich tapestry of myths and folklore over generations, constantly retelling and updating stories. But we aren't allowed to.

I'm Belgian. My grandparents, my parents, my cousins and my cousin's children all grew up reading Belgian comics such as Tintin, Spirou&Fantasio, Lucky Luke, the Smurfs, etc, which were written in the mid-20th century. Yet if any of them publishes anything set in those universes they'll get sued into the ground, so instead these important cultural works are left to rot and wither and be slowly forgotten by each subsequent generation while the Estate shits out a soulless (if not outright racist and sexist which shits on everything that Franquin ever stood for) reboot that no-one cares about every 15 years or so. Such a sad end for such important cultural landmarks that used to be the pride of our country.

Copyright should last 25 years, just like patents. That's more than enough time to recoup your initial investment and doesn't prevent you from making money after then, you'll just have to compete for it on the marketplace of ideas. Isn't that what capitalists should want?