I must not be explaining myself well,
€, because to the way I am thinking you just made connection between a remake and the original as I think is similar to how many people think about gay marriage affecting straight marriage.
If someone decided to have the exact same marriage as you, fine you'd find that odd an inexplicable. But would you feel it devalued your marriage?
As for the discussion that is happening, it is not objective. If you feel that the Tom Hanks movie somehow ruins the Alec Guinness one (or if the Queen Latifah movie somehow ruins the Alec Guinness one) then that is the same subjective evaluation as determined whether a movie was liked in the first place.
Let me ask this: is
Die Hard less worthy because
Die Hard 3 sucks? Is
Braveheart less of a movie because Mel Gibson is an antisemite (assuming he is)? Does
The Maltese Falcon diminish or is diminished by the two earlier versions of that movie that were made? In the following duos, are any of them worse because of the existence of the others: Janet Gaynor/Fredric March; Judy Garland/James Mason; Barbara Streisand/Kris Kristofferson?
Are Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer undone by Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr?
Robin Hood has been filmed almost a dozen times. Does that make the Errol Flynn version any less fun?
To me, saying it is bad for movie A because movie B exists/sucks is like saying John Travolta is worse in
Pulp Fiction because he really sucked in
Look Who's Talking.