Line #29 Main/AppropriatedTitle


1	An '''appropriated title''' is when a franchise is better known by a different title than it was originally known as. There can be various reasons for this:
2
3	* The sequel was more successful, or at least [[SequelDisplacement more famous]].
4	* The original title would be an ArtifactTitle if the series continued to use it.
5	* The sequel's name [[RuleOfCool just sounded cooler]].
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7	See also SequelTheOriginalTitle.
8	----
9	!!Examples:
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11	[[foldercontrol]]
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13	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
14	* ''Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka'' (a.k.a. ''GTO'') was a spinoff of an earlier work by the same author titled ''Shonan Jun'ai Gumi'' (''The Pure Love Gang from Shonan Beach'') and later had its own spinoffs titled ''GTO: 14 Days in Shonan'', ''GTO: Paradise Lost'', and ''Shonan Seven''. When ''Shonan Jun'ai Gumi'' was adapted into English, it was retitled ''Manga/GTOTheEarlyYears'' (in French, it was subtitled ''Young GTO'').
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17	[[folder:Comic Books]]
18	* In an unusual case of entire ''companies'' doing this, Creator/DCComics, Creator/ArchieComics, and Creator/MarvelComics all got their names from their previous incarnation's most popular title.
19	** DC is a bit of a recursive case. Detective Comics, Inc. was spun off from National Allied Publications in 1937 to publish ''Detective Comics'' as well as National's other two comics at the time (one of which became ''Adventure Comics''). After buying up National Allied and merging with All-American Comics, Detective Comics, Inc. became National Comics Publications, while continuing to use the DC branding on its comics, and from 1949 to 1970 the logo read [[https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/e/e3/Dc1949.jpg Superman/DC/National Comics]] (as DC had been promoting their [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} flagship character]] in the logo [[https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/1/11/Dc1942.jpg since 1942]]). The "National Comics" branding was dropped altogether in 1970, and National Periodicals was formally renamed DC Comics, Inc. in 1977.
20	* ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' was originally released as ''Batman: The Dark Knight'' when each issue was released separately. It was only renamed ''The Dark Knight Returns'' when all four issues were collected in trade paperback format. ''The Dark Knight Returns'' originally referred to the first issue of ''Batman: The Dark Knight''.
21	* The adaptations of ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'' take their name from ''Scott Pilgrim vs. The World'', the second book in the series.
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24	[[folder:Film]]
25	* The first ''Franchise/{{Rambo}}'' movie was actually called ''Film/FirstBlood''. It wasn't until the sequel, ''Film/RamboFirstBloodPartII'', that the "Rambo" name was used at all, followed by ''Film/RamboIII''. This enabled them to call the fourth film simply ''Film/{{Rambo\|IV}}'', since that title was never technically used. In some foreign markets, the original film was called ''Rambo'' from the get-go, so the fourth installment was called ''John Rambo''.
26	* The first release in the ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' canon was called ''Film/PitchBlack''. This goes along with the complete change in tone and focus the series underwent after the first installment (so much so that when the movie the re-released, it was retitled ''The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black'').
27	* The first ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movie was just called ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', while all other media include Jones' name in the title. For what it's worth, later re-releases did change the title to ''Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark''.
28	* The [[Film/JasonGoesToHellTheFinalFriday ninth]], [[Film/JasonX tenth]], and [[Film/FreddyVsJason eleventh]] ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' movies went under the ''[[AntagonistTitle Jason]]'' name. However, this was only out of trademark necessity, as New Line did not own the rights to the ''Friday the 13th'' title; once they bought them, the series reverted to its original name.
29	* Although the third and fourth films in the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise, respectively ''Film/{{Alien 3}}'' and ''Film/AlienResurrection'' (plus ''Film/AlienCovenant'' and the first ''Film/AlienVsPredator''), went under the original title, most spin-off merchandise is known under ''Alien'''s''''', which was [[Film/{{Aliens}} the second movie]].
30	* ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' started with ''Film/BatmanBegins'', following the same titling pattern as the Burton/Schumacher series, which all had [[CharacterTitle Batman's name on the title]] (''Film/{{Batman\|1989}}'', ''Film/BatmanReturns'', ''Film/BatmanForever'' and ''Film/BatmanAndRobin''). However, the second film broke this pattern and was titled ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in order to stand out on its own and the third film followed suit with ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''.
31	* The ''Franchise/StarWars'' series was originally meant to be called ''The Adventures of Luke Skywalker'' and the early tie-in novels (the novelization of ''Film/ANewHope'', ''Literature/SplinterOfTheMindsEye'' and Creator/BrianDaley's ''Han Solo'' trilogy) were released under that title. The first film's tremendous success and fame negated this.
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34	[[folder:Literature]]
35	* The English-translation titles for the ''Literature/MillenniumSeries'' books are all structured like the title of the second book, translated as ''The Girl Who Played with Fire''. The first book, whose Swedish title means ''Men Who Hate Women'', was retitled ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo''; the third book, literally translated as ''The Air Castle That Was Blown Up''[[note]]"air castle" is analogous to "pipe dream",[[/note]] was retitled ''The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest''. The whole series is also colloquially known as the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" books.
36	* Thomas Harris's series of books featuring Franchise/HannibalLecter began with ''Literature/RedDragon'', but it's known as the ''[[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Silence of the Lambs]]'' series due to the [[AdaptationDisplacement popularity of that film]].
37	* ''Literature/TheDarkIsRising'' takes its series title from the second book in the sequence, although that was author Susan Cooper's idea, since the first book, ''Over Sea, Under Stone'', was quite a bit different from the others and was written before she had developed the cosmology of the series.
38	* ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'' is given a series title taken from its second book (and from the setting of the first two books). However, this was contrary to the designs of the author, who [[DiedDuringProduction had intended]] that the series would centre around the doings of the title character of first book, ''Titus Groan'', who leaves Gormenghast Castle to journey the outside world at the end of the second book.
39	* The ''Literature/{{Fudge}}'' books actually started with ''Literature/TalesOfAFourthGradeNothing'', referring to the protagonist Peter Hatcher, with all subsequent books having his little brother Fudge's name in the title, as Fudge's antics tend to occupy most of Peter's life.
40	* {{Inverted\|Trope}} with the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle''. The series always had that title (well, except for [[TrilogyCreep originally being a "Trilogy"]]) but used ''Inheritance'' as the title of its final book.
41	* The erotica novel ''Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'' has long been supplanted by its better-known title, ''Literature/FannyHill''.
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44	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
45	* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' was a spinoff of a short-lived Creator/DisneyChannel sitcom titled ''Good Morning, Miss Bliss'', but proved to be more popular than its predecessor, to the point that not only it had two spinoffs that carried on the ''Saved by the Bell'' title (''The College Years'' and ''The New Class''), but the original series it was spun-off from was [[{{retronym}} retroactively retitled]] ''Saved by the Bell: The Junior High Years'' in syndication.
46	* The title ''Series/TheHoganFamily'' is generally used to discuss all seasons of the show originally known as ''Valerie''.
47	* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' originally debuted as ''NBC's Saturday Night'' (as ABC already had a show on the air called ''Saturday Night Live'' which flopped not long after). The originally planned version was used as soon as it was available (though the call "Live from New York, it's ''Saturday Night!''" remained as an artifact of the original title), and all seasons of the show are known as ''Saturday Night Live''.
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50	[[folder:Video Games]]
51	* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'': The first game in the ''Gyakuten Saiban'' series was localized for the west under title of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' a year after Japan had already gotten the third game. The announcement that the fourth game would star [[VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney a new character]] prompted the English localization team to promote ''Ace Attorney'' as the name of the franchise and downplay the ''Phoenix Wright'' part of the title for the sequels.
52	* The ''VideoGame/XCom'' series started as ''UFO: Enemy Unknown''. It had to relabel itself ''X-COM'' to avoid confusion with the [[Series/UFO1970 television show]] and "UFO" was a pretty generic title to begin with.
53	* The original ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries SoulCalibur]]'' was actually a sequel to another Namco game titled ''Soul Edge''. However, a trademark dispute over the use of the word "Edge" led to the console version being retitled ''Soul Blade'' internationally. The sequel was titled differently to avoid having [[MarketBasedTitle two different names]] for the same game and the ''[=SoulCalibur=]'' name stuck from that point on.
54	* The ''[[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Dark Forces]]'' title was replaced with ''[[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jedi Knight]]'' when the second game (''Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight'') proved more popular.
55	* ''{{Creator/Falcom}}'s'' ''VideoGame/DragonSlayer'' series went through it thee or four times. Second game in the series was called ''Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu''. Then, ''"Xanadu"'' became a title for its own series, but "Dragon Slayer" series continued. Then, two series merged again, in a game titled ''"Dragon Slayer VIII: The Legend of Xanadu"'', while its sequel, ''The Legend of Xanadu II'', finally dropped ''"Dragon Slayer"'' title for good.
56	** The third time cames from ''Dragon Slayer VI'', that had subtitle ''The Legend of Heroes''. The sequel, ''Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II'', StoppedNumberingSequels, and the ''VideoGame/GagharvTrilogy'' stopped using "Dragon Slayer" altogether. ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'' still uses ''The Legend of Heroes'' title, but ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfNayutaBoundlessTrails '' dropped it, if only for one game.
57	* The ''{{VideoGame/Starsiege}}'' series is infamous for this, in combination for [[OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo no two games sharing the same naming scheme.]]. The first game was ''[=MetalTech: EarthSiege=]'', which then became ''[=EarthSiege 2=]''. After that came ''[=Starsiege=]'', then ''[[{{VideoGame/Tribes}} Starsiege: Tribes]]'', ''then'' came ''Tribes 2''. The two most recent games follow the ''[[VideoGame/TribesVengeance Tribes: [Verb] ]]'' naming scheme. ''[=Starsiege=] Tribes'' itself is often simply called ''Tribes'' or ''Tribes 1''.
58	* First game in ''VideoGame/GloryOfHeracles'' series is called "Legend of the Fighting Demon's Lair: Glory of Heracles". The original title is not so much of a mouthful in Japanese, but it's still an ArtifactTitle.
59	* ''VideoGame/MarvelAvengersAlliance'' features about fifty different playable Marvel superheroes and the story mostly focuses on ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}. Many of the heroes were never members of ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' or are not current members but due to the popular [[Film/TheAvengers2012 movie]], the game uses Avengers in the title.
60	* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' was initially titled as such because it was a [=3D=] version of the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' games, but also to indicate its placement as the third canonical game in the series, following the [=MSX2=] versions of ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake''.[[note]]The Solid is a reference to three-dimensional geometry.[[/note]] The game was a bigger success than Konami expected and the name stuck on for all the sequels, from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' and all the way up to the latest ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain''. Only a few of the odd spinoffs, namely ''VideoGame/MetalGearAcid'', ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance Metal Gear Rising]]'', and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSurvive'' were released without the ''Solid'' branding.
61	* ''VideoGame/NoOneLivesForever'' was originally the subtitle of the first game, fully titled ''The Operative: No One Lives Forever''.
62	* ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' was originally the American title of what was known in Japanese as ''Ninja Ryūkenden'' ("The Ninja Dragon Sword Story") and in European languages as ''Shadow Warriors''. When Tecmo revived the series with the 2004 Xbox version by Team Ninja, they used the ''Ninja Gaiden'' title over the two worldwide in order to have the franchise under one worldwide name.
63	* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' is known as ''Akumajō Dracula'' (''Demon Castle Dracula'') in Japanese. During his tenure as producer, Koji Igarashi tried to rebrand Japanese version of the series under the ''Castlevania'' banner in order to have one name for the franchise in every region. As a result, ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance Concerto of the Midnight Sun]]'', ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow Minuet of Dawn]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence Lament of Innocence]]'' (simply titled ''Castlevania'' in Japanese) were all released under the ''Castlevania'' brand instead of the usual ''Akumajō Dracula''. This rebranding didn't last long due to [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks negative feedback]] from longtime Japanese fans and the series went back to the ''Akumajō Dracula'' name with the Nintendo DS entries.
64	* The original ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' was titled ''Hyrule Fantasy: Zelda no Densetsu'' in Japanese. Presumably Nintendo intended for "Hyrule Fantasy" to be the title of the franchise rather than "Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda", but that was dropped in the sequels.
65	* Intended for the ''VideoGame/Battlezone1998'' series, whose sequel implemented a subtitle for later appropriation, ''Battlezone II: Combat Commander''. The publisher, Creator/{{Activision}}, licensed the "Battlezone" title from Creator/{{Atari}}, creators of ''VideoGame/Battlezone1980''. The subtitle would have made marketing a third game simpler if Atari refused to re-license the name, so instead of ''Battlezone III'', it would be ''Combat Commander: Whatever''. The gesture proved to be irrelevant, because the first game was an AcclaimedFlop and the sequel was a mixed flop courtesy of its initial release, killing any chance of a third game.
66	* The ''VideoGame/{{Forza}}'' franchise was originally called the ''Forza Motorsport'' series, but it was officially shortened to ''Forza'' to accompany the [[WideOpenSandbox open world]] ''Horizon'' sister series, thus making each game a legitimate title and not a SpinOff. However, despite the increasing popularity and establishment of the ''Horizon'' series (especially after the critically-lauded ''Forza Horizon 3''), the ''Forza Motorsport'' games are still often referred to as "''Forza [number of Motorsport title]''" while the ''Forza Horizon'' games are shortened to "''Horizon [number of such title]''".
67	* ''Descent: [=FreeSpace=]'', the first entry in the ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' series, was so named for trademark reasons and had nothing to do with the ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'' series other than sharing a publisher. Future entries could and did drop the ''Descent'' name.
68	* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' started with the two ''Literature/DigitalDevilStory: VideoGame/MegamiTensei'' games on the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]], but since the release of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'' on the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem Super Famicom]] most subsequent games in the series have used the latter title. Fans will still sometimes refer to the series as ''Megami Tensei'', or [=MegaTen=] for short.
69	** ''VideoGame/SoulHackers2'' is a sequel to a game fully titled ''Devil Summoner: VideoGame/SoulHackers'', a sequel to the original ''VideoGame/DevilSummoner''. Soul Hackers 2, meanwhile, doesn't use ''Devil Summoner'' title at all.
70	* The ''VideoGame/SuperMonkeyBall'' series started with a [[NoExportForYou Japan-only]] arcade game called ''Monkey Ball''. The title ''Super Monkey Ball'', which every subsequent game in the series would use, was introduced with the UpdatedRerelease of ''Monkey Ball'' for the [=GameCube=].
71	* The ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series took a while to establish its name. The very first game was called ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' in 1981, a case of AntagonistTitle. This game would be followed up by two direct sequels, ''Donkey Kong Jr.'', and ''Donkey Kong 3'', [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness the first of which featured Mario as the antagonist, and the second of which didn't have him at all.]] It would take until 1983's ''VideoGame/MarioBros'' for the series to consistently star Mario and use his name in its titles, and another two years for ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' to introduce the title that the series has been known by ever since.
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74	[[folder:Western Animation]]
75	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'' was originally a OneWordTitle; however, it has always been more well-known as ''Jem and the Holograms'', which is the name of the in-series band that Jem leads. In the early 2010s the series was officially renamed ''Jem and the Holograms''. The [[ComicBook/JemAndTheHologramsIDW comic reboot]], [[Film/JemAndTheHolograms2015 film reboot]], [=DVDs=], and reruns use the title, though all the text in the cartoons still say ''Jem''.
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Context Main / AppropriatedTitle