Line #61 Main/ImportationExpansion


1	In the past, it was reasonably common practice for producers to add new scenes to foreign films that they were importing. This was done for several reasons: to add name actors to what would otherwise be a cast of unknowns, to disguise the fact that the film was foreign ([[NeverTrustATrailer at least for the duration of the trailer]]), to [[{{Padding}} increase the running time]], or any combination of the above.
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3	The method is most viable when the main action is done by PeopleInRubberSuits (or {{Puppets\|hows}}), allowing the adaptation's GreekChorus (or in some cases its ''stars'') [[LeadYouCanRelateTo to have similar sensibilities]] [[CulturalTranslation to the importing country]].
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5	This is also possible in animated media, but there has to be a coordination between the original producers and the dubbers; otherwise, the visuals for these segments would be OffModel.
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7	The "expansion" is related to the adding of new footage, not to the actual length of the "expanded" film. Indeed, the "expanded" versions of some films can be much shorter than their original versions.
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9	This has been a DeadHorseTrope for Film since the mid-1970s, when distributors realized that most audiences didn't actually care enough to justify the time and expense of shooting new footage, either for theatrical release or for DirectToVideo. However, it's alive and well in Television Series imports, which run long enough overall for the investment of new characters to pay dividends.
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11	Note that to be an example of this trope requires '''substantial''' original footage; simply adding insert shots of translated signs or the like doesn't count. Neither do repurposed shots used in "AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle" segments.
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13	A subtrope of DubInducedPlotlineChange. Compare to {{Frankenslation}} and the RegionalBonus of video games.
14	----
15	!!Examples:
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17	[[foldercontrol]]
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19	[[folder:Japanese Exports]]
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21	[[AC:Anime and Manga]]
22	* ''Anime/BattleOfThePlanets'', in addition to the heavy {{Bowdlerisation}} that it suffered underwent when it was imported, featured additional animated footage of the AmusingAlien 7-Zark-7, who cracked lame jokes and explained how [[NeverSayDie everyone got away safely]].
23	* A truly bizarre example of this occurred when New World Pictures brought over ''Anime/AngelsEgg''. Instead of giving it a straight dub (which would have been more or less impossible given the nature of the film), they cut the film heavily and added about 45 minutes of live action footage. Retitled ''[[Film/InTheAftermathAngelsNeverSleep In The Aftermath: Angels Never Sleep]]'', it was released in 1988 to mixed reviews.
24	* The fourth ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' film, ''[[Anime/Pokemon4Ever Celebi: The Voice of the Forest]]'' added three scenes to the English version. Two of them served to over-explain a plot point in the story. The other was a comedic Team Rocket scene that [[{{Padding}} served no purpose to the plot]].
25	* The English dub of ''Anime/{{Mapletown}}'' had live-action segments added to the beginning and ending of each episode, featuring a human person named Miss Maple.
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27	[[AC:Japanese Film]]
28	* The UrExample of this trope is probably ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters1956 Godzilla: King of the Monsters!]]'', the American version of ''Film/{{Gojira}}'', which was completely re-edited to tell the story from the perspective of [[Franchise/PerryMason Raymond Burr]] as [[HilariousInHindsight Steve Martin]], a foreign correspondent who had been following the story. Notable for actually being very well done, as far as these things go, with considerable care taken to match the Burr footage and the original film.
29	** The second Godzilla film, ''Film/GodzillaRaidsAgain'' (released in the United States as ''[[MarketBasedTitle Gigantis the Fire Monster]]''), managed to avoid this, suffering only the addition of considerable amounts of StockFootage, and Godzilla being referred to as "the Gigantis monsters", as well as having most of his roars replaced by modified Anguirus roars. However, it was almost turned into a film called ''The Volcano Monsters'' that would have been a prime example of this trope. Read about it [[http://www.tohokingdom.com/web_pages/lost_projects/volcano_monsters.htm here]].
30	** ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla'' had American-shot scenes with "U.N. News Reporters" talking about whatever had previously occurred. At one point, one pulls out a children's book to explain how Godzilla is a mutated dinosaur.
31	** ''Film/MothraVsGodzilla'' contains an additional sequence of a missile attack on Godzilla shot by Toho especially for its American release.
32	** ''Film/TheReturnOfGodzilla'', in keeping with its status as a direct sequel to the original film, had Raymond Burr reprise his role as Steve Martin, as well as product placement-laden scenes where American military personnel crack wise about Godzilla.
33	--->'''Officer''' (after watching Godzilla destroy a building): That's one hell of an urban renewal program they got going on over there!
34	* ''Film/VaranTheUnbelievable'' was subjected to a particularly extreme case of this. Its American version was completely rewritten around newly shot American footage with Myron Healey. ''Varan'' is an excellent example of a film that ended up ''shorter'' despite its Importation Expansion; the original Japanese version runs 87 minutes, while the American version, despite adding 40 minutes of newly shot footage, runs only 70 minutes.
35	* Toho's {{Bigfoot\|SasquatchAndYeti}} movie ''Jû jin yuki otoko'' was brought to the US as ''Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman'', with over 40 minutes cut and and scenes added of John Carradine and other American actors spouting TechnoBabble and (in a rather [[{{Squick}} squicky]] scene) dissecting one of the monsters.
36	* When [[Creator/RogerCorman New World Pictures]] picked up the rights to the disaster epic ''Japan Sinks'', they cut it down by 40 minutes, added scenes of [[{{Series/Bonanza}} Lorne Greene]] sitting at a desk, and released the result as ''Tidal Wave''.
37	* UPA performed similar duties with ''Conflagration'', adding scenes with Peter Graves and releasing it to TV as ''High Seas Hijack''.
38	%%* ''Film/GammeraTheInvincible'' Please insert context here.
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40	[[AC:Live Action TV]]
41	* Several Japanese {{Toku}}satsu series have been adapted in English, keeping footage where the actors are in face-concealing costumes and replacing the rest with new footage with English actors. In a number of cases, the plot changes drastically in the adaptation.
42	** ''Franchise/PowerRangers''
43	** ''Series/VRTroopers''
44	** ''Series/{{Beetleborgs}}''
45	** ''Series/MaskedRider''
46	** ''Series/SuperhumanSamuraiSyberSquad''
47	** ''Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight''
48	[[/folder]]
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50	[[folder:Media From Other Nations]]
51	[[AC:ComicBooks]]
52	* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': The weekly Creator/MarvelUK reprints added a huge amount of extra stories by Simon Furman in order to avoid {{overt\|ookTheManga}}aking the main monthly series, which occasionally required editing the American material to avoid {{plot hole}}s. This bonus material was of such high quality that not only did Furman get to take over writing the American series when Bob Budiansky [[CreatorBreakdown burned out]], American fans actually subscribed to the UK series to get the bonus material.
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54	[[AC:EasternEuropeanAnimation]]
55	* The Soviet animated film ''[[Animation/TheSnowQueen1957 The Snow Queen]]'' had a live-action prologue added featuring Art Linkletter "reading" the original story to some children.
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57	[[AC:Film]]
58	* The Film/GodfreyHoNinjaMovies. Godfrey Ho was pretty much the king of this - by his own account he made about 40-50 movies this way. He and producer Joseph Lai would buy up the rights to various 70s/80s Asian films which would usually be unmarketable elsewheren (or sometimes were unfinished or never saw release at all), shoot between 10 to 30 minutes of original footage with Western actors (usually as TechnicolorNinjas), then attempt to tie the whole thing together into an vaguely coherent plot via a HongKongDub. Needless to say this was [[SoBadItsGood usually unsuccessful]].
59	* Soviet Science Fiction films
60	** ''Film/VoyageToThePrehistoricPlanet''
61	** ''Film/VoyageToThePlanetOfPrehistoricWomen''
62	** ''Battle Beyond the Sun''
63	** ''Queen of Blood'', although similar in genesis, doesn't really qualify, since it only really used footage from the original Russian film as stock footage for its original story.
64	* When Creator/KarelZeman's ''Journey to the Beginning of Time'' was released in the United States, it got an entirely new beginning for the film. The new footage featured lookalike actors (carefully shot to avoid showing their faces) going to the [[CulturalTranslation New York Museum of Natural History and taking a boat ride in Central Park]] before segueing to the original Czech footage.
65	** Similarly, Zeman's ''Film/InventionForDestruction'' got a new introduction by television host Hugh Downs, of ''Series/TwentyTwenty'' and ''Series/{{Concentration}}'' fame, when it came to America as ''The Fabulous World of Jules Verne''.
66	* ''Horror of the Blood Monsters'' started life as a black and white Filipino caveman epic called ''Tagani''. To make it saleable to American drive-ins, hack director ''extraordinaire'' Al Adamson added color scenes with American actors (including Creator/JohnCarradine) as astronauts exploring a "prehistoric planet". The fact that said "prehistoric planet" (the ''Tagani'' footage) was black and white was solved by tinting the film day-glo colors, which, the newly added footage explained, was caused by [[HandWave "Involuntary shifts ]][[TechnoBabble in Spectrum Radiation"]].
67	** The Italian dub went further on and extended the movie by adding footage of spaceship battles from ''Series/UFO1970'', turning ''their death rays'' into the cause of the color changes.
68	* That shot of Margot and La Môle on the American DVD of ''Film/LaReineMargot''? That whole scene was shot for the American release to strengthen the love story.
69	* Because ''Film/IronMan3'' was partially funded by China's DMG Entertainment, bonus scenes were added to the Chinese release of the film, primarily focusing on the character of Dr. Wu (who is briefly introduced at the 1999 party and can be glimpsed in the [[spoiler:surgery scene]] in the American version). In a scene that occurs just before [[spoiler:Tony's surgery]], Dr. Wu talks to one of his assistants, played by Creator/FanBingbing (who made her American debut in ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast''). Though this caused some discontentment from Americans, the deal seemed to [[http://www.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-05-01-china-iron-man-3-sets-new-record-for-midnight-shows pay off handsomely]] for [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel]].
70	* Likewise, ''{{Film/Looper}}'' is also a U.S.-China co-production, and the Chinese release had more screentime for scenes in Shanghai.
71	* For its US TV release, the B/W British horror film ''Film/NakedEvil'' got 15 minutes of newly shot color framing sequences featuring Creator/LawrenceTierney. The original film was tinted sepia and presented as the recollections of a psychiatric patient in an American hospital.
72	* ''Film/LegendOfHorror'' is one of the most extreme examples. Most of the film is newly shot American footage based around a "flashback" that occupies about a third of the movie. This "flashback" is actually the third segment of the Argentinian Creator/EdgarAllanPoe anthology ''Film/ObrasMaestrasDelTerror'', an [[AdaptationExpansion expanded adaptation]] of Poe's ''Literature/TheTellTaleHeart''.
73	* The 1967 Creator/KlausKinski film ''Film/CreatureWithTheBlueHand'' (which had already been released intact in the US) had American-shot zombie footage[[note]] The original film is a non-supernatural thriller[[/note]] added in 1987 for a VHS release as ''The Bloody Dead''.
74	* Creator/JerryWarren was a director/producer in the 1950s and 60s. Best known for ''Film/TheWildWorldOfBatwoman'', he frequently acquired Mexican horror films, hacked them up, and added new footage with American actors before releasing them under new, more exploitative titles to unsuspecting drive-in audiences. His efforts include:
75	** ''Film/InvasionOfTheAnimalPeople'', adapted from the Swedish ''Film/TerrorInTheMidnightSun'' (Rymdinvasion i Lappland) with added footage of Creator/JohnCarradine sitting at a desk spouting scientific gibberish. Interestingly, the original film was already in English.
76	** ''Film/CreatureOfTheWalkingDead'', adapted from ''Film/LaMarcaDelMuerto'', with seemingly endless added footage of a shirtless Creator/BrunoVeSota getting a backrub.
77	** ''Film/AttackOfTheMayanMummy'', adapted from ''Film/LaMomiaAzteca''
78	** ''Film/FaceOfTheScreamingWerewolf'', pasted together from ''[[AztecMummy La Momia Azteca]]'' and ''Film/LaCasaDelTerror'' (a ''comedy'', albeit one that featured Creator/LonChaneyJr as a werewolf)
79	** ''Film/CurseOfTheStoneHand'', pasted together from two Chilean films from the 1940s, ''Film/LaDamaDeLaMuerte'' (an adaptation of ''Literature/TheSuicideClub'' by Creator/RobertLouisStevenson) and ''Film/LaCasaEstaVacía''. Warren's added footage includes Creator/JohnCarradine doing not very much. It should be noted that neither of them are horror films.
80	* ''Film/GameOfDeath'': The international version of the 1978 version shows a longer sequence where Billy Lo meets his uncle in a theater. The HK version shows another fight scene with a Bruce Lee double and Korean Taekwonwdo master Casanova Wong in a greenhouse. The ending is also significantly longer in the HK version, [[spoiler: where dead Dr. Land is picked up by an ambulance]]. More information on this [[http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=534837 here]]
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82	[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
83	* ''Series/FraggleRock'' - various markets (including the UK, which didn't redub the Muppet characters) had their own version of Doc. They all had Sprocket, though.
84	* This practice was fairly common for American children's television in TheNineties, where a new show would be made for the purpose of introducing a foreign children's series to the country:
85	** ''Series/ShiningTimeStation'', a show which framed ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'', kick-started this trend.
86	** Since the original version of ''Series/TotsTV'' was ten minutes long and the series was acquired by Creator/PBSKids, which doesn't show commercials, the show would run in a ThreeShorts format where the segment in between each story would either feature a storyteller named Noah or an animal expert named Jane.
87	** Perhaps the strangest example of this was ''WesternAnimation/SaltysLighthouse'', where 5-minute clips comprised from various episodes of ''WesternAnimation/{{Tugs}}'' played as what Salty saw at the harbor.
88	** ''Series/TheNoddyShop'' would show a story from ''WesternAnimation/NoddysToylandAdventures'' split into two five-minute parts when Kate Tomten, one of the child characters, told stories to solve her friends' problems. Oddly enough, this version made it back into the United Kingdom and several other countries that aired the original series, like Portugal and France.
89	* Since ''Series/{{Boohbah}}'' aired on commercial-free PBS Kids in the United States, the American versions of the show add a fourth segment called "Look What I Can Do" - showing children doing their own exercises - after the second Boohbah exercise segment to fill more of the timeslot.
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91	[[AC: Western Animation]]
92	* The French and UK-produced ''WesternAnimation/MrMenAndLittleMiss'' shorts aired in the US as part of a show called ''The Mr. Men Show'' (not related to ''WesternAnimation/TheMrMenShow'' from 2008) made by Summit Media Group [[note]] now Creator/FourKidsEntertainment [[/note]] where the segments were sandwiched between live-action variety sketches tied into a specific theme like exercising or the circus.
93	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ImportationExpansion