Line #2 YMMV/Zorro


1	* AdaptationDisplacement: Let's face it, most of you have seen the movies and/or the 1950s TV series, not the original stories. In a more direct example, in the first book, Zorro wore a sombrero and full-face mask. But [=McCulley=] liked the flat Andalusian hat and half-mask Creator/DouglasFairbanks wore in the movie so much that he wrote that costume into all the later stories.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnle_3KuOE opening]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgaGJln2Tbs themes]] for the [[Series/Zorro1957 1950s]] and [[Series/Zorro1990 1990s]] live-action shows come to mind.
3	* CompleteMonster: See [[{{Monster/Zorro}} here]].
4	* FridgeBrilliance: Works where Diego was formerly known as brave have the characters don't really wonder about his foppish behaviour once he's back from Spain... Because [[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars he just escaped the Peninsular War]] and he comes with a pre-made excuse of [[ShellShockedVeteran having fought in a ferocious war and just having enough of combat]].
5	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: For obvious reasons, due to the historical setting, the franchise is very popular in Mexico and Latin America, to the grade there's a couple of Zorro films done in Mexico.
6	* HilariousInHindsight:
7	** In the original novel, ''The Curse of Capistrano'' (later reprinted as ''The Mark of Zorro''), Zorro forms a posse with his fellow caballeros to take on the governor and his men. They decide to call themselves "ComicBook/TheAvengers".
8	** In the second novel, ''The Further Adventures of Zorro'', Zorro is repeatedly referred to as being a "[[{{Series/Galavant}} land pirate]]".
9	* NewerThanTheyThink: Due to the iconic nature and well told storyline, Zorro is often thought to be an old folk tale from the settler days of California, and not a story made whole-cloth in 1919.
10	* OlderThanTheyThink: ''Film/TheLegendOfZorro'' received a pretty big backlash from fans for two big reasons. First, there was the fact that Elena had divorced him and then proceeded to treat him horribly throughout the first half of the film. Second, Don Alejandro had a son who acted as his sidekick but many fans saw him as being an annoying [[TheScrappy Scrappy]]. In actuality, this wasn't [[FranchiseOriginalSin the first time a Zorro story had these two elements]]. The 1996 anime ''Anime/KaiketsuZorro'' featured a Zorro who had both a love interest, Lolita, who treated him badly for almost the entire series and a boy sidekick, Bernardo/Little Zorro, who accompanied and helped him in almost every episode. In the case of the Lolita/Elena comparison, it should be noted that Lolita treated Zorro in his Don Diego civilian persona far worse than Elena did with Don Alejandro in ''Legend of Zorro'', constantly belittling and making fun of Diego for allegedly being lazy and cowardly and at one point giving Diego a black eye for supposedly not coming to her rescue (even though he DID as Zorro). It wasn't until the very end of the series that Lolita finally warmed up to Diego and began treating him as a real romantic prospect, whereas Elena only divorced Alejandro because she had been blackmailed by Pinkerton agents into doing so (as opposed to Lolita who treated Diego badly of her own free will), otherwise they would have released Zorro's identity and put her family's lives in jeopardy. While ''Anime/KaiketsuZorro'' is far more obscure and less well known than ''The Legend of Zorro'', it's pretty safe to say that the anime gets nowhere near the amount of hatred that the live action Banderas-verse sequel does, despite sharing what was fundamentally a very similar storyline premise.
11	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: In the original novel, Diego's SecretIdentity is patently obvious to anyone familiar with basically any superhero comic book at all, including by PopculturalOsmosis, even if they're not familiar with Zorro as a franchise. Except many of those comics, most notably Franchise/{{Batman}}, were ''inspired'' by Zorro in the first place.
12	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Unsuprisingly, [=McCulley=]'s original stories are much bloodier than most adaptations, especially the [[{{Series/Zorro1957}} Disney version]].

Context YMMV / Zorro