Ascended Extra / Animated Films

• Every doll besides 9 and 5 in 9. In the original short film, the remaining seven dolls did appear, but only for a few seconds at the end of the film. The feature film takes all of them and gives them larger roles and actual personalities (as well as complete character make-overs).
• Quite a few of the extras from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West went on to become recurring characters in Fievel's American Tails.
  • Speaking of which, Tanya got quite a bigger role in Fievel Goes West when compared to the original movie, where she only has a couple of lines and could easily be cut from the story, practically only existing to give Fievel someone to sing his Distant Duet with.
• In the original Bambi, Ronno is an unnamed stag who fights over Faline with Bambi. In the midquel he's a fleshed out buck and the central antagonist of the movie.
• Rutt and Tuke the moose from Brother Bear are given much larger roles and more screentime in the sequel.
• FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue:
  • Pip goes from a supporting character in the first film to the protagonist in this one, replacing Crysta. His friends in the Beetle Boys also get a much larger role as they accompany him on his rescue mission.
  • The goanna goes from singing a two-minute song about eating Zak to being a reoccurring character in this one.
• Hotel Transylvania:
  • In the first movie, Blobby was a Living Prop at best. In Hotel Transylvania 2, he would have a more prominent role in the plot. Unfortunately, he got Demoted to Comic Relief in the third movie.
  • Winnie Werewolf has become a more prominent character in the sequels compared to the first movie where she was only a Recurring Extra with a Suddenly Speaking moment near to the climax.
• The Incredibles:
  • Baby Jack-Jack in The Incredibles only appears in a few scenes and is mostly separated from the family during their adventure. He would later have a short film that showed what happened when his family was away and he was alone with his babysitter. By the sequel though, he becomes just as important to the story as the rest of his family, and even has an active hand in saving the day. He is again a main character in Auntie Edna which shows what happened when he was with Edna, while Bob was sleeping.
  • Kari McKeen in Jack-Jack Attack is one of the two main characters, along with Jack-Jack, after playing a very small part in the film.
  • Edna Mode in Auntie Edna has a much more prominent role than in the films.
  • The Underminer is only introduced in the last minutes of the first movie. The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer promoted him to Big Bad status. He's also the Starter Villain of the sequel.
  • Tony Rydinger became a prominent character in Violet's story arc in the sequel. In the first film, he had only two scenes.
• In The Jungle Book (1967), Shanti appeared at the very end of the movie for the purpose of giving Mowgli a reason to want to live in the Man Village that he spent the whole movie trying to avoid being sent to. She wasn't even given a proper name, instead being listed as "The Girl" in the film's opening credits. Shanti would be given both her name and a much more prominent role in The Jungle Book 2.
• Kronk's New Groove:
  • While Kronk was part of the main cast of The Emperor's New Groove, he had the smallest role out of the five. But he was such an Ensemble Dark Horse that he's main character in this one.
  • Despite only showing up for two scenes in the first film, Rudy has a major role in this one, mainly during the flashback to Kronk getting involved in Yzma's plot to sell a potion, which is supposed to restore youth to Rudy and the village's other senior citizens.
• In Kung Fu Panda, the Furious Five were little more than window-dressing. In Kung Fu Panda 2, they have a much more active role, particularly Tigress. Over the course of the entire series, Mr. Ping, Po's adopted father, goes from a minor character to one of the main protagonists of Kung Fu Panda 3.
• The LEGO Movie: The Octan brand itself. For years they were only used in situations involving gasoline (prior to 1992 the real gas station Shell had been in that position). Here it's a MegaCorp than controls the entire world under Lord Business' leadership (also crossing into Adaptational Villainy).
• Ariel's sisters from The Little Mermaid get a major role in the prequel The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning.
• Jiminy Cricket was originally a nameless cricket who, in the original book, got squashed by Pinocchio in one chapter (and came back as a ghost much later). In the film, he becomes Pinocchio's friend and adviser and has since appeared in countless other Disney projects.
• In Rock-A-Doodle, the Grand Duke of Owls is the main antagonist and the cause of all the trouble in the movie. In the play Chanticler by Edmond Rostand, the Grand Duke is only a minor villain - instead, the main villains are the Blackbird and the rival rooster who fights Chanticler. The former receives Adaptational Heroism while the latter is Demoted to Extra.
• Sleeping Beauty: In the original fairy tale, the good fairies were minor characters who bestow the princess their gifts and alter the Big Bad's death curse into a Forced Sleep at the beginning, and didn't have any major role in every scene after. The Disney movie gives them names (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) and expands their roles to the Big Goods who raise Princess Aurora, protect her and the whole kingdom, and aid in Prince Philip's escape.
• In Shrek, the introduced fairytale creatures are all minor characters who don't do anything relevant to the plot aside from kicking off the main part of the story by showing up in Shrek's swamp and leading Shrek to go and see Farquaad. In the sequels, the Gingerbread Man, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Blind Mice all get this treatment, with them being the ones to break Shrek, Donkey and Puss out of prison in Shrek 2 and playing a part in defending the castle and being involved in the final showdown in Shrek the Third.
• In the Tintin comic The Secret of the Unicorn, the minor character Ivan Sakharine is a pushy but ultimately harmless model ship collector who is briefly suspected of stealing Tintin's model of the Unicorn. In the film adaptation of the same comic, however, he is the main villain and the descendant of the pirate Red Rackham. Ironically, in the comic Sakharine is later attacked by the real thief, and if a brief cameo appearance in Red Rackham's Treasure is anything to go by he eventually made his peace with Tintin.
• Toy Story:
  • In the first film, Woody and Buzz were the real focus of the film and all the other toys were relatively minor characters. The second film gives much more screentime to Slinky, Rex, Hamm, and Mr. Potato Head. And likewise, Mrs. Potato Head only appeared in the beginning and end of the second film while Barbie was only in one scene roughly past the middle; they both had much bigger roles in the third movie.
  • This also applies to the Little Green Men from the claw machine scene of the first movie. Apparently becoming an Ensemble Dark Horse, they went on to having a signifcantly larger role in the second movie, became recurring characters in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and were major characters in the third film, even being the Big Damn Heroes.
  • In the first two movies, Bo Peep was Woody's love interest and voice of reason, but was otherwise away from the action. After being absent in the third movie, she becomes the deuteragonist of the fourth.
• Kanga and Roo were usually the most sparsely seen characters in the original Winnie the Pooh animations and even in the New Adventures series, had only a handful of moments in the limelight. Starting from The Tigger Movie Roo started to become a more central character, with Kanga getting more importance from relation. Springtime with Roo and Pooh's Heffalump Movie in particular have Roo as the pseudo-lead. The 2011 movie demotes them back, though even then has Kanga and Roo take part in a lot more humour than before.
• In Zootopia, Finnick has very minimal screen time in the movie. However, there is an implied history between him and Nick Wilde, one of the protagonists, and in the video game, Zootopia Crime Files, he has a supporting role as one of the suspects in a case.

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