Franchises with their own subpages:
Creators:
- James Cameron:
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day counts as this, like Aliens (which Cameron also directed) below in its section. It’s still very violent and harrowing in places e.g Sarah’s nuclear Nightmare Sequence, but whereas the first film was more or less a Slasher Movie where Arnie was a cold relentless cyborg monster covered in flesh (that starts rotting after he’s wounded) hunting down Sarah, T2 has Arnie’s T800 in a protective role looking after John and Sarah against a different Terminator. Thanks to John’s Kid Hero presence, the T800 is through their bond taught one-liners and the thumbs up, becoming a kind of Benevolent A.I. in the process. The optimism in spite of the bleakness of the Bad Future, is much more pronounced than it was in T1.
- Titanic (1997) while obviously still pretty grim, given it’s based on a real life tragedy where many people died, compared to all Cameron’s previous films it is monumentally softer, gentler and much less violent being a passionate romance at its core with Rose and Jack’s story. Not to mention the ending being a Big Damn Kiss in Heaven as opposed to the more open-ended endings of Terminator or Aliens. Indeed, Cameron himself at time in an interview noted the backlash from fans of his Rated M for Manly works that he had in their words gone from killer robots and aliens to a chick flick.
- Continuing on from Titanic, both Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water are easily the most lighthearted and genteel films Cameron has made with his former nihilistic industrialism and cynicism being traded out for Ferngully-esque Black-and-White Morality Green Aesop full of wondrous settings and creatures. Not to mention the sequel adding teenage/kid characters who go on adventures away from the adults. Obviously they’re still violent films with plenty of deaths, but compared to Cameron’s previous filmography the Avatar films are leaps and bounds more family friendly.
- John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China and Starman, compared to previous works like Halloween (1978), The Thing (1982), Escape from New York, Prince of Darkness and They Live!. While like the rest of his work it’s full of violence, disturbing moments and has plenty of 80s grittiness, Big Trouble In Little China is firmly an action comedy through and through with an Idiot Hero protagonist and extremely hilarious villain Lo-Pan played by James Hong whom chews scenery left, right and center.
- The Martian is considerably more optimistic and upbeat (in comparison to Ridley Scott's more grim takes on the Science Fiction genre), despite it's potentially dire premise (An astronaut gets stranded on Mars and must use his engineering skills to survive). Some critics have even argued that it maybe the lightest film he's ever done.
- The Northman by Robert Eggers whilst undoubtedly still an extremely violent and grim movie that includes little kids getting killed and near sexual assault, is regardless Lighter and Softer compared to both Eggers’ previous films The VVitch and The Lighthouse being the most “Hollywood” of the three. Where The VVitch and The Lighthouse had disturbed protagonists whom eventually go nuts and had extremely depressing endings, The Northman by contrast features an Anti-Hero protagonist who rescues slaves and has a Bittersweet Ending dying while killing his Big Bad evil uncle in a volcano sword fight to ensure his wife and unborn children are safe from him.
- Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove although still pretty dark, being about the atomic destruction of the whole world, compared to Kubrick’s films before and after it may be the softest and most lighthearted film he ever made, being a genuine comedy at its core. Peter Sellers and George C. Scott are scene chewing barrels of fun and even the nihilistic moments concerning nuclear doomsday are near constantly off-set by gags.
- Stephen King
- It (1990) although still (thanks to Tim Curry) a powerful source of Nightmare Fuel for the kids of the late 80s/early 90s, being a Made-for-TV Movie is far more sanitised and less gritty than the novel. In King’s book, little Georgie explicitly gets his arm torn off by Pennywise and there’s multiple gory moments as well as explicit sex and sexual themes (especially around Beverly, who’s only 11 years old in the flashbacks). The 1990s miniseries cuts out or softens the extreme moments of the novel, with a Dissolve happening as Pennywise kills Georgie and other murders just happening off screen and Ben getting his stomach sliced by Henry Bowers is cut out. Averted with the 2017 reboot which is both Bloodier and Gorier and Darker and Edgier than even the book in some aspects, e.g Beverly’s father Alvin being a Pervert Dad is only implied in the book, while it is explicit in the 2017 film with him even attempting to rape her at one point. Though like in the 1990 version, the underage group sex scene in the sewer is unsurprisingly Adapted Out.
- Gerald's Game is a downplayed example compared to the novel as it does not pull any punches concerning Jessie's traumatic childhood with her father (albeit less detailed than the book) nor the infamous "degloving" scene. However some of the other gruesome and dark aspects of the story are either toned down or removed. For example Gerald actually attempts to rape his wife Jessie in the beginning causing her to kick out in self defense triggering his heart attack, the Netflix adaptation changes it so Gerald at leasts listens to his wife's pleas for him to stop and the heart attack is mainly from the viagra he took. The film also doesn't dwell on Gerald's body getting patially eaten by Prince the wild dog, unlike the the book which describes it in painstaking detail. Likewise Raymond Andrew Joubert's apalling crimes of paedophilia that were detailed in the book, are simply not mentioned. Jessie also gets to wear a slip, rather than just panties like in the book.
- Children of the Corn is most certainly this compared to King’s original short story. Given that the book ends with Burt finding Vicky crucified with barbed wire and her eyes ripped out and her corpse filled with corn before he is killed by “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” himself while the underage and pregnant wife of the 18-year old cult leader Malachi Ruth bitterly wishes they could kill He Who Walks Behind the Rows, but knows it’s impossible. The film adaptation while it still featuring Family-Unfriendly Violence and kids getting killed, alters the ending with Burt and Vicky burning the cornfields and escaping with two of the non-murderous children, making a case of Earn You Happy Ending rather than sheer nihilism like the novella.
- The Tommyknockers 1993 miniseries similar to IT 1990 is considerably more sanitised and less grim and violent than the book it’s based on. Gard contemplating suicide is omitted, as is the colossal amount of bloody death and carnage that make up the third act as Gard fights and kills the many of the alien-infected people of Haven. Bobby is Spared By Adaptation here unlike King’s book where she was beyond saving having turned into a Tommyknocker and Gard himself had to brutally Mercy Kill her. Also rather than the whole rest of Haven (minus David and Hilly Brown) dying once Gard flies the spaceship off earth in a Heroic Sacrifice like in the book, the town and its people are spared here instead.
- Argylle: As a Tuxedo and Martini Spy Fiction film by Matthew Vaughn, there's less blood and gore, sex talk and swearing than in Vaughn's Kingsman films (to the point it's rated PG-13 instead of R).
Individual examples:
- The 21 Jump Street movie is far more light-hearted than the series it is based on. Whereas the show was a police procedural teen drama, the movie is more of a buddy cop action movie filled with raunchy and tongue-in-cheek humor. The sequel probably more, as it enhances the fourth-wall breaking jokes.
- Adventures in Babysitting is a typical '80s adventure film, meaning it is family fun while still having endangered children, some borderline offensive jokes, a Playboy being a MacGuffin and even a Precision F-Strike. The 2016 remake is a Disney Channel Original Movie, meaning it's as childish as it gets.
- Alien:
- Aliens is a famous case of this alongside Actionized Sequel. While still very violent, gruesome and dark, thematically it’s far more upbeat and optimistic than the first film. The 1979 film is a straight up bleak and chilling Survival Horror which leans into Space Isolation Horror as well as the H. R. Giger gothically dark sexual themes with the titular Alien and the spacecraft they find it on. Aliens by comparison is closer to an action adventure film with real levity given to the story with Ripley and Newt’s bond and there’s more than one survivor by the end of the film.
- Alien vs. Predator being rated PG-13 in the United States features far less Gorn and Body Horror that both franchises are known for. It’s still pretty violent and dark but similar to Aliens is more of an action movie than a horror film. It also has a human teaming up and bonding with a Predator unlike most of the films where the Predators tend to just massacre the human characters with impunity.
- The Film of the Book of And Then There Were None fits this trope. While the book doesn't go more than a few pages without using a (mild, all things considered) swear word, has oftentimes graphic depictions of most of the deaths, and kills 'em all, the movie tones down the language to be Hays Code-compliant, never shows more than the feet or hands of any dead person (if they're shown at all), and gives Vera and Lombard a happy ending. In contrast, the Russian version is Darker and Edgier: You get a seriously twisted sex scene between the two "heroes", no gory discretion shots, fan service with a creepy context behind it, a Flashback Nightmare for a character who cheerfully dismissed his crime in the book, and the characters slowly going insane one by one. It's the most faithful adaptation of the book; it just takes the book's darker themes and expands on them.
- The Joel Schumacher-helmed Batman films were considerably lighter in tone and content than the Tim Burton installments that came before it, in part because of the parental outcry over how dark Batman Returns was. (Never mind it was rated PG-13.) This more child-friendly approach went hand-in-hand with The Merch, and contributed to the artistic catastrophe of Batman & Robin, which led to a reboot to start afresh.
- Within The Dark Knight Trilogy itself, The Dark Knight Rises. While it still maintains a comparatively serious tone to many other Superhero films, it's more of a straight-up action movie than its predecessor (which can be considered more of a depressing drama on psychopathy - in other words, impossibly dark), and even has a happy ending.
- Speaking of Batman, The first two movies of the DC Extended Universe, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, were Darker and Edgier compared to most movies in the genre, more like Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy. The later movies in the franchise vary from this due to having different creative teams. Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey have a lot of more vibrant and humorous personalities, Wonder Woman and Aquaman feel more optimistic and earnest, and SHAZAM is the most kid-friendly film of the bunch. Justice League, meanwhile, went through a ludicrous Troubled Production that heavily reworked it to be much lighter and softer than the originally intended version by Zack Snyder and Chris Terrio. The latter two's true version of the film, eventually released as Zack Snyder's Justice League, proved to have much more levity than Batman v Superman, while remaining earnest and Darker and Edgier than the 2017 film at the same time.
- Battle for the Planet of the Apes, in contrast to the previous and very dark Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (and more so if you watch the version with the original, uncensored ending).
- In-universe in Beyond the Lights. Noni ultimately sheds her hyper-sexual, bad girl image in favor of a more natural one that is closer to who she actually is. The trope is also played with as the content of her music shifts from focusing on sex and partying (industry standard) to discussing her coming to terms and dealing with her depression (hardly something discussed by budding pop stars).
- 2016's The BFG by Disney got accused of being this, especially in comparison to the original book and much loved 1989 animated film. Dahl’s book and the animated film though they still had happy endings were quite dark with the other giants eating people namely little children and Sophie herself nearly getting eaten multiple times. The 2016 film removes and tones down a lot of the darker aspects considerably while upping the family friendly humour with even Big Bad Fleshlumpeater being less sinister (due to being played by Jemaine Clement). There’s also a significant Lighter and Softer change to Giant Country as while in the book and animated version it’s a Eldritch Location that’s hellishly barren, in the 2016 film it’s a lush Island of Mystery.
- The original Black Cat is a gritty, dramatic thriller where the teen protagonist, Catherine, is forced into becoming a killing machine for an underground organization after commiting Accidental Murder, with a semi-depressing Bittersweet Ending. The sequel on the other hand is a Buddy Picture with quite some slapstick comedy, Catherine getting a Bumbling Sidekick, and doesn't take itself as seriously as the original film.
- Blade Runner 2049 plays with this delicately. It’s just as somber, violent and depressing as its predecessor but whereas the 1982 film is morally grey with the Anti-Hero protagonist Decker being tasked to kill sympathetic replicant antagonists that just want to live like anyone else, the 2017 sequel is much closer to “Good Vs Evil”. The villain Wallace is overtly evil compared to Tyrell and the protagonist K is decidedly more heroic and sympathetic than Decker due to him being explicitly a replicant himself. Compared to the original cut of the first film, 2049 has a less ambiguous genuinely happy (albeit bittersweet) ending.
- The film adaptation of Blood & Chocolate (2007) compared to the book, which has a more tragic and cynical outcome for Aiden and Vivian's romance; although she does get a happy ending with Gabriel it's a bit of a bittersweet outcome. The film has a more unambiguously happy ending and keeps Aiden and Vivian together. It also doesn't include the plotline where Vivian believes she's been unknowingly killing innocent humans and starts to feel suicidal.
- Bill & Ted Face the Music is certainly this compared to both of the first and second films (especially the second). While Bill and Ted 1 and 2 were chock full of hard 80s humour that was often dark and horny, especially Bogus Journey which added outright horror elements with Death being an antagonist. Face the Music by comparison is a much softer and tamer plot wherein Bill and Ted are suffering a Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis being forced to come to terms with the fact that they’re older men now who can’t keep acting like teenage boys who want to be rock stars anymore. It’s also about them Passing the Torch to their daughters. Even Death is a Lighter and Softer character.
- Bird Box: The ending scene. In the original novel, the safe haven that Malorie and the children found consisted of people who gouged out their own eyes for safety. In the film, the sanctuary was originally a school for the blind, and the residents who are still sighted merely hide as necessary.
- Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is much less cynical than its predecessor, Borat. It revolves around Borat and his daughter Tutar’s growing relationship whereas the original focused on Borat trying to have sex with Pamela Anderson (although she had been told beforehand what was going on). At the end, he tries to abduct her for that purpose. In the climax of the second movie, he saves Tutar from potentially getting sexually assaulted by Rudy Giuliani. note There are also more kindhearted characters, like two Holocaust survivors and a woman who convinces Tutar that she shouldn’t get a boob job to please her dad if she doesn’t want to. Even the characters who are being mocked, like the guys he stays with in Washington state who help him write a song about giving Obama the coronavirus, have been acknowledged by Sacha Baron Cohen to be good people at heart who’ve been manipulated by misinformation for far too long.
- Bumblebee is a much lighter affair than any of the previous Transformers films. The apocalyptic scale of the previous installments is reduced significantly, there are fewer casualties, and much less adult humor than in the Michael Bay films. Much of the film's story is focused on the growing relationship between Bumblebee and Charlie, and how the two help each other in overcoming their personal trauma. The designs of the Transformers themselves are also more evocative of their Generation 1 designs, making them more bright and colorful as a result.
- The Russian 1994 adaptation of The Castle by Alexei Balabanov is much more idealistic and optimistic that the novel. It even added an ending to unfinished novel - The protagonist failed his quest, but he will have a nice new life as peasant. Made even more bizarre by the fact that Balabanov was (in)famous for his movies being incredibly cynical and depressing.
- The 5th Child's Play, Seed of Chucky, following the tradition of horror franchises eventually collapsing into self-parody. Even the Asshole Victim (played by John Waters) in the 5th is of Love to Hate quality thanks to Waters' comedic Large Ham performance, in contrast to the previous downright mean-spirited Hate Sink or The Scrappy ones in the preceding films.
- The 1938 A Christmas Carol is more light-hearted than other adaptations, and leaves out a number of crucial scenes detailing Scrooge's Start of Darkness and Bad Future.
- Cinderella (2015) compared to Disney's previous live-action adaptations. In fact, compared to almost the entire Disney canon. This is the rare Disney film in which not a single character attempts to kill or seriously harm another at any point.
- The Clan of the Cave Bear still has some dark moments and an overall serious tone, but it removes or softens some of the more graphic and disturbing content from the book; this notably includes Ayla being aged up to a young adult for plot points such as her being repeatedly raped by Broud and nearly dying in childbirth (while it's still distressing, we at least don't have to watch a ten/eleven year old girl go through this; the initial rape scene is also significantly less violent than the book's description), and removing the part of the mog-urs' ritual where they cannibalize a man's decapitated head, among other things. The ending also has a more hopeful tone and less tragedy compared to the book's ending (while the book isn't completely devoid of hope by the end, things are much bleaker for the characters overall).
- Cloud Atlas: Cavendish's story is the most comedic.
- The Collection is much lighter and softer than The Collector (2009) in that it has a much happier ending and feeling in general.
- Conan the Barbarian (1982) is an R-rated fantasy epic that contained considerable amounts of violence and nudity. It also has a large following of fans who consider it one of the greatest fantasy films ever made. For the 1984 sequel Conan the Destroyer the studio decided they wanted a more family-friendly Conan. The result was a PG-rated, more lighthearted Conan adventure that was poorly received by fans of the original film.
- The Craft: Legacy tones down the horror elements present in The Craft, instead being more of a straight-up fantasy story that dabbles in horror in the third act. It also lacks some of the grimmer moments from the original such as depictions of attempted rape and attempted suicide, nor does it have the plot development of the protagonist being turned on and terrorized by her own friends.
- In the first Critters the creatures were fairly serious killing machines but had a low body count, they grew when they ate, and some of them died in very violent ways; in the sequel they killed many more people and the creatures have some violent deaths but they are pretty goofy and less intelligent than in the original. The other two films are pretty silly and the bodycounts are pretty low.
- The Crow (1994) is this compared to the comic book. Of course, the film is still very dark, but the violence was toned down, and the main character is less of a sociopath.
- Die Hard is much lighter than Nothing Lasts Forever, the novel it was loosely based on. While both the film and book respectively deal with John/Joe's fear dealing with the overwhelming odds, the book is much harsher about it by also showing the dehumanizing elements he goes through killing all of Gruber's men. In addition to that, the book has a much bigger focus on Grey-and-Grey Morality with the corporation the terrorists are raiding having been involved in crooked arms deals in the past, Dwayne T. Robinson is an outright Dirty Cop who also becomes an Asshole Victim in the end and Gruber's men manage to claim a lot more lives than in the film, where only Takagi and Ellis are killed, the latter of which has a far more tragic death with him tearfully begging for his life as opposed to the film where it's a result of his own smugness thinking he can control the situation. And last but not least, the novel ends with a Downer Ending where the protagonist fails to save his daughter (his wife in the film) from falling to her death along with the Big Bad.
- Doctor Sleep, unsurprisingly for a sequel to a Stanley Kubrick film is far more optimistic, cheerful and heartwarming than the 1980 film. It’s still dark and disturbing and features the Death of a Child but while Kubrick‘s film was purely about being as psychologically harrowing as humanly possible, Doctor Sleep is a redemption story with a protagonist that isn’t Ax-Crazy. This of course makes it Truer to the Text of both the book of Doctor Sleep and the book version of The Shining, serving as an Author's Saving Throw for the Darker and Edgier changes made to the first instalment (which Stephen King hated) compositing Danny with his father Jack allowing for the Heroic Sacrifice the latter lacked in the 1980 film. The ending is unambiguously heartwarming as well with Danny looking into the spirit of his mother’s eyes as the Overlook burns down around him.
- The A Dog's Purpose film is a lot more of a standard family-friendly "Boy And His Dog" work than the book. A lot of the harsher elements like the Downer Beginning, Todd's Troubling Unchildlike Behavior of killing animals, and Buddy's abusive owners are either glossed over or removed. It also ends on a happy ending instead of a Bittersweet Ending. In the film, Ethan realizes that his new dog Buddy is a reincarnation of his first dog Bailey. In the book, Ethan dies of a stroke while Buddy does the dog equivalent of Died in Your Arms Tonight.
- The original Dragonheart was about leading a revolution against a tyrant king. It featured countless war deaths, a boy getting run through by a stake, a man getting his eyes burnt out (offscreen), and a man getting slain with a battleaxe. The sequel, however, was about a boy raising a dragon and featured no actual violence (or real combat) whatsoever up until the last few minutes.
- Evan Almighty was made as a family-friendly film, compared to the spontaneous orgasms and F-Bombs of the film it was a sequel of.
- Evil Dead: The original The Evil Dead is a straight horror film. The remake/sequel Evil Dead 2 added elements of dark comedy and even slapstick to the mix. Finally, Army of Darkness focused mostly on wisecracks and slapstick action, playing like a parody of an action fantasy film.
- The 1928 French film version of The Fall of the House of Usher takes some pretty serious liberties with the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. First, Roderick and Madeline are husband-and-wife instead of siblings, thus eliminating the Incest Subtext from the story. Second, and even more surprisingly, Roderick and Madeline escape the collapsing Usher mansion alive.
- The Fast and the Furious:
- 2 Fast 2 Furious, while downplayed a little by the fact that it still has the predeccesor's gritty tone here and there, is slightly more lighthearted and comedic when compared to the predecessor. Iconic Sequel Character Roman Pearce, in particular, is a quippy Plucky Comic Relief compared to The Stoic that was the emotionless Dominic Toretto in the first. This film has more scenes set in the daytime compared to the first film's constant use of nighttime scenes, more comedic moments, and a less morally ambiguous atmosphere, compared to the first.
- The 2019 Spin-Off Hobbs & Shaw is noticeably even more lighthearted and comedic compared to any of the mainline Fast films. The film has a more quippy and silly feel, and even the Big Bad, while a Knight of Cerebus, is more of a Laughably Evil villain compared to the other Fast villains. On the other hand, the third act of the movie becomes a little bit more serious, but the film's more comedic feel and it also being a spin-off is what makes it the franchise's first (and so far possibly only) Breather Episode.
- The Fly II is a case of a film that manages to be this trope AND Bloodier and Gorier at the same time compared to its predecessor, The Fly (1986), due to being a B-Team Sequel that had an Audience Shift — from adults to teenagers — forced upon it by the studio. While Martin Brundle, the Spin-Offspring of the first film's leads, is very much a Generation Xerox of his father Seth (even getting a similar brunette love interest), once his inherited mutation kicks in he does NOT undergo a Protagonist Journey to Villain even as he racks up a far higher body count than Seth did. This is because Martin is an Uneven Hybrid who doesn't undergo a Split-Personality Takeover, and is being exploited by the heartless Corrupt Corporate Executive and cronies who raised him in isolation, hiding his true nature from him to boot. Thus the audience is supposed to cheer on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge in the third act rather than see it as a fall from grace, and in the end he becomes fully human and defeats the Big Bad all in one go.
- Fist of Legend is the softer remake of the Bruce Lee classic, Fist of Fury. The remake's depiction of the Chinese vs. Japanese conflict is presented as less black-and-white and there are sympathetic characters on both sides. The hero Chen Zhen is also far less bloodthirsty and bent on revenge than in the previous movie and gets a happier ending, the lighting and sets of each film are on opposite ends of the Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty, and the remake ends with the hero defeating a single enemy with his friends and allies in the kung-fu school ultimately spared instead of a massive genocide in both schools as seen in the original.
- The Friday the 13th series gradually became campier until they began parodying themselves. Compare the tongue-in-cheek sci-fi based Jason X with the dark slasher movie tone of the originals.
- Character-specific example with the titular Forrest Gump, compared to his book version. Literary Forrest isn’t so much a Inspirationally Disadvantaged All-Loving Hero and more a Dumb Muscle Idiot Savant who sleeps around with several women as opposed to devoting his heart to one woman: Jenny (whom Forrest cheats on in the book) while also being incredibly racist dropping numerous epithets towards black and asian people. Movie Forrest by comparison is a genuine Kindhearted Simpleton whose compassion to minorities is well ahead of its time (and beautifully ironic as his ancestor was part of the Ku Klux Clan) and he treats Jenny far better than he does in the book. Inverted with rest of the film which is actually darker than the book which was mainly a comedy. Jenny’s Broken Bird Trauma Conga Line and Lieutenant Dan’s depression plot threads are original to the film with the book instead focusing mainly on Forrest getting up to wacky hijinks
- F/X: Murder by Illusion and its sequel F/X 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion have more or less the same plot, but in the first film, Rollie Tyler straight-up murders the bad guys at the end, and then he and Leo McCarthy steal the loot from the bad guys. In the sequel, Rollie and Leo just knock the bad guys out or leave them to be arrested by the police (one bad guy is murdered by one of his accomplices, who then is stuck by Rollie and Leo trying to fly his escape helicopter alone, despite having no pilot training—what becomes of him is not shown), and they ultimately return the loot to the institution it was stolen from. So in the first film, Tyler and McCarthy are pretty dark antiheroes, but they are more or less straightforward white-hats in the second.
- When Gamera the Brave rebooted the series after the dark and critically acclaimed Heisei trilogy, it went back to the child-friendly tone of the 60's films using a younger Gamera.
- Glass (2019) is a marginal case. It's plenty violent and ends with all three main characters dead, but the movies before it (Unbreakable and Split) are somber deconstructions and in parts incredibly soul-crushing for ostensible superhero films, and particularly gory in Split's case. In contrast, Glass is closer to a traditional modern superhero film mixed with an escape movie, far more upbeat than the preceding films, and not as committed to psychologically delving into the issues of its cast and displaying Realism-Induced Horror like Unbreakable and Split are.
- Ghostbusters (1984) was in the same vein as Gremlins: a horror-comedy that, while not especially dark, was made with adults and teenagers in mind. Some scenes are genuinely frightening, like the librarian ghost Jump Scare and Dana Barrett being held down in her armchair by grotesque monster hands and being dragged toward a demon dog, helpless to fight back. The movie is also full of casual smoking (almost every main character lights a cigarette at one point), swearing, and sex jokes that go way above young kids' heads (such as Ray Stantz, a human Ghostbuster, getting oral sex in a dream from a pretty girl ghost). Then they realized kids were seeing the movie and loved it, so they made The Real Ghostbusters (which ran from 1986 to 1991!) and Ghostbusters II. While the animated series took steps to break out of the Animation Age Ghetto (and was fairly successful), the sequel eliminated the majority of the swearing and sex jokes, and nobody except Ray Stantz is seen anywhere near tobacco (and Ray never actually smokes anything; he has an unlit pipe or cigar in his hand that he chews on in a couple scenes, but he never ever puts a lit cigarette in his mouth). That said, the second movie still has its share of actual scares, like heads impaled on spikes appearing in an abandoned, dark subway tunnel, and the villain silently locking two main characters into a claustrophobic dark room as soon as he realizes they've caught on to the link between him and the river of slime beneath New York and trying to burn them alive. The 2016 remake is also more of an out and out comedy.
- God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness: The film considerably tones down the persecution themes, showing some far more sympathetic antagonists, acknowledging there are legitimate grievances against certain Christians, and that the modern church has failed in many ways. It's also got much more humor and light moments than the previous ones. The ending is also not a straight Christian triumph, but a reconciliation.
- Godzilla:
- The Godzilla films of the 1960s-1970s Showa era were considerably more kid-friendly and light-hearted in tone compared to the very dark original 1954 film. In comparison, Godzilla (2014) ZIG-ZAGGED this. While it lacked the family-friendly tone or camp of the Showa era, it still portrays Godzilla is positive light. Godzilla avoids harming humans and saves humanity by defeating the Mutos. Unlike previous incarnations, in which Godzilla is feared and despised even when he saves the world, this Godzilla is hailed as a hero with people cheering for him after his victory. In a case of history repeating itself the later MonsterVerse films such as Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Godzilla vs. Kong are Lighter and Softer compared to even the 2014 film, trading out the bleak grounded tone of the first instalment with full on Rule of Cool lighthearted Kaiju action and general wackiness, very similar to the Showa era.
- Miraculously Godzilla Minus One is this, despite it being firmly set in the post-war stricken depression of Japan like the first film and unflinchingly depicting the massacre of thousands of innocent lives at an unambiguously monstrous Godzilla’s hands. The key difference is where Godzilla (1954) cynically focused on Humans Are the Real Monsters with Godzilla being a byproduct of nuclear testing and Dr. Serizawa taking his own life to make sure the Oxygen Destroyer cannot be used again, Minus One by contrast stresses Rousseau Was Right as the Shell-Shocked Veteran protagonist Shikishima accepts he has a life and family Worth Living For. Not to mention the 2023 film empathises the idea of the Japanese people recovering and moving on from war and death in contrast to the more nihilistic mood of the 1952 film. This is best seen by their endings as the original film ends on a sad note with Serizawa killing himself along with Godzilla, Minus One instead has Shikishima using the Ejection Seat as he flies his bomb rigged plane into Godzilla’s mouth and afterwards learns that The Lost Lenore Noriko actually survived Godzilla’s earlier attack and rushes to the hospital she is at with their adoptive daughter Akiko to reunite. This means unlike the original film’s ending, Everybody Lives here.
- Goosebumps (2015) in contrast to the books and TV show. The books were quite dark despite being for children - even darker in tone than Gremlins. The film is a Genre Throwback to them, with more comedy than outright horror.
- The 2013 version of The Great Gatsby greatly toned down the overtly nihilistic tone of the book, mostly focusing on the night life of the 1920s. Many did not take this down very well...
- Gremlins is a horror-comedy that's pretty dark, though it features a cute little furry creature so many kids saw it. Gremlins 2: The New Batch, despite the PG-13 rating note , is much lighter in tone. While there is still quite a lot of violence, it's much more absurd and generally played for slapstick. Most tellingly, the film even breaks the fourth wall to give Hulk Hogan a humorous cameo.
- The final film was also much lighter than the original draft of the script, which would have been an adult-rated horror movie. For example, the scene where Billy's badass Action Mom kills three of the buggers with kitchen utensils? In the original screenplay, they kill her, and Billy arrives at the house to be greeted by the sight of the cackling Gremlins rolling her severed head down the stairs to him.
- Halloween like its contemporaries A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th got this over time with once terrifying Michael Myers getting more and more Nightmare Retardant in the numerous sequels. The crowning example being Halloween: Resurrection where Michael has an epic Duel to the Death in a shed with his Arch-Enemy Busta Rhymes, with the result that the film quickly becomes a comedy. The Rob Zombie remake and 2018 reboot both actively seek to avert this, with the latter succeeding (though Michael still suffers from Villain Decay in the 2018 film’s sequels).
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey while edgier than the original novel (which is still surprisingly dark for a children’s book) is this compared to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The stakes are much lower, the humour with the Dwarven Company is played up to the hilt, there’s few song numbers and Bilbo (being played by veteran comedic actor Martin Freeman) is a far more lighthearted and funny protagonist than Frodo. Of course this makes the film Truer to the Text and when the two sequels made an conservative effort to make the tone and story conform to LOTR’s films i.e Darker and Edgier, there was backlash.
- The Howling:
- The Howling (1981) is lighter at least compared to the novel. While the movie is still a horror story with some grisly moments, it has a more satirical and darkly comedic tone, while the book is much more serious. While Karen suffers PTSD in both versions, the film softens things slightly by having Karen be rescued from her attacker at the last moment (although she's still understandably traumatized), while the book graphically depicts Karyn being sexually assaulted and goes into detail over how the rape impacts her wellbeing (including flashbacks etc).
- All of the sequels to the original film save for Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (which was closest to the novel), and Howling The Rebirth tend to be a lot heavier on comedy than horror.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)—the Galaxy is presented as more wondrous and grand than the dull, bureaucratic "Earth-society-but-bigger" version we tend to get, and the film ends with the new Earth being put in the place of the old one rather than being dismantled when construction shuts down as in the other versions.
- I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK. Park Chan-wook, director of Oldboy (2003), said he wanted his film to appeal to younger audiences as well. The tone is lighter than that of his Vengeance trilogy, but the movie starts with a girl "charging herself" by slitting her wrist and jamming a mains lead into the wound, taping it up carefully before flicking the switch.
- Indiana Jones:
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, following the Darker and Edgier Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is this. Now to be clear, The Last Crusade still features plenty of Family-Unfriendly Violence, raunchiness and nightmarish imagery (with the Big Bad in particular getting a horrifying death) but it has far more jokes and funny moments than the previous two films. Spielberg himself noted The Last Crusade easily got the most laughs from audiences.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is very much this compared to the original trilogy. While Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and the aforementioned Last Crusade featured a multitude of Nightmare Fuel imagery and deaths, Mooks getting butchered by Indy and general pulp grittiness, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is comparatively family friendly being far less violent and quite goofy in parts (more so than than even the third film) e.g Mutt swinging on vines with monkeys. A lot of the more chilling supernatural themes are traded out for aliens/inter-dimensional beings. It also ends with Indy and Marion Happily Married, unlike the previous films where Indy was a Bond-style philander.
- Downplayed with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It is actually Darker and Edgier compared to The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull its predecessor and features Family-Unfriendly Violence, bloody wounds, innocents getting killed and Nazis once again. Not to mention being more sad with Indy being in grief after losing Mutt to the The Vietnam War. However by the standards of the original 80s trilogy Dial of Destiny is still far more tame and sanitised with much of the horror elements of the first three films not being applied and while we do see the narly disfigured corpses of the Nazi villains Voller and Klaber in the climax, it’s still a far cry from the Nazi face melting/exploding/rotting away of Raiders or The Last Crusade. It can be argued that there’s some practicality at play given the very dark and gritty elements of the original Indy trilogy can be seen as a case of Values Dissonance in today’s age (which is a totally fair observation in the Temple of Doom’s case)
- Into the Woods, compared to the stage show but only marginally. Gruesome parts like the Baker cutting The Wolf open and the stepsisters getting their feet cut up are given a Gory Discretion Shot. The death of Jack's mother is softened, while Rapunzel lives and her prince remains faithful to her.
- Jack the Giant Slayer is this compared to other modern fairy tale films such as Snow White & the Huntsman and Red Riding Hood.
- James Bond had it a few times. After the too realistic and bloody approach from the Timothy Dalton years, came the more comedic Pierce Brosnan era. After Daniel Craig got too dark on Quantum of Solace (which many dissed as a "more Bourne than Bond") and Skyfall, which went so far as to kill off M, the series goes back to its lighthearted roots in Spectre. Although by not much since it still lacks the same whimsy as the Brosnan/Moore era, the movie is probably the most "Bond-like" of the Craig era, with more humor, more fantastical elements, and a happier ending than any of its predecessors. Especially since its sequel No Time to Die by comparison is Darker and Edgier and has a Bittersweet Ending with Bond getting Killed Off for Real.
- Jaws, shockingly is a case of this compared to Peter Benchley’s original novel. While both are violent and scary, the book is actually more about the predators of the land than the sea, with the human characters being far more dark and messed up than they are in the film. In the book, mayor Larry Vaughn isn’t just a incompetent Mayor Pain, he’s an outright mafioso, Brody and Ellen rather being Happily Married like in the film have a troubled marriage with Ellen having an affair (with Hooper) and Quint isn’t a cool Old Soldier but a crazy Egomaniac Hunter whom disembowels a blue shark, and uses an illegally caught unborn baby dolphin for bait. The movie cuts these storylines out, and softens the characters up to be more likeable, in contrast to the book where ironically the Shark was the least despicable character.
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is softer in tone compared to the more horror-lite elements and depressing tone of the first Jumanji, with more emphasis on the "Freaky Friday" Flip hijinks of the teens, plenty of good-natured chiding of the plot, and deaths that are largely Played for Laughs.
- Jurassic Park is much, much tamer than the novel it's based on; for one, the book starts off with a man who was the victim of a Velociraptor mauling so brutal, his bones and arteries could be seen through his wounds, and he vomited blood from his mouth like a fire hose as he died. The movie also starts off with a fatal Velociraptor attack, but it cuts away before the actual death. Nedry's death is also much more descriptive and explicit, as he is disembowelled by the Dilophosaurus and later, the other characters come across his partly-eaten remains.
- Kaamelott: Premier Volet: While not without its Played for Drama moments, the film reverts the show's Cerebus Syndrome and is definitely more Played for Laughs and lighthearted than Book VI.
- Kull the Conqueror: When compared to the earlier (and later) Conan the Barbarian films, which this is a Divorced Installment of. In the Conan movies there are some pretty violent deaths, epically evil bad guys, and nudity. Because Kull was made with a PG-13 rating in mind, all of these are absent.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is very much this compared to the comic series it was based on. The comic even by Alan Moore standards was extremely cynical and ludicrously gritty being a deconstruction of Super Team comics. The heroine Mina Murray nearly gets raped shortly into the comic, there’s heaps of racism and violence with Captain Nemo gorily murdering people and going into homicidal rages against British mooks and most infamously in a later comic Griffin the Invisible Man sexual assaults Mina before being sodomised to death by Mr Hyde in revenge. The film understandably omits a lot of this and is more of a straightforward action adventure film with none of the sexual violence or the overt sociopathic traits of the comic’s cast (the Invisible Man isn’t a rapist for one, being a different character altogether).
- Life as a House: Sam is a surly Goth teen with piercings and eye makeup. He is forced to spend a summer with his estranged dad, who wants him to remove the makeup and piercings. Over the film, as Sam increasingly bonds with his father and goes through a change of heart, Sam gradually stops wearing the makeup and piercings.
- Mad Max is an extremely bleak film with a bittersweet ending. Even though The Road Warrior takes place After the End, it manages to have a lighter tone than the original film. The villains are less psychotic, there are many more sympathetic characters, but the ending is still bittersweet. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome further lightens the mood, with a plot focusing on a group of tribal children who dispatch enemies with frying pans, and who aren't forced to face the machine guns and molotov cocktails of the first film.
- Mad Max: Fury Road brought it back to between the original and The Road Warrior, having higher emotional stakes because it's people instead of gasoline being fought over with the Wives, with heavy implications of their past experiences, along with an utterly disgusting villain (who has the same actor as the villain from the original movie). Max is also portrayed as far more haunted and broken than in the previous sequels. But it has a significantly more optimistic ending than the first movie.
- The MGM Marx Brothers movies, starting with A Night at the Opera. Roger Ebert, though praising the film, found that their Signature Style was Comedic Sociopathy and anarchy, as opposed to later films, where they become more heroic and tend to take an active interest in the plot. For instance, in the last non-MGM film, Duck Soup, Groucho's character is basically a dumber and more frivolous Benito Mussolini; in A Night at the Opera, he's strictly a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- The Mask starring Jim Carrey already made things too light and soft for most fans of the über-violent original series to accept. Then (11 years later) came Son of the Mask, one of the most universally loathed movies ever, and kicked things down a notch, giving us a PG rating and sparing us the image of the Mask getting freaky with his wife. Although, let's be honest... none of us really wanted to see that.
- The Meg is much less violent and more comedic than the novel series it's based on, with far fewer explicit deaths and less scenes of general mayhem, often cutting away or using camera angles that avoid showing too much gore. This was done primarily to maintain its PG-13 rating, and several R-rated scenes were apparently cut in order to achieve this.
- Men in Black: The original comic series has the MiB's main scheme as controlling the world order rather than merely maintaining it and would even go as far as straight up murder to keep things under wraps. The slightly more family-friendly film series depicts the MiB as a highly secretive, but relatively noble faction who simply make sure aliens don't mess with humans, the Earth or each other while living there and employ nifty neuralyzers instead of, well...12-gauges
◊ to maintain their secrecy. - Mirror, Mirror is probably the most light-hearted film version of the fairytale in which it was inspired (And also specially compared with Snow White & the Huntsman) There is much more comedy and slapstick, The Queen, while still a villain and a Jerkass with no redeeming features, has some comical traits and is somewhat less meaner, and also at the end of the movie is revealed that Snow White's father is still alive, in sharp contrast with every other adaptation.
- Mortal Kombat: The Movie though still considered a classic and the first real aversion of Video Game Movies Suck, is generally much Lighter and Softer than the source games due to its PG-13 rating. The games are iconic for their Gorn and brutal Fatalities, whereas the film although pretty gnarly in a few select moments (e.g Scorpion getting cut to pieces by Johnny) features Bloodless Carnage overall. Only one of the heroes gets killed and a Canon Foreigner to boot. The 2021 film goes out of its way to avert this, being Bloodier and Gorier, though it was ironically less successful than the 1995 film (84.4 million USD vs 122.2 million USD).
- My Name Is Nobody is this compared to many of the serious Spaghetti Westerns it parodies. There's more humor, the violence is less brutal (no Gorn or torture), the Black-and-Gray Morality common to the genre is considerably softened (Jack Beauregard is rather jaded but has no real Kick the Dog moments, Nobody is rather idealistic in his quirky way, and while the Wild Bunch are Bad People, the film doesn't depict any atrocities at the level of what Frank or Angel Eyes get up to), and it ends happily.
- While they were still R-rated, each A Nightmare on Elm Street was more surreal and comedic than the one before it, peaking with Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which has Freddy doing a Wicked Witch of the West impression ("I'll get you my pretty, and your little soul too!") during the first few minutes.
- Oliver!, the 1968 musical adaptation of Oliver Twist. Granted, most musicals are this by nature, but still, the original book is pretty grim.
- Once a Thief is one of the many Heroic Bloodshed collaborative efforts between director John Woo and actor Chow Yun-fat and is notably one of their most light-hearted outputs. Instead of a violent gangster drama, it's a heist movie with plenty of comedy in-between, runs on Bloodless Carnage, contains loads of slapstick violence (a mook gets comically Shot in the Ass at one point), and ends on a highly optimistic note where none of the main characters bites it (whereas their other movies would, at the very least, have a Bittersweet Ending). They went back to the dark, serious formula in their next and final director-actor collaboration, the action classic Hard Boiled.
- Ophelia: William Shakespeare's Hamlet is known as one of his darkest works, dealing with madness, murder and grief, and infamously ends with nearly everyone in the main cast dying tragically. Comparatively, Ophelia has a more light-hearted tone (probably due in part to the fact it cuts out Hamlet's many angst-ridden soliloquies and focuses more on Ophelia, who is characterized here as a Plucky Girl) and it manages to end on a more uplifting note.
- Pitch Black was rated R for a good reason. The Chronicles of Riddick was trimmed down by execs to a PG-13 rating and while it was still uber-violent, it was mostly Bloodless Carnage, though the unrated directors cut has more blood.
- The Princess Bride is actually this compared to the book version by William Goldman (In-Universe S. Morgenstern). While the film is still fairly violent and dark in places, it greatly omits many of the borderline Dark Comedy and particularly grisly elements of the book. Poor Buttercup in novel gets abused by Vizzini and Humperdink (the latter at one point dragging her by the hair) and even Westley, Buttercup’s One True Love, strikes her when testing her disguised as Dread Pirate Roberts — while the film removes all these moments. Humperdink’s Nightmare Fuel Zoo of Death is Adapted Out for budgetary reasons and Rugen’s death though still pretty bloody for a PG-13 film is much less graphic than the book where Inigo cuts out his heart and watches in satisfaction as Rugen dies. The book’s “The Lady, or the Tiger?“ Ambiguous Ending is also changed to a Big Damn Kiss Golden Ending — though Word of God says grandpa just didn’t read that part to the boy.
- The song "Keep It Gay" from The Producers lampshades the practice of softening up musical adaptations."Whether it's murder, mayhem or rage. It's a pain. Don't complain. Keep it gay!"
- Psycho though it’s hard to believe it, is actually a lighter affair than the book. Make no mistake, the Hitchcock film is still terrifying, but thanks to The Hays Code and several changes made by Hitchcock himself it’s far less than graphically explicit and violent. For instance in the book, Marion in her Shower Death gets her whole head cut off rather than just getting stabbed like in the film. Arbogast’s death likewise is more horrible in the book, with him getting stabbed in the eyes with a razor. Marion’s explicit nudity and the occult artefacts Norman has in his house are also missing in the film version.
- Red Dawn (1984) was a depressing Cold War story about a resistance fighting a Hopeless War against the Russians. The 2012 version felt more hopeful.
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse is this compared to the first Paul W.S. Anderson RE film. The first movie is pretty much a straight-up horror film with a dark, cramp, claustrophobic environment and the characters are pretty grounded as well. The only real truly fantastic elements are the Red Queen and the Licker. The sequel Apocalypse puts its foot on the accelerator into balls to the wall crazy action, liberally burrowing sequences, characters and campy elements from the games (albeit only using them in service of its different storyline and Canon Foreigner protagonist).
- RoboCop 3 intentionally toned down the extreme violence, profanity, and drug use of the first two in order to appeal to children. It bombed miserably.
- The Rocketeer features another character-specific example with Cliff and his girlfriend (Betty in the comic, Jenny in the film). In the comic by Dave Stevens, Cliff is more or less an asshole who’s incredibly full of himself and has such a rocky and sniping relationship with Betty that he actually laughs upon hearing goons who were hunting him barged into her studio and saw her naked (that’s right, his girlfriend is a Pin Up model rather than an actress here) not even showing concern over the fact she could’ve been attacked, kidnapped or assaulted. Likewise Betty is largely selfish and unheroic, happy to make Cliff jealous whenever she can. The film makes them both more likeable people who are in genuine love and wouldn’t hurt or treat each other like they do in the comic version. Tellingly, the Rocketeer comics made after the Disney film came out follow its example in making Cliff and Betty lighter and less problematic characters.
- Actually inverted with rest of the film though which despite being made by Disney is actually far darker than the original comic featuring gritty Family-Unfriendly Violence and honest to god Nazis. Played straight with the animated 3D cartoon spin-off on Disney+ though which is made purely for young children.
- Believe it or not, Scarface (1983) to the film it's a loose remake of, Scarface (1932). Under the gallons of blood and frequent swearing, it's actually a good deal gentler in tone than its predecessor. This has a lot to do with Tony Montana being more sympathetic than Tony Camonte, owing to the fact that he has lines he won't cross and attempts to justify himself with a (not entirely wrong) tirade about how he's really no worse than the societal elite that hypocritically looks down on him, just more honest; Camonte, on the other hand, has no such moral standards or sentimentality. Montana's implied incestuous attraction to his sister is also left ambiguous, while Camonte's is as overt as The Hays Code would allow. Finally, their deaths also happen under different circumstances: Montana is killed on the orders of a more ruthless drug kingpin after he refused to kill kids to get his target, while Camonte dies in a shootout with the police after his actions cause a massive public outcry.
- The Secret Service is much more graphically violent than Kingsman: The Secret Service, with candidates seriously hurt and/or killed during training. Candidates are also required to kill in cold blood and agents are generally more sociopathic than the movie versions (doing things like immobilizing opponents before delivering no holds barred beatdowns).
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, although still incredibly dark for a Nickelodeon movie is nevertheless considerably more lighthearted than the book series which is an unabashed Dark Comedy through and through. Notably Jim Carrey makes Olaf Laughably Evil in the film, whereas in the book Olaf is much more spine chilling particularly concerning his behaviour towards the underage Violet. The film also has more heartwarming moments with the Baudelaire children in spite of the bleakness, and the ending in particular closes out on a bittersweet — but ultimately satisfying note with the trio having a Sleep Cute in back of Mr. Poe’s car after reading their parents letter. Whereas the book series only ups the Trauma Conga Line for the trio, before having an Ambiguous Ending where they’re lost at sea.
- The Shaolin Temple trilogy, Jet Li's film debuts which kicked off his career, despite the two follow-up films being a Standalone Episode and Li plays a different character in each. The first film is gritty, mostly serious, opens with a massive massacre where Li's character sees his father being tortured to death by the Big Bad Emperor Wang before embarking on a bitter quest for revenge and the film ends with the Shaolin Temple subjected to All Your Base Are Belong to Us when the enemy army massacres most of the monks and sets the place on fire. The sequel, Kids From Shaolin, is a borderline children's film with an Animated Credits Opening, Jet Li's hero being the eldest among a bunch of urchins trying to play matchmaker between their adoptive father and the matriarch of a neighboring family, the villains being a ragtag bunch of bandits hardly as threatening as Emperor Wang from the first film and the final battle being rather heavy on slapstick and light on gore. The third and last film, Martial Arts of Shaolin walks the middle line, being slightly more serious than Kids but nowhere as gritty as the first.
- Simon Birch: While it ends bittersweetly and is still a drama, is much more light hearted than the novel its based off of, and ends with the main character having a normal and adjusted adult life, opposed to the novel, where Owen, whom Simon is based off of, dies rather violently, and Johnny, whom Joe is based off of, spends his days as a mopey, perpetually single man.
- Snow White & the Huntsman is a rather grim Dark Fantasy film. Its sequel The Huntsman: Winter's War is more comedic and tongue-in-cheek. Notably Eric in the first film was a depressed brooder, and in the sequel is more quippy and upbeat.
- Son of Kong was made to be a more light-hearted adventure than King Kong (1933). The body count is much lower than in the first film, and Little Kong is more cute and comedic than his destructive father.
- Spider-Man 2 toned down some of the violence of the first film and was given a PG by the British Board of Film Classification. This was after Spider-Man was given a 12 rating by the BBFC and described it as one of the most violent films ever aimed at young children, saying that some scenes even warranted a 15. Many councils (who have the final word on film censorship in the UK) boycotted this decision, releasing it as PG or PG-12, but Spider-Man stayed in cinemas long enough for young children to be admitted more widely (under adult supervision) following the introduction of the 12A rating.
- Stardust is a bit lighter in tone than the book it's adapted from. The book had a lot more violence, sex and swearing - not to mention a Downer Ending. The film turns the violence into mostly Bloodless Carnage and emphasises the comedy. Neil Gaiman, who wrote the book, approved the changes.
- This was done in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Executive Meddling ensured the next film would be light-hearted as well. Suffice it to say that it didn't work quite as well the second time.
- While it has some high-intensity action, Star Trek Beyond is significantly lighter than its reboot predecessors Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness. Kirk has matured being much less abrasive and arrogant, and a lot closer to his heroic TOS personality, and the depiction of the Federation and Starfleet is much closer to the Utopianism of the TV shows.
- Star Wars:
- Return of the Jedi, also produced by George Lucas, was more kid-oriented than the well-received and Darker and Edgier The Empire Strikes Back, the previous film in the original trilogy. Interestingly enough, Lucas, who didn't direct either film, wanted The Empire Strikes Back to be lighter and softer; he was eventually convinced to keep it in its current form, and ended up hiring a director for ROTJ whom Lucas would direct through; nevertheless, The Ewoks and their antics are mostly responsible for the lighter tone, while the scenes that don't involve them (Jabba's palace, the Emperor, etc) are still pretty dark.
- In the prequel trilogy, The Phantom Menace is the most light-hearted and kid-friendly film in the Skywalker Saga, which were substantially Darker and Edgier, especially the latter. (For comparison: In Episode I, Anakin is a kid; in Episode III he murders several kids.)
- While Solo does have some dark moments and quite a few deaths, it's much, much lower-stakes and doesn't go as dark as the other films (except for the Battle of Mimban), rather being a mostly lighthearted Space Western, thus making it the second only to The Phantom Menace as the lightest of the Star Wars films.
- The original The Stepford Wives book and its 1974 film adaptation were both intense thrillers. The 2004 remake, was more comedic in tone, and the scheme in this film, while still unpleasant, was less nefarious: Rather than kill the wives and replace them with robots, the wives are brainwashed with computer chips. Not to mention Walter, Joanna's husband, is able to stop the scheme rather than join in on it.
- Compared to many racing-themed movies both past and contemporary, Hal Needham's Stroker Ace eliminates the drama and grit of stockcar racing in favor of a more comedic look at the sport. Needham explores the antics behind NASCAR, including the between-race horsing around, sponsoring shenanigans, and pit crews having a laugh with each other. Its main character, Stroker, has almost no concern for winning or losing races; most of his conflict is with his sponsor, Clyde Torkle, and the humiliating advertisement gags he is forced to endure as part of his contract. Not even his rivalry with Aubrey James is taken seriously since Stroker doesn't even remember who he is half the time!
- Compare Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) with the second and third. The reason for the second movie being lighter and softer than the first was due to the Moral Guardians reacting to the use of weapons and a few instances of the word "damn" here and there. In fact, all Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adaptations are lighter and softer than the original comics, which include quite a lot of bloody murder and are not intended for children.
- Despite the PG-13 rating and higher stakes, Top Gun: Maverick is this compared to the first film. Notably, while there is still a training accident halfway through the movie, nobody actually dies in it unlike the first film and Coyote, Phoenix, and Bob are left unscathed from it. All the pilots also manage to come back alive from the mission despite the higher stakes and the fact that Maverick and Rooster were shot down during the mission, and the only main character to die is Iceman, though an off-screen one from his throat cancer.
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage is this compared to the first one, since there is a lot more comedy. Venom also doesn't sound as menacing.
- The Warriors: The book the movie is based on is considerably Darker and Edgier. The gang (called the Devastators in the book) are Villain Protagonists with no redeeming features. Along the way, they brutally gang rape and abandon a random girl. In the film, the Warriors are a bunch of crude but proud street toughs who are unjustly accused of a murder. The girl that was raped in the novel is turned into a love interest in the film.
- West Bank Story, a modern-day parody of West Side Story, focusing on two fast food restaurants in the occupied West Bank. There is much less violence (and most of that is property damage for sheer comedy), no deaths, and a Happy Ending, all different to the original.
- The famous 1939 adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is lighter than the book in a few ways. The Tin Man's backstory - where he Was Once a Man who gradually was enchanted to chop all his limbs off until they were replaced with tin - is left out of the film. The Wicked Witch also sends crows, poison bees and wolves after the protagonists - who kill them in self defence. Dorothy likewise intentionally throws the water on the witch (albeit without knowing it would melt her) as opposed to accidentally like in the film. Ironically the film has darker elements than the book - with an introduction where Toto is about to be put down by an angry neighbor, making the Wicked Witch into a much more menacing antagonist and removing a plot detail that Dorothy was protected from harm by a kiss from the Witch of the North. Return to Oz is actually closer in tone to the original books. Oz the Great and Powerful is somewhere in between.
- The adaptation of the novel World War Z is lighter and softer, and also dumbed down for better or for worse. According to Brad Pitt it was too complicated for a summer blockbuster.
- American horror films usually gets accused of this in spite of the "Splatter Pack" directors. Although most of them are foreign directors.
