Early Adaptation Weirdness

Looking back at the oldest adaptations of franchises with a modern lens, many come off as unusual by the standards of the series. They were likely faithful at the time of release but, with years of Characterization Marches On and other developments, they've since become wildly out of touch with their source material. Or maybe they were always a bit off, but the stuff they contradicted wasn't considered important at the time.

They often feature Early Installment Character Design Differences, characterization differences, and plot differences compared to the standardized portrayal of the work.

Related to Early Draft Tie-In and Early-Installment Weirdness.

Contrast with Truer to the Text, where an adaptation is noticeably more faithful to the source material than earlier adaptations.

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Examples:

Sonic the Hedgehog

The Sonic the Hedgehog series had both an original installment with an excuse plot and a lack of co-ordination between Sega's various international marketing teams leading to an impressive array of alternate interpretations in early adaptations.

• The first Sonic the Hedgehog manga was made after the second game and is thus really weird; Sonic is a Shazam!-esque Superpowered Alter Ego of a young hedgehog named Nicky and keeps that fact a secret from everyone, including Nicky himself. Sonic/Nicky is also only ten years old instead of a teenager, there are no humans except Eggman, and Sonic’s parents and sister are around, averting the usual Invisible Parents. Despite these many oddities, the manga is one of the small few Sonic adaptations to actually impact the games and have some of its elements made canon; most notably, Amy Rose and Charmy Bee both originated here before becoming canon characters.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is known for being the most cartoonish and comical of all the Sonic adaptations, features Mobius as a surreal Fantasy Kitchen Sink place and depicts Tails differently. He's four instead of eight, which likely stems from his original age being four according to the book Console Wars, and only displays his Gadgeteer Genius traits in a number of very special cases. There are only five Chaos Emeralds, of different shapes, and they only appear in select episodes. Dr. Robotnik is also a Laughably Evil goofball. Weirdly, of the various DiC cartoons, it's still the most faithful to the games.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): The series has almost nothing in common with the post-Sonic Adventure games, to the point where it seems like an in name only adaptation. The writers decided to exaggerate the core plot of the first two games: Sonic's little animal friends are now equally anthropomorphic co-stars with Sonic, the nature message is made into a major subplot with the world being rendered a dystopia, the villain Dr. Robotnik is made substantially more intimidating, Sonic's Totally Radical attitude is exaggerated to the point of parody, Tails a more stereotypical and less capable little kid, and Sonic is given a Love Interest.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) ran into this issue due to its status as a Long Runner and its indirect relation to Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM). The comic was one of the earliest adaptations and almost everything about it is contradictory to what became the status quo after Sonic Adventure. To list some:
  • The series takes place on a World of Funny Animals called "Mobius" ruled by a royal family. Sonic's friends are a resistance group called the "Freedom Fighters" fighting against the tyrannical Doctor Robotnik. The games, meanwhile, became increasingly different from that premise, most notably being eventually confirmed to take place on Earth (with animal characters being vastly outnumbered by humans). Later on, Mobius was revealed to be a futuristic Earth.
  • The comics also ignored the later firmly-established Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females rule in canon, featuring not only male characters who dressed in full-outfits, but also a handful of female characters who wore just as little as their male counterparts. Characters also have Furry Female Manes, unlike in the games.
  • The lore is completely different, almost all of the Canon Foreigner designs look very different from the game designs, and even the ages are different (with Tails being ten instead of eight, Amy being ten instead of eight/twelve, and Charmy being sixteen instead of six^ExplanationThis is due to the English manual for Knuckles Chaotix mentioning that Charmy is sixteen, which was later contradicted when Sonic Heroes confirmed Charmy as six). A Cosmic Retcon made everything closer to the games, before the comic was cancelled and replaced with the more current-games accurate comic Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW).
• Being one of the earliest adaptations, Sonic the Comic runs with this. Sonic lives on a World of Funny Animals called Mobius, he's much more of an Adaptational Jerkass than usual, and he reacts negatively to the Chaos Emeralds to the point where Super Sonic is his Superpowered Evil Side rather than the more conventional Super Mode it is in other continuities. Sonic is the leader of the "Freedom Fighters", a group of Mobians who want to overthrow the tyrannical Token Human Dr. Robotnik (who is much more intimidating than his standard portrayal), which consists of Ascended Extra characters like Johnny Lightfoot and Porker Lewis, amongst others. Knuckles wears a metal necklace rather than having a marking on his chest, Amy has a crossbow rather than a hammer. The comic also adapts game elements rather literally compared to other adaptations: Zones are all very different areas on Mobius, while Star Posts and loops are ancient parts of Mobius' landscape. Some elements of the comic, such as Amy's pre-Characterization Marches On personality, were later canonized in the games.
• Stay Sonic is a European guide based on the first two titles. It takes influence from early Sega of America documents and thus differs greatly from later canon. It influenced Sonic the Comic's portrayal with elements such as Sonic and Robotnik having been friends once.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie had a ton of oddities, like Sonic being a quick-tempered Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Knuckles being a treasure hunter and wearing a hat, demihumans instead of normal ones, and the entire series taking place in a World in the Sky After the End called "Planet Freedom".
• Sonic Underground was the last western animated work made before the modern Sonic brand was solidified with Sonic Adventure and takes a lot of liberties, being more of a reboot of SatAM. Sonic is now a prince who along with his siblings Sonia and Manic, were hidden away by their mother to protect them from the evils of Robotnik before they grow into the destined heroes and they fight using necklaces that turn into musical instruments. Tails is entirely absent and Knuckles is an incidental character who is oddly small.

Advertising

• Coach Lasso: This version of Ted Lasso is very different from the better known version of the character in the later TV series, as he's a straight up Drill Sergeant Nasty and "Ugly American" Stereotype instead of A Father to His Men who respects British culture. Plus, this version actually likes tea.

Anime and Manga

• Cmon Digimon was released in the early years of the Digimon brand and it shows, Digimon are virtual pets like in real life, the artstyle is noticeably different, Perfect/Ultimate is treated as the last stage, the main Digimon are Canon Foreigners (albeit based on preexisting designs) never seen before or since, and the Digital World isn't even mentioned.
• The first television adaptation of Doraemon came out in 1973. The 1973 series features, among other things, a different art style, a unique character named Gachako, various changes to the existing characters and items, and plots that haven't been done in later adaptations. The later TV series don't have these changes.
• Yuu Mishouzaki's The Legend of Zelda was one of the early manga adaptations of the video game series of the same name. It plays loose with the already thin plot that the first Zelda game has and features a lot of oddities because of its age. For example, the long-eared humans known as Hylians are referred to as "elves" and are hated by many humans (most notably the Hyrulian Noble Family, which is actually Hylian in canon). It features a very different Link than most other adaptations: he doesn't wear his signature tunic (instead wearing overalls), he's a Half-Human Hybrid instead of full Hylian, he's a Cowardly Lion instead of a courageous hero, and he's Zelda's older half-brother. Despite this, the manga features many things that the games would later use (either intentionally or unintentionally), such as a teenage Zelda and a young Impa.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Adventures is full of a lot of this, much which has stuck over the years because it's a part of the manga's lore. For example, the entirety of the Indigo League Elite Four and several Gym Leaders (namely Koga, Lt. Surge, and Sabrina) were given Adaptational Villainy due to Pokémon Red and Blue's lack of named antagonists. The manga predates the Team Rocket Executives so other characters were used to fill in roles, even though this may go against their personalities in the games.
  • Pokémon Origins is a later adaptation (being released over 10 years into the franchise's life) but has one detail that stands out: Red's personality. He's an energetic Stock Shōnen Hero partially because the anime predates Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Masters canonizing him as stoic and quiet.
  • Being one of the earliest Pokémon manga adaptations, Pocket Monsters contains a lot of Early Adaptation Weirdnesses. Most notably, the main character's Pokémon starter is a Clefairy, which is a nod to when Clefairy was intended to be Pokémon's Series Mascot instead of Pikachu (although Pikachu remains as a major character of the series, and is established to be Clefairy's cousin). Among other oddities, most Pokémon can speak human language, Pokémon can "devolve", Giovanni has a brother, an Off-Model Mewtwo unceremoniously appears as a wild Pokémon, Bill is a Fat Slob while Blue is a big-chinned hunk, there are made-up Pokémon that appear nowhere else, and most infamously, it features a lot of Vulgar Humor and NSFW jokes that would be unthinkable to include in modern Pokémon media.
• The first anime series of Ranma ½ is of a very different tone than the manga, having a slower pace, emphasis on comedic pauses, and several original quiet slice-of-life scenes. The low ratings on Japanese TV lead it to being cancelled with episodes still unaired, and the studio reshuffled the staff (including changing the director) to continue with a Denser and Wackier series closer in tone to the manga, which ended up lasting several years.
• The 1990s Sailor Moon anime is the first adaptation of the manga, and because it was developed in parallel with the manga^note the anime debuted around three months after the manga and, because the manga was published monthly rather than weekly, the anime was always running ahead, it deviates in ways that later adaptations don't. For example, Rei is given an Adaptation Personality Change into a Hot-Blooded tsundere in sharp contrast to the other incarnation's Aloof Dark-Haired Girl.
• Masaomi Kanzaki's manga adaptation of Street Fighter II only had the original 12 fighters to work with (since it was drawn before the Super iterations that added more fighters) and thus the author had to improvise to flesh out the story. Ryu is a much goofier hero than his gaming counterpart and a bit of a glutton, E. Honda has a one-sided infatuation with Chun-Li, Blanka is a thug who wants to join the ranks of Shadaloo, Guile is responsible for his friend Charlie's death (who was under the influence of M. Bison's mind control drug) and has a rivalry with Zangief, Balrog (the boxer) is a sympathetic character who ends up abandoning Shadaloo, Vega (claw) is responsible for the death of Chun-Li's father, and Sagat is a mere lackey who was already working for M. Bison when he was scarred by Ryu instead of a disgraced champion who joined the organization to seek revenge. The manga did end up giving a name and face to Ryu and Ken's sensei Gouken, who prior to the manga was just a nameless character alluded to in character bios, but even then his death at the hands of M. Bison was something that was not incorporated into the games, as Akuma (a character introduced in the later games) was responsible for the deed.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach! is very similar to how the franchise would later be developed, however it contains some early oddities, such as Luigi having a greedy personality and most strikingly in that it ends with Peach marrying an original character instead of staying with Mario.
  • Early volumes of Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania features a rougher and more abrasive version of Mario which contrasts with his more jovial modern self.
  • Being one of the earliest adaptations, the characters in Super Mario don't resemble their game selves as closely as they do in later adaptations, both in terms of design and personality. It also contains some NSFW Parental Bonuses, scenes involving smoking, and other things that wouldn't be allowed in later Mario adaptations.
  • Downplayed with Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. Most of the OVAs are relatively in-line with what the Mario franchise is known for, except for one thing: Super Mario's Momotaro features Mario wielding a gun. While the original idea for Super Mario Bros was that Mario would carry a gun, nowadays the franchise does without to the point that during the development of Super Mario Sunshine, some people at Nintendo complained about Mario using a water pistol (which would later become FLUDD).
• Toei's Yu Gi Oh anime has several inconsistencies with the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga even at the time as well as later events in the manga, as well as characterization differences, Character Exaggeration, and episodes with original villains with powers normally reserved for the supernatural. It's also the least card game-centric of the bunch (though still moreso than the manga), due to the fact that the Konami-made card game wasn't out yet.

Comic Books

• Combining this with Recursive Adaptation, The Batman Adventures, set in the same continuity as Batman: The Animated Series, featured a guest appearance of Superman. He's based on Superman as he was in the early-mid 90s, with a mullet, a Lex Luthor with red hair and a beard, and an established friendly relationship with Batman at the time of BTAS. Then Superman: The Animated Series started airing in the same continuity, and it showcased a Superman with short hair fighting a bald Lex Luthor, who only encountered Batman years later, at the time of The New Batman Adventures.
• The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones was launched immediately following the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. While most of the stories are standard Indy fare, the writers made the understandable assumption that Marion would be a recurring character and she features prominently in much of the run: taking a job with Marcus as head of PR for the museum and often accompanying Indy on his adventures. This makes it almost impossible to reconcile the series with later movie continuity.
• Le Reina de la Costa Negra was a comic book adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Queen of the Black Coast and served as the first adaptation of Conan the Barbarian in 1952. In it, Belit was the protagonist, Conan her blond Viking-like sidekick, their ship was called the "Vengeance" rather than the "Tigress", its crew were Vikings rather than black corsairs and Belit actually survived the entire series, including the adventure that killed her in the original Howard canon.
• Star Wars:
  • You can very easily tell when an issue of the 1977 Marvel series came out by checking which character Luke is getting Ship Tease with. The writers were seemingly convinced that Luke/Leia was the Official Couple, and even after The Empire Strikes Back put a lot of focus on Han/Leia, they still more or less ignored it and kept on trying to develop Luke/Leia. Needless to say, this abruptly stopped after Return of the Jedi's release in 1983.
  • The Tales of the Jedi comics came out many years before the Star Wars prequels, and boy, it shows:
    • Jedi have a very loose hierarchy, often train multiple apprentices at once, have no problem with romance, and some of them begin their training well into adulthood. Future works try to reconcile this portrayal by stating that as a result of numerous wars and conflicts with the Sith, Jedi ended up becoming much more rigid, close-minded and dogmatic.
    • Speaking of the Sith, they aren't much better: none of them use the "Darth" title, instead going by their given names, and their lightsabers can be of any color as opposed to just red. It wasn't until The Phantom Menace where it was codified that all Sith go by a "Darth Something" title and use red lightsabers.
    • These examples could be justified by the fact that this comic takes place a whooping four thousand years before the original movies... if not for the fact that works that are set in the same era, some which are direct sequels (like the Knights of the Old Republic videogame, which only takes place a couple decades after Tales) depict Jedi just as rigid and dogmatic as they were shown in the prequel movies, as well as Sith using the "Darth" title and red lightsabers.
• The comic book adaptation of Super Metroid is mostly close to later Metroid canon. In fact, it's notable as being the first Metroid-related story to establish that Samus Aran was orphaned by the Space Pirates and adopted by the Chozo leader Old Bird. The biggest difference, however, is that the human character Armstrong Houston, a fellow Bounty Hunter, has a Power Suit that looks just like hers but is blue instead of orange. Later canon would establish Samus' Power Suit as highly advanced Chozo technology bordering on Magitek, and it's so hard to reverse engineer that even her Galactic Federation allies could only start making bulkier and shoddier versions of her weapons years after the events of Super Metroid.

Films — Animation

• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has many notable differences compared to how the show is recently due to being created around the same time as the show's third season. If someone who was introduced to the later episodes of the show watched this film, they would notice the much cruder animation, art style and jokes that were standard during those times, and how much smaller the town of South Park used to be. Cartman himself is the bratty jerk he was known for early on instead of the cunning and manipulative sociopath of the later seasons. Also, certain characters who would rise to prominence much later on, such as Craig and Token, are just background characters; in particular, it's odd to see such a big event where Butters is nothing more than a Spear Carrier or for that matter, where Kenny actually does get focus. Even Randy, who has since gone on become the most prominent adult character of the show, only had one single speaking line in the whole movie (questioning the V-chip).

Films — Live-Action

• Attack on Titan (2015) was made long before multiple big reveals about the backstory and setting of the manga and anime had been established. The resulting history of the titans, how the titan shifters came about, and the setting of the walled cities are all completely different. The walls are set in a future post-apocalyptic Japan, the titans were a weapon experiment gone wrong, and the titan shifters were a modification on the initial project to make a controllable version. The identity of the Colossal Titan and Armored Titan shifters are also both entirely different. Though in a case of hilarity in hindsight, the movie-exclusive character heavily implied to be Eren's older brother, Shikishima, later wound up sharing his voice actor with Eren's canonical older brother, Zeke, in the English dub.
• The Batman serials of the 1940s and its successor Batman and Robin depict Batman and Robin as officially sanctioned government agents going against ordinary mobsters and crooks. Super-villains as we know it didn't exist back then and Batman's famous Rogues Gallery was still in its infancy. The 1943 Batcave (which didn't exist prior to this, and was created due to budget constraints) is a small cave that contains only a desk and a few chairs. Bruce's love interest in the 1943 serial is a now forgotten character named Linda Page rather than one of his better known comic book flames like Selina Kyle or Vicki Vale. There's no Batmobile, and the dynamic duo instead drive around in an unmodified Cadillac in the first serial and a Ford Mercury in the follow-up (again, largely owing to the low budget). Perhaps most infamously, there are jarring propagandistic overtones in the first serial, with the narrator using anti-Japanese slurs and even attempting to justify the U.S. government's internment of Japanese-American citizens.
• Captain America:
  • Due to being an In Name Only adaptation, the serial from 1944 is quite different from all later adaptations. Rather than a super-soldier named Steve Rogers, the hero's true identity is a district attorney named Grant Gardner, rather than using a shield he uses a gun (which would become one of Bucky's weapons upon taking up the mantle), he did not fight Nazis, Bucky was nowhere to be seen and he was a vigilante rather than a government-created superhero.
  • As seems to be the standard for live-action adaptations of the character, Captain America (1979) portrays Steve as a contemporary man with his father having been a 1940's government agent nicknamed "Captain America" due to a very patriotic attitude, making him both an example of Decomposite Character and Legacy Character. He also makes use of a van, from which launches a modified motorcycle with a multitude of functions and its windshield being non-other than Captain America's iconic shield, which is made of "Jet Age plastics", with the "white" portion simply being transparent. And then there is the costume, which has him wearing a motorcycle helmet instead of his famous cowl.
• Casino Royale (1954)^note The first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, released in 1954 as a television movie/episode of the anthology series Climax!: Compared to the later Eon film series, this adaptation is noticeably different. James Bond is an American agent and referred to as "Jimmy", Felix Leiter is British and renamed to Clarence, M is completely absent, and the production values are lower due to being a live TV production.
• The mid-1960s Doctor Who film adaptations Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. were made when the TV show had only been running for two or three years, and has the Doctor's actual name being "Dr Who" and him being a human "mad inventor" with no control over the TARDIS (which is referred to as "Tardis" as if it were a proper noun, and also not an acronym). It hadn't yet been established that the TV version of the character was a Time Lord from Gallifrey and early episodes did strongly imply he was human, but one from another planet in the far future.
• Peter Pan (1924) was made less than thirty years after the play. It's a Setting Update set in the contemporary 1920s. This was before adaptations became Frozen in Time in the 1910s. The characters are also American instead of British, which is something later adaptations never change.
• Super Mario Bros. (1993) tried to adapt a series that runs on Excuse Plot at a time when it was still developing its identity. The film contains a lot of old remnants, such as the manual's plot of Toadstool being the daughter of the Mushroom King, Koopa transforming Toads and other creatures with magic, Goombas being traitors to the throne, and Mario being a middle-aged man (which he originally was, but even in Japan this was changed by the late-1980s) and several years older than Luigi because they wouldn't be revealed as twins until Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
• The Wizard of Oz (1925) is one of the earliest adaptations of the Land of Oz series. It has virtually nothing in common with the source, playing very loose with the lore and characters. It departs heavily from the later adaptations within the first ten minutes: Dorothy is aged up to eighteen, Uncle Henry is a cruel and Evil Uncle, and Dorothy is secretly a Doorstop Baby who's really the lost Princess Dorothea of Oz.

Literature

• The first BIONICLE novel, Tale of the Toa by C. A. Hapka was hastily written in 2003 to adapt the 2001 story, which was never fully told before because the original comics, the Mata Nui Online Game and the unreleased The Legend of Mata Nui PC game all relayed different portions of the story in incompatible ways. At the time, LEGO didn't even acknowledge the MNOG as part of canon, thus the novel completely ignores it. Takua, MNOG's protagonist who'd be a major character later, is not mentioned once, and so the charge he leads to protect the Kini Nui temple while the Toa battle the Makuta underground is not part of the story. None of the important supporting characters from MNOG make an appearance apart from Jaller and Onepu. The Makoki stones the Toa use to enter the temple and merge into Toa Kaita are absent too. More significantly, Makuta himself never shows up, meaning the story's climax itself doesn't happen. The six Shadow Toa are the final villains instead, but the way they're defeated was retconned by later books as Hapka's version of the showdown differed from LEGO's plans. Years later, the book itself would be declared only half-canon and MNOG was accepted into the official story, although certain scenes from the book override those of the game. This means the 2001 BIONICLE arc has no fully canon, officially sanctioned version in any media.
• The Mega Man Universe Compendium "The Official Guide to Mega Man" was released back when only the first three games were released, and Dr. Wily's Revenge was about to debut. Most of the lore featured in the book was made up without the original developers' input, featuring original characters and concepts that push the setting's tone in a more space opera-esque direction (for example, the heavy emphasis on off-world colonies that was mostly limited to the third game at the time). At the end of the book, Mega Man was interviewed, and it was noted that he can't talk under normal circumstances, while he has no problem communicating with other characters in later games of the series.
• The "Worlds of Power" novelization of Metal Gear written by Alexander Frost was a far cry from the serious war drama that the series would become from Metal Gear Solid and onward. For one thing, it's based on the NES version of the first game, which had an inconsistent localization between the in-game translation (which was a relatively direct translation of the Japanese script for the most part) and the box & manual (which extensively changed the game's backstory). Because of this, instead of following the in-game narrative and have Solid Snake's commanding officer and the secret leader of the enemy forces be the same character (Big Boss), they're instead two separate characters named Commander South and Colonel Vermon CaTaffy. Likewise, Solid Snake is given a full name (Justin Halley) and never uses his weapons to kill anyone (only using his handgun once to destroy a lock), with the idea of pacifist runs not being implemented until much later in the series.
• Metroid: Zebes Shin'nyuu Shirei, due to being based on the original Metroid, features many oddities compared to the rest of the series. Much of this is carried over from the original game, although this gamebook expands upon or adds additional weirdness:
  • Zebes is an asteroid, rather than a planet.
  • Ridley is the original inhabitant of Zebes, living on the inhospitable asteroid long before the arrival of the Space Pirates. He was originally docile and peaceful, and has only become aggressive and cruel while under Mother Brain's mind control. Instead of actually breathing fire, Ridley possesses Psychic Powers that simulate the intense experience of being hit with fire breath.
  • If a Metroid latches onto Samus, she can escape by firing missiles instead of planting bombs.
  • Samus is repeatedly referred to as a Cyborg. This continues even after it is revealed that she is a human woman, suggesting that it was not merely a red herring like in the original game.
  • The leader of the Space Pirates is the Pirate Boss, while the series usually refers to Mother Brain or Ridley as the leader. Additionally, the Pirate Boss is a human, while all later Metroid games would only show aliens among the Space Pirate ranks.
  • Samus and the Space Pirates may team up to take down the Metroid=Mutant. Later Metroid lore would establish that Samus and the Space Pirates hate each other so much that they would never consider teaming up, even against bigger threats like the Ing or Dark Samus.
• S.D. Perry's first Resident Evil novelisation was written based only on the very first game. As a result, Wesker's internal monologue gives no indication that his death was all part of his plan to Come Back Strong since this was a later introduced element, though he does come back in the Code Veronica novelisation. Wesker is also generally depicted as slimier and less capable rather than the iconic criminal mastermind he would later become, as there was little evidence in the first game that he was much more than just a typical example of The Mole, and is portrayed as extremely sexist (to the point of completely refusing to refer to a female scientist with her correct title of "Dr", and being sexually predatory and making unwanted advances on women). The games would later establish Wesker as not discriminating much based on gender, having a considerable amount of respect for Ada Wong's abilities and having a (non-biological) sister, Alex, who he was apparently on good terms with. He's also never really shown to make sexual advances towards women in the games (or indeed to behave very sexually at all, unless you count his outfit in RE 5 and all that attacking Chris with tentacles that he does), though he did have a relationship with a woman in his backstory. S.D. Perry's depiction of Wesker is also often quite crude in his language—in the games, Wesker speaks far more formally and eloquently, but of course the dubious translation of the first game didn't convey that.
• Star Wars:
  • The Thrawn Trilogy, as one of the first spinoffs, was working with the best information available and couldn't know that things would change over a decade later with the release of the Prequel Trilogy in 1999, starting with The Phantom Menace. One of the biggest parts is that its depiction of cloning using "Spaarti cylinders" is completely at odds with that seen on Kamino in Attack of the Clones, though that's easily handwaved by saying that Spaarti and Kaminoan cloning use different methods with different side effects. Another major plot point is that it's been about 40-odd years since the Clone Wars (based on backstory given by Lucas at the time), while the prequels later established it as 20-something instead.
  • The very first novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, had this in spades:
    • Like most early Star Wars Legends works, several references are made to pieces of technology that were current at the time but are now obsolete, mostly tapes as a data storage medium. Luke's "if I twist these two knobs, I can use my lightsaber to cut a locked door open without making it obvious" trick has never been seen since this book. And Chewbacca has a pair of Suspiciously Similar Substitutes in Hin and Kee the Yuzzem. Those are just the most obvious ones.
    • Both Luke and Leia suffer from extreme UST, which makes itself clear in practically every interaction between them. Later films got rid of this element, both because Harrison Ford's return to the franchise created the possibility of a Leia/Han relationship, and because of other reasons that are obvious in hindsight.

Live-Action TV

• The Batman (1966) show is full of this because it was created during a transitional stage in comics. Along with being a full-blown comedy series, it features forgotten Silver Age stuff, such as Dick Grayson having an aunt, Batman and Robin operating in broad daylight, and many of the villains (such as Mr. Freeze) display characterizations that have long since changed. The show originated Barbara Gordon, but it features her as a brunette who wears a redheaded wig for disguise (something associated with Kate Kane instead of the naturally redheaded Barbara) and also depicts her as several years Dick's senior^note Since the 1990s, they've been depicted as the same age and have been Promoted to Love Interest).
• The Incredible Hulk (1977):
  • While not the first adaptation of the character to the screen, having come eleven years after The Marvel Super Heroes, as the first live-action adaptation, the show takes surprising liberties, such as Hulk being rendered mute for the most part, instead communicating in growls and grunts, Banner being referred to by his given name rather than his middle name of "Bruce", his given name itself having been changed from "Robert" to "David", General Thaddeus Ross having been replaced with journalist Jack McGee and every other character having been Adapted Out.
  • The Incredible Hulk Returns also features this in the form of Thor. Also having first appeared in television in The Marvel Super Heroes, this was the first live-action portrayal of the Marvel portrayal of the mythological character and rather than Blake and Thor being the same individual, they are two different characters (The Kenneth Branagh film would do something similar, but with Blake being The Ghost and becoming a brief alias of Thor), with Thor not being a god, but a Norse warrior whom Blake summons by holding a magic hammer and calling the name of "Odin".
  • The Trial of the Incredible Hulk features similar examples. While the Kingpin had been appearing on the screen since Spider-Man (1967), this was his first portrayal in live-action and differs from what came after by never being referred to as "the Kingpin", only by "Wilson Fisk", having facial hair as well as averting Bald of Evil. Likewise, this was the first portrayal of Daredevil, as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends had only portrayed him as Matt Murdock, and rather than the red suit everyone is familiar with, he wears a black ninja-like outfit and was inspired by a police man to be a hero, rather than seeking to avenge his father's death.
• The Shirley Temple's Storybook adaptation of The Little Mermaid featured one thing that makes it weird compared to all other adaptations that follow the original story: the titular mermaid kept her voice. The only other adaptation to do this was a Russian film from 1976, which changed the plot completely, keeping only a few small things.
• The show Mortal Kombat: Conquest has a bit of this, with the most notable probably being Noob Saibot. In the games, Noob is eventually revealed to be Bi-Han, aka Sub-Zero from the first game, brought back from the dead by Quan Chi. In Conquest, he's some sort of Outworld assassin who seems to be unconnected to Sub-Zero or Quan Chi. He also seems to be made of oil, as opposed to the shadow powers that would be established later.

Radio

• The Adventures of Archie Andrews is a 1940s radio show based off of Archie Comics. It contains a lot of early weirdness, such as Betty using her original girlier personality, the Betty and Veronica dynamic being downplayed (with Archie being interested in Veronica), and Veronica having a Unexplained Accent that was fixed in later adaptations starting in the 1980s.

Theatre

• The 1826 opera adaptation of Ivanhoe featured the only case of Isaac of York and his daughter Rebecca being not only renamed (Ishmael and Leila), but explicitly changed from Jewish to Muslim as well, with the latter at least turning out to be Edith, the long-lost daughter of the "last descendant of Saxon kings", making her a combination of Rebecca and Rowena, Ivanhoe's proper love interest who is a descendent of Alfred the Great. This in turn makes Brian de Bois-Guilbert a combination of himself and Maurice de Bracy, Rowena's Abhorrent Admirer, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, the owner of the castle where Rowena and Rebecca were held captive.
• The Musical adaptation of Peanuts, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, was first produced in 1967 and only uses six characters: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroder, and Patty, the last of whom was already being Demoted to Extra in the strip by that point (and tellingly doesn't even get a solo song). Notably, both the 1985 animated TV special based on the musical and the 1999 Broadway revival completely revamped the libretto to replace Patty with Charlie Brown's sister Sally, a far more popular character.
• Executive Meddling led to The Wizard of Oz (1902) being a very loose adaptation. It removed major characters such as Toto, Glinda, and the Wicked Witch of the West. Since the MGM film The Wizard of Oz codified the franchise, newer adaptations couldn't get away with removing so much of what makes the Land of Oz series iconic.

Theme Parks

• It's very easy to tell that Shrek 4D at Universal Studios was made when the Shrek franchise consisted only of the first movie. Not only is Farquaad still the villain, with the short taking place in Duloc (which was completely forgotten after the first film), but many of the jokes are repeated from the first movie, and plenty of series hallmarks like Puss in Boots or the kingdom of Far Far Away aren't part of the attraction^note Puss is featured in some of the attraction's merchandise, however. The character meet-and-greet outside of the attraction even features Fiona as a human face character as opposed to her more iconic ogre form (even though the ride itself does).

Toys

• The original Mobile Suit Gundam came out at a time when the Real Robot Genre was in its infancy (with Gundam being something of a Trope Maker), and that's reflected in its original toyline, which bears very little resemblance to future Gundam toylines. The toys resemble contemporary Super Robot Genre toys, with the Gundam being a big, chunky, clunky robot with lots of chrome, die-cast, and toyetic features like spring-loaded Rocket Punch fists, while looking decidedly off compared to the show design. Additionally, the only robots to get toys are the Gundam itself, the Guncannon, and the Guntank, with all the Zeon mechs, including the iconic Zaku, being completely absent—for those not familiar with Gundam, this would be like if Star Wars never made toys of Darth Vader or the stormtroopers. The toyline largely flopped for these reasons, as while the show was most popular with older teens and women, the toys were clearly aimed at young boys. After Bandai got the license, they started producing toys that actually fitted the show's demographic, particularly the iconic "Gunpla" model kits.

Video Games

• Bleach: Shattered Blade was being developed and came out right when the Arrancar arc was starting up, but includes a number of characters on its roster who, at the time of that arc, had very little to work with in terms of moveset material for a fighting game character. Consequently, several characters end up with powers that they never canonically had, and powers they would have had at the time the game takes place being completely absent—for instance, Hisagi never uses his Shikai, and Ukitake and Kyoraku have their Shikai working completely differently from how they'd be revealed to work in canon. Ulquiorra stands out because at the time the game came out, he hadn't fought at all, barring deflecting one attack with an Offhand Backhand, so the only thing the game makers had to work with were said backhand and two powers that he never used in combat (opening portals, and crushing his eye to convey information).
• The FMV game Gundam 0079: The War for Earth was one of the first piece of Gundam media officially released in English, before the franchise had much of a Western presence, and as such employs many romanizations that differ greatly from the standardized ones used in later releases. These include Char Aznable being "Shar Aznabull", "Zakus" being "Zaks" (as in the English translation of the novels) and the Principality of Zeon being the Duchy of Jion (infamously pronounced "John" by the actors).
• The video game adaptations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone were made while the film was in production, and Warner Bros. gave the game developers little access to the film production because its details were considered top secret at the time. As a result, the game lacks elements that were introduced in the films and which would subsequently become iconic to the Harry Potter brand, such as "Hedwig's Theme" and the movie Hogwarts uniforms. At the same time, the game does include elements from the first book that were cut or altered for the first movie, such as the character of Peeves. Overall, the Philosopher's Stone video game almost comes off like The Game of the Book, despite it ostensibly being a movie tie-in product. This continued into the game adaptations of Chamber of Secrets before the aesthetics and story were made to match the films more closely from Prisoner of Azkaban onwards.
• Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000) came out in the waning days of the era where X-Men was Marvel's biggest Cash-Cow Franchise, and it really shows in the roster: 18 of the 28 Marvel representatives hail from that series in some sense, including two versions of Wolverine. The really telling part is the presence of Marrow, though; an absolute E-lister who wouldn't warrant an appearance even in a purely X-Men fighting game nowadays, but she was actually getting something resembling a push in the mid-late 90s (one that did not last). Other oddities of the era include Cable wearing a Jim Lee X-Men uniform instead of his more famous Rob Liefeld look (which he did wear in the comics - for less than six months), and Sabertooth having Birdie as his Girl Friday (the character was very short-lived, and in fact had already been killed off in the comics by the time Marvel 2 came out).
• Pocket Mortys was made back when only two seasons of Rick and Morty were completed. One of the chairmen in the Council of Ricks was named Rick Prime as a result. When the Season 3 premiere introduced the canonical Rick Prime, the game called him "Weird Rick" when he was added as a player skin in the tie-in update because the show had not given him a proper name at the time.
• The Simpsons arcade game was developed during the show's first two seasons. Signs of this include the cast sporting their first-seasons designs, most of the enemies being made-up or based on bit characters and gags from early episodes rather than any of the more recognizable antagonist characters the show would introduce in later years, Sideshow Bob showing up as a minor ally (due to his first appearance on the show being as a silent background extra) and a few animations showing Marge hides rabbit ears under her haido (something that was planned in pre-production but scrapped for the show proper). Another notable bit of weirdness is that one stage takes place at the Channel 6 studio, except in place of the recurring reporter Kent Brockman (who is recognizable even to the most casual fan of the show), the news is anchored by a one-off reporter from the Season 1 episode "The Call of the Simpsons"◊.
• Sponge Bob Square Pants Legend Of The Lost Spatula was made when the TV show was in its first season, and it shows. Characters use their less refined designs from the first season, the Flying Dutchman is the Big Bad and rules over a Fire and Brimstone Hell that's never seen or referenced in any other media, Plankton is a background NPC with two lines of dialogue, and the game features characters, locations, and places that have almost never been referenced since: SpongeBob can wear his hall monitor uniform and equip the moon rock gun from "Sandy's Rocket", "the carnival" (an assortment of fishing bait) appears as a platforming area, and the boss of Jellyfish Fields is the giant jellyfish from "Jellyfishing" instead of the King Jellyfish from "I'm Your Biggest Fanantic". Additionally, Bubble Bass appears as an enemy, and he didn't really become a major character until after The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories was made when the rules of the card game weren't fully conceptualized and predates the manga's Battle City arc. Major differences include no tributes being necessary to summon level five and higher monsters, all monster cards being normal monster cards, only one card being placed on the field each turn, fusion being done without the card Polymerization, and the majority of the possible fusions not being actual fusions in the TCG. Character-wise, Ishizu Ishtar is named Isis and has a very different personality, and Priest Seto is a villain.
• The Yu-Gi-Oh! game Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist had its big selling point be that it would be the first game to feature the Egyptian Gods in playable form, but came out before Ra, the third and strongest God, had been played in the manga. Consequently, its version of Ra has a completely different effect from the effects Ra ultimately received. Additionally, the game associates Ra with Joey as much as its two fellow Gods are associated with Yugi and Kaiba, seemingly under the impression that he'd go on to be the wielder of it. This not only canonically never happened, but is outright impossible by the rules the series presents regarding Ra. If anything, Joey's defining moments in the arc to follow ended up being facing off against Ra's wielders, nearly getting killed by the God twice in the process.

Western Animation

• Captain N: The Game Master has many bizarre and barely-recognizable versions of NES video games characters, a perfect demonstration of folks trying to interpret those games with minimal, non-existent, or even contradictory input from their makers combined with the game franchises later developing in very different ways.
  • Pit being called "Kid Icarus" was enforced; Nintendo insisted on it so the characters would be saying the name of the game as much as possible.
  • The Big Bad Mother Brain from the Metroid series is portrayed as a comedic and talkative Large Ham, whereas the canon character from Super Metroid onward would be increasingly characterized as a very sinister Silent Antagonist bordering on a Mechanical Abomination.
  • The elements from The Legend of Zelda are taken specifically from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the then-most recent game — for instance, all enemies, bosses and locations are from there. This makes it stand out rather significantly among Zelda adaptations, as Zelda II would later become seen as the stylistic odd duck of the series and largely ignored by the main series, spinoffs and non-game works alike.
• The animated The Legend of Zelda (1989) series was made when only the first two games were out (with the first game being the primary inspiration), and it shows. The Triforces of Wisdom and Power are green and red tetrahedrons instead of golden flat triangles; meanwhile, the Triforce of Courage is nowhere to be seen. Link fights by shooting beams from his sword, just like he does in the 2D games when at full health, but this mechanic has been mostly dropped in the most popular 3D installments. The show also re-uses sound effects from the original game. Many now-iconic staples of the games, like the Master Sword, the Gorons, the friendly Zoras and Zelda's Lullaby, hadn't yet been created and so are absent in the cartoon. To say nothing of Link's characterization as a talkative and flirtatious Jerk with a Heart of Gold...
• Keeping in with the theme of 80s video game adaptations, Hanna-Barbera's Pac-Man cartoon has some blatant differences from newer takes on the game. The villains are referred to as "Ghost Monsters" instead of either "ghosts" or "monsters", and their personalities are entirely switched around. Clyde is the leader, Blinky is cowardly, Pinky is a slow-witted male shapeshifter, Inky is cross-eyed and goofy, and the barely acknowledged Sue (her color changed from orange to dark purple) is second-in-command of the ghost gang and the sole female, and the ghosts turn purple when Pac-Man eats a power pellet. The producers also created a Canon Foreigner human Big Bad, Mezmeron, out of whole cloth.
• The early Peanuts TV specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown were made before fan favorite characters like Woodstock, Peppermint Patty and Marcie were introduced. In their place are characters like Frieda^note she of the "naturally curly hair", Shermy^note the kid with spiky hair and Violet^note the black-haired girl with the ponytail, who were later Demoted to Extra or written out altogether. The Apple TV+ specials have been bringing back the early characters, however.
• Spider-Man (1967) is the only time the title character has been portrayed using a different voice as Spider-Man, something that no other adaptations have followed suit with.
• The 1940s Superman Theatrical Cartoons serials are the second earliest adaptation of Superman (coming just a year after The Adventures of Superman) and contain a lot of weirdness. Clark was raised in an orphanage without his adopted parents around and he doesn't fight any supervillains barring the occasional mad scientist who has no connection to Lex Luthor. Kryptonite is completely absent (it hadn't even been created yet!), as are pretty much all notable characters except Lois Lane and Perry White. Also, Superman's power is a lot lower—his enhanced senses, Eye Beams, and freeze breath are absent, and in one Out of Order short, Superman gets around by jumping, not flying. Superman gained his flight specifically because it was easier to draw and it was later added onto the comics.
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! was a loose adaptation even at the time, but much of it appears even more loose when compared to later Mario canon. For example, not only are there no implications of romance between Peach (who is redheaded instead of blonde because her design is based on her palette limited sprite) and Mario, but Peach is implied to be a teen while Mario is middle aged. This contrasts with the two being twenty-something year old Childhood Friends and love interests in most post-1980s media. Among other weirdnesses, Mario and Luigi have thick New York accents instead of their signature Italian accents, Bowser uses his Japanese name, King Koopa, and is presented as a Composite Character between Wart, the Big Bad of Super Mario Bros. 2. The show also prominently features enemies from that game that are largely ignored in Mario's current canon such as Tweeters, Albatosses, Trouters, Flurries, Mouser, Tryclyde, etc.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) is the only screen adaptation on record to Race Lift Baxter Stockman from black to white. That every screen adaptation to feature the character keeps his original skin colour, highlights this case of weirdness. It's also the only cartoon not to feature a version of Karai, as she was created after it began airing, and Casey Jones only appears in a few episodes as opposed to being a main character.

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