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Frankenslation

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The practice of making a new work by combining content from multiple sources. This goes beyond simply adding a Framing Device or releasing different works as an anthology; in a frankenslation, the source works are thoroughly edited and mixed together to form one contiguous, (hopefully) seamless work with its own story.

In literature, there is a practice known as a fix-up, when an author takes their previously-published short stories and combines them into a novel. Depending on how much they have to edit the original short stories to make them fit together, the result could be considered either this trope or Canon Welding.

Compare MST, Adaptation Amalgamation, Dub-Induced Plotline Change, Canon Welding.

Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Carl Macek was particularly infamous for this, leading to the term Macekre:
    • Macek's most famous effort was Robotech, a three-way hybridization between Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. These three series are unrelated, and the script was mostly from Macross. Robotech made several changes throughout, including censoring nudity (but not all the violence), changing characters' ethnic names from Japanese to English, an original "narrator" who assumed Viewers Are Goldfish, and cutting off a major Macross sequel hook. Anime purists hated it, but it was a commercial success in the U.S. and was indeed credited with creating new anime fans. A subsequent Remaster in 2004 restored much of the original Japanese content, including scenes of violence and nudity. Robotech even got a Recursive Import in Japan (which was credited for reviving interest in the then-moribund Southern Cross).
    • Macek also took Part 1 of Megazone 23, edited in some Southern Cross footage, wrote in his own script, and called the result Robotech: The Movie. The script needed drastic alterations too, because the Macross creators didn't want any similarities to their own film, Macross: Do You Remember Love?. The movie was received much worse than Robotech itself; Macek's distributor couldn't get it into theaters in the U.S. because of its tenuous connection to Robotech, and it was still too violent for children (possibly as a result of the action coming from poorly shoehorned Southern Cross footage). He later produced a proper uncut dub of Part 1, which was better received.
    • Macek merged the completely unrelated Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia to create the rarely seen Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years.
  • When Cardcaptor Sakura was initially brought over to the states as Cardcaptors, Nelvana, on top of adding the usual name changes, music changes, and censorship, completely chopped up and re-arranged footage of the episodes in an attempt to re-brand the series into a more action-packed Shōnen anime beyond its initial demographic. Sakura was written to be more of an Action Girl, Li Shaoran was given greater visibility and made Sakura's Stock Shōnen Rival, and most romantic relationships in the series were written out completely. Airings of the series in Canada and the UK at least kept the episodes in the proper order and restored the missing ones.
  • Dub-specific example with Daimos and Grendizer. In Italy, after Daimos was released, dubbing studio Alsennote  produced a Compilation Movie called Daimos - Il figlio di Goldrake (Daimos, the son of Grendizer) where it connected the universes of Daimos and Grendizer by stating that Kazuya was Daisuke's son, and he had inherited his robot from him. Completely contradicting the source material, it mish-mashed clips of both series and produced an alternate ending. It even had a DVD release. Italians who watched both series were very confused about the sudden change in canon. You can watch a breakdown of the film here.
  • Voltron was created by merging two unrelated Combining Mecha series, GoLion and Dairugger XV. However, while the plot changes were considerable, the interference between the two combined stories was minimal, and each occurred almost in its own continuity. The biggest change was a Never Say "Die" moment; Sven, who dies in the original, barely survives in the dub. This worked out for the best, because there was such a backlash against his death in the original that they introduced his Backup Twin, which the dub could conveniently say was Sven all along.

    Asian Animation 
  • Space Thunder Kids was edited together with footage from no less than seven different Korean cartoons: Savior of the Earth, Defenders of Space - Phoenix-bot Phoenix King, King Robot, Protectors of Universe - Super Express Mazinger 7, Solar Adventure, Space Transformers - Micro-Commando Diatron-5, Super Mazinger 3 and Iron Man Trio.
  • YooHoo & Friends was originally a Korean cartoon about Ridiculously Cute Critters going on wacky adventures. The U.S. version, created by David Feiss, threw in a subplot about the title characters being Corrupt Corporate Executives who were turned into animals as punishment for their crimes against the environment. The contrast between the original footage and the new footage is very noticeable and jarring.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • When the original Godzilla was exported to America, it had original footage of an American journalist, Steve Martin, spliced in, and was released as Godzilla King of the Monsters. This version was later shown in Japan, and Steve Martin proved surprisingly popular among Japanese fans.
  • This was the main method of localizing the Godfrey Ho Ninja Movies. Godfrey Ho was infamous for getting cheap, low-budget Hong Kong films, cutting them to ribbons, and inserting new footage featuring Caucasian actors for distribution in the West. Among his films are Ninja Thunderbolt, Clash of the Ninjas, Full Metal Ninja, and Zombie vs. Ninja. As you could tell, ninjas were a recurring theme, although later efforts included a kickboxing flick and a "superhero" called Catman. He's also done it at least once in the other direction, adding new footage using Asian actors to the Cynthia Rothrock vehicle Undefeatable to create the movie Bloody Mary Killer for distribution in China.
  • Kung Pow! Enter the Fist takes footage from the obscure 70's Chinese film Crane & Tiger Fists and edits it to feature Steve Oedekerk in place of the original protagonist, alongside the addition of multiple new scenes and a general Gag Dub.
  • The second of the six Lone Wolf and Cub movies was greatly simplified, dubbed into English, and combined with about 12 minutes of footage from the previous film to create Shogun Assassin, which is considered its own separate film, with a completely different list of credits. Decades later, the other four Lone Wolf and Cub films were dubbed and released on DVD as Shogun Assassin 2 (actually the third film), Shogun Assassin 3 (actually the fourth film), and so on, creating a translation where the sequel numbering is messed up.
  • Master with Cracked Fingers was a 1979 film cut together from different early Jackie Chan films, as a means to cash in on his rising fame. It primarily takes footage from the little-seen 1973 film Little Tiger of Canton, but featured several newly-filmed scenes with a double playing Jackie's character (badly disguised with a blindfold).
  • Several Soviet sci-fi films got the cut-and-paste treatment (or were used as Stock Footage) to make Western B-movies:
    • Planeta Bur was edited twice for distribution in the West: once as Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet by Curtis Harrington in 1965, containing a few additional American-made scenes and with the Soviet actors' names Westernised to hide the origin; another in 1968 by Peter Bogdanovich (as "Derek Thomas") as Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, along with additional scenes involving nubile Venusian women.
    • Nebo Zovyot was adapted as Battle Beyond the Sun. To disguise the fact that it involves rival space missions between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two nations become the northern and southern hemispheres in a post-apocalyptic world. Francis Ford Coppola worked on this while in film school; one of his notable additions was supposedly two monsters based on certain parts of the human anatomy. Scenes from Nebo Zovyot were also used in Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and the 1966 alien vampire woman film Queen of Blood (alongside another Soviet film, Mechte Navstrechu).
  • Night Train to Terror combines footage from the unfinished Scream Your Head Off, The Dark Side to Love, and The Nightmare Never Ends, with some new footage added in to make a new anthology film. All The aferomentioned films have the same writer, Phillip Yordan.

    Live-Action TV 
  • This is how Super Sentai became Power Rangers, with the battle footage spliced into entirely new stories. The first three seasons of the latter took three completely separate seasons of the former and reworked it into one "mega-arc", and the later incarnations seem to only be superficially similar to their originals, with the motives of the characters and some story elements being completely changed. Of course, Power Rangers was never intended to be and doesn't claim to be a dub or reenactment of its Super Sentai parent, despite borrowing suits and battle footage. That said, a few seasons are actualy faithful recreations of the original series' plot (or sometimes a Shot-for-Shot Remake, like Power Rangers Wild Force or Power Rangers Samurai), and a few others that made some changes that don't quite make sense. There's a lot of them out there, each with their own quirks.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • To capitalise on the success of Power Rangers, Saban licensed Kamen Rider BLACK RX and turned it into "Saban's Masked Rider": an Aesop-tastic romp starring a superhero alien learning about Earth culture with his adoptive American family. Later editing would get so shoddy that at times, you could clearly see the original Japanese actors, or the fact that the footage they were splicing in was from two seperate movies (Kamen Rider ZO and Kamen Rider J) starring completely different heroes.
    • 13 years later, Adness Entertainment tried its luck, making Kamen Rider Dragon Knight out of Kamen Rider Ryuki in much the same way. This one did much better (at least among its Periphery Demographic), even winning a Daytime Emmy for stunt choreography. But its ratings meant not enough of the intended demographic were watching to keep it alive. The last two episodes weren't even aired, though were made available online. Interestingly, Dragon Knight became a Recursive Import and did quite well back in Japan. It even got a continuation... sadly, in the form of a book nobody in the U.S. will probably ever see.
  • VR Troopers was made from three different Metal Heroes series: Chōjinki Metalder, Jikuu Senshi Spielban, and Space Sheriff Shaider. Somehow, having three shows to draw on didn't stop it from recycling plots.
  • After VR Troopers, Saban licensed two more Metal Heros series, Juukou B-Fighter and B-Fighter Kabuto and turned them into Beetleborgs, apparently aimed at a younger demographic than Power Rangers and being more light-hearted, and changing the story utterly from the Japanese originals.
  • DIC Entertainment, seeing the success Saban was having, licensed Tsuburaya Productions' Denkō Chōjin Gridman to make Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad; much like Saban's shows, DIC took the fight scenes from Gridman and combined them with original footage. Notably, Tsuburaya themselves had direct involvement with the production, resulting in some retained plot elements, similar characterisations and reused sound effects.
  • For some reason, How It's Made got two different releases in Italy: a regular one and Come è fatto con Barbara, which is the exact same thing but with the addition of interstitials between each segment featuring Barbara Gulienetti (mainly known as the host of the DIY show Paint your Life) recapping the segment that is going to air next, apparently as a way to fit the show on Real Time, a TV channel mainly aimed at women.

    Music 
  • The Beatles' first eleven albums in the US were cobbled together from a variety of disparate sources, including their UK albums and non-album singles. This stretched all the way until Magical Mystery Tour, in which Capitol Records expanded the EP into a full-length album by adding on several recent non-album singles; the Beatles themselves parodied this with the original artwork for Yesterday and Today, which infamously depicted the band covered in raw meat and chopped-up baby dolls as a commentary on Capitol "butchering" their albums. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be would all be untouched Stateside. The 1987 CD reissues of the band's backlog would establish the UK albums as the canonical ones, with the sole exception of Magical Mystery Tour, which used the US tracklist. The US albums would briefly be reissued in both volumes of the CD Boxed Set The Capitol Albums, but mostly for novelty's sake.
  • Bob Marley 's "African Herbsman" was put together by Trojan as a UK version of "Soul Revolution Part II" which they had passed on releasing a couple of years before, in order to capitalise on the band's relative success on Island Records at the time. The album omits "Memphis", but adds the Upsetter single "Small Axe" and "All In One", the Tuff Gong singles "Lively Up Yourself" and "Trenchtown Rock", as well as "400 Years" from Soul Rebels. It also shuffles the track order for no specific reason. They then followed this with "Rasta Revolution", which was "Soul Rebels" without "My Sympathy", but with the addition of "Mr Brown" and the single version of "Duppy Conqueror" (which unlike the semi-dub version on Soul Revolution, included full lyrics), in addition to moving "Soul Almighty" to the end. They both still have a substantial following amongst reggae fans.
  • The Clash's first album from 1977 was released in the U.S. in 1979. This happened after their second album Give 'Em Enough Rope had been released in the U.S. in 1978, which was the first album of theirs to be released there. Probably as a result, their newer singles from 1979 were included on the new version of their first album, replacing some songs that were deemed controversial by the record company at the time. Although a lot of people like this version of the album, the Clash's change in production techniques makes the inclusion of a later track like "I Fought the Law" pretty noticeable.
  • Depeche Mode: The 1984 North American-oriented compilation People Are People packages the hit single with various B-sides, non-album singles, and cuts from A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again; one of these, "Everything Counts", additionally uses the 12" remix rather than the album or 7" versions.
  • Japan: Since Gentlemen Take Polaroids wasn't released in the US at first, the original release of Tin Drum in the region (retitled Japan) respectively replaced "Canton" and "Sons of Pioneers" with "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" and a remix of "Taking Islands in Africa" that was previously featured as the B-side to "Visions of China", also adding "Swing" as the penultimate track.
  • New Order: Power, Corruption & Lies had its tracklisting altered for its American CD and cassette releases, with the 12-inch single "Blue Monday" and its B-side, "The Beach" added to the running order at the end of each side. The album had previously been the subject of confusion in the UK for the fact that neither of those two tracks were on it (with the closest album cut to "Blue Monday" being "5 8 6", which was based off the same base sequencer jam), to the point where Factory Records had to start including shrinkwrap stickers reading "DOES NOT CONTAIN 'BLUE MONDAY'." The addition of the two tracks on American CD and cassette copies, therefore, amended the issue in advance for consumers over there.
  • Pink Floyd: The original US release of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn drops "Astronomy Domine", "Flaming", and "Bike", inserts the non-album single "See Emily Play", and rearranges the rest of the tracklist, adjusting the between-track segues as necessary. The UK version would first become officially available Stateside with the compilation A Nice Pair in 1973 (albeit with the live version of "Astronomy Domine" from Ummagumma swapped in), and like other modified British albums from its era, it would become standard on both sides of the Pond when it was reissued on CD (with the studio version of "Astronomy Domine" this time around).
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra: Since their album Solid State Survivor was not originally released in the US, the US version of ×∞Multiplies dispensed with the English and Japanese comedy routine tracks and padded the record out with songs from Solid State Survivor. The European version went further, by adding additional songs from their debut album. The 1992 international CD release of the album, meanwhile, is mostly based on the Japanese version, but throws in the non-album single "Kageki na Shukujo" and cuts from Naughty Boys Instrumental as bonus tracks due to both having not been part of the concurrent reissue campaign.
  • The international edition of The Cardigans Life was actually a compilation of songs from Life itself and their previous album Emmerdale (the latter of which was originally only released in Japan and their native Sweden). When Emmerdale finally released in the US years later, the CD edition featured a bonus EP featuring the four songs omitted from the international version of Life.

    Puppet Shows 
  • One of the two syndicated versions of Thunderbirds, Turbocharged Thunderbirds, alongside multiple edits added new live action footage featuring two teenagers known as "the hackers".

    Tabletop Games 
  • The Cardfight!! Vanguard had a pair of cases of this in foreign releases.
    • The last two Booster sets from the original series were mixed around for their western release compared to the original Japanese edition, becoming the "Ver.E" Booster Sets: The "Ver.E" release of the sixteenth Booster Set Legion of Dragons and Swords features the Royal Paladin, Narukami and Spike Brothers units from the original BT-16, the Royal Paladin, Gold Paladin, Narukami and Aqua Force units from the original BT-17, the Royal Paladin, Gold Paladin and part of the Link Joker units from the booster set based around the Neon Messiah movie and the entire content of the Narukami and Link Joker trial decks based on the Brawler and Deletor subclans, while the "Ver.E" release of the seventeenth Booster Set, Blazing Perdition, features the Kagero, Tachikaze, Link Joker and Granblue units from the original BT-17, the Nova Grappler, Dimension Police and Neo Nectar units from the original BT-16 and the Kagero and the remaining Link Joker units from the Neon Messiah set.
    • The "Ver.E" format was later adopted in a larger format by the Italian release of the Cardfight!! Vanguard G sets, which mix and match stuff from the releases from the English and Japanese releases making bigger sets. For example, the first Italian G Booster Set features the Royal Paladin, Oracle Think-tank, Gear Chronicle and Cray Elemental units from the original G-BT01, the Narukami and Neo Nectar units from the original G-BT02, a single Cray Elemental card from the original G-BT05, half of the contents from the 2014 and 2015 Fighters Collections, a few promos and the entirety of the first G Extra Booster, while the second Italian G Booster Set features the Royal Paladin, Gear Chronicle, Aqua Force and Great Nature units from the original G-BT02, the Kagero and Nova Grappler units from the original G-BT01, the remaining cards from the two Fighters Collections, another Cray Elemental unit from the original G-BT05, a few promos and the Royal Paladin units from the Comic Booster.

    Toys 
  • Italian toy company GIG once took the Kinnikuman/M.U.S.C.L.E., N.I.N.J.A. and Fistful of Aliens toylines and sold them as a single toyline named Exogini, with completely new backstories (the first two series, released in the late eighties, presented the characters as aliens from a mysterious planet planning to invade Earth, while the last series, released in the late nineties, was presented as a civil war between the inhabitants of Mars, Mercury, and Venus). When Transformers introduced the Decoy figures as an extra packed in with the regular toys, the Italian release passed them off as a crossover with the Exogini line.
  • Infamously, Hasbro was guilty of this when it came to Transformers, which was born out of mashing together two of Takara's unrelated franchises, Diaclone and Micro Change, and then giving the whole thing a completely new backstory, when importing them to be released into the U.S. However, Takara loved the change so much that they eventually dropped both original franchises and imported the Transformers lore back into Japan.

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 

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