A work lightly kissed by the original may credit it as "suggested by." This adaptation credit is used for Derivative Works which depart massively from the original.
Just to be clear, this page is only for works that outright state they have been "suggested by" some earlier work, or have explicit Word of God saying so.
Compare Inspired by…. Arguably a sort of lampshaded In Name Only, for better or worse.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Osamu Tezuka's manga Metropolis is "suggested" by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, in that Tezuka was inspired to write the manga by a single still image he saw from the film: that of a female robot being born. The two works have a few basic similarities, but they're coincidences — Tezuka hadn't seen the film, and didn't even know what it was about, when he wrote the manga.
Film — Animated
- The Princess and the Frog's tale of what happens when a girl tries to save an enchanted prince with a kiss and winds up turned into a frog herself was inspired by E. D. Baker's novel The Frog Princess, which is the first in a whole series of original fantasies.
Film — Live Action
- Scrooged, the modern day retelling of A Christmas Carol.
- The movie I, Robot is "suggested by Isaac Asimov's book," which in this case hints that the adaptation is In Name Only. It includes several of the themes and even character names from the original collection of short stories, but has a completely different plot that contradicts some of the basic aspects of the setting (like robots being common and legal on Earth outside of U.S. Robotics facilities, instead of restricted to off-planet use). This is mainly because it was written as an original work, entitled Hardwired. The studio, who had recently acquired the rights to the I, Robot name, insisted that the new title and the superficial references to Asimov be added.
- John Irving demanded and got a Suggested by... credit for Simon Birch, the movie version of A Prayer for Owen Meany, though he ended up liking the film.
- The Sound of Music was "suggested by The Trapp Family Singers," meaning that it was Very Loosely Based on a True Story.
- The Terminator ends with "acknowledgment to the works of Harlan Ellison" in TV airings and video releases — James Cameron admitted he got inspiration from The Outer Limits (1963) episodes Ellison wrote, and following a lawsuit, this disclaimer was created.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is officially "suggested by" the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. It keeps the basic concept of Blackbeard being a sorcerer who's seeking to gain immortality at Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth, and almost nothing else.
- The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is credited as being suggested by the short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury. The story focuses on two men in a lighthouse which is destroyed by a massive, plesiosaur-like sea monster drawn by the sound of the foghorn. The movie tells a vastly different story of a crocodile-like dinosaur being freed from its slumber in the arctic by an atomic bomb and going on a rampage along the east coast, with one of its many targets being a lighthouse like in the story. After the movie was released, the story's name was changed to "The Foghorn" to distinguish the two.
- For a much older example, there's The Black Cat from 1934, which says it is "Suggested by the immortal Edgar Allen Poe classic".
- The Shaggy Dog, plus its sequel The Shaggy D.A., were "suggested by" The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten.
- The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was "suggested by" the original novella (which it calls a "short story") and the more famous ballet. Among its many changes: there is no romance between Clara and the Nutcracker, who is not a human boy under a curse, and in the third act we learn that the villains and heroes are switched. Also, the toys were brought to life by a ray gun(?!) that Clara's mother invented, which technically makes this movie science fiction instead of fantasy.
- Casino Royale (1967) was "suggested by the Ian Fleming novel".
- Cheyenne Autumn is credited as being "suggested by" the Mari Sandoz Historical Fiction novel of the same title, but the script actually combined elements of both the Sandoz book and, uncredited, the novel The Last Frontier by Howard Fast.
Literature
- Sergey Lukyanenko's novel Line of Delirium uses race and planet names from the game Master of Orion, but this has absolutely no bearing on the storyline. In fact, the author takes plenty of liberties with the racial descriptions and changes the nature of some outright (the Darlock turns out to be not shapeshifters but snake-like symbiotes, and the Mrrshan are foxes not Cat Folk). The first book doesn't even bother giving a nod to the game. The sequel, Emperors of Illusions, has a small blurb at the end to that effect. Really, the author could've easily changed the races and planet names in the final draft, and the novel would lose absolutely nothing.
- Additionally, the Meklar (of planet Meklon) are simply called Meklons.
Live-Action Television
- What's Happening!! was suggested by the film Cooley High. Eric Monte, who created the show, was the writer for Cooley High.
Theatre
- A Little Night Music is "suggested by a film by Ingmar Bergman," i.e., Smiles of a Summer Night.
