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alt title(s): Recycled INSPACE; INSPACE
Strong Sad: But why are they in space? There's no reason for them to be in space! Strong Bad: On the contrary, my dear Fatson; there's every reason for them to be in space!
Stories are often recycled from other shows, with the setting changed with just enough of a gimmick to make it look different. The characters will have the same character types, sometimes even the same voice actors. Sometimes these will be direct spinoffs, with the same characters with one major time or setting change. Later varieties included " AS KIDS!"
The majority of these are seen as nonsensical updates according to whatever else was popular at the time. Putting the series into space, though, is the big one.
Transplanting an entire specific premise into a new setting is lazy, but when more work is put into the concept, this is not necessarily a bad thing at all.
See also: Animated Adaptation, Gender Flip, Die Hard On An X, Recycled The Series, Setting Update, X Meets Y, This Is Your Premise On Drugs, Better By A Different Name. See also Space X for what this trope first sounds like.
Note: *Please* make sure you understand what this trope means before posting examples. It does *not* refer to a normal sequel, an adaptation, or to something that is simply like something else in the same genre. Currently, far too many examples fall into one of these categories.
Some common things to avoid.
- This trope is not literal. Just because you can define something as "in space" doesn't mean it counts. It still needs to be recycled from an older idea. Even if it has "In Space" in the title. (Zap In Space, for example, was removed, because there's no Zap NOT in Space.)
- A game or story following (or if you want to get negative, "stealing") the tropes or concepts laid down by earlier games/stories is Follow The Leader, not this. Most platformers are not "Mario In SPACE" and most fighting anime are not "Dragon Ball Z IN SPACE"
- Similarly if an idea seems to be ripping off another idea, it's Better By A Different Name. It needs to be blatant in its advertising that it is a copy for it to count. You could argue that "Eragon was better when it was called Star Wars" but since nothing ever advertises the similarities, it doesn't count as this.
- If an idea seems to be crossing two different ideas it's X Meets Y.
- If an idea seems to be stealing the plot/premise/pitch of another idea, but the characters and setting are relatively different, it's Die Hard On An X
- If the story has just been moved into modern time, but is otherwise more or less the same it's Setting Update
- If the "gimmick" is more than 6 words long or includes the word 'and' think hard before adding it. It might still count, but it might be too stretched to fit.
Examples IN SPACE!
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga IN SPACE!
- Onani Master Kurosawa is Death Note WITH FAP
- Gankutsuou is The Count of Monte Cristo IN SPACE!
- Super Dimension Fortress Macross is Mobile Suit Gundam WITH TRANSFORMING MECHA AND DECONSTRUCTION!
- Mobile Suit Gundam is literally World War II IN SPACE!
- Studio Gonzo loves these. In addition to Gankutsuou, Gonzo is also responsible for these:
- Soukou No Strain is A Little Princess IN SPACE WITH MECHA!
- Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick is... Moby Dick IN SPACE!
- Gun Frontier is literally Captain Harlock (or one of his Identical Ancestors) IN THE OLD WEST!
- The Trigun manga is World War II IN SPACE WITH POST-APOCALYPTIC SCI-FI!
- SF Saiyuuki Starzinger is Journey To The West IN SPACE!, although the producers of Force Five tried to Macekre it into The Three Musketeers IN SPACE!.
- The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz is the Wizard Of Oz IN SPACE!
- Yu-Gi-Oh Capsule Monsters is Yu-Gi-Oh! WITH MONS!
- Dragon Ball is Journey To The West WITH ALIENS AND SCHIZO TECH!.
- Lost Universe is Slayers... IN SPACE (Literally, since it takes place in the same 'verse.)
- Uninhabited Planet Survive is Two Years' Vacation IN THE 22ND CENTURY... AND IN SPACE!
- Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ON CRACK WITH GIANT MECHAS!.
- Gintama is Rurouni Kenshin WITH ALIENS AND TOILET HUMOR!
- Pluto is Astro Boy WITH SERIAL KILLERS!
- Tsubasa Chronicle is Cardcaptor Sakura WITH CLONES AND TIME TRAVEL!
- Cyberbrain Sclerosis is Cancer FOR CYBORGS!
- Those two episodes Taxi Driver and Oceans Eleven WITH CYBORGS!
- Wedding Peach is Sailor Moon IN WEDDING GOWNS!!
- Initial D is Wangan Midnight IN THE MOUNTAINS!
- This
 article reveals that Humongous Mecha are Samurai IN SPACE.
- Sekirei is often referred to by fans (jokingly) as Pokemon WITH TITS!
- Infinite Ryvius is Lord of the Flies IN SPACE!
- Axis Powers Hetalia is world history ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS WITH CUTE MOE ANTHROPOMORPHS!
- Dual!Parallel Trouble Adventure is Neon Genesis Evangelion WITH A HAREM!
- I thought Neon Genesis Evangelion already had a harem (albeit a subtler one than most). A dark and twisted harem, but a harem nevertheless.
- It does, Dual's is just less messed up and more blatant about the harem-ness.
- Gunbuster is Top Gun WITH SHOUJO-NESS and GIANT ROBOTS!
- G Gundam is a Wuxia epic WITH GIANT ROBOTS!
- Shinkon Gattai Godannar is G Gundam WITH (MORE) BREASTS!
- Black Jack is pretty much Batman WITH A MEDICAL DOCTORATE!
- Code Geass is either Death Note WITH HUMONGOUS MECHA or Gundam WITH MAGIC or better yet Chess WITH HUMONGOUS MECHA WITH HADRON CANNONS
- NEEDLESS is s-CRY-ed WITH LOLIS!
- Ultimate Mop Daisuke DX is Dragonball Z AS JANITORS
- Argentosoma is an admitted adaptation of Frankenstein's Monster with giant mecha and aliens.
- Baccano! is Pulp Fiction WITH ALCHEMY!
- Fairy Tail is One Piece WITH MAGES!
- This Ugly Yet Beautiful World is Elfen Lied WITH LOLIS FROM SPACE!... And explicit romance.
- Kuroshitsuji is Artemis Fowl IN VICTORIAN ERA LONDON!
- Grenadier is Trigun WITH TITS!
- Malaysian manga Helios Eclipse is Shakugan No Shana GENDER FLIPPED!
- Not to mention the characters and their personalities are very much like Zero No Tsukaima, made by the same animation studio.
- Bleach starts out as Yu Yu Hakusho WITH SWORDS and becomes Dragon Ball Z WITH SWORDS
- Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu is Daisy Miller WITH ALIENS, TIME TRAVELLERS, AND ESPERS!
- Azumanga Daioh is Peanuts IN A JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL, WITH AN ALL-GIRL MAIN CAST!
- Mahou Sensei Negima is Harry Potter IN JAPAN!. And with more plot.
- The pirate crews of One Piece usually have a theme to their gangs. They're circus performers, or cats, or zombies, or hockey players, or etc. AS PIRATES!
- K-On is Lucky Star WITH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS! Which is pretty impressive, since Lucky Star is supposedly Seinfeld meets AzumangaDaioh.
- Romeo X Juliet is Romeo And Juliet WITH MAGIC! AND FLOATING CITIES! AND PEGASI! AND YGGDRASIL!
- Blassreiter is Bubblegum Crisis WITHOUT HARDSUITS!
Comics IN SPACE!
- Green Arrow was originally Batman WITH A ROBIN HOOD MOTIF! (So it fits that they cooperated against Superman in The Dark Knight Returns.) Later lampshaded in one comic when Green Arrow was relating an old adventure complete with "Arrow Mobile" and "Arrow Cave". Batman's comment: "Yeesh man, did you EVER have an original idea back then?"
- Usagi Yojimbo is Yojimbo (plus a laundry list of other Samurai stories and tropes) AS TALKING ANIMALS!, and has its very own spin-off IN SPACE!
- Jink and The Rebels are Elf Quest IN THE FUTURE! Many fans hated them.
- Ramayan 3392 AD is the Ramayama IN THE POSTAPOCALYPTIC FUTURE!
- Marvel had a What If story called "What If Sgt Fury Fought WWII in Outer Space?", which was Exactly What It Says On The Tin. (It was surprisingly good.)
- The Sentry is Superman WITH MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES and A TRILLION OTHER MENTAL PROBLEMS!
- Captain Marvel was MAGIC SUPERMAN! with a TEENAGED ALTER EGO! Miracelman started out as Marvelman, who was Captain Marvel WITH A DIFFERENT NAME! (he was literally drawn over Captain Marvel in old Captain Marvel comics for publication overseas) and then became Captain Marvel FOR ADULTS! written by ALAN MOORE! The Sentry was Miracleman TIMES A BILLION! and transplanted into THE MARVEL UNIVERSE!
- Apollo is Superman but GAY and married to the Midnighter, who is Batman who IS A SUPER-SOLDIER THAT KILLS PEOPLE AND IS ALSO GAY.
- The Authority is the Justice League but filled with MORALLY AMBIGUOUS PSYCHOS!
- Hex was Jonah Hex transported INTO THE POSTAPOCALYPTIC FUTURE!
- Iron Man has many specialty armors - one of which is for use exclusively IN SPACE.
- Superman himself started as Hercules IN COSTUME! From ANOTHER PLANET!
- Transmetropolitan is basically Fear and Loathing in a Cyber Punk city.
- In the Marvel Universe, SWORD is SHIELD's equivalent IN SPACE.
- Watchmen is Charlton Comics IN THE SYMBOLISM-AND-PSYCHOLOGY-RICH 80'S!
- Birds Of Prey is Charlies Angels WITH SUPERHEROES!
Film IN SPACE!
- Taxi Driver is The Searchers IN THE 1970'S!
- Hardcore is The Searchers IN THE 1970'S PORN INDUSTRY!
- The Thing (From Another World) (not its remake, The Thing, though) has
- Alien - The Thing (From Another World) IN SPACE!
- Halloween - The Thing (From Another World) AS HORROR! (and even has a Shout Out during the film.)
- Predator - The Thing (From Another World) IN THE JUNGLE!
- Dark Star is Waiting For Godot IN SPACE!
- IN SPACE! is frequently used in horror movies. There have been IN SPACE! versions of Friday the 13th (Jason X) and Leprechaun (appropriately titled Leprechaun 4: In Space).
- Hellraiser: Bloodline was Hellraiser in IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND! and later IN SPACE!
- Common rumor is John Carpenter apparently once proposed Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers be, you guessed it, IN SPACE!
- The Road To El Dorado is The Man Who Would Be King AS A CARTOON MUSICAL SET IN SOUTH AMERICA!
- Critters eventually went (back) to space too. In fact, almost any horror movie franchise will eventually head to the stars if it lasts long enough. Except for Aliens, which started out in space and ended up back in a normal Earth town for Alien Vs Predator: Requiem.
- The concept for Alien itself was apparently sold to the film company as "Jaws - IN SPACE!"
- Aliens has also been described as a Vietnam movie IN SPACE!
- The 1988 film Fright Night was Rear Window WITH A VAMPIRE!
- The 2006 B Movie Abominable is Rear Window WITH BIGFOOT!
- Roger Corman's B Movie Battle Beyond The Stars was The Magnificent Seven IN SPACE!
- A Bugs Life is Seven Samurai WITH BUGS!
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show is "Manos" The Hands of Fate meets Frankenstein WITH GLAM ROCK!
- The Faculty is The Breakfast Club WITH ALIENS!
- Zathura is Jumanji IN SPACE! Literally; in the story (by the same author) on which it is based, Zathura is the value-added bonus game on the reverse side of the Jumanji board (in the same way many checkerboards have a backgammon board on the back).
- Outland is High Noon IN SPACE!
- Abbot and Costello Go to Mars. In which Abbot and Costello go to Venus.
- Angels in the Endzone is Angels in the Outfield WITH FOOTBALL!
- Angels in the Infield is Angels in the Outfield IN THE INFIELD!
- This trope is parodied in the Mel Brooks film History of the World Part I, where one of the previews of Part II involve Jews... IN SPACE! (Not to be confused with the trope Space Jews, which is something else.) Also Adolf Hitler... ON ICE!
- Star Trek Insurrection is Lost Horizon IN SPACE!
- The 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars is Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- Blonde and Blonder is Dumb And Dumber WITH DUMB BLONDES!
- The Mummy (1999) is not so much a remake of any previous film of that title as it is Raiders of the Lost Ark AS A MONSTER MOVIE!
- Event Horizon (1997) has been called a haunted house movie IN SPACE.
- Airplane II: the Sequel is Airplane IN SPACE! Ironically, it had a lot of Recycled Jokes. He's the Big Cheese, the Man In Charge...
- 1979 Disney film The Black Hole is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea IN SPACE!
- Moulin Rouge is the opera La Traviata ON ACID!
- "On Absynth" is a better metaphor...
- Rent is the opera La Boheme ON DRUGS! AND WITH AIDS!
- Forbidden Planet (1956) is The Tempest IN SPACE!
- Fire Birds is Top Gun WITH HELICOPTERS!
- The Sci-fi Channel Original movie Savage Planet is not just bears IN SPACE!: it's STOCK FOOTAGE OF BEARS IN SPACE!
- A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is Pinocchio IN THE FUTURE! WITH A DOWNER ENDING!
- Chicken Run is The Great Escape - WITH POULTRY!
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was the original Home Alone IN NEW YORK CITY!
- A History Channel documentary named Sex in Space, which is Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- The Doom film was the Resident Evil films IN SPACE!
- Air Buddies is Air Bud WITH A LARGE AMOUNT OF ADORABLE PUPPIES!
- Snow Buddies is Air Buddies IN THE ARCTIC WILEDERNESS!
- Space Buddies is Air Buddies IN SPACE!
- Santa Buddies is Air Buddies AT THE NORTH POLE! SAVING CHRISTMAS!
- Star Wars is the myth Sword of the Empire IN... do we have to say it?
- Revenger's Tragedy (2003) is The Revenger's Tragedy IN POST-APOCALYPTIC LIVERPOOL! And WITH THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER AS THE HERO AND VILLAIN, ALTHOUGH THEY DIDN'T KNOW THAT AT THE TIME!
- With the revelation of the appearance of The Fallen's face in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, as well as that the movie's climax involves The Fallen's awakening in Egypt, or something similar, some fans have expressed fear that RotF will be Stargate WITH GIANT ROBOTS!
- Satan Met a Lady is The Maltese Falcon AS A COMEDY WITH BETTE DAVIS!
- Little Shop Of Horrors is Faust... WITH A SINGING PLANT THAT EATS PEOPLE!
- High School Musical (the first one) is Grease IN A MODERN DISNEYFIED VERSION OF HIGH SCHOOL!
- High School Musical 4 is going to be Romeo And Juliet IN HIGH SCHOOL (WITH MUSICAL NUMBERS AND A HAPPY ENDING)!
- The Mask of Zorro is The Count Of Monte Cristo SET IN THE ZORRO UNIVERSE!
- Three Amigos is The Seven Samurai WITH ACTORS PRETENDING TO BE HEROES! IN MEXICO!
- Galaxy Quest is Three Amigos IN SPACE!
- Tropic Thunder is Three Amigos IN VIETNAM!
- The 1985 film Enemy Mine is 1968's Hell in the Pacific IN SPACE!, of course.
- Disturbing Behaviour is The Stepford Wives IN HIGH SCHOOL!
- Three O'Clock High is High Noon IN HIGH SCHOOL!
- Apocalypse Now is Heart Of Darkness IN VIETNAM!
- Loser is The Apartment IN COLLEGE!
- Cadet Kelly is Private Benjamin AS A TEENAGER!
- Barb Wire is Casablanca IN THE POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE! WITH BOOBIES!
- 12 Rounds is Die Hard With A Vengeance IN NEW ORLEANS! (It was even directed by Renny Harlin, the director of Die Hard 2)
- Escape From LA is Escape From New York IN L.A!
- High Society is The Philadelphia Story AS A MUSICAL!
- Flightplan is The Lady Vanishes ON A PLANE!
- Speed 2 is Speed, only instead of being on bus, it's ON A BOAT!
- In reverse chronological order: Last Man Standing is A Fistful of Dollars WITH MOBSTERS!
- The Kung Fu Kid is The Karate Kid IN CHINA (with added ethnicity - the Kid is Jaden Smith)!
- Cruel Intentions is Dangerous Liaisons IN NEW YORK'S UPPER EAST SIDE!
- Clueless is Emma IN BEVERLY HILLS!
- Even when James Cameron's Avatar was first shown as a preview at San Diego Comic-Con 2009, people called it Dances With Wolves IN SPACE!
- According to the plot description, many are also calling it The Last Samurai IN SPACE.
- Actually a closer relevance to the actual plot of the film would probably be Pocahontas WITH ALIENS! (from what can be told, the movie takes place on an alien world, not so much in space however).
- Manifest Destiny, IN SPACE!
- No no no, it's Ferngully IN SPACE WITH FURRIES INSTEAD OF FAIRIES!
- If you ask South Park, it's The Smurfs IN SPACE!
- As noted on the article for Avatar, it can also be thought of as Dune ON A JUNGLE PLANET! The unobtainium must flow!
- Lets just call it Dances With Ferngullys and Pocahantas IN SPACE!
- Speaking of which, The Last Samurai is Dances With Wolves IN MEIJI JAPAN!
- The Good The Bad The Weird is The Good The Bad And The Ugly IN 1930s MANCHURIA!
- 10 Things I Hate About You is The Taming Of The Shrew IN HIGHSCHOOL
- Disturbingly enough Unleashed/Danny The Dog is Lilo And Stitch WITH JET LI
- District 9 is the story of apartheid-era District 6 in Johannesburg ...WITH ALIENS! Alternatively: " Watermelon Man...WITH TENTACLES!" or " Kafka...WITH EXPLOSIONS!"
- The 2009 Star Trek film is Star Wars A LONG TIME FROM NOW IN A GALAXY NOT-TOO-FAR AWAY! At least according to College Humor.
- Disney's Treasure Planet is Treasure Island in space!
- There is also a mini series lazily titled Treasure Island in Outer Space
- Also, Robinson Crusoe on Mars
- O Brother Where Art Thou is Homer's Odyssey] ...IN THE SOUTH!
- Akira Kurosawa's films Throne Of Blood and Ran are Macbeth and King Lear respectively IN FEUDAL JAPAN!
- Ikiru is Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" IN MODERN JAPAN!
- The plot of John Tucker Must Die is Mean Girls with A TWO-TIMING Jerk Jock ANTAGONIST IN PLACE OF REGINA GEORGE!
- Road To Perdition is Lone Wolf And Cub IN 1930 MOB ERA ILLINOIS!
- Can you recycle a trope? Space Chimps tried to recycle Everythings Better With Monkeys IN SPACE!, but results were... disappointing.
- Bride and Prejudice is Pride And Prejudice IN INDIA! AND AS A MUSICAL!
- Airheads is Dog Day Afternoon IN A RADIO STATION! WITH THE POWER OF ROCK!
- The Spierig Brothers are remaking Captain Blood. IN SPACE!
- Paradise (a 1982 film most remembered for being Phoebe Cates' first film and for showing her naked at every opportunity) is The Blue Lagoon IN THE DESERT! ...WITH A MONKEY!
- Teaching Mrs. Tingle is 9 to 5 IN HIGH SCHOOL!
- The Pallbearer is The Graduate WITH GEN Xers!
- Sidewalks of New York is Husbands & Wives WITH GEN Xers!
- Husbands & Wives is Scenes From a Marriage BY WOODY ALLEN!
- The Core is Armageddon in the opposite direction!
- The Wiz is The Wizard Of Oz WITH BLACK PEOPLE!
- Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie is Mr Bean IN AMERICA! Likewise, Mr. Bean's Holiday is Mr. Bean IN FRANCE!
- Jason X is Jason...IN SPACE!
- Titanic is Anything Goes... BUT WITH AN UNHAPPY ENDING!
- Old School is Fight Club AS A COMEDY!
- Equilibrium is Nineteen Eighty Four WITH SHOOTOUTS AND SWORDS!
- Tremors is Alien IN THE DESERT!
- Gamer is the film version of The Running Man WITH THOSE DAMN VIDJA GAMES THE KIDS LOVE SO MUCH!
Literature IN SPACE!
- Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut is Brave New World with a revolution!
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is We with drugs!
- Jo Walton's novel Tooth and Claw is Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope WITH DRAGONS WHO EAT EACH OTHER!
- Larry Niven, after writing his famous science fiction novel Ringworld, later realized that he had ended up writing The Wizard Of Oz IN SPACE!, with the plot and characters mirroring those in the story.
- Science fiction grandmaster Isaac Asimov was open about the fact that his classic Foundation trilogy was The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire IN SPACE! This is heavily lampshaded in its Serial Numbers Filed Off sequel by Donald Kingsbury, Psychohistorical Crisis. The protagonist finds a copy of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in an antique shop; he's excited to discover a genuine Earth document, while his mentor glances through it and declares it a clumsy fake that's based on the much more recent history covered by Asimov's novels.
- Incidentally, The Trigan Empire was The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ON ANOTHER PLANET!
- Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead (and the movie version "The 13th Warrior" is Beowulf WITH NEANDERTALS!
- Eragon: Star Wars WITH DRAGONS AND VEGETARIAN ELVES!
- Vaguely hybridized with Dragonriders of Pern, it seems...
- From Twilight: Rosalie's backstory is Kill Bill WITH VAMPIRES!
- Temeraire could be described as Master and Commander WITH DRAGONS! It doesn't help that Maturin is briefly alluded to in the latest book, according to Word of God.
- Likewise the SeafortSaga could be described as Master and Commander IN SPACE!.
- Likewise, Arrowsmith is World War One WITH MAGIC!
- Umberto Eco's short story "Nonita" is a spoof of Nabokov's Lolita WITH A GERONTOPHILE AND AN OLD LADY!
- Robert A Heinlein's Double Star is The Prisoner Of Zenda IN SPACE!
- Heinlein's "Job: A Comedy of Justice" is admittedly James Branch Cabell's "Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice" IN CHRISTIANITY!!!
- Karen Hancock's Arena is The Pilgrims Progress IN THE MATRIX!
- Dan Simmons' Ilium can best be described as The Iliad meets The Tempest IN SPACE!
- Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign is Georgette Heyer IN SPACE!, as confirmed by Word Of God.
- Honor Harrington is Horatio Hornblower... in SPACE! (complete with a pseudo-science excuse for broadside duels...and job titles like "Space Lord")
- Godspeed by Charles Sheffield is Treasure Island IN SPACE!
- According to Stephen King, The Dark Tower is The Lord Of The Rings IN THE WILD WEST!
- Stephen King's novel Wolves of the Calla: The Dark Tower V is The Magnificent Seven WITH ROBOTS!, and openly admits to this being the case, as the characters begin to realize that they're characters in a Stephen King novel.
- Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN.
- Bridget Jones Diary is P&P WITH RENEE ZELWEGGER!
- Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke's Time Odyssey trilogy is Gurren Lagann -WITH SCIENCE-
- S. M Stirling's Peshawar lancers is Rudyard Kipling AFTER THE END!
- Ray Bradbury's Leviathan '99 is Moby Dick IN SPACE.
- Stephen Fry’s The Stars’ Tennis Balls (a.k.a. Revenge) is The Count of Monte Cristo IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY!
- Dune is arguably Hamlet IN THE FUTURE, IN SPACE, and WITH ENORMOUS SANDWORMS THAT PRODUCE DRUGS. Halfway through, it turns into Lawrence Of Arabia IN SPACE.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe gives us plenty of examples:
- H.G. Wells's War Of The Worlds is colonialism WITH ALIENS. Wells was an outspoken critic of colonialism and War of the Worlds was his way of showing a western audience what colonialism was like from the point of view of the natives. Since European countries often tried to justify colonialism by portraying themselves are more advanced and civilised than those they conquered, he took this to its logical extension by showing England being invaded by an even more advanced civilisation.
- There's a comic book adaptation of Moby Dick in space. The whalers are asteroid miners, the giant squid is a white star named Kraken, Moby Dick is a (possibly sentient?) comet, and the final harpoon is a 10-megaton warhead.
- PC Cast's House of Night series is Harry Potter WITH PAGAN VAMPIRES AND MORE ROMANCE!
- Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series is Gossip Girl WITH VAMPIRES!
- Kit Whitfield's Benighted is a police procedural WITH WEREWOLVES!
- Melissa Scott's Five-Twelths of Heaven Is a Swashbuckler IN SPACE! WITH MAGIC!
- Patrick Tilley's Amtrack Wars is Cowboys vs Indians AFTER THE END! WITH PSYCHIC POWERS!
- 1984 is the Stalin-era Soviet Union IN BRITAIN!
- Animal Farm is the Russian Revolution WITH TALKING ANIMALS! ON A FARM!
- Stargirl is Daisy Miller IN HIGH SCHOOL!
- Pat Murphy's There and Back Again is, unabashedly and transparently, The Hobbit IN SPACE!
- The Swiss Family Robinson is Robinson Crusoe WITH FAMILY! C'mon, they even copied half the title!
- Dagor Dagorath is Armageddon IN MIDDLE-EARTH!
- Harry Turtledove's Darkness series is World War Two IN A FANTASY WORLD! May have been intended as a Take That to critics who accused The Lord Of The Rings as being just that. He later did the same with the American Civil War.
Live Action TV IN SPACE!
- There is a Power Rangers series literally titled Power Rangers In Space. Interestingly, it is considered a classic among Power Rangers series with its introduction of a fully serialized plot and "sympathetic and multi-dimensional villains" (quoting That Other Wiki), as well as the spectacular finale Countdown to Destruction (a.k.a. "Crisis of Infinite Rangers"). Power Rangers in Space single-handedly saved the show from being canceled, after the debacle of Turbo. On the other hand, the next series, Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy is sometimes referred to as Power Rangers LOST IN SPACE!
- Most Power Rangers series can come off like this. For instance, Power Rangers Turbo was Power Rangers WITH COOL CARS! And since Lost Galaxy:
- Many episodes of the 1970s Battlestar Galactica are lifted from classic movies;
- "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" = The Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. Both movies were based on books by Alistair MacLean.
- "The Magnificent Warriors" = The Magnificent Seven, which itself was a western version of Seven Samurai.
- "The Lost Warrior" = Shane
- "Fire in Space" = The Towering Inferno
- "Murder on the Rising Star" = Murder on the Orient Express
- Both the old and new series was heavily inspired by series creator Glen Larson's Mormon faith, making it effectively The Book of Mormon IN SPACE!
- Hmm... the twelve
tribes colonies, originated from Eden Kobol, was forced to move from their homeland to find a promised land Earth that only was known from legend, all due to the actions of a certain man, who after receiving visions and power from a higher being, eventually become the founder and leader of Judaism Christianity a monothestic religion and preach about grace, and after wandering around the desert space for forty four years, manage to arrive on a lush green place planet that is eventually OUR Earth, all according to the plan of the higher being. Hmm, sounds like a familiar book...
- The re-imagined series gave us the episode "The Captain's Hand" - Crimson Tide IN SPACE!
- Re-imagined Battlestar Galactica is original Battlestar Galactica TAKEN SERIOUSLY!
- Suite Life on Deck is The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody ON A LUXURY LINER! This one is a direct continuation, a sequel series with the setting changed from a hotel to a cruise liner. Of course this was just an excuse plot so they could make the show "more localized" by having the characters visit countries the series was popular in.
- Wizards Of Waverly Place is Even Stevens WITH MAGIC!
- Many episodes of Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess are lifted from classic movies, themes or tropes, especially in later seasons. (Probably too many to list individually!)
- Xena was ''Hercules... WITH CHICKS! And INCREASINGLY BLATANT LESBIAN SUBTEXT!
- The Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror" is the 1957 WWII submarine movie The Enemy Below IN SPACE! Even the bearing of the unidentified initial contact and the captain's maneuvering orders to the helm are copied nearly verbatim. The Romulan ship is cramped and has LOTS OF PIPING AND CONDUITS IN ALL BACKGROUND SCENES.
- The Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Starship Mine" is Die Hard ON THE USS ENTERPRISE!
- Star Trek itself is, in the words of its creator, Wagon Train TO THE STARS!
- In TOS, the Klingons are Russians IN SPACE! while the Romulans are the then-inscrutable Chinese...IN SPACE!
- Vulcans are Elves. IN SPACE!
- Romulans are Dark Elves/Drow, Klingons are Orcs/Orks, Borg are Undead, et cetera....
- Nicholas Meyer, director of Star Trek II and Star Trek VI, describes the series as "Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE!"
- The much-maligned Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Meridian" was, as admitted by producer Ira Steven Behr, Brigadoon IN SPACE!. Recalling this idea at a later date, Behr admitted: "I am a moron."
- Sea Quest DSV is Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea IN THE FUTURE! Or "Star Trek" UNDER WATER!
- And Sea Quest 2032 was seaQuest DSV A BIT FARTHER IN THE FUTURE! This may mean that seaQuest is its own grandpa.
- Stargate SG-1 is Stargate WITH MORE GATES!
- Stargate Atlantis is Stargate SG-1 IN A DIFFERENT GALAXY! WITH LIFE-FORCE-EATING ALIENS!
- Stargate Infinity was Stargate SG-1 IN THE FUTURE! The episode "200" toyed with this concept. Imaginary pitching segments show SG-1 AS TEENAGERS! and the show remade WITH PUPPETS!, among other things.
- Commenters to Gateworld are already calling the new spinoff Stargate: Universe "90210 IN SPACE!" and "Gossip Girl IN SPACE!". And they're NONE TOO PLEASED ABOUT IT, EITHER! Actually, it's more like "Lost IN SPACE!" (but definitely not Lost In Space) .
- The "you can't go home again" and "big ancient structure with lots of rooms to explore" premise means that Universe is Stargate Atlantis IN SPACE
- One of the criticisms of Andromeda was that it eventually became Hercules The Legendary Journeys IN SPACE! Mind you, people were calling it that long before it happened. Or Star Trek AFTER THE END!
- The Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" was The Poseidon Adventure IN SPACE!
- Half of all Doctor Who episodes ever are "Hammer Horror/Classic Literature/Contemporary Movie/Greek Mythology etc., WITH ALIENS!" Doctor Who author Ben Aaronovitch once said that "Talent borrows, genius steals, and Doctor Who authors get it off the back of a lorry, no questions asked."
- The Third Doctor story "The Daemons" is Quatermass and the Pit IN WILTSHIRE INSTEAD OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE!
- And the Fourth Doctor story "The Seeds of Doom" is The Quatermass Experiment IN DORSET — when it's not being The Thing or "The Man-Eater of Surrey Green".
- The Fourth Doctor story "The Androids of Tara" is The Prisoner Of Zenda IN SPACE!
- In the Big Finish Eighth Doctor story Max Warp, the eponymous Show Within A Show is Top Gear IN SPACE!
- "Chimes of Midnight" is House Of Leaves AS A MURDER MYSTERY FARCE!
- Of course, between 1970-1973 the show was noticable for being Doctor Who NOT IN SPACE!
- In one Dead Ringers sketch, the Tenth Doctor is referred to as "Jarvis Cocker IN SPACE!".
- The Tenth Doctor Donna story "The Unicorn and the Wasp" is an Agatha Christie mystery WITH AGATHA CHRISTIE! AND ALIENS!
- The Second Doctor is often described as Charlie Chaplin IN SPACE!
- The Tenth Doctor plays with this trope in "Smith and Jones"
Doctor: Have you seen?! There are these things, these great big space Rhino things, I mean, Rhinos from space, and we're on the moon! Big space Rhinos, with guns! On the moon!
- The Fox TV movie is Doctor Who IN AMERICA!
- Blake's 7 was The Dirty Dozen mixed with Robin Hood IN SPACE!
- Homeboys in Outer Space was, well... Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- Parodied on The Daily Show during a short in which Jon Stewart, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert are TV producers trying to come up with a new reality show. At one point, Colbert complains that "Every pitch [Stewart] makes is just one of mine with the words IN SPACE! added to the end."
- Farscape, with varying degrees of delight, made several such episodes. Possibly the most memorable is the one where, locked inside his own mind, Crichton turns his existence into a Looney Tunes cartoon, with a lot of reference to the Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons.
- Lost in Space is Swiss Family Robinson IN SPACE! They are, quite literally, the Space Family Robinson!
- In 1993, thanks to the popularity of Saved By The Bell, NBC replaced its Saturday Morning lineup with TNBC, a lineup composed completely of shows that were Saved By The Bell IN SPACE!
- Babylon 5: Thirdspace was Quatermass and the Pit IN SPACE! According to Word Of God, it was actually "The Call Of Cthulhu" IN SPACE!
- As Lampshaded in a Voltaire filk, Star Trek: Voyager was Lost in Space
IN SPACE!- [-IN THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE!
- Extreme Makeover Home Edition is Extreme Makeover FOR HOUSES! Need we say more?
- Pirate Master is Survivor WITH PIRATES!
- Survive This is Survivor WITH TEENS!
- Rock Star: INXS is American Idol IN SEARCH OF MICHAEL HUTCHENCE'S REPLACEMENT!
- Rock Star: Supernova is the above series IN SEARCH OF A LEAD SINGER IN A SUPER BAND!
- One In A Million is ''Malaysian Idol'' WITH A MILLION RINGGIT AS ITS PRIZE!
- Emmanuelle... IN SPACE! Heh.
- Baywatch Nights? Baywatch... WITH DETECTIVES! And when that didn't work out, WITH THE PARANORMAL! And also WITH SCI-FI! And shortly thereafter, WITH PROMPT CANCELLATION!
- Space: Above and Beyond was Baa Baa Black Sheep IN SPACE! (And also WITH EARLY CANCELLATION! Because they were WITH FOX!)
- My Hero is Mork And Mindy WITH A CAPE!
- Space Knights is King Arthur IN SPACE!
- Acceptable TV had a tease for Operation Kitten Calender: In Space!
- Unhappily Ever After was Married With Children with A TALKING BUNNY!. (And the dog became a third kid)
- House is Sherlock Holmes IN A HOSPITAL! Which brings the recycling full circle, since the Sherlock Holmes character was real-life diagnostician Joseph Bell AS A DETECTIVE!
- Earth Final Conflict has the 4th season episode "Phantom Companion" which is basically the Phantom Of The Opera set on the Taelon mothership, or to put it simply. IN SPACE.
- Code Red is Bonanza IN CONTEMPORARY TIMES WITH THE CARTWRIGHTS AS A FAMILY OF FIREFIGHTERS!
- The Big Valley is Bonanza WITH FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE FAMILY.
- The CSI franchise is Quincy M.E. WITH DIGITAL EFFECTS! Or WITH SEX APPEAL! Or, hell, maybe just WITH STYLE!
- The Alarm Fur Cobra 11 episode "Die schwartze Madonna" is Indiana Jones and The Maltese Falcon IN GERMANY ON THE AUTOBAHN!
- Cartoon Network's new game show Brain Rush is Cash Cab ON A ROLLER COASTER!
- It was thought impossible, but Virtuality, a new
showpilot on Fox is Reality TV IN SPACE!.
- Dustys Trail is both Gilligans Island IN THE OLD WEST! and Wagon Train WITH GILLIGAN, THE
SKIPPER WAGONMASTER TOO, THE MILLIONAIRE AND HIS WIFE, THE MOVIE STAR DANCEHALL GIRL, THE PROFESSOR AND MARY ANN!
- Virtuality (from the producers of Battlestar Galactica) is 2001: A Space Odyssey with A REALITY TV SPIN, MORE CHARACTERS, WOMEN, AND VIRTUAL REALITY!
- Defying Gravity was pitched as Greys Anatomy IN SPACE! But with all of the obfuscating intrigue, it seems to be turning into Lost IN SPACE!...wait. Not that one.
- Astronauts, a 1981 British series written by Greame Garden and Bill Oddie, was dimissed as some as being The GoodiesIN SPACE
- Newsradio, episode "Space"; radio station, you guessed it, IN SPACE! Episode "Sinking Ship"; radio station ON THE TITANIC!
- The Norman Lear pilot McGurk: A Dog's Life is All In The Family WITH FURRIES!
- Red Dwarf is a double whammy: it was actually pitched by its creators as "Steptoe And Son IN SPACE on acid."
- The Disney Channel's "Brian O'Brian" shorts are Mr Bean IN AMERICA!
- Fibrilando is Camera Cafe IN AN HOSPITAL! AND AS EVEN MORE OF A CRAPSACK WORLD!
- NCIS is CSI IN THE NAVY
- NCIS Los Angeles is NCIS IN LA AND RUN BY EDNA MODE!
- The Duck Factory featured a young Jim Carrey tasked with rebooting a stale cartoon show. After finding he'd just proposed killing off the producer's favorite character, he notes the producer's office decor and saves the day by adding, "did I mention this all happens IN SPACE?"
- Firefly's premise is the American Civil War... IN SPACE!
- V is Nazism WITH ALIENS!
- Some fans believe Lost is The Stand ON AN ISLAND!
- CSI Season 9 Episode 20. CSI: IN SPACE
Music IN SPACE!
- 2112 is Anthem WITH ELECTRIC GUITARS!
- The music video for Amerika by Rammstein has the band playing...in SPACE.
Pornography IN SPACE!
Puppet Shows IN SPACE!
Radio IN SPACE!
Tabletop Games IN SPACE!
- Dungeons & Dragons started as wargames AT THE SQUAD LEVEL!, wandered through The Lord of the Rings FREESTYLE!, and with the most recent edition hs been described as a fantasy MMORPG ON YOUR TABLETOP!
- Then there was the Eberron campaign setting, which was Dungeons & Dragons FEATURING MAGITEK!
- Spelljammer was literally Dungeons And Dragons IN SPACE! It was largely unpopular, but it has a significant cult following.
- d20 Future is d20 Modern (which is Dungeons & Dragons IN THE MODERN WORLD!) IN THE FUTURE!... OH, ALL RIGHT: IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
- d20 Past and d20 Apocalypse are Dungeons & Dragons IN THE LATE 1800s and AFTER THE END respectively. Both also had Urban Arcana style settings.
- Dark*Matter is Dungeons & Dragons WITH CONSPIRACY THEORIES!
- Gamma World was already D&D AFTER THE END!
- Ravenloft: Masque of the Read Death was Ravenloft In Name Only — it was really D&D IN THE VICTORIAN ERA WITH THE CHARACTERS FIGHTING ANCIENT HORRORS! (Or possibly the First from 7th season Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
- The Star Wars RPG was a retooling of the same d20 system used in D&D, making it play like Dungeons and Dragons IN SPACE!
- Warhammer40000 began as Warhammer IN SPACE! but is now pretty much its own entity; it still, however, has goblins in space, orcs in space, elves in space, ogres in space, the Church Militant in space, and Chaos Gods in space. Previous versions also had dwarfs in space.
- White Wolf has a bizarre relationship with this trope and Ret Con.
- Mage: The Ascension was originally conceived as the medieval RPG, Ars Magica, IN THE MODERN DAY! — but then begat not only Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade (MtA IN THE RENAISSANCE!), but, once White Wolf sold the rights to Ars Magica itself, Dark Ages: Mage.
- Exalted, in turn, was supposed to be the original World Of Darkness IN PREHISTORY! — but now there's Scion, self-described as Exalted: IN THE MODERN WORLD WITH ANCIENT MYTHS ON TOP! (Though Scion doesn't necessarily match that description.)
- Less problematical are the other historical games set in the Old World Of Darkness: Vampire: THE DARK AGES!, Vampire: THE VICTORIAN AGE!, Werewolf: THE WILD WEST!, et al.
- Cthulhu Tech is Call of Cthulhu IN THE FUTURE! Although not IN SPACE! as the Migou tend to blow up anything the NEG tries to keep up.
- Steve Jackson Games has already done GURPS Cthulhupunk, a sourcebook that puts Cthulhu IN CYBERPUNK!
- Star Munchkin: "Kill the monsters. Grab the treasure. Stab your buddy IN SPACE!" [1]◊
- Race for the Galaxy is like San Juan IN SPACE!.
- Smallworld has been described as Vinci IN A FANTASY WORLD!.
Theatre IN SPACE!
- Shakespeare gets this treatment a lot:
- Disney's The Lion King and its sequel are essentially Hamlet and Romeo And Juliet, respectively, AS TALKING ANIMAL CARTOONS! With happy endings!
- Lion King 1 1/2 is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Were Eaten by a Lion Are Dead
- 1999's Titus, set WHENEVER JULIE TAYMOR FELT LIKE IT!. No, seriously. One minute it's Ancient Rome, the next it's the 1940s. Perhaps it was ON ACID!
- Forbidden Planet (1956) was The Tempest IN SPACE!
- Twilight is even described by the author as Romeo And Juliet WITH SPARKLY VAMPIRES AND EMO WEREWOLVES! Unfortunately, none of the protagonists die as horribly as the characters to whom they are compared.
- Gnomeo and Juliet. There's GNOMES!
- West Side Story is Romeo And Juliet IN AMERICA THE MUSICAL!
- Of course, O is Othello IN HIGH SCHOOL!
- Director John Bell is a huge fan of this trope. He's done Macbeth in post apocalyptic Russia, Titus Andronicus in a Library, and King Lear on a really bad acid trip.
- Orson Welles once put on a production of Macbeth set IN HAITI!
- Of course, the Bard wasn't scared of doing this himself. Comedy of Errors is the Menaechmi with an extra pair of twins, after all.
- Avenue Q on the other hand, is RENT WITH MUPPETS INSTEAD OF AIDS! Alternately, it's Sesame Street WITH ANGST!
- Kiss Me, Kate is The Taming of the Shrew AS A MUSICAL WITHIN ANOTHER MUSICAL!
- (Not a musical) Seven Supermans is Seven Samurai WITH RIPPED OFF SUPERHEROES!
- The Music Man is The Rainmaker WITH A BOYS' MARCHING BAND INSTEAD OF RAIN! AND A HOT LIBRARIAN, TOO!
- The Hungarian Rock Opera King Stephen is Jesus Christ Superstar IN HUNGARY!
- Mourning Becomes Electra is Aeschylus's Oresteia IN AMERICA AT THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WAR!
- She's The Man is Twelfth Night WITH SOCCER!
- All Shook Up is Twelfth Night IN THE 1950S! IN THE AMERICAN MIDWEST! WITH ELVIS SONGS!
- Fiddler On The Roof is Pride And Prejudice WITH JEWS! AND RACISM!
- The Boys In The Band is Whos Afraid Of Virginia Woolf WITH GAYS!
- The Desert Song is The Sheik WITH A TWO PERSON LOVE TRIANGLE!
- Plain and Fancy is Oklahoma! IN PENNSYLVANIA!
- The Golden Apple is The Odyssey IN AN AMERICAN SMALL TOWN!
Toys IN SPACE!
Video Games IN SPACE!
- Super Mario Galaxy is Super Mario 64 IN SPACE! Although it worked out pretty well.
- Dino Crisis was Resident Evil WITH DINOSAURS!
- Dino Crisis 3 is literally Dino Crisis IN SPACE.
- Dead Space either is Resident Evil meets John Carpenter's The Thing IN SPACE! or Bio Shock IN SPACE!.
- Bioshock is System Shock WITH BIOPUNK!
- By necessity, the Ratchet & Clank series is Spyro The Dragon IN SPACE WITH BFGS, MORE COMBAT-INTENSIVE GAMEPLAY, AND A MEAN SPIRITED SENSE OF HUMOR! So maybe not so much.
- Heretic and Hexen were Doom WITH SWORDS AND SORCERY! (the game engine was even the same)
- Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri is Civilization II IN SPACE! Fortunately, the game is so close to the Hard end of the Mohs Scale Of Sci Fi Hardness, it might as well be forgiven for that.
- Sid Meiers Colonization is Civilization II IN THE COLONIAL TIME PERIOD ONLY!! And was remade as Civilization IV IN THE COLONIAL TIME PERIOD ONLY!!
- Age Of Mythology: Age Of Empires WITH MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES!
- Blizzard went to great lengths to make Starcraft not play like Warcraft IN SPACE! Brood War gives this a nice Lampshade Hanging. However, many elements introduced in Starcraft were reused in Warcraft 3, along with further refinements - such as the Undead, who are essentially the Zerg NOT IN SPACE!. As for the announced Starcraft II...time will tell, although Blizzard has already stated that the RPG elements used in WC 3 will not appear in SC 2. It's more like Warcraft IN THE FUTURE than IN SPACE
- On April Fool's Day 2008, Blizzard announced that Starcraft II would feature Taurens IN SPACE!
- One of Artanis' quotes when you click on him too much is "This is not Warcraft in space."
- Recent licensed games based on The Simpsons are notorious for this. The Simpsons Skateboarding, Road Rage and Hit And Run are Tony Hawks Pro Skater, Crazy Taxi and Grand Theft Auto, in that order, IN SPRINGFIELD! Fortunately, only the first one was as predictably bad as most licensed games.
- Likewise for many Star Wars games. Dark Forces, Force Commander and Battlefront were respectively Doom, Command And Conquer and Battlefield A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY!
- Similarly, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds was Age Of Empires II with different units and new names for the resources.
- Knights Of The Old Republic was Neverwinter Nights AN EVEN LONGER TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY! Correspondingly, Mass Effect is Knights Of The Old Republic IN AN ORIGINAL CANON! WITH ELEMENTS OF THE SHOOTER GENRE!
- Star Fox Adventures became Legend Of Zelda IN SPACE! when Nintendo replaced the setting with ''StarFox'' characters and also made it a game that didn't please the fans of the series at all. Before that, it was more like Legend Of Zelda WITH FURRIES!, something Rare has done quite a few times with more success (Mario 64-> Banjo-Kazooie, Mario Kart -> Diddy Kong Racing, not to mention the older Donkey Kong games).
- For that matter, Star Fox is Star Wars WITH FURRIES! Or perhaps furries IN SPACE! Whatever floats your
boat Arwing.
- Worms: A Space Oddity is Worms IN SPACE! ON THE WII!
- Grandia Xtreme is Grandia WITH MARK HAMILL! (and XTREME!)
- Space Siege is Dungeon Siege IN SPACE!
- ''Call Of Duty
5: World at War has been essentially called Call Of Duty 4 IN WORLD WAR 2! to those who do not think is was changed enough.
- Fallout 3 is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion After The End! Or The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion WITH GUNS!
- Tomb Raider is Indiana Jones WITH A WOMAN! This is not surprising; the creators originally wanted to make Tomb Raider with a male protagonist, but went with a woman in fear that it will be too similar to Indiana Jones. As one reviewer put it, Tomb raider is Indiana Jones WITH BREASTS!
- Classic example: Kabuki Quantum Fighter is Ninja Gaiden INSIDE A COMPUTER! WITH KABUKI ACTORS! And it's awesome.
- Likewise, Ninja Gaiden is Castlevania WITH NINJAS! (And less crappy controls.)
- Not exactly the whole series recycled, but just the concepts. In Super Robot Wars OG Gaiden, fighting style Kishin Ken is Hokuto Shinken IN HUMONGOUS MECHA!
- The Ganbare Goemon games stars the Japanese folk hero Ishikawa Goemon AS A HIGHLY VISIBLE NINJA IN A WIDGET GAME SERIES WITH SCHIZO TECH AND HUMONGOUS MECHA! Ishikawa Goemon, in turn, is ROBIN HOOD IN FEUDAL JAPAN! All oddness and cultural differences aside, they're actually pretty good.
- American McGee's Alice is Alice In Wonderland COMING DOWN FROM HEROIN!
- Primal Rage is Mortal Kombat WITH DINOSAURS AND GORILLAS!
- Megaman Star Force is Megaman Battle Network IN THE FUTURE! or FURTHER FUTURE, I guess.
- Elite Beat Agents is Osu Tatakae Ouendan WITH FUNNY-HAIRED DANCING MEN IN BLACK! (Although EBA is just an international version of Ouendan made by the same developer so it's good)
- Meanwhile, Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor is Elite Beat Agents WITH LOONEY TUNES CHARACTERS!
- A DS game based on the movie Happy Feet is Elite Beat Agents WITH PENGUINS!
- High School Musical: Makin' the Cut is Elite Beat Agents WITH BUBBLEGUM POP
- Sonic The Hedgehog: Sonic And The Secret Rings is Sonic Adventure IN ARABIA!
- Likewise, Sonic and the Black Knight is Sonic and the Secret Rings IN MEDIEVAL TIMES! AND SWORDFIGHTING!
- Both Sonic Adventure games parody this trope with posters for movies called "Chao In Space" and "Chao In Space 2". Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 (Xbox 360/PS 3) later continues this with "Chao in Space 3".
- Look at the architecture for the Death Egg in Sonic The Hedgehog 2. It is quite literally Chemical Plant IN SPACE!
- X-COM: Terror from the Deep is a sequel that is the first game UNDERWATER!
- It could accurately be said that Terror from the Deep is X-Com NOT IN SPACE! And NINTENDO HARD!
- There is literally a game called Jesus in Space. See for yourself.
- Wing Commander (up to the conclusion of WC3) is WW2 in the Pacific, In Space!
- Just Cause is Grand Theft Auto ON A CARIBBEAN ISLAND WITH REVOLUTIONARIES!
- Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. It's Puzzle Quest... IN SPACE!
- Crash Bandicoot is The Island of Dr. Moreau SET IN AN AUSTRALIAN ARCHIPELAGO, DOING LOONEY TUNES!
- Similar to Call Of Duty 4, Strikers 1945 III / Strikers 1999 is Strikers 1945 IN THE PRESENT DAY!
- Mars Matrix is Giga Wing
IN SPACE! ON MARS!
- Lethal Enforcers II is Lethal Enforcers IN THE WILD WEST!
- Viper Phase 1 is Raiden IN SPACE! (Though Raiden II 's final stage was also IN SPACE!)
- Tetris: The Grand Master 3 is Tetris: The Grand Master IN SPACE!
- Tetris: The Grand Master ACE is TGM WITH THE TETRIS GUIDELINE!
- Disaster: Day of Crisis is Die Hard, and any Disaster Movie ever, IN VIDEO GAME FORM!
- Magicians Quest Mysterious Times is Animal Crossing AT WIZARDING SCHOOL!
- Jak II: Renegade is Jak And Daxter IN THE FUTURE! WITH MORE GRIM DARKNESS! AND A SUPERPOWERED EVIL SIDE!
- Victory Road, the sequel to Ikari Warriors, is Ikari Warriors IN SPACE!
- S.A.R.: Search and Rescue is Ikari Warriors IN THE FUTURE WITH HORROR!
- Guerrilla War is Ikari Warriors DURING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION!.
- The original Ikari Warriors is T.N.K. III WITH A COMMANDO INSTEAD OF A TANK. The driver of that tank happens to be a certain Ralf Jones though.
- Teleroboxer is Punch Out WITH ROBOTS!
- Super Smash Bros is Fighters Megamix BY NINTENDO!
- TMNT Smash Up is Super Smash Bros WITH TURTLES!
- 2020 Super Baseball is Baseball Stars IN THE FUTURE!
- Battlezone (not the old Atari one, the 1998 Activision one) is the Cold War IN SPACE!
- DJ MAX Technika is Elite Beat Agents ON ARCADE HARDWARE!
- 1941: Counter Attack is 1943 IN EUROPE!
- 19XX: The War Against Destiny is 1941 ALL OVER THE WORLD! And the Final Boss is IN SPACE!
- DoDonPachi is Raiden WITH LOTS MORE BULLETS!
- Dangun Feveron is DoDonPachi IN SPACE WITH DISCO MUSIC!
- Mushihime-sama is Dodonpachi with insects and even more bullets.
- Para Para Paradise is Dance Dance Revolution WITH HANDS AND MORE EUROBEAT!
- Confidential Mission is Virtua Cop WITH SECRET AGENTS!
- GHOST Squad is Virtua Cop IN THE MILITARY! (You can even unlock guns and costumes from the Virtua Cop series.)
- La-Mulana is Maze of Galious IN ANCIENT RUINS WITH AN ADVENTURER ARCHAEOLOGIST!
- Inverted with Life Force / Salamander, which is Gradius IN ONE BIG WOMB LEVEL!
- Police 911 is Time Crisis IN JAPAN!
- Space Channel 5 is Channel 5 IN SPACE with dancing, and programs that are actually entertaining. Unfortunately it still has a Corrupt Corporate Executive.... in space. Also includes Space Michael (Michael Jackson IN SPACE!).
- Daytona USA is Virtua Racing WITH STOCK CARS!
- Super GT is Daytona USA WITH EUROPEAN SPORTS CARS!
- San Francisco Rush 2049 is San Francisco Rush 40 YEARS FROM NOW!
- Barkley Shut Up And Jam Gaiden is Charles Barkley: Shut Up and Jam [-AS A JPRG-]! And sometimes IN SPACE! IN CANON!
- Darkstalkers is Street Fighter WITH MONSTERS!
- Perfect Dark is Golden Eye 007 IN THE FUTURE
- Titan Quest is Diablo IN ANCIENT GREECE!
- Shadow Warrior is Duke Nukem 3D WITH NINJAS!
- Final Fantasy XII is Star Wars NOT IN SPACE!
- Eversion is Super Mario Bros IN A MORE FLOWERY WORLD! And later, IN HELL!
- Since game developers can't seem to come up with anything new, most real time strategies are Dune II WTH ANOTHER BACKSTORY and usually without the glory that is Sand Worms
- Cannon Fodder 2 takes this a bit literally: it really is Cannon Fodder IN SPACE!
- Sly Cooper is basically Oceans Eleven FOR FURRIES!
- An inversion: Despite being more similar to the Shenmue series, Sega, when they first tried to export Ryu Gu Gotaku, describe Yakuza as GTA in Japan, causing consumers to ignore it as another GTA clone in the periods glut of them
- Saints Row is Grand Theft Auto WITH PLAYER CUSTOMIZATION!
- Red Faction Guerrilla is Saints Row 2 ON MARS! AND YOU BLOW UP BUILDINGS INSTEAD OF PEOPLE!
- Prototype is Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction IF THE HULK HAD A SYMBIOTE SUIT!
- Am I the only one who thinks that the Hulk with a symbiote suit would be universe-warpingly awesome?
- Dead Space is Resident Evil 4 IN SPACE! WITH GRAVITY GUNS! AND ALIEN MUTANT ZOMBIES! That said, the antagonistic "religion" in the game is basically Scientology IN SPACE!
- No More Heroes is Branded to Kill SET IN A CALIFORNIAN CITY! Some people consider it to be Grand Theft Auto WITH BEAM SWORDS!
- Quake I: Doom in true 3D. In turn, Quake II is Quake I recycled with aliens. And Quake IV is Doom 3 recycled with aliens.
- And Quake III (Arena) is Quake, ONLINE!!!
- Dynasty Warriors Gundam is Exactly What It Says On The Tin... the classic Dynasty Warriors Hack And Slash format, recycled WITH LOADS AND LOADS OF GUNDAM CHARACTERS!
- Critical Depth is Twisted Metal UNDERWATER! With a storyline that's somehow even DARKER AND CREEPIER!
- 3D Pinball for Windows is pinball IN SPACE!...for WINDOWS XP! ... or 2000, ME, 98, NT, Vista and 7!
- Unintentional example: the Taiwan translated title for Final Fantasy is "Warriors IN SPACE", despite the series never getting anywhere near space until the fourth game.
- Sunset Riders is Contra IN THE WILD WEST.
- While Mystic Warriors is Sunset Riders WITH NINJAS
- The Dolled Up Installment Contra Force could easily be considered "Contra IN THE PRESENT" if it weren't for the fact that the localizations of the early games already changed the setting of the series from the future to the present.
- Subversion: Tenchu might be seen as Metal Gear Solid IN FEUDAL JAPAN WITH (NON-CYBORG) NINJAS, but Tenchu actually came out months earlier.
- Gekirindan is Truxton with Time Travel.
- Express Raider is Bad Dudes on a train in the Wild West.
- Strikers 1945 is Aero Fighters in WWII with more bullets.
- Policenauts is literally Lethal Weapon IN SPACE
- Final Fantasy Tactics is ''Tactics Ogre IN IVALICE!
- Backyard Football 2006 is Backyard Football...ON AN ISLAND!!
- Bomberman Hero is Star Wars WITH MORE EXPLOSIONS!
- Super Noah's Ark 3D is Wolfenstein 3 D WITH NOAH. Really, it's the exact same game without that difference.
- Okami is The Legend Of Zelda In feudal Japan, with a Big Badass Wolf who is actually god!
- Alien Storm is practically Golden Axe IN THE FUTURE WITH ALIENS
Web Animation IN SPACE!
Web Comics IN SPACE!
Web Original IN SPACE!
Western Animation IN SPACE!
- Silverhawks was Thundercats IN SPACE! (Compare Mumm-ra's and Mon-starr's Transformation Sequences.) It even used most of the same voice actors. Rather odd in that Thundercats is in space in the first place...
- On a related note, the Tigersharks (part of a short-lived programming block called the Comic Strip) were Silverhawks... UNDER WATER! Who lives like the Thundercats under the sea? The... Ti... Ger... Sharks!
- The Flintstones was The Honeymooners AS CARTOON CAVEMEN!
- The Jetsons was Blondie And Dagwood IN THE FUTURE!
- As evidenced in the crossover episode, The Jetsons were also Flinstones IN THE FUTURE! There's also Stone Trek, which is Star Trek, AS CARTOON CAVEMEN!
- Roman Holidays was Make Room For Daddy IN ANCIENT ROME!
- There were Animated Adaptations of both The Partridge Family and Happy Days set IN THE FUTURE! (the former of which was originally The Jetsons a few years farther into the future).
- Inspector Gadget was Get Smart AS A CARTOON CYBORG! (Maxwell Smart and Inspector Gadget were both played by Don Adams.)
- It was followed by Gadget Boy & Heather, which was Inspector Gadget AS A SIX-YEAR-OLD! With Penny AS AN ADULT! And Brain AS A ROBOT! And Chief Quimby AS AN ITALIAN!
- There was an IN SPACE! Animated Adaptation of Gilligans Island, titled Gilligan's Planet.
- Not to mention The Far Out Space Nuts a live action GilligansIsland IN SPACE! complete with Bob Denver playing Gilligan's Expy. "I said LUNCH not LAUNCH!"
- The original animated version of The Addams Family was ON THE ROAD IN A HOUSE-SHAPED CAR! The 90's version was essentially just an Animated Adaptation of the movies, though.
- Loonatics Unleashed is Looney Tunes IN THE FUTURE AS ANIMESQUE SUPERHEROES!
- More like Loonatic Unleashed is Teen Titans WITH LOONEY TUNE CHARACTERS! since that how it was pretty much described in the original PR announcement.
- Duck Dodgers is DUCK DODGERS IN THE 24TH-AND-A-HALF CENTURY!. It is much better.
- "Yosemite Sam of Outer Space!"
- The Flintstones, Looney Tunes, and Scooby Doo have all had AS KIDS! spinoffs. Even if in the original, there's a scene where they met for the first time, they knew each other as kids and have forgotten. Yo, Yogi! which features Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, etc. AS KIDS!
- On the subject of Scooby Doo, we have:
- Jabberjaw — Scooby UNDERWATER, WITH A SHARK!
- Speed Buggy — WITH A TALKING CAR!
- Clue Club — WITH TWO DOGS!
- Funky Phantom — WITH A GHOST FROM THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THAT'S A SNAGGLEPUSS EXPY!
- The Schmoo Show — WITH A SCHMOO!
- Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels — WITH AN UNFROZEN CAVEMAN SUPERHERO!
- Fangface — WITH A WEREWOLF!
- Josie And The Pussycats — WITH A CAT AND A GIRL GROUP IN CAT SUITS!
- Goober and the Ghost Chasers — ... THE DOG TURNS INVISIBLE? AND HIS BEST HUMAN FRIEND IS RECKLESS!
- The Aesop: Hanna-Barbera knows how to run an idea INTO THE GROUND! And parody it with Scooby Doo IN HOLLYWOOD!
- Most (if not all) Disney animated movies are adaptations of some kind of fairy tale, myth, or story, many AS TALKING ANIMALS OR FUNNY ANIMALS! The most egregious example was probably Oliver And Company, which was unabashedly Oliver Twist...WITH PETS!... IN MODERN-DAY NEW YORK CITY!. (Marketing even went so far as to call it "Oliver, WITH A TWIST.")
- The Lion King was, as mentioned above, essentially Hamlet IN AFRICA WITH ANIMALS! (minus the existentialism and suicide and stuff), and is also said to borrow heavily from (or downright plagiarize, depending on who you ask) the anime The Jungle Emperor, aka Kimba The White Lion. Whether this is true may not matter, as Kimba wasn't really that good. And lions don't live in the jungle.
- Or if you want to go even further back, it's Horus and Set, AS LIONS, for the control of Egypt... er, the Pridelands.
- The sequel is Romeo And Juliet FOR THE FURRY FANDOM.
- The Lion King 1 1/2 is Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead IN AFRICA WITH ANIMALS (WHO AREN'T DEAD)!
- Treasure Planet is, of course, Treasure Island IN SPACE!...WITH FURRIES!
- Atlantis The Lost Empire is Stargate IN ATLANTIS!
- Brother Bear is essentially the 1988 French Film "The Bear" EXCEPT ONE OF THE BEARS IS A HUMAN WHO TURNS INTO A BEAR!
- Rutt and Tuke are the McKenzie Brothers of SCTV fame AS MOOSE!
- Sherlock Holmes In The Twenty Second Century is Sherlock Holmes... IN THE TWENTY-SECOND CENTURY! (No shit, Sherlock.)
- And the recent movie is Sherlock Holmes... AS A SUPER HERO!
- Ninja Turtles Fast Forward is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IN THE FUTURE!
- The French/Japanese series Ulysses 31 was Homer's The Odyssey set IN THE 31ST CENTURY IN SPACE!
- Fonz And The Happy Days Gang was Happy Days WITH TIME TRAVEL!
- Aversion. The Futurama writing staff have claimed that a large part of the reason behind the Executive Meddling that the show suffered was that, much to the network's annoyance, the show was not The Simpsons IN SPACE!
- Family Guy is non-yellow The Simpsons IN RHODE ISLAND WITH MUCH MORE VULGARITY AND DEAD BABY COMEDY!
- People who accuse Family Guy of being a rip-off of The Simpsons are the same people who accused The Simpsons of the same thing, but TEN YEARS YOUNGER!
- The 1965 Belgian animated film Pinocchio dans l'espace (Pinocchio in Outer Space in English-speaking countries) is Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- ExoSquad is essentially World War II IN SPACE! And THE FUTURE! With awesome EXOSKELETONS!
- The Snorks were The Smurfs UNDERWATER, AS MIDDLE-CLASS EAGLELANDERS.
- Bobobobs is The Smurfs and The World of David the Gnome IN SPACE!
- Recess is essentially Hogan's Heroes on a 90s elementary school playground. One such episode of Recess does a very good adaptation of the Hogan's Heroes pilot and another features a scene where expys of the characters are in a Hogan's Heroes style WWII POW camp complete with the Colonel Klink expy wearing a monocle.
- LLoyd in Space is practically built from this trope
- Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries is, as you can probably guess, Sylvester and Tweety (oh, and Granny) AS AMATEUR SLEUTHS!
- Rocket Robin Hood
- Space Ghost Coast To Coast was Space Ghost AS A TALK SHOW! Likewise, Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law was Birdman IN A COURT ROOM!
- Sabrina And The Groovie Goolies was The Archie Show UNDEAD!
- The Oddball Couple was The Odd Couple AS CARTOON ANIMALS!
- American Dragon Jake Long, Danny Phantom and Ben 10 were essentially all copies of each other, just WITH DRAGONS! or WITH GHOSTS! or WITH ALIENS!. Ben10 was the most successful, with American Dragon Jake Long canceled after two seasons and Danny Phantom screwed over by Nick. Ben 10: Alien Force isn't even half bad.
- Danny Phantom is Spider-Man WITH GHOSTS!
- Ben 10: Alien Force is Ben 10 RETCONED TO HELL AND BACK! Oh, and with teenagers.
- Ben 10 was Dial H For Hero WITH A GUI INSTEAD OF AN RNG!
- Even Pixar's done this (and pulled it off).
- Megas XLR is Clerks WITH GIANT ROBOTS!
- Histeria! was like Animaniacs (or maybe Saturday Night Live) WITH A HISTORY-CENTRIC THEME!
- Freakazoid started out as Animaniacs WITH SUPERHEROES! Or maybe Superman WITH ANIMANIACS! DRIVEN MAD BY THE COLLECTIVE INFORMATION OF THE INTERNET!
- Total Drama Island is Survivor EXCEPT THAT IT'S ANIMATED!
- The Robonic Stooges is The Three Stooges AS ROBOTS! AND THEY FIGHT CRIME!
- Archie's Weird Mysteries was Martin Mystery WITH ARCHIE CHARACTERS!
- The Super Mario Bros Super Show was practically nothing but this. Just about every episode was a different-themed world; these include IN SPACE, IN AUTHURIAN TIMES, IN JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, IN GODZILLA-TERRORIZED TOKYO, AMONG PIRATES, IN SOME MEXICAN DESERT PROTECTED BY A MASKED HERO NAMED "ZERO", IN A RACE, and
- The Brave Little Toaster Goes To Mars is The Brave Little Toaster...ON MARS!
- Except that it is a direct sequel...
- Rugrats itself is not an example, but it has a Show Within A Show called Space Trek Babies. Which is Star Trek WITH BABIES!
- The Chaotic animated series can be interpreted as Warcraft WITH CARD GAMES.
- Mightor is Superman or WonderWoman IN PREHISTORIC TIMES!
- Ni Hao, Kai-Lan is Dora The Explorer AS A CHINESE GIRL!
- Batman OF THE FUTURE was an actual title used for Batman Beyond in certain markets.
- Tom And Jerry relied on this trope a lot, granted it's because there's only so much you can do when the premise of the entire series is "Cat chases Mouse".
- Popeye recieved similar recyclings in any given short.
- Zorro Generation Z is Zorro IN THE FUTURE. How far is unknown, because it looks a lot like the present with added Where Did They Get Lasers.
- Drawn Together babies is just Drawn Together WITH BABIES!
- TROLLZ is WITCH WITH...are you sure they're supposed to be trolls? Yeah, I know what the title says, but come on, they're obviously elves or dwar...okay, okay... -WITH TROLLS!
- Pretty much every classic Hanna Barbera cartoon is a classic TV show (or at least a character) done with animals. Top Cat is {{Sgt. Bilko}} with alley cats.
- Mighty B is Ren And Stimpy WITH GIRL SCOUTS!
- Angel's Friends is WITCH (or Winx Club, depending on what fandom you prefer) WITH ANGELS AND DEMONS!
- Winx Club is Sailor Moon with fairies.
- Jimmy Neutron parodies the trope with an in-universe example when their school principal puts on a production of Macbeth IN SPACE!. He later mentions that next year, he'll be doing Hamlet ON ICE!.
Real Life IN SPACE!
- The new Informatics Forum of the University of Edinburgh has, above the main entrance, in big friendly letters: "The University of Edinburgh IN SPACE!"◊
- Christmas is Yule WITH CHRISTIANITY!
- Amusingly inverted in the movement to make the major spring holiday Easter WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY!
- Ironically appropriate, since Easter started as a pagan fertility festival WITH CHRISTIANITY!
- And Christmas itself is apparently getting the treatment, though how serious the effort is and the motives behind it depends on who you ask.
- Recycling is common for many religions and traditions. So much that tracking the origins is difficult.
- Many universities has three semesters of calculus, where Calculus III is Calculus I and II IN 3D SPACE!
- After learning about vectors on a plane comes vectors IN SPACE!
- The United States started out roughly as the United Kingdom AS A REPUBLIC IN AMERICA!
- Australia started out roughly as the United Kingdom WITH SAND!
- Hubble is a telescope... but IN SPACE!
- Tang is orange juice that only became popular after astronauts drank it IN SPACE!.
- This Video is a recording of Jupiter making sounds IN SPACE!
- New Orleans's French Quarter is Paris IN THE SOUTH!
- The Mateba Grifone is the Mateba Unica 6 AS A CARBINE!
This article... IN SPACE!!!
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