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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! — From the Homestar Runner Strong Bad E-mail " best thing ".
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.
See also: Animated Adaptation, Gender Flip, Recycled The Series, Setting Update, X Meets Y, This Is Your Premise On Drugs, Better By A Different Name.
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.
Examples IN SPACE!
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Anime and Manga
Comics
- 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!
- 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.
Films
- 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).
- 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.
- What is this trainwrequiem of which you speak? The series ended with the leadworks.
- 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!
- Also, incidentally, as a much more faithful-to-the-book version of Starship Troopers.
- Predator: The Thing from Another World IN THE JUNGLE!
- The 1988 film Fright Night was Rear Window WITH A VAMPIRE!
- Roger Corman's B Movie Battle Beyond The Stars was The Magnificent Seven IN SPACE!
- Muppet Treasure Island is Treasure Island WITH MUPPETS AND TIM CURRY SINGING!
- A Muppet Christmas Carol is likewise, but with MICHAEL CAINE INSTEAD OF TIM CURRY!.
- 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!
- 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.)
- Star Trek: Insurrection is Lost Horizon IN SPACE!
- The 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars is... well, you can guess.
- 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!
- 1979 Disney film The Black Hole is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea IN SPACE!
- Moulin Rouge is the opera La Traviata ON ACID!
- 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!
- There's also A Bug's Life, which is the same thing WITH BUGS!
- 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!
- Space Buddies is Air Bud IN SPACE!
- And Air Buddies is Air Bud WITH A LARGE AMOUNT OF ADORABLE PUPPIES!
- And Snow Buddies is Air Buddies IN THE ARCTIC WILDERNESS!
- Air Bud also had a number of spinoffs in other sports such as football, baseball, and soccer.
- Star Wars is the myth Sword of the Empire IN... do we have to say it?
- Star Wars — A New Hope is also, by word of George Lucas, The Lord of the Rings IN SPACE!
- Revenger's Tragedy (2003) is The Revenger's Tragedy IN POST-APOCALYPTIC LIVERPOOL!
- 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!
- Moonraker is The Spy Who Loved Me... IN SPACE!
- High School Musical (the first one) is Grease IN MODERN TIMES!
- 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!
- 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 also in high school.
- Apocalypse Now is Heart Of Darkness IN VIETNAM!
- Loser is The Apartment IN COLLEGE!
- The Magnificent Seven is Seven Samurai WILD WEST STYLE!
- Cadet Kelly is Private Benjamin AS A TEENAGER!
- Barb Wire is gender flipped Casablanca IN THE POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE!
- 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: Speed on a Boat
Literature
- 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!
- 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!
- 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.
- This troper has heard a rumor that Temeraire started out as Master and Commander AU fanfic that later had Serial Numbers Filed Off.
- Likewise the SeafortSaga could be described as Master and Commander IN SPACE!. Except that Nick Seafort is such a hardass as to be a dick about it. Such as when he punishes someone for saving his life by breaking a rule. On more than one occasion.
- That's because he's filled to the hairline with selfloathing thanks to being raised by a religious fanatic father.
- Second only to The Bard is Charles Dickens, especially A Christmas Carol, which is a trope unto itself.
- 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 Mc Master Bujold's A Civil Campaign is Georgette Heyer IN SPACE!, as confirmed by Word Of God.
- Miles Vorkosigan is James Bond AS A DEFORMED SUPERGENIUS DWARF! IN SPACE!
- Honor Harrington is Horation Hornblower... in SPACE! (complete with a pseudo-science excuse for broadside duels)
- 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!
- Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN.
- Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke's Time Odyssey trilogy is Gurren Lagann -WITH SCIENCE-
- In reverse, dude (Time's Eye is out in 2003), so: Gurren Lagann is Time Odyssey trilogy WITH MASSIVE RULE OF COOL! (is it?)
- C. S. Lewis' The Space Trilogy is The Bible IN SPACE!
- S. M Stirling's Peshawar lancers is Rudyard Kipling AFTER THE END!
- Ray Bradbury's Leviathan '99 is Moby Dick IN SPACE.
Live Action TV
- 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!
- 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
- The entire series was heavily inspired by series creator Glen Larson's Mormon faith, making it effectively The Book of Mormon IN SPACE!
- 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.
- 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!)
- In addition, 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 IN SPACE!
- And following that, 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!
- One of the criticisms of Andromeda was that it eventually became Hercules The Legendary Journeys IN SPACE! Mind you, people were criticizing it for that long before it happened.
- Hmm, I always thought of it as Star Trek AFTERTHEEND!
- 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!
- 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!
- Of course, between 1970-1973 the show was noticable for being Doctor Who NOT IN SPACE!
- In one Dead Ringers skecth, the Tenth Doctor is referred to as "Jarvis Cocker IN SPACE!
- The Second Doctor is often described as Charlie Chaplin IN SPACE!
- 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!
- 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!)
- 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!
- 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!.
Puppet Shows
Radio
Tabletop Games
- 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 Dark Ages: Mage (You Figure It Out).
- 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.)
- And Exalted has nothing to do with the World of Darkness these days.
- 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.
- Cthulhutech 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!"
- Race for the Galaxy is like San Juan IN SPACE!.
- Smallworld has been described as Vinci IN A FANTASY WORLD!.
Theatre
- Shakespeare gets this treatment a lot:
- Avenue Q on the other hand, is RENT WITH MUPPETS INSTEAD OF AIDS!
- 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!
Toys
- The short-lived action figure series K9 Corps recycles the concept of the similarly short-lived Road Rovers... ONLY DARKER AND EDGIER!
Video Games
- Super Mario Galaxy is Super Mario 64 IN SPACE! Although it worked out pretty well.
- They're taking this a step further with Super Mario Galaxy 2. It's Mario IN SPACE! WITH YOSHI!
- Super Mario Sunshine is more or less Super Mario 64 ON A TROPICAL ISLAND WHILE MARIO ACTUAL DOES SOME PLUMBING (SORT OF)! WITH A REALLY FRUSTRATING FETCH QUEST! (Damn those Blue Coins!)
- Dino Crisis was Resident Evil WITH DINOSAURS!
- Dead Space either is Resident Evil + John Carpenter's The Thing IN SPACE! or Bio Shock IN SPACE!.
- Well, since it's revealed that the marker is causing visions to get you to place it back on the planet, its more like Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris.
- 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.
- It also makes more sense than many of the other examples on this page: Civilization (and its sequels) feature launching a manned spaceship to Alpha Centauri as one way to win the game, as this would represent one of mankind's ultimate achievements.
- Sid Meiers Colonization is Civilization II 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
- Speaking of Warcraft, the first expansion to World Of Warcraft feels a lot like World Of Warcraft IN SPACE!. There are spaceships, and the expansion takes place on another world with better technology than the original world. The second expansion is World Of Warcraft ON ICE!
- On April Fool's Day 2008, Blizzard announced that Starcraft II would feature Taurens 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.
- Don't forget Simpsons Wrestling LOL!
- 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!
- 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!
- Crusader Kings is Europa Universalis IN THE MIDDLE AGES!, Victoria is Europa Universalis IN THE 19TH CENTURY! and Hearts of Iron is Europa Universalis IN WORLD WAR II AND POTENTIALLY WORLD WAR III!, with the cool twist that you can play them in chronological order and carry your save game forward into the next game.
- This isn't necessarily true. While all Paradox games share similarities, CK, EU, Vicky, and HOI have some massive differences between them.
- 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!
- Metal Gear Solid is Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake IN ALASKA! (with 3D graphics). Metal Gear Solid 2 is Metal Gear Solid WITH POSTMODERNISM AND IN NEW YORK! The entire series can probably be described inversely as Splinter Cell ON LARGE AMOUNTS OF PSYCHEDELICS!
- 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.
- 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 Mc Gees 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)
- 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 (Xbox 360/PS 3) later continues this with "Chao in Space 3".
- 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!
- Disaster: Day of Crisis is Die Hard, and any Disaster Movie ever, IN VIDEO GAME FORM!
- Tear Ring Saga is Fire Emblem ON PLAYSTATION!
- And quite literally, too. The Fire Emblem people sued them for infringement.
- Magician's 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!
- And Guerrilla War is Ikari Warriors DURING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION!.
- Teleroboxer is Punch Out WITH ROBOTS!
- Super Smash Bros is Fighters Megamix BY NINTENDO!
- 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!
- Para Para Paradise is Dance Dance Revolution WITH HANDS AND MORE EUROBEAT!
- Confidential Mission is Virtua Cop WITH SECRET AGENTS!
- 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 007 Goldeneye IN THE FUTURE
- Seriously though, Perfect Dark has a modified Goldeneye game engine and is made by the same people. If you throw out plot and whatnot, they're pretty damn close to being identical.
- And Time Splitters is Goldeneye WITH TIME TRAVEL
- 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 BACSTORY and usually without the glory that is sandworms
- Cannon Fodder 2 takes this a bit literally: it really is Cannon Fodder IN SPACE!
- Sly Cooper is basically Oceans Eleven FOR FURRIES!
- Red Faction Guerrilla is Saints Row 2 ON MARS! AND YOU BLOW UP BUILDINGS INSTEAD OF PEOPLE!
- Prototype is Hulk: Ultimate Destruction IF THE HULK HAD A SYMBIOTE SUIT!
- 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!
Web Animation
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
- 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 was 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.)
- And 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.
- 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 TALKING ANIMAL SUPERHEROES! It didn't go over too well.
- 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!
- And how can we forget Muppet Babies?
- With whiskey. Lots and lots of whiskey.
- 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!
- 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! (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.
- Without mummified penises though.
- Their animated film Treasure Planet is, of course, Treasure Island IN SPACE!...WITH FURRIES!
- And Atlantis The Lost Empire is Stargate IN ATLANTIS!
- Sherlock Holmes In The Twenty Second Century is Sherlock Holmes... IN THE TWENTY-SECOND CENTURY! (No shit, Sherlock.)
- 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!
- The 1965 Belgian animated film Pinocchio dans l'espace (Pinocchio in Outer Space in English-speaking countries) is self-explanatory.
- ExoSquad is essentially World War II IN SPACE!
- And THE FUTURE! With awesome EXOSKELETONS!
- The Snorks were The Smurfs UNDERWATER, AS MIDDLE-CLASS EAGLELANDERS.
- And 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.
- 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!. While This Troper originally believed Ben10 to be the worst of the three, it actually 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.
- 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!
- Total Drama Island is Survivor EXCEPT THAT IT'S ANIMATED!
- The Robonic Stooges is The Three Stooges AS ROBOTS! AND THEY FIGHT CRIME! No, .
- Boomerang still shows that sometimes, since it's all 5 minute shorts. They run episodes commercial free, run a short or two, then cram all commercials between shows. As such, any short they can find is fair game (outside of looney toons, which it SHOULD run).
- 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".
- The Brave Little Toaster Goes To Mars is The Brave Little Toaster...ON MARS!
- 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!
Real Life
- 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!
- And Christmas itself is apparently getting the treatment, though how serious the effort is and the motives behind it depends on who you ask.
- Many universities has three semesters of calculus, where Calculus III is Calculus I and II IN 3D 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!
- And India as the United Kingdom IN THE JUNGLE!
- Hubble is a telescope... but IN SPACE!
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