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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".

Jaws in space.

— Ridley Scott's pitch for his 1975 draft of Alien.

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.

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.

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Examples IN SPACE!

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