History Main / CompressedAdaptation

* The game show ''Series/DealOrNoDeal'' originated as the bonus round of a Dutch lottery game show called ''Miljoenenjacht'', which preceded this with an elimination quiz involving the entire audience in a large studio. Some of the early adaptations used a downsized quiz to determine the player, but others either picked the player randomly from an on-stage pool (such as the British version), or just had a contestant pre-determined (like the U.S. version).

* In the film version of ''Film/TheMartian'', there are a number of scenes cut out from the [[Literature/TheMartian the book]]: when Watney [[spoiler:shorts out Pathfinder with the drill]] or when he [[spoiler:runs into a dust storm on the way to Schiaparelli Crater Ares IV site]] or the fact that he is also a Mechanical Engineer, but their omission from the movie doesn't really change that much from the book.

* The ''Film/HarryPotter'' films. The [[Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone first]] [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets two]] were mostly AdaptationDistillation with most of what they cut out being side characters, where the later ones tended to combine scenes and leave out secondary plots altogether. This is especially true of the [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire fourth]] and [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix fifth]] movies, as this is when the books started getting [[{{Doorstopper}} much longer]], yet each was still adapted into a single roughly 2½hr movie. The fourth tends to use temporal jumps to skip scenes or events (including ones which took up entire chapters in the book), while the fifth saves time by using {{montages}}. Certain details of the films in general can be [[ContinuityLockout hard to follow unless you've read the books]], partly because the earlier films were made when the book series had not yet finished, so the filmmakers didn't know what elements from earlier books would be significant later. This necessitated several hamfisted and plothole-creating explanations in the later films for things which were properly set and wrapped up in the books, although any major difficulties were avoided by having Rowling review all the scripts.

* The ''Film/HarryPotter'' films. The [[Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone first]] [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets two]] were mostly AdaptationDistillation with most of what they cut out being side characters, where the later ones tended to combine scenes and leave out secondary plots altogether. The first forty minutes of [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire the fourth movie]] cover ''over 200'' pages, and certain details of the films in general can be [[ContinuityLockout hard to follow unless you've read the books]]. Part of the problem is that the earlier films were being made when the book series had not yet finished. Because of this, the filmmakers had no idea what scenes and subplots from earlier books would be significant in later ones. This resulted in several hamfisted and plothole-creating explanations in the later films in cases where they were neatly wrapped up in the books, but the films were missing the setups from earlier stories.

* Creator/DavidLynch's ''Film/Dune1984''. It follows the plot of the book reasonably closely, but compresses two-thirds of a [[DoorStopper long novel]] into half an hour.

* ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'': The anime version cuts out the Aureolus Dummy subplot from the Deep Blood arc and the serial killer Jinsaku Hino from the Angel Fall arc. The manga version cuts out the Deep Blood and Angel Fall arcs altogether.

* ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' surprised many fans (and annoyed others) by compressing the events of the first light novel into just two episodes (the first two of the 2012 TV series). The rest of the anime is a mixed bag, but so far it's taken two 12-episode seasons to cover the events of the first eight light novels.

** Sister show ''Series/VRTroopers'' is somewhat similar to ''Megaforce'', in that they were adapting more than one show that had little to no connections to each other -- in this case, the ''Series/MetalHeroes'' series ''Series/ChoujinkiMetalder'' (39 episodes), ''Series/JikuuSenshiSpielban'' (44 episodes) and ''Series/SpaceSheriffShaider'' (49 episodes). Season one, which adapted ''Metalder'' and ''Spielban'', got 52 episodes, and season two (which replaced the ''Metalder'' footage with ''Shaider'') had 40; overall, it's 92 total episodes to 139 (if all three source shows are tallied together).

* The 1990s [[WesternAnimation/IronManTheAnimatedSeries Iron Man]]'' series also did this. "The Beast Within" was a single episode adaptation of the "Dragon Seed Saga" (functioning as a WhamEpisode introducing the {{Retool}} in the process), while the "Hands of the Mandarin" storyline (which spanned three different titles, plus backup/side stories in ''ComicBook/MarvelComicsPresents'') became a two-parter (a similar thing was done for their adaptation of the ''ComicBook/ArmorWars'' arc).

* WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends:

* ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' eliminates or [[CompositeCharacter combines]] various characters, [[AdaptationDistillation distills]] the action to fit within a two-act musical, makes the entire piece {{Lighter and Softer}}, and shortens the timeline to cover fewer years.

* When Creator/DavidMamet adapted ''Theatre/TheVoyseyInheritance'', he cut out close to an hour of material from the original play, including merging the first two acts. [[AdaptationDistillation It works.]]
* Most 19th C. operas based on then-popular novels and/or plays skipped a lot. For example, in Verdi's ''Theatre/LaTraviata'', the libretto makes a handful of vague indications that Violetta is sick throughout, but doesn't specify that she has TB until near the end -- because in the original audience everyone knew the play or the novel. ''Tosca'', ''Theatre/LaBoheme'' and the various versions of ''Manon'' were similarly compressed.

* ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'', of course, couldn't help but subject ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing'' to this.

* This is common with several ''Theatre/DisneyOnIce'' shows, usually the ones that combine the stories of multiple movies in one performance. The average segment tends to retell the entire story of a Disney movie in any amount of time from 10 to 45 minutes, depending on the show. There have also been some full-length shows based on one movie that employed this trope as well, like the ones for ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'' and ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.

* ''Anime/Persona4GoldenTheAnimation'': The series focuses solely on the scenes exclusive to the ''VideoGame/Persona4'' UpdatedRerelease ''Golden'', leaving the murder mystery from the game and many other elements OutOfFocus.

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': The anime version cuts out the Aureolus Dummy subplot from the Deep Blood arc and the serial killer Jinsaku Hino from the Angel Fall arc. The manga version cuts out the Deep Blood and Angel Fall arcs altogether.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', being an anime based on a light novel series, is of course going to have to trim some parts to fit into a 12 episode season. However, the third season was extreme in this regard, causing a massive [[BrokenBase fandom split]] due to excising a large amount of important story and character development in favour of original story content not included in the novels. In response to this, the fourth season chose to completely ignore the original stories from the third season and more strictly adapt the source material.

* The anime of ''LightNovel/InvadersOfTheRokujyouma'' compresses the first six light novel volumes and a portion of the seventh into a standard TwelveEpisodeAnime. This was necessary because the first volume introduces the main cast while the next five flesh them out, one character per volume, so adapting any less would leave some characters missing. This is especially noticeable with the first volume, which introduced the invaders on separate days, while the first episode introduces them all in one night.

* ''LightNovel/TheSaintsMagicPowerIsOmnipotent''. The anime adaptation compresses several chapters of the web or light novels and the manga into single episodes. In line with this, it cuts out scenes or speeds up transitions, which some viewers feel makes the anime jump around too much with little explanation.

* The film of ''Film/TheNeverEndingStory'' ''literally'' cut out half of the book. Wheras the movie ends after Atreyu's quest ends and Bastian arrives in Fantasia, the novel explores Bastian's becoming of a CanonSue and adventures in Fantastica, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realizing his errors]], and setting to go back to his world before it's too late. This resulted in a rather hasty ending to viewers who had previously read the book, to say the least. Thanks to AdaptationDisplacement, most people don't even ''know'' anything was removed. Its sequel, fortunately, picks up elements from the second half of the book, although it was still not quite there.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' is an unusual example. An adaptation of the still ongoing ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' series, which had five books released at the start of the show. The approach taken by the show was One Book per season and the first four seasons were highly faithful to Books 1-3, with Season 3 and 4 being an adaptation of the very long ''Literature/AStormOfSwords'', leading one to assume that the fifth and sixth seasons would continue in the same vein. Instead, from the fifth season, the show became looser in its approach to the material, since the plan was to finish the show in seven seasons'(and ended up with eight seasons). This led to drastic changes and reconfiguring of plot and character arcs to suit the show, and in a sense ended up becoming a case of [[OvertookTheManga Overtook The Source Material]] due to the last couple of novels being unreleased as of the end of the show.
* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' compresses the timeline of events that took place over the course of centuries in the The ''Silmarillion'' into the span of less than a year, to avoid having to recast the human characters every few episodes. Two significant events exemplify the show's compressed timeline; in the books, the forging of the rings happens roughly 1500 years before Isildur's birth, while in the series Isildur predates the rings.

* Whereas the "paths" of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'' are more-or-less remakes of previous games in the series using available characters from the main-game roster, three of these play to fewer stages than the originals: 4 (of 10) for the first ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighter1 Street Fighter]]''; 8 (of 12) for ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', which also only has the barrel bonus stage; 6 (of 7[[labelnote:*]]''New Generation/2nd Impact''[[/labelnote]][=/=]10[[labelnote:*]]''3rd Strike''[[/labelnote]]) for ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII''.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' is an unusual example. An adaptation of the still ongoing ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' series, which had five books released at the start of the show. The approach taken by the show was One Book per season and the first four seasons were highly faithful to Books 1-3, with Season 3 and 4 being an adaptation of the very long ''Literature/AStormOfSwords'', leading one to assume that the fifth and sixth seasons would continue in the same vein. Instead, from the fifth season, the show became looser in its approach to the material, since the plan is to finish the show in seven seasons. This led to drastic changes and reconfiguring of plot and character arcs to suit the show.

* The manga adaptation of ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'' condenses most of the events of Volumes 3-4 of the light novel, except for Chiyu becoming a Burst Linker, into a single chapter, having Haru tell Kuroyukihime a summary of what happened when she was away. Some readers suspect that this was meant to get to Volume 5 of the light novel, which wasn't adapted into the anime, more quickly.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* The anime adaption of ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' compressed the original visual novel into 12 episodes. It manages to cover the most important things, but as a result it feels incredibly rushed compared to the game, and also leaves out things like character backstories and the things you learn by spending "free time" with your classmates during the game.

* The ''[[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works]]'' movie was less a movie in its own right and more a montage of scenes from the game. It managed to keep most of the major scenes and plot points, but at the cost of cutting out almost all characterisation, backstory, the main love story between Shirou and Rin and all the segues, not only making it amazingly jarring to watch but also almost completely incomprehensible to anyone who isn't already familiar with the story.

* The ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' anime is a compressed adaption of the first 6 sound novels. They removed a lot of elements, such as [=TIPs=], the poems, and [[spoiler:Fredrica Berkenstel]], and many buildup scenes, leading to a very rushed pace. The manga is better, but also counts. The ''Kai'' anime is obviously less compressed, as it has only the last two arcs to cover (plus an additional, anime-only arc at the beginning). It still suffers from it though, as the last two novels are also by far the longest ones.

* ''Franchise/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' had an OVA series that not only adapted just Part 3 of the story, but started in the middle of the arc. The second OVA series is a prequel that jumped back to the beginning of the arc, recapped it up to where the first one started, then jumped back to after the first one ended.

* ''Anime/ThePromisedNeverland'': While the first season adapts the first 37 chapters in a mostly faithful way over the course of 12 episodes, the second season, which is only 11 episodes long, attempts to adapt all of the 144 remaining chapters. In order to get to the ending over the course of a shorter-than-average anime season, many story arcs are skimmed over or skipped entirely (most notably, the fan-favorite Goldy Pond Arc), with the ending being turned into a slideshow. If the anime adapted the story more faithfully, it would have enough content for several more multiple-cour seasons.

* the ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfTheGuardiansTheOwlsOfGaHoole'' compresses six of the ''Literature/GuardiansOfGaHoole'' books into a single movie and as an result, leaves out almost all of the story not related to the main conflict (and even there it [[CompositeCharacter merged]] an early group of villains with a later one).

** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' on the NES is infamously missing the 50m stage, also known by fans as the pie factory. Since the NES port is the version of the game that Nintendo most commonly rereleases on modern consoles, it's surprisingly difficult to find a way to play the complete arcade version of ''Donkey Kong'' without resorting to MAME emulation. The complete arcade game however was included as a minigame in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' which remained the easiest way to play the full game until the 2018 Arcade Archives port for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

* ''WesternAnimation/XMen'':

** The stage adaptation ''Death Note: The Musical'' attempts to tell roughly the same story as the manga and anime, but since it's only around 2 and half hours long, many elements had to be changed or left out. There's so much compression that several major characters and plot points from later on are left out; most notably, Near and Mello are completely omitted. [[spoiler:L's death at the end of the musical is an amalgamation of his own manga/anime death scene and Near's.]]

* Some of the last ''Manga/DeathNote'' anime episodes suffer from this very heavily, with one episode equaling a ''whole volume'' of the manga in one occasion. This was in part due to these parts of the manga being drawn out for a little too long (they wanted to make it exactly [[Mystical108 108]] chapters). Entire subplots are also cut out, like Mello using the Death Note to threaten the president (which ultimately results in the president's suicide and him being replaced with a somewhat spineless successor who decides to disband the SPK)- the aforementioned episode that jumps over 9 chapters. In another case, Mogi is temporarily held by Near when Demegawa's mob invades SPK headquarters, and is falsely said to have died, which helps lead to Aizawa cooperating with Near. The anime also significantly plays down the debate over the political and social implications of what Kira is doing.

* InUniverse with the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Ember Island Players", where the play version of the Gaang's adventures skips over some of the more boring parts. And then ends with [[GeckoEnding an original ending for events that have yet to happen.]]