California Doubling: Filmed in Israel, but set in the Arabian desert between Baghdad and Damascus, a.k.a. modern-day Iraq and Syria. During the period in which the film takes place, this whole area (Iraq, Syria, Israel, etc.) would be part of the Ottoman Empire.
Creator Backlash: Phoebe Cates was so upset by the nude scenes (they used a body double without her knowledge) that she refused to do any promotion for the film. She also said that movie was a "rip-off" of The Blue Lagoon, and that she only took the part to get her foot in the door of Hollywood.
Follow the Leader: Undoubtedly made to cash in on the success of The Blue Lagoon.
For the fanfic
Outdated by Canon: Paradise was written in the first few years of the series' creation. While it did get some things right (such as Celestia and Luna not being Semi-Divine natural alicornnote The series is contradictory on whether they were born alicorn or not, but signs in later seasons point towards "no", it also got things wrong. For example, canon has never implied that Celestia had a pink mane in her youth. The story predates flashbacks that depict her with her multicolored mane even centuries prior.
JonBuck, this setting's creator, and a lot of the other authors who've contributed to it over the years all hail from the Transformation Stories Archive and its mailing list prior to making works for Shifti.
JonBuck liked fellow author Robotech_Master's work enough that he invited him to co-develop the FreeRIDErs setting with him; Jetfire soon joined them as part of that setting's core team as well.
setting with him; Jetfire soon joined them as part of that setting's core team as well.