"It's that interesting sort of game that came out really early in the Shrek franchise, so none of what it's trying to do is based on the movies. Shrek doesn't talk. It doesn't follow the movie's plot and introduces a bunch of brand new characters. The fairy tale characters that are in Shrek aren't their versions from Shrek. Weird, weird footnote in the series."
Looking back at the oldest adaptations of franchises with a modern lens, many come off as unusual by the standards of the series. They were likely faithful at the time of release but, with years of Characterization Marches On and other developments, they've since become wildly out of touch with their source material. Or maybe they were always a bit off, but the stuff they contradicted wasn't considered important at the time.
They often feature Early Installment Character Design Differences, characterization differences, and plot differences compared to the standardized portrayal of the work.
Related to Early Draft Tie-In, Early Localization Weirdness, and Early-Installment Weirdness.
Contrast with Truer to the Text, where an adaptation is noticeably more faithful to the source material than earlier adaptations.
Examples:
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Sonic the Hedgehog
The Sonic the Hedgehog series had both an original installment with an excuse plot and a lack of co-ordination between Sega's various international marketing teams leading to an impressive array of alternate interpretations in early adaptations.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (1992), the first Sonic the Hedgehog manga, was made after the second game and is thus really weird; Sonic is a Shazam!-esque Super-Powered Alter Ego of a young hedgehog named Nicky and keeps that fact a secret from everyone, including Nicky himself. Sonic/Nicky is also only ten years old instead of a teenager, there are no humans except Eggman, and Sonic’s parents and sister are around, averting the usual Invisible Parents. Despite these many oddities, the manga is one of the small few Sonic adaptations to actually impact the games and have some of its elements made canon; most notably, Amy Rose and Charmy Bee both originated here before becoming canon characters.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is known for being the most cartoonish and comical of all the Sonic adaptations, features Mobius as a surreal Fantasy Kitchen Sink place and depicts Tails differently. He's four instead of eight, which likely stems from his original age being four according to the book Console Wars, and only displays his Gadgeteer Genius traits in a number of very special cases. Sonic has multiple one-off love interests as his status as a Celibate Hero hadn't been established yet. There are only five Chaos Emeralds, of different shapes, and they only appear in select episodes. Dr. Robotnik is also a Laughably Evil goofball. Weirdly, of the various DiC cartoons, it's still the most faithful to the games.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): The series has almost nothing in common with the post-Sonic Adventure games, to the point where it seems like an in name only adaptation. The writers decided to exaggerate the core plot of the first two games: Sonic's little animal friends are now equally anthropomorphic co-stars with Sonic, the nature message is made into a major subplot with the world being rendered a dystopia, the villain Dr. Robotnik is made substantially more intimidating, Sonic's Totally Radical attitude is exaggerated to the point of parody, Tails a more stereotypical and less capable little kid, and Sonic is given a Love Interest in the form of the chipmunk Sally Acorn (who was popular enough to be adapted back into AoStH in Sonic Christmas Blast).
- Neither of the above adaptations feature Knuckles or Amy, who would later establish themselves as mainstays alongside Sonic, Robotnik and Tails, due to them airing only shortly after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog CD and predating Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) ran into this issue due to its status as a Long Runner and its indirect relation to Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM). The comic was one of the earliest adaptations and almost everything about it is contradictory to what became the status quo after Sonic Adventure. To list some:
- The series takes place on a World of Funny Animals called "Mobius" ruled by a royal family. Sonic's friends are a resistance group called the "Freedom Fighters" fighting against the tyrannical Doctor Robotnik. The games, meanwhile, became increasingly different from that premise, most notably being eventually confirmed to take place on Earth (with animal characters being vastly outnumbered by humans). Later on, Mobius was revealed to be a futuristic Earth.
- Due to a misunderstanding of the plot of Knuckles' Chaotix, "the Chaotix" are a group led by Knuckles to help him guard the Master Emerald, its members including, Ray, Mighty and Canon Foreigner Julie-Su and Saffron Bee. Due to Grandfather Clause, this remained a plot point until the reboot, long after the videogames established the Chaotix as a private detective agency with Vector, Espio and Charmy as its only members.
- The comics also ignored the later firmly-established Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females rule in canon, featuring not only male characters who dressed in full-outfits, but also a handful of female characters who wore just as little as their male counterparts. Characters also have Furry Female Manes, unlike in the games.
- The lore is completely different, almost all of the Canon Foreigner designs look very different from the game designs, and even the ages are different (with Tails being ten instead of eight, Amy being ten instead of eight/twelve, and Charmy being sixteen instead of sixExplanation). A Cosmic Retcon made everything closer to the games, before the comic was cancelled and replaced with the more current-games accurate comic and fully canonical Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW).
- Sonic the Comic, being one of the earliest adaptations, runs with this. Sonic lives on a World of Funny Animals called Mobius, he's much more of an Adaptational Jerkass than usual, and he reacts negatively to the Chaos Emeralds to the point where Super Sonic is his Superpowered Evil Side rather than the more conventional Super Mode it is in other continuities. Sonic is the leader of the "Freedom Fighters", a group of Mobians who want to overthrow the tyrannical Token Human Dr. Robotnik (who is much more intimidating than his standard portrayal), which consists of Ascended Extra characters like Johnny Lightfoot and Porker Lewis, amongst others. Knuckles wears a metal necklace rather than having a marking on his chest, Amy has a crossbow rather than a hammer. The comic also adapts game elements rather literally compared to other adaptations: Zones are all very different areas on Mobius, while Star Posts and loops are ancient parts of Mobius' landscape. Some elements of the comic, such as Amy's pre-Characterization Marches On personality, were later canonized in the games.
- Stay Sonic is a European guide based on the first two titles. It takes influence from early Sega of America documents and thus differs greatly from later canon. It influenced Sonic the Comic's portrayal with elements such as Sonic and Robotnik having been friends once.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie had a ton of oddities, like Sonic being a quick-tempered Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Knuckles being a treasure hunter and wearing a hat, demihumans instead of normal ones, and the entire series taking place in a World in the Sky After the End called "Planet Freedom".
- Sonic Underground was the last western animated work made before the modern Sonic brand was solidified with Sonic Adventure and takes a lot of liberties, being more of a reboot of SatAM. Sonic is now a prince who along with his siblings Sonia and Manic, were hidden away by their mother to protect them from the evils of Robotnik before they grow into the destined heroes and they fight using necklaces that turn into musical instruments. Tails is entirely absent and Knuckles is an incidental character who is oddly smaller than Sonic.
- One of the earlier Compilation Re Releases of the videogames, Mega Collection, included art from the Archie comics (clearly labelled as such) as unlockables. This would be unthinkable several years down the line, due to the complicated legal issues involved. (Even Shadow Generations labels art from Sonic X as "Shadow Animation Concepts")
Anime and Manga
- C'mon Digimon was released in the early years of the Digimon brand and it shows, Digimon are virtual pets like in real life, the artstyle is noticeably different, Perfect/Ultimate is treated as the last stage, the main Digimon are Canon Foreigners (albeit based on preexisting designs) never seen before or since, and the Digital World isn't even mentioned.
- Dragon Ball: From the movie side, the franchise is well-known for its Non-Serial Movies during the Z era which dubiously fit into the main story, each involving a new villain who is Strong as They Need to Be, as well as later, canonical movies during the Super era with similar premises. The first three Dragon Ball-era movies, however, are loose Alternate Continuity retellings of the existing manga story arcs — Mystical Adventure particularly stands out, completely reimagining the setting visually and reinterpreting existing characters into different roles (e.g. using Chiaotzu as an emperor of the Ancient Chinese-esque country of Mifan).
- Doraemon: The first television adaptation came out in 1973. The 1973 series features, among other things, a different art style, a unique character named Gachako, various changes to the existing characters and items, and plots that haven't been done in later adaptations. The later TV series don't have these changes.
- Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) has its fair share of this due to the manga being nowhere near over when the anime started:
- Liore is located in a desert region, with the citizens such as Rose being mostly dark-skinned people. In the manga and Brotherhood nothing indicates Liore is in a desert and most of the citizens, including Rose have light skin.
- Basque Grand (whose backstory had not yet been revealed in the manga) is a General Ripper who took pleasure in all the fighting and slaughter at Ishval, and was the one who ordered Mustang to kill Winry’s parents. This is a far cry from the manga where he despised all the needless bloodshed and even killed a superior officer, so that peace talks could commence.
- In this adaptation, Winry’s parents were killed by Mustang under orders from Basque Grand. In the manga, they were eventually revealed to be killed by Scar, when the latter had a freakout while Winry’s parents were tending to him.
- Xing and its associated characters (such as Ling and Lan-Fan) are completely absent from this series. This is a stark contrast to the manga, where although Xing itself is only alluded to, characters from Xing go on to play a major role in the later parts of the story.
- The Homunculi Wrath, Sloth and Pride are very different from their manga counterparts:
- Wrath is a young boy who is the failed transmutation of Izumi and Sig’s son, instead of the true identity of Fuhrer Bradley.
- Sloth has water powers and is the failed transmutation of Trisha Elric instead of a muscular giant of a man with super strength and speed.
- Pride is Fuhrer Bradley himself, instead of the true identity of Bradley’s son Selim and also lacks manga Pride’s shadow powers.
- Fuhrer Bradley is still one of the Homunculi but is otherwise different in several ways. This Bradley is Pride instead of Wrath. Also while 2003 Bradley is a normal Homunculus who has the expected regeneration powers, Manga Bradley is later revealed to be a human turned Homunculus who doesn’t have a Healing Factor due to having only one soul.
- Selim Bradley is an ordinary boy with no powers. The manga would revealed Selim to be Pride, the first of the Homunculi.
- Instead of the Homunculus Father, the Big Bad and creator of the Homunculi is Dante, a human woman who was Hohenheim’s former lover and the mother of the human who would become the Homunculus Envy.
- Getter Robo's first anime adaptation features a lot of distinctions from the simultaneously-produced manga that would go on to be seen as the franchise's core, most notably with Ryoma Nagare, the protagonist. In the manga, Ryoma is a violent, hot-tempered Blood Knight, and his background as a wandering martial artist with a dead father is core to his character. In the anime, he's an Ordinary High-School Student, clean-cut and morally upright to the point of blandness, whose main hobby is soccer. Most future stories run with Ryoma as an Unscrupulous Hero, which can lead to a bit of culture shock when watching the original anime, especially when compared to his most iconic depiction in Armageddon.
- The Legend of Zelda I (1989), by Yuu Mishouzaki, was one of the early manga adaptations of the video game series of the same name. It plays loose with the already thin plot that the first Zelda game has and features a lot of oddities because of its age. For example, the long-eared humans known as Hylians are referred to as "elves" and are hated by many humans (most notably the Hyrulian Noble Family, which is actually Hylian in canon). It features a very different Link than most other adaptations: he doesn't wear his signature tunic (instead wearing overalls), he's a Half-Human Hybrid instead of full Hylian, he's a Cowardly Lion instead of a courageous hero, and he's Zelda's older half-brother. Despite this, the manga features many things that the games would later use (either intentionally or unintentionally), such as a teenage Zelda and a young Impa.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Adventures is full of a lot of this, much which has stuck over the years because it's a part of the manga's lore. For example, due to Pokémon Red and Blue's lack of named antagonists, the entirety of the Indigo League Elite Four and three of Kanto's eight Gym Leaders (Koga, Lt. Surge, and Sabrina) are made into villains. The manga predates the Team Rocket Executives so three other Gym Leaders join Giovanni to take their place, even though a Gym Leader secretly being a criminal wouldn't be a regular element in future games.
- The first season of Pokémon: The Original Series takes a lot of liberties with the source material that would be unthinkable to do today. For instance, many Kanto characters, particularly the Gym Leaders, have different outfits and sometimes completely different looks compared to their game counterparts (this is especially true for Blaine, who looks nothing like the bald Mad Scientist from the games due to instead adapting an early design where he looked more like a soldier). And like Adventures, since the anime predated the Team Rocket Executives, the series famously created the Team Rocket trio to serve as a recurring antagonist threat to Ash and Pikachu, with Giovanni being the Greater-Scope Villain that they work for. If made today, the first season would have faithfully stuck close to the game designs (as seen with Erika, who went from a blue-haired Gym Leader with a gardener's outfit to the game-accurate, black-haired Gym Leader wearing a kimono) and possibly adapt more of the game's plot like what Pokémon Origins did.
- Pocket Monsters, being one of the earliest Pokémon manga adaptations, contains a lot of Early Adaptation Weirdnesses. Most notably, the main character's Pokémon starter is a Clefairy, although Pikachu remains as a major character of the series, and is established to be Clefairy's cousin. Among other oddities, most Pokémon can speak human language, Pokémon can "devolve", Giovanni has a brother, an Off-Model Mewtwo unceremoniously appears as a wild Pokémon, Bill is a Fat Slob while Blue is a big-chinned hunk, there are made-up
Pokémon that appear nowhere else, and most infamously, it features a lot of Vulgar Humor and NSFW jokes that would be unthinkable to include in modern Pokémon media.
- Ranma ½: The first anime series is of a very different tone than the manga, having a slower pace, emphasis on comedic pauses, and several original quiet slice-of-life scenes. The low ratings on Japanese TV lead it to being cancelled with episodes still unaired, and the studio reshuffled the staff (including changing the director) to continue with a Denser and Wackier series closer in tone to the manga, which ended up lasting several years.
- Shigeto Ikehara's manga adaptation of the Rockman game, published by Comic BomBom, follows the plot of the game pretty closely, but has an art style closer to Osamu Tezuka (whom Ikehara worked for as an assistant during his last few years) and the story ends with Dr. Wily being spared from jail-time by Rockman after the mad scientist decides to turn on a new leaf. Needless to say, Ikehara's Rockman 2 adaptation ignores Dr. Wily's redemption at the end of the first adaptation, which itself uses an art style closer to Capcom's in-house art for the games.
- Sailor Moon: The 1990s anime is the first adaptation of the manga, and because it was developed in parallel with the manganote , it deviates in ways that later adaptations don't. For example, Rei is given an Adaptation Personality Change into a Hot-Blooded tsundere in sharp contrast to the other incarnation's Aloof Dark-Haired Girl.
- Street Fighter II: The Manga only had the original twelve fighters in Street Fighter II to work with (since it was drawn before the Super iterations that added more fighters) and thus the author had to improvise to flesh out the story. Ryu is a much goofier hero than his gaming counterpart and a bit of a glutton, E. Honda has a one-sided infatuation with Chun-Li, Blanka is a thug who wants to join the ranks of Shadaloo, Guile is responsible for his friend Charlie's death (who was under the influence of M. Bison's mind control drug) and has a rivalry with Zangief, Balrog (the boxer) is a sympathetic character who ends up abandoning Shadaloo, Vega (claw) is responsible for the death of Chun-Li's father, and Sagat is a mere lackey who was already working for M. Bison when he was scarred by Ryu instead of a disgraced champion who joined the organization to seek revenge. The manga did end up giving a name and face to Ryu and Ken's sensei Gouken, who prior to the manga was just a nameless character alluded to in character bios, but even then his death at the hands of M. Bison was something that was not incorporated into the games, as Akuma (a character introduced in the later games) was responsible for the deed.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach! is very similar to how the franchise would later be developed, however it contains some early oddities, such as Luigi having a greedy personality and most strikingly in that it ends with Peach marrying an original character instead of staying with Mario.
- Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania: Early volumes feature a rougher and more abrasive version of Mario which contrasts with his more jovial modern self.
- Super Mario: Being one of the earliest adaptations, the characters don't resemble their game selves as closely as they do in later adaptations, both in terms of design and personality. It also contains some NSFW Parental Bonuses, scenes involving smoking, and other things that wouldn't be allowed in later Mario adaptations.
- Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros: Downplayed. Most of the OVAs are relatively in-line with what the Mario franchise is known for, except for one thing: Super Mario's Momotaro features Mario wielding a gun. While the original idea for Super Mario Bros was that Mario would carry a gun, nowadays the franchise does without to the point that during the development of Super Mario Sunshine, some people at Nintendo complained about Mario using a water pistol (which would later become FLUDD).
- Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series) has several inconsistencies with the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga even at the time as well as later events in the manga, as well as characterization differences, Character Exaggeration, and episodes with original villains with powers normally reserved for the supernatural. It's also the least card game-centric of the bunch (though still moreso than the manga), due to the fact that the Konami-made card game wasn't out yet.
- Tamagotchi: A lot of the ancillary media released in the 90's ran into this, in part largely because the backstory established in the original release of the virtual pets would be removed in the 2004 relaunch:
- Anime de Hakken!! Tamagotchi was the first television anime, and differs heavily from the 2009 adaptation and similar previous and later films. For starters, it's a series of shorts with no particular focus on any individual characters, and there is no actual dialogue from the titular creatures.
- Tamagotchi Honto no Hanashi is an Origins Episode for the franchise as a whole. As such, it focuses on human characters Professor Banzo and Mikacha, rather than the Tamagotchi themselves.
- Manga de Hakken! Tamagotchi, meanwhile, is a Yonkoma series focusing on the Tamagotchi living on Earth, rather than their traditional home of Tamagotchi Planet.
Comic Books
- The Batman Adventures, set in the same continuity as Batman: The Animated Series, combines this with Recursive Adaptation and features a guest appearance of Superman. He's based on Superman as he was in the early-mid 90s, with a mullet, a Lex Luthor with red hair and a beard, and an established friendly relationship with Batman at the time of BTAS. Then Superman: The Animated Series started airing in the same continuity, and it showcased a Superman with short hair fighting a bald Lex Luthor, who only encountered Batman years later, at the time of The New Batman Adventures.
- Donkey Kong Jungle Action Special: Jumpman, aka Mario, has a green hat and gloves as well as a small frizzy mustache.
- The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones was launched immediately following the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. While most of the stories are standard Indy fare, the writers made the understandable assumption that Marion would be a recurring character and she features prominently in much of the run: taking a job with Marcus as head of PR for the museum and often accompanying Indy on his adventures. This makes it almost impossible to reconcile the series with later movie continuity.
- The Legend of Zelda by Valiant Comics is a loose continuation of the first two games (with the two princesses Zelda merged into a single character and Ganon being the unnamed Magician, both of which are possibly caused by a misunderstanding of the story of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link) with inspiration from the 1989 cartoon (see below) for Link and Zelda’s design and personality. Notably, Link is native to a foreign country called Calatia where his parents, Arn and Medilia, still live.
- Le Reina de la Costa Negra was a comic book adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Queen of the Black Coast and served as the first adaptation of Conan the Barbarian in 1952. In it, Belit was the protagonist, Conan her blond Viking-like sidekick, their ship was called the "Vengeance" rather than the "Tigress", its crew were Vikings rather than black corsairs and Belit actually survived the entire series, including the adventure that killed her in the original Howard canon.
- The Sceptre and the Kingdom is a short Italian comic book based on the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Due to being a completely new story made during the development of the first game, there are some odd details for anyone even remotely familiar with the first game:
- Sora wields the Keyblade like a spear, and he carries it on his back instead of summoning it to hand.
- Both Sora and Riku are shown going to Disney worlds and fighting together. In the game, Riku never joins Sora’s party and is more of an antagonist and the idea wouldn’t be revisited until 10 years later.
- Sora and Riku are able to visit worlds via Donald magically teleporting them and via different doors hidden in each world which seemingly connect all of them. This is in stark contrast with the game where worlds could only be visited with the Gummi Ship.
- Star Wars:
- Star Wars (Marvel 1977): The comic was the first major Star Wars spin-off made, and as such a lot of its artwork, stories, and concepts don't line up very well with later material:
- Many characters appear in a very different form than they do in the movie. This is usually because many of the comics were written before the films were released so the artists relied on concept art that didn't make the final cut or just guesswork. Most notably, Jabba appears as a yellow, bipedal walrus-like guy. The first run of the adaptation of The Empire Strikes also depicted Yoda with blue skin and a full head of white hair, since that's what he looked like in Ralph McQuarrie's and Joe Johnston's original goes at his concept art and he didn't become green and bald until after the reference material had been given to the comic artists. This was corrected in later printings.
- In a minor case, "star-hopper" is used frequently in the first few arcs as slang for space adventurers and starfarers, and sporadically in a few mid-run issues. This term isn't used again in later material.
- In #7, Han comes across a frontier planet where he encounters a buglike priest of what is treated as a major religion, which uses "High Galactic" as a ritual language, and has to protect him on his way to bury a cyborg spacer due to the local settlers seeing cyborgs as having lost their souls and refusing to have one buried in holy ground. Neither the religion nor the language would be brought up again. Likewise, while anti-machine sentiments come up from time to time in later material, the intense virulence that they're depicted as having in the early arcs, and in particular their extending to humans with cybernetic upgrades and prosthetics, don't really come up again — by the time that the adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back rolls around a few years later with Lobot and Luke's bionic hand, the anti-cyborg sentiment that would have a serious issue earlier on is already vanished.
- In #23, Luke uses his rage and frustration at his seeming helplessness at Vader's latest ploy to send a powerful Force attack directly into Vader's mind, saving the day. In any later material, this would have been treated as him all but outright yielding to the Dark Side and its corruption, but as the comic predates Yoda's fear and anger speech by a few years, it simply passes without comment as another heroic moment.
- #24, a Whole Episode Flashback to Ben Kenobi's Jedi days, shows him as being already white-haired before his exile to Tatooine and as wearing a sleeveless black bodysuit entirely unalike to the prequel trilogy's long brown Jedi robes, as the "Jedi look" was based somewhat retroactively on Ben's own appearance in the movies, including his robed outfit that had originally been designed as simply the rough clothing of a desert hermit.
- Similarly to the other pre-The Empire Strikes Back EU work, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the earlier arcs of the comic assume that Luke and Leia are going to be the story's main couple and have some noticeable Ship Tease between them. The first notable instance of this is in the climax of the Wheel arc, where Leia is seemingly entrapped in Senator Greyshade's plot to marry her and she and Luke share a passionate parting kiss, but there are other later kisses and foiled attempts at a Relationship Upgrade. This drops around a third of the way in, where the Ship Tease switches quickly and without comment from Luke/Leia to Han/Leia — issue #34, the first to do this, was not coincidentally released in January 1980, precisely halfway between the points where Empire finished filming and its public release, by which point Lucas had settled on what he wanted the main couple to be even though he hadn't decided to make Luke and Leia twin siblings yet. A degree of this does reemerge later, when Han is temporarily out of the picture due to the carbonite thing and Leia is visibly unhappy about Luke's crush on the Rebel pilot Shira Brie and later on the Zeltron Dani's crush on Luke... which again drops back out very quickly once Return of the Jedi comes along.
Luke: Shut up! I've just seen a good friend die! And now I'm going to lose the girl I- t-the girl I-...
- Lightsabers are archaic and obscure, but not strictly limited to Force-sensitives. Baron Orman Tagge, for instance, has become an exceptionally skilled lightsaber fencer through obsessive effort and practice despite dismissing the Force as a primitive superstition. Later works are much stricter about depicting 'sabers as something that only a trained Force-sensitive (or a sufficiently enhanced individual such as General Grievous) can use with any skill.
- In #36, a flashback shows an angry fight between Orman and Silas Tagge, with the former having been driven into a rage by his brother's suggestion that their sister Domina marry into the Imperial family to increase the Tagge family's standing prestige. When the first few movies was being made, the Empire was generally assumed to be fairly old, enough so as to have a few successive emperors, with the days of the Republic and the Jedi as a distant, fading memory — broadly the same tone that a historic novel set in the Roman Empire would take about the days of the Roman Republic, roundabout. In the present canon, the Empire has existed for all of twenty years at this time, Palpatine is an autocrat who took over through a coup, and there is no such thing as an "Imperial family". While Palpatine was portrayed from the early EU days as having a bunch of clones squirreled away and a handful of self-proclaimed heirs, none of these were things that anybody would actually have known about until well after his death — there certainly was no "marrying into the family".
- The post-ESB Cloud City arc shows Bespin with a solid, swamp-covered surface below the cloud layer, which the Ugnaughts are native to, and that they are sabotaging Cloud City because they wish to return mining operations to their home area, and that in the meantime the city's population has been evacuated to the ground. Later material is clear about the fact that Bespin is a gas giant with no solid surface, and that Ugnaughts are not a native species but instead originate from an Earthlike world called Gentes and have been spread about the galaxy as enslaved workers. The core issue about the Ugnaughts rebelling to protest their status as menial workers with no political say does remain a canonical turning point in Cloud City's politics, however.
- In #68, Fenn Shysa talks about how he and the Mandalorian Protectors fought as mercenaries for the Empire during the Clone Wars under the command of Boba Fett, and that he became aquainted with Leia's name and features when being briefed on the enemies of the Empire. While Leia's presence is a stretch even in context —A New Hope presented the Clone Wars as something that happened signficantly in the past, and Leia as not being particularly older than Luke— the rest is compatible enough with the very minimal info given about the Clone Wars in the first two movies. It is however entirely incompatible with the events of the prequel trilogy as they'd eventually be revealed, which establish that, when the Clone Wars broke out, Boba Fett was ten and both Leia and the Empire were still three years away from being born. Boba Fett, in both Legends and Disney canon, is also regularly depicted as someone who isn't closely connected to the greater Mandalorian culture.
- The concept of Force sensitivity as a particularly innate thing also didn't exist at this point in the franchise's history. A number of Rebel soldiers expect Luke to train them in the Jedi ways, which is treated as a feasible possibility hindered chiefly by Luke's own inexperience and rudimentary training, and in while fighting the Tofs alongside the Nagai officer Knife in the last regular issue he states that the Force tells people many things "once you've let yourself become sensitive to it", framing Force sensitivity as something primarily learned and taught rather than a born quality.
- Tales of the Jedi: The comics came out many years before the Star Wars prequels, and boy, it shows.
- Jedi have a very loose hierarchy, often train multiple apprentices at once, have no problem with romance, and some of them begin their training well into adulthood. Future works try to reconcile this portrayal by stating that as a result of numerous wars and conflicts with the Sith, the Jedi ended up becoming much more rigid, close-minded and dogmatic.
- Among the Sith, none of them use the "Darth" title — at the time, it was not strongly established that that was a title as opposed to just a name, since only Darth Vader used it — and instead go by their given names, and their lightsabers can be of any color as opposed to just red. It wasn't until The Phantom Menace where it was codified that all Sith go by a "Darth Something" title and use red lightsabers. This is also seen in other depictions of Dark Siders around this time — Lumiya in Star Wars (Marvel 1977), for instance, does not use a "Darth" title and fights using an electrified whip.
- A strict association of lightsaber colors with Jedi and Sith did not exist yet, since a grand total of three 'sabers had appeared on-screen at this point in timenote . Thus, like many other EU works from the 90s, Force-users on both sides are shown using a varied mixture of saber colors. Among prominent Dark Jedi, for instance, Exar Kun uses a blue double-bladed lightsaber, Ulic Qel-Droma has a bright green one, and Warb Null likewise has a green lightsaber. Among the Jedi, Sylvar uses a yellow saber in the main story and a pink one in Redemption.
- The concept of Force sensitivity only starts to codify itself during the comic's run, resulting in it being depicted differently in earlier and later parts of it. The first few arcs of Tales in particular assume that, while some individuals might have more natural affinity for it, it could be taught fairly widely at least in the basics. Thus, while later Legends and canon EU material would have for instance pointed out the royal family of Onderon or the Keto sibilings as being Force-sensitive, the story here simply assumes that Freedon Nadd just taught them Sith sorcery without specifically justifying why they were able to use it. The later prequel stories align more with the developing status quo by having Jori ruminate to herself that she and her brother "tested high with Force potential" despite choosing not to undergo Jedi training, although the term "Force-sensitive" is not yet used.
- These examples could be justified by the fact that this comic takes place a whopping four to five thousand years before the original movies, which means that most of the differences could be easily explained as traditions changing and evolving over long spans of history... if not for the fact that later works set in the same era, some which are direct sequels (like the Knights of the Old Republic videogame, which only takes place a few decades after Tales) depict Jedi just as rigid and dogmatic as they were shown in the prequel movies, as well as Sith using the "Darth" title and red lightsabers.
- Star Wars: Republic straddles a line between "archaic" and "modern" Star Wars worldbuilding. The early arcs of the comic are still visibly part of the pre-Prequels EU —a majority of the "modern" worldbuilding for the Jedi and the Sith was not really nailed down in its finalized form until Attack of the Clones, around forty issues into the comic's run— and thus rely on a number of assumptions that didn't prove entirely copacetic with how either the movies or the later arcs of Republic itself characterize the Order and attendant matters. Later arcs, by contrast, are strongly rooted in an essentially "modern" understanding of the Jedi Order, the Clone Wars, and the late Republic.
- The very first prologue arc runs into the same issue that a lot of older Star Wars material did — namely that, until Clones, there was no indication that Jedi could not or did not marry. Thus, Ki-Adi-Mundi has five wives and seven daughters and lives full-time with his family on Cerea, despite being characterized both here and later as something of a traditionalist and a bit of a hardass. This was later dealt with by playing off of the twenty-to-one female-male sex ration in his species by having him be given a special exception to have children due to his species' low population and fertility issues.
- The flashback sequences showing Ki-Adi-Mundi's recruitment into the Order, which already show that the Order prefers to teach students from very early youth (in contrast to even earlier EU material that assumed most students to start their training as adults), also assume that prospective Jedi would remain offworld for training but would return to their homeworlds once they were knighted, and that the prospect of having eventually a resident Jedi Knight within their community was one of the reasons why families would agree to send children in for training. Later arcs tried to smooth this issue over with the concept of Jedi Watchmen, experienced Jedi assigned to act as liaisons and guardians for specific planets or systems.
- The rule of Jedi almost always having blue or green sabers and Sith always having red didn't become strict until the depiction of the army of Jedi only using those two colors during the Battle of Geonosis. As such, the pre-AotC arcs frequently "break" this rule. Thus, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Saesee Tiin, and the Dark Woman's lightsabers are purple; Aayla and Even Piell's are pink note ; Adi Gallia, Depa Billaba, Sharad Hett, and A'Sharad Hett's are red; Plo Koon, Tyvokka, and Yaddle's are orange; and Micah Giett and T'ra Saa's are yellow. Even the ones that do fall in the blue-green spectrum tend to fall outside of the specific emerald and sapphire shades that most later sabers do, such as Eeth Koth's and Tholme's teal and Lilit Twoseas' pale green. The colors are all quietly switched to green and blue following the release of the second movie, starting around #41. A reverse of this occurs with Mace Windu's lightsaber, which is blue to start with but changes to purple later.
- Adi Gallia is identified as a Corellian human — later Clone Wars material will make her a near-Human called a Tholothian instead. As a consequence, at this point the scales and tendrils on her head are depicted as a weird hat, whereas in later canon Tholothians' heads just look like that.
- Republic follows the movies' and early EU's assumption that the clones were basically flesh robots, with little to no individual personality and no strong emotions, that are treated as basically expendable and are only loyal to their last order. The main exceptions are the more highly trained ARC Troopers and clone commanders, who have more independent agency but still display very cold and robotic personalities. Clones with speaking roles, such as Alpha-17 and Commander Faie, all show a distinctive Lack of Empathy and tendency to think in terms of cold tactics and the chain of command that puts them at rhetorical odds with the Jedi several times. The conversation between Anakin and Alpha-17 on Ohma-D'unn, where Anakin insists on knowing a name to call the clone by and Alpha doesn't care how he's referred to as long as battle efficiency isn't compromised, stands in sharp contrast to the clones' habits of developing personal nicknames and customized armor that developed in Star Wars: Republic Commando and The Clone Wars.
- Star Wars (Marvel 1977): The comic was the first major Star Wars spin-off made, and as such a lot of its artwork, stories, and concepts don't line up very well with later material:
- Street Fighter: A Brazilian comic released around the same time as the second Street Fighter Alpha featured an appearance by Dan Hibiki as the focus of a backup story. In the original Alpha, Dan's status as a Joke Character wasn't nearly as obvious—all that was apparent, especially to those not familiar with the Art of Fighting series, was that he was a Head Swap of Ryu and Ken in a pink gi with an unusually weak fireball and arrogant-sounding dialogue, out to defeat Sagat and avenge his dead father. Consequently, the comic depicts Dan as a completely serious character and a masterful fighter, even changing his gi to white.
- Super Metroid (Benimaru Itoh): The comic book adaptation is mostly close to later Metroid canon. In fact, it's notable as being the first Metroid-related story to establish that Samus Aran was orphaned by the Space Pirates and adopted by the Chozo leader Old Bird. The biggest difference, however, is that the human character Armstrong Houston, a fellow Bounty Hunter, has a Power Suit that looks just like hers but is blue instead of orange. Later canon would establish Samus' Power Suit as highly advanced Chozo technology bordering on Magitek, and it's so hard to reverse engineer that even her Galactic Federation allies could only start making bulkier and shoddier versions of her weapons years after the events of Super Metroid.
- The earlier Warrior Cats graphic novels released from 2007-2012 were considerably different from later ones released starting in 2020. They were called "manga" rather than "graphic novels", as that was a popular term at the time, and formatting-wise, the art was in black-and-white and each story was split into 3 volumes (except The Rise of Scourge, which was just one short single volume). Two of the first three stories were by artists that didn't illustrate for the series again (The Rise of Scourge and Tigerstar and Sasha), making their art style unique (aside from those two, James Barry was the only other graphic novel illustrator from 2007-2023). While they later got reprinted in color, with the trilogies getting combined into a single book, they still differ from the ones released in 2020 onward, in that they mostly have Lighter and Softer tones compared to the actual books, with generally bloodless violence. Aside from the main characters, a lot of the scenes in the early volumes graphic novels just have generic cats in the background to fill out crowds, whereas later graphic novels would make the effort to have the background cats be specific characters from the novels. The early ones also had more basic character designs, whereas the later ones started to contain more detail in cats' appearances that were originally described in the books themselves, such as scars.
- The 1980s Zoids comics had a lot of this. These comics ignore all of the worldbuilding of the Battle Story (which every anime series has (loosely) followed) in favor of a very different storyline that while sticking true to the 80s line, has a lot of very odd elements. The planet of the Zoids is now called “Zoidstar” rather than Zi, and is depicted as a desolate wasteland. The Zoidarians are much more warlike than the Zoidians (and far more powerful as a political entity), and are nearly extinct, while the Zoids themselves flip-flop from being fully sapient beings and not even being portrayed as alive and have android pilots (who are sapient), with no mention of a Zoid Core, while the story focuses on an Earth family heavily, with protagonist Griff using a “Spiderzoid” instead of a Liger-based Zoid. The series is also much darker than any subsequent adaptation, falling moreso into Black-and-Gray Morality at best, and there are no prominent female characters.
Films — Animation
- J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: The Lord of the Rings had been a Sleeper Hit in the United States, which is why producer William L. Snyder saw no issues taking a few liberties with the story for his Ashcan Copy which, as director Gene Deitch put it, "a few years later would be grounds for burning at the stake"; it was the later paperback editions of the books which really made it take off and earn its Sacred Cow status. Species and character names are altered rather freely, Bilbo is appointed as the group's dragonslayer rather than the burglar, Gandalf only visits Bilbo because a prophecy led him to him, Thorin is a general from Dale rather than a Dwarf prince, the Trolls (or "Groans") are huge, wooden monsters who turn into trees if they stay out in the sunlight, and the elves are omitted entirely.
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has many notable differences compared to the show due to being created around the same time as its third season. If someone who was introduced to the later episodes of the show watched this film, they would notice the much cruder animation, art style and jokes that were standard during those times, and how much smaller the town of South Park used to be. Cartman himself is the bratty jerk he was known for early on instead of the cunning and manipulative sociopath of the later seasons. Also, certain characters who would rise to prominence much later on, such as Craig and Token, are just background characters; in particular, it's odd to see such a big event where Butters is nothing more than a Spear Carrier or for that matter, where Kenny actually does get focus. Even Randy, who has since gone on become the most prominent adult character of the show, only had one single speaking line in the whole movie (questioning the V-chip).
Films — Live-Action
- Attack on Titan (2015) was made long before multiple big reveals about the backstory and setting of the manga and anime had been established. The resulting history of the titans, how the titan shifters came about, and the setting of the walled cities are all completely different. The walls are set in a future post-apocalyptic Japan, the titans were a weapon experiment gone wrong, and the titan shifters were a modification on the initial project to make a controllable version. The identity of the Colossal Titan and Armored Titan shifters are also both entirely different. Though in a case of hilarity in hindsight, the movie-exclusive character heavily implied to be Eren's older brother, Shikishima, later wound up sharing his voice actor with Eren's canonical older brother, Zeke, in the English dub.
- The Batman serials of the 1940s and its successor Batman and Robin depict Batman and Robin as officially sanctioned government agents going against ordinary mobsters and crooks. Super-villains as we know it didn't exist back then and Batman's famous Rogues Gallery was still in its infancy. The 1943 Batcave (which didn't exist before this, and was created due to budget constraints) is a small cave that contains only a desk and a few chairs. Bruce's love interest in the 1943 serial is a now-forgotten character named Linda Page rather than one of his better-known comic book flames like Selina Kyle or Vicki Vale. There's no Batmobile, and the dynamic duo instead drive around in an unmodified Cadillac in the first serial and a Ford Mercury in the follow-up (again, largely owing to the low budget). Perhaps most infamously, there are jarring propagandistic overtones in the first serial, with the narrator using anti-Japanese slurs and even attempting to justify the U.S. government's internment of Japanese-American citizens. Future Batman stories would generally keep his enemies apolitical, or represent homegrown political philosophies like anarchism or environmentalism rather than a foreign threat — Frank Miller's attempt to write something similar in the modern day never got off the ground until it was retooled to use a Captain Ersatz.
- The Blue Lagoon: The 1923 version, which unfortunately no longer exists, had its entire shooting take place on location, which stands in contrast to the later 1949 and 1980 adaptations that opted for a mix of on-location and in-studio filming. Also, that version was more or less Truer to the Text, unlike the Pragmatic Adaptation that was the 1949 film or the Lost in Imitation adaptation that was the 1980 film.
- Captain America:
- Due to being an In Name Only adaptation, the serial from 1944 is quite different from all later adaptations. Rather than a super-soldier named Steve Rogers, the hero's true identity is a district attorney named Grant Gardner, rather than using a shield he uses a gun (which would become one of Bucky's weapons upon taking up the mantle), he did not fight Nazis, Bucky was nowhere to be seen and he was a vigilante rather than a government-created superhero.
- Captain America (1979), as seems to be the standard for live-action adaptations of the character, portrays Steve as a contemporary man with his father having been a 1940s government agent nicknamed "Captain America" due to a very patriotic attitude, making him both an example of Decomposite Character and Legacy Character. He also makes use of a van, from which launches a modified motorcycle with a multitude of functions and its windshield being none other than Captain America's iconic shield, which is made of "Jet Age plastics", with the "white" portion simply being transparent. And then there is the costume, which has him wearing a motorcycle helmet instead of his famous cowl.
- Casino Royale (1954)note : Compared to the later Eon film series, this adaptation is noticeably different. James Bond is an American agent and is referred to as "Jimmy", Felix Leiter is British and renamed to Clarence, M is completely absent, and the production values are lower due to being a live TV production.
- Doctor Who: The mid-1960s film adaptations Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. were made when the TV show had only been running for two or three years, and has the Doctor's actual name being "Dr Who" and him being a human "mad inventor" with no control over the TARDIS (which is referred to as "Tardis" as if it were a proper noun, and also not an acronym). It hadn't yet been established that the TV version of the character was a Time Lord from Gallifrey and early episodes did strongly imply he was human, but one from another planet in the far future.
- Peter Pan (1924) was made less than thirty years after the play. It's a Setting Update set in the contemporary 1920s. This was before adaptations became Frozen in Time in the 1910s. The characters are also American instead of British, which is something later adaptations never change.
- Super Mario Bros. (1993) tried to adapt a series that runs on Excuse Plot at a time when it was still developing its identity. The film contains a lot of old remnants, such as the manual's plot of Toadstool being the daughter of the Mushroom King, Koopa transforming Toads and other creatures with magic, Goombas being traitors to the throne, and Mario being a middle-aged man (which he originally was, but even in Japan this was changed by the late-1980s) and several years older than Luigi because they wouldn't be revealed as twins until Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
- The Wizard of Oz (1925) is one of the earliest adaptations of the Land of Oz series. It has virtually nothing in common with the source, playing very loose with the lore and characters. It departs heavily from the later adaptations within the first ten minutes: Dorothy is aged up to eighteen, Uncle Henry is a cruel and Evil Uncle, and Dorothy is secretly a Doorstop Baby who's really the lost Princess Dorothea of Oz. It also predates the Audience-Coloring Adaptation that is the 1939 MGM film, so no ruby slippers, green Wicked Witch, or anything else that's become ubiquitous in the subsequent near-century of adaptations following that movie.
Literature
- Bart Simpson's Guide to Life:
- Janey and Judge Snyder are depicted as yellow rather than black.
- Principal Skinner is mentioned on having a toupee, which was an idea thrown around early in the shows' existence.
- BIONICLE: The first novel, Tale of the Toa by C. A. Hapka was hastily written in 2003 to adapt the 2001 story, which had not been fully told because the original comics, the Mata Nui Online Game and the unreleased The Legend of Mata Nui PC game all relayed different portions of the story in incompatible ways. Rather than adapting any of these sources or combining them into a streamlined narrative, the novel was seemingly based on earlier story outlines but it also puts its own spin on things:
- At the time, LEGO hadn't yet acknowledged the MNOG as part of canon, thus the novel completely ignores it. Takua, MNOG's protagonist who'd be a major character in the 2003 film BIONICLE: Mask of Light, is not mentioned once, and the charge he leads to protect the Kini Nui temple while the Toa battle the Makuta underground is not part of the story. None of the important Matoran villagers from MNOG make an appearance apart from Jaller and Onepu. The Makoki stones the Toa use to enter the temple and merge into Toa Kaita are absent too.
- More significantly, Makuta himself never shows up, meaning the story's climax itself doesn't happen. This is because the final clash with Makuta was invented purely for MNOG. Instead, the novel has the six Shadow Toa as the final villains, but the way they're defeated differs from LEGO's plans. In Hapka's novel, the Toa change opponents and work together to beat their counterparts, but an alternate version of the showdown was also written for a 2003 LEGO Style Guide booklet, in which the Toa absorb their evil versions into themselves — this version was retconned back into the story by later books.
- Oddly, major supporting characters like most of the Turaga are omitted from the book. Whenua at least appears briefly, so it can be surmised that the other Turaga would be similar to him.
- Despite the novel's chapter on Kopaka taking dialogue verbatim from the first 2001 comic, the comic scene of Turaga Nuju explaining the significance of the Infected Masks is removed. The revelation that Rahi beasts are not evil and they're under the control of Infected Masks is something Tahu discovers on his own halfway into the story, and it's later confirmed by Onua. In the comics and MNOG, this was common knowledge from the outset.
- Tahu is tormented by a swarm of Kofo-Jaga fire scorpions small enough to crawl into his mask's eyeholes; he then defeats and tames one by removing its tiny Infected Mask. This is apparently based on a very early preliminary Universe Bible that was already discarded by 2001, yet this scene made its way into this 2003 book. The scorpions' small size was seemingly inspired by various misunderstandings between authors (Kofo-Jaga should be about half the size of Tahu if you go by their LEGO models) and this chapter is the only instance in the franchise where miniature-sized masks appear.
- The book also has Kopaka show interest in Gali, though it's not explored beyond some mild hints. This never came up in any other media before or since, and none of the main Toa would every show romantic feeling toward anyone.
- Other media would play around with their presentation of the underground caves leading to Makuta's lair to foreshadow later story twists. In MNOG, there are machines and a mechanical door, the unreleased PC game would have depicted the area as a giant mechanism that combines organic with cybernetic/robotic motifs, while Mask of Light gave Makuta's lair organic features such as ribs and a spine along the ceiling. The book only describes regular stone caverns and so there's no foreshadowing to the setting's hidden secrets, which makes the reveal of the underground city metropolis Metru Nui in 2004 feel abrupt if you only read the books.
- Pohatu is described using his Climbing Claws despite only acquiring said tools at the end of the following novel. This is because the author confused the original 2001 Toa with their upgraded 2002 Toa Nuva versions while writing the book. A host of such continuity mistakes made their way into the Hungarian publication that was strangely translated not from the final English text but from an earlier, longer manuscript. The novel was revised and rewritten for the English release, yet the reference to the Climbing Claws was mistakenly kept.
- Due to these discrepancies, Tale of the Toa would be declared only half-canon and MNOG was accepted into the official story, although certain scenes from the book (like how the Toa gain the Golden Masks) override those of the game. This means the 2001 BIONICLE arc has no fully canon, officially sanctioned version in any media.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Katsuyuki Ozaki): Ganondorf's human form is pale-skinned here and spikey-haired when the later released The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time shows him with dark skin and no spikey hair at all.
- Mega Man: The Universe Compendium "The Official Guide to Mega Man" was released back when only the first three games were released, and Dr. Wily's Revenge was about to debut. Most of the lore featured in the book was made up without the original developers' input, featuring original characters and concepts that push the setting's tone in a more space opera-esque direction (for example, the heavy emphasis on off-world colonies that was mostly limited to the third game at the time). At the end of the book, Mega Man was interviewed, and it was noted that he can't talk under normal circumstances, while he has no problem communicating with other characters in later games of the series.
- Metal Gear 1: The "Worlds of Power" novelization written by Alexander Frost was a far cry from the serious war drama that the series would become from Metal Gear Solid and onward. For one thing, it's based on the NES version of the first game, which had an inconsistent localization between the in-game translation (which was a relatively direct translation of the Japanese script for the most part) and the box & manual (which extensively changed the game's backstory). Because of this, instead of following the in-game narrative and have Solid Snake's commanding officer and the secret leader of the enemy forces be the same character (Big Boss), they're instead two separate characters named Commander South and Colonel Vermon CaTaffy. Likewise, Solid Snake is given a full name (Justin Halley) and never uses his weapons to kill anyone (only using his handgun once to destroy a lock), with the idea of pacifist runs not being implemented until much later in the series.
- Metroid: Zebes Shin'nyuu Shirei, due to being based on the original Metroid, features many oddities compared to the rest of the series. Much of this is carried over from the original game, although this gamebook expands upon or adds additional weirdness:
- Zebes is an asteroid, rather than a planet.
- Ridley is the original inhabitant of Zebes, living on the inhospitable asteroid long before the arrival of the Space Pirates. He was originally docile and peaceful, and has only become aggressive and cruel while under Mother Brain's mind control. Instead of actually breathing fire, Ridley possesses Psychic Powers that simulate the intense experience of being hit with fire breath.
- If a Metroid latches onto Samus, she can escape by firing missiles instead of planting bombs.
- Samus is repeatedly referred to as a Cyborg. This continues even after it is revealed that she is a human woman, suggesting that it was not merely a red herring like in the original game.
- The leader of the Space Pirates is the Pirate Boss, while the series usually refers to Mother Brain or Ridley as the leader. Additionally, the Pirate Boss is a human, while all later Metroid games would only show aliens among the Space Pirate ranks.
- Samus and the Space Pirates may team up to take down the Metroid=Mutant. Later Metroid lore would establish that Samus and the Space Pirates hate each other so much that they would never consider teaming up, even against bigger threats like the Ing or Dark Samus.
- Resident Evil: S.D. Perry's first novelisation was written based only on the very first game. As a result, Wesker's internal monologue gives no indication that his death was all part of his plan to Come Back Strong since this was a later introduced element, though he does come back in the Code Veronica novelisation. Wesker is also generally depicted as slimier and less capable rather than the iconic criminal mastermind he would later become, as there was little evidence in the first game that he was much more than just a typical example of The Mole, and is portrayed as extremely sexist (to the point of completely refusing to refer to a female scientist with her correct title of "Dr", and being sexually predatory and making unwanted advances on women). The games would later establish Wesker as not discriminating much based on gender, having a considerable amount of respect for Ada Wong's abilities and having a (non-biological) sister, Alex, who he was apparently on good terms with. He's also never really shown to make sexual advances towards women in the games (or indeed to behave very sexually at all, unless you count his outfit in RE5 and all that attacking Chris with tentacles that he does), though he did have a relationship with a woman in his backstory. S.D. Perry's depiction of Wesker is also often quite crude in his language—in the games, Wesker speaks far more formally and eloquently, but of course the dubious translation of the first game didn't convey that.
- Star Wars Legends: Early novels tend to diverge from the later canon in a number of notable ways, in large part because of Lucas' tendency to worldbuild as he went — a lot of material created for the prequel movies and even for the later installments of the first trilogy would not have existed when early EU works were being made.
- In general, Dark Siders in early EU works are identified as being "Dark Jedi" when they're identified as anything in particular, as the Sith did not exist at first, and when they were introduced in Tales of the Jedi the term referred to a nonhuman species and its empire that had existed millennia before the movies' time. This term was used primarily to describe Vader, his followers, and other fallen Jedi like Joruus C'Baoth; Palpatine, who was also not depicted as very martially inclined in the movies, is not described as anything in particular. The concept of Dark Jedi remained in use in some later Legends works as a catch-all term for Dark Side Force-users who weren't formally affiliated with a specific tradition, but fell out of favor over time due to being fairly ill-defined.
- Splinter of the Mind's Eye was the very first Star Wars novel written — it was based on a script pitch for a potential made-for-tv sequel to A New Hope, and as such predates the rest of the original trilogy's developement. As a result, it has some very notable differences from later material:
- Like most early works, several references are made to pieces of technology that were current at the time but are now obsolete, mostly tapes as a data storage medium. Luke's "if I twist these two knobs, I can use my lightsaber to cut a locked door open without making it obvious" trick has never been seen since this book. Chewbacca also has a pair of Suspiciously Similar Substitutes in Hin and Kee the Yuzzem. Those are just the most obvious ones.
- Both Luke and Leia suffer from extreme UST, which makes itself clear in practically every interaction between them. Later films got rid of this element, both because Harrison Ford's return to the franchise created the possibility of a Leia/Han relationship, and because of other reasons that are obvious in hindsight.
- The Thrawn Trilogy, as one of the first spinoffs, was working with the best information available and couldn't know that things would change over a decade later with the release of the Prequel Trilogy in 1999, starting with The Phantom Menace.
- Clones are created using "Spaarti cloning cylinders", are grown in a period ranging from a few years to months, and tend to go insane when decanted due to resonance in the Force between the mind of the clone and that of the original. After the Prequel Trilogy, Zahn and other EU writers dealt with the discrepancy by building on the differences between the two depictions of cloning to establish them as different technologies. Spaarti clones are exact duplicates with memories and skills intact, while Kamino clones are just people with the same DNA (and optionally growth acceleration) who have to be trained from scratch. The Kaminoan system was also established as taking ten years to create clones, which happened to mesh well with the trilogy's assertion that the "rule of thumb" for safe cloning is a minimum of one year, with three to five years working better. This helped to set up a system where Kaminoan cloning was safer, more effective, but slower, while Spaarti cloning was extremely cheap and quick but less reliable. The Empire eventually started moving away from Kaminoan cloning to experiment with Spaarti cylinders, an entirely different tech, and growing clones too quickly in those tends to make them insane.
- When the books were written, canon information on the Clone Wars was limited a single line by Obi-Wan in A New Hope, which established that they happened, clones were involved, at least some Jedi fought in them, and not much else. The dominant assumption was that they were wars against clones, and this colors the mentions made of them in the novels — in the first novel, for instance, Pellaeon reminisces about his experiences battling clones and "the clonemasters", and everyone fears that Thrawn's use of clones will lead to a second round of the Clone Wars. This issue was dealt with by inserting a secondary conflict where Republic forces (including Pellaeon) besieged Separatist aliens who were quick-growing clones of their warriors in tubes, and as they compressed the growth cycle further and further the clones started getting disjointed.
- When discussing the Katana fleet, Dark Force Rising mentions that the Dreadnought-class heavy cruisers that make it up were the backbone of the Old Republic's fleets until the rise of the Empire, where they were displaced by the newer and more powerful Star Destroyers. In later years, however, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and The Clone Wars all depicted the Old Republic's navy as already relying primarily on early models of Star Destroyer by the time the Clone Wars began, which makes up the majority of Republic warships seen on-screen, while no cruisers appear. Later guidebooks attempt to reconcile this by stating the Star Destroyers were reserved for clone crews, the Jedi Generals, and the most loyal officers, while the Dreadnought-class made up the bulk of planetary defense fleets.
- The biggest Clone Wars-related issue is that Zahn sets them over a decade before the eventual timeline established by the prequels. This was actually Lucas' fault rather than Zahn's—as Zahn revealed in his annotations in the 20th anniversary edition, Lucas hadn't yet settled on a concrete timeline for the series pre-A New Hope and eventually compressed it from the more expansive one he'd given Zahn at the time.
- Mara claims that the Death Star I debacle is why Vader lost his right hand as punishment for his failure. A later short story had Vader lose his (already mechanical) right hand after the Death Star is destroyed, so this could be assumed to be Mara thinking that he still had a biological hand at this point.
- Zahn describes Coruscant as having hills, isolated towers, greenery, and mountain ranges. Later EU books described it as a planet-wide city — Shadows of the Empire specifically mentions the peak of the tallest mountain on the planet is the centerpiece of an otherwise normal city plaza — and the movies locked that in.
- Jawas are common enough not only on Coruscant, but in the Imperial Palace itself, for their robes and hoods to make viable disguises for Leia's cadre of Noghri bodyguards. Although the original trilogy depicts Jawas only on Tatooine, the assumption that Jawas could be found underfoot on nearly any planet with a spaceport was not unreasonable. Later materials establish Jawas as native only to Tatooine.
- Due to the limited number of Jedi and other Force users in the movies at that point, and the minimal discussion of what the Jedi were like before the Empire came along, a lot of C'baoth's portrayal as a Jedi had to be created from whole cloth. Some discrepancies, like his use of Force Lightning, can be excused by Luke not knowing enough about being a Jedi to see the problem. Others, like the fact that the records claimed C'baoth started his Jedi training when he was in his twenties, are more difficult to handwave.
- Zahn implies that Jedi Masters like C'baoth and Yoda did not employ lightsabers (Yoda's battle with a Dark Jedi on Dagobah is described as "a full-scale Force war"), as the only two masters of the Force featured in the movies, Yoda and the Emperor, didn't use the iconic weapon (Old Ben was not, at the time, identified as a Master) and instead relied entirely upon the Force.
- When C'baoth dies, his body explodes in an energy of blue fire just like Palpatine’s body did. The implication is that all dark side masters explode when they die. This never happens again.
- X-Wing Series: At this point in the franchise's history, only a few things had been established concerning the old Jedi: they existed in some number, they fought in the Clone Wars, Old Ben and pre-fall Vader had been members of this order, and Vader had fathered two children; crucially, emotional conflict is only attached to the latter element insofar as Vader, specifically, is the father. As such, when creating Corran Horn's backstory, Stackpole made him the grandson of a Jedi from Corellia, Nejaa Halcyon, who married, had a son, and died in the Clone Wars; once the Empire rose, his friend Rostek Horn married his widow and pretended that his son was his own in order to hide them from the Empire. This is described without any particular drama to it until anti-Jedi reprisals began under the Empire. The prequels later established that the Jedi strictly forbade both romantic and familial relationships, with Anakin's attachement to his mother, secret wife, and eventual children being anomalies that the Order would have forbidden, which would make it difficult to have another Jedi also marry and openly have a son. This was eventually resolved by meshing it with the Corellian culture that had already been established as a generally rebellious and self-reliant system, and creating an internal split between the broader Jedi Order and the Corellian or Green Jedi, which while in agreement on most Force matters were split over the Corellians being more focused on their system and not forbidding marriage.
Live-Action TV
- Batman (1966) is full of this because it was created during a transitional stage in comics. Along with being a full-blown comedy series, it features forgotten Silver Age stuff, such as Dick Grayson having an aunt, Batman and Robin operating in broad daylight, and many of the villains (such as Mr. Freeze) display characterizations that have long since changed. The show originated Barbara Gordon, but it features her as a brunette who wears a redheaded wig for disguise (something associated with Kate Kane instead of the naturally redheaded Barbara) and also depicts her as several years Dick's seniornote .
- The Incredible Hulk (1977):
- While not the first adaptation of the character to the screen, having come eleven years after The Marvel Super Heroes, as the first live-action adaptation, the show takes surprising liberties, such as Hulk being rendered mute for the most part, instead communicating in growls and grunts, Banner being referred to by his given name rather than his middle name of "Bruce", his given name itself having been changed from "Robert" to "David", General Thaddeus Ross having been replaced with journalist Jack McGee and every other character having been Adapted Out.
- The Incredible Hulk Returns also features this in the form of Thor. Also having first appeared in television in The Marvel Super Heroes, this was the first live-action portrayal of the Marvel portrayal of the mythological character and rather than Blake and Thor being the same individual, they are two different characters (The Kenneth Branagh film would do something similar, but with Blake being The Ghost and becoming a brief alias of Thor), with Thor not being a god, but a Norse warrior whom Blake summons by holding a magic hammer and calling the name of "Odin".
- The Trial of the Incredible Hulk features similar examples. While the Kingpin had been appearing on the screen since Spider-Man (1967), this was his first portrayal in live-action and differs from what came after by never being referred to as "the Kingpin", only by "Wilson Fisk", having facial hair as well as averting Bald of Evil. Likewise, this was the first portrayal of Daredevil, as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends had only portrayed him as Matt Murdock, and rather than the red suit everyone is familiar with, he wears a black ninja-like outfit and was inspired by a police man to be a hero, rather than seeking to avenge his father's death.
- The Little Mermaid: The Shirley Temple's Storybook adaptation features one thing that makes it weird compared to all other adaptations that follow the original story: the titular mermaid keeps her voice. The only other adaptation to do this was a Russian film from 1976, which changed the plot completely, keeping only a few small things.
- Mortal Kombat: Conquest has a bit of this, with the most notable probably being Noob Saibot. In the games, Noob is eventually revealed to be Bi-Han, aka Sub-Zero from the first game, brought back from the dead by Quan Chi. In Conquest, he's some sort of Outworld assassin who seems to be unconnected to Sub-Zero or Quan Chi. He also seems to be made of oil, as opposed to the shadow powers that would be established later.
Radio
- The Adventures of Archie Andrews is a 1940s radio show based off of Archie Comics. It contains a lot of early weirdness, such as Betty using her original girlier personality, the Betty and Veronica dynamic being downplayed (with Archie being interested in Veronica), and Veronica having a Unexplained Accent that was fixed in later adaptations starting in the 1980s.
Theatre
- Ivanhoe: The 1826 opera adaptation features the only case of Isaac of York and his daughter Rebecca being not only renamed (Ishmael and Leila), but explicitly changed from Jewish to Muslim as well, with the latter at least turning out to be Edith, the long-lost daughter of the "last descendant of Saxon kings", making her a combination of Rebecca and Rowena, Ivanhoe's proper love interest who is a descendent of Alfred the Great. This in turn makes Brian de Bois-Guilbert a combination of himself and Maurice de Bracy, Rowena's Abhorrent Admirer, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, the owner of the castle where Rowena and Rebecca were held captive.
- You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Musical adaptation of Peanuts, was first produced in 1967 and only uses six characters: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroder, and (non-Peppermint) Patty, the last of whom was already being Demoted to Extra in the strip by that point (and tellingly doesn't even get a solo song). Notably, both the 1985 animated TV special based on the musical and the 1999 Broadway revival completely revamped the libretto to replace Patty with Charlie Brown's sister Sally, a far more popular character. It's also one of the very few Peanuts adaptations to incorporate Snoopy's Thought Bubble Speech from the comic strip.
- The Wizard of Oz (1902): Executive Meddling led to the play being a very loose adaptation. It removed major characters such as Toto, Glinda, and the Wicked Witch of the West. Since the MGM film The Wizard of Oz codified the franchise, newer adaptations couldn't get away with removing so much of what makes the Land of Oz series iconic.
Theme Parks
- Universal Studios: It's very easy to tell that Shrek 4D was made when the Shrek franchise consisted only of the first movie. Farquaad still the villain, with the short taking place in Duloc (which was completely forgotten after the first film bar a single Halloween special returning to it), many of the jokes are repeated from the first movie, and plenty of series hallmarks like Puss in Boots or the kingdom of Far Far Away aren't part of the attractionnote . The character meet-and-greet outside of the attraction even features Fiona as a human face character as opposed to her more iconic ogre form (even though the ride itself does).
Toys
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The series came out at a time when the Real Robot Genre was in its infancy (with Gundam being something of a Trope Maker), and that's reflected in its original toyline by Clover, which bears very little resemblance to future Gundam toylines. The toys resemble contemporary Super Robot Genre toys, with the Gundam being a big, chunky, clunky robot with lots of chrome, die-cast, and toyetic features like spring-loaded Rocket Punch fists, while looking decidedly off compared to the show design. Additionally, the only robots to get toys are the Gundam itself, the Guncannon, and the Guntank, with all the Zeon mechs, including the iconic Zaku, being completely absent—for those not familiar with Gundam, this would be like if Star Wars never made toys of Darth Vader or the stormtroopers. The toyline largely flopped for these reasons, as while the show was most popular with older teens and women, the toys were clearly aimed at young boys. After Bandai got the license, they started producing toys that actually fitted the show's demographic, particularly the iconic "Gunpla" model kits.
Video Games
- Bleach: Shattered Blade was being developed and came out right when the Arrancar arc was starting up, but includes a number of characters on its roster who, at the time of that arc, had very little to work with in terms of moveset material for a fighting game character. Consequently, several characters end up with powers that they never canonically had, and powers they would have had at the time the game takes place being completely absent—for instance, Hisagi never uses his Shikai, and Ukitake and Kyoraku have their Shikai working completely differently from how they'd be revealed to work in canon. Ulquiorra stands out because at the time the game came out, he hadn't fought at all, barring deflecting one attack with an Offhand Backhand, so the only thing the game makers had to work with were said backhand and two powers that he never used in combat (opening portals, and crushing his eye to convey information).
- Gundam 0079: The War for Earth was one of the first piece of Gundam media officially released in English, before the franchise had much of a Western presence, and as such employs many romanizations that differ greatly from the standardized ones used in later releases. These include Char Aznable being "Shar Aznabull", "Zakus" being "Zaks" (as in the English translation of the novels) and the Principality of Zeon being the Duchy of Jion (infamously pronounced "John" by the actors).
- Harry Potter:
- The video game adaptations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (EA) were made while the film was in production, and Warner Bros. gave the game developers little access to the film production because its details were considered top secret at the time. As a result, the game lacks elements that were introduced in the films and which would subsequently become iconic to the Harry Potter brand, such as "Hedwig's Theme" and the movie Hogwarts uniforms. At the same time, the game does include elements from the first book that were cut or altered for the first movie, such as the character of Peeves. Overall, the Philosopher's Stone video game almost comes off like The Game of the Book, despite it ostensibly being a movie tie-in product.
- This continued to a lesser extent in the game adaptations of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (EA). This was partially due to the use of recycled assets from the previous game. Moreover, some of the new assets were clearly based off of the first movie, which was released by that point, rather than the second movie, which was obviously still in production. Throughout the game, Ginny wears the outfit that she wore at King's Cross in the first film, even though she never wears this at any point in the second film. The Hogwarts hospital wing is based off the version from the first movie, in which it was filmed on location at Oxford Divinity School, not the version from the second movie, in which it was a Leavesden set with a somewhat different design.
- The aesthetics and story were made to match the films more closely from Prisoner of Azkaban onwards.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle was in the unfortunate situation of having to tie into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion at a point when it was still very early in its run (the game came out around the release of Chapter 23 out of 110, and the designers had even less than that to work with during development). The result is that Gappy ends up with a pretty incomplete-looking moveset by the standards of the game, only drawing from a handful of early fights, and serves as the sole representative of his home series. This wasn't too unusual in the original release, but it sticks out like a sore thumb with the R rerelease, which actually came out after JoJolion had ended. It gets particularly wonky with regards to the sole other JoJolion character, Wonder of U, who was added to the rerelease and ends up dripping with references to the manga's last arcs.
- Being a spinoff made by a different company with minimal communication with Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games are essentially the last gasp of what Zelda was initially packaged as in America. The game carries over a lot of the deviations made in the cartoon, such as Link being a talkative Hopeless Suitor, Zelda being a more active partner with a vest and pants, Ganon being a porcine and vaguely comical Evil Sorcerer with no noteworthy physical abilities, the prominence of the King of Hyrule, and its depiction of the Triforce of Wisdom. They also borrow the sidescrolling style from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, due to coming out only a year after A Link to the Past solidified the 2D games as primarily top-down.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002) stands out among other videogames of the 2000's for being (proudly proclaimed on the cover) based off the book rather than The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy.
- The first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was developed while the Captain America: Winter Soldier story arc was still in publication, and because of that its depiction of Winter Soldier is significantly different from later portrayals. For one, the game heavily implies but never explicitly states that he is Bucky Barnes, something that nowadays is common knowledge. In addition, this version of Winter Soldier is willfully evil, outright resents Captain America because he believes Cap is a Just Following Orders type who abandoned him, and lacks the Brainwashed and Crazy elements that would quickly become staples of his character.
- Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000) came out in the waning days of the era where X-Men was Marvel's biggest Cash-Cow Franchise, and it really shows in the roster: 18 of the 28 Marvel representatives hail from that series in some sense, including two versions of Wolverine. The really telling part is the presence of Marrow, though; an absolute E-lister who wouldn't warrant an appearance even in a purely X-Men fighting game nowadays, but she was actually getting something resembling a push in the mid-late 90s (one that did not last). Other oddities of the era include Cable wearing a Jim Lee X-Men uniform instead of his more famous Rob Liefeld look (which he did wear in the comics - for less than six months), and Sabertooth having Birdie as his Girl Friday (the character was very short-lived, and in fact had already been killed off in the comics by the time Marvel 2 came out).
- Pocket Mortys was made back when only two seasons of Rick and Morty were completed. One of the chairmen in the Council of Ricks was named Rick Prime as a result. When the Season 3 premiere introduced the canonical Rick Prime, the game called him "Weird Rick" when he was added as a player skin in the tie-in update because the show had not given him a proper name at the time.
- The Simpsons Arcade Game was developed during the show's first two seasons and all indications are that the team working on the game only had the first season and some pre-production and merchandising material to work from, so many aspects of the game are inconsistent with what has since been established in the cartoon.
- Take for example, Lisa, an extreme vegetarian since the season seven episode "Lisa the Vegetarian", exclaiming, "All right!" as she devours a health-regenerating Krusty Burger. She's also shown to be brattier, before she gained her more familiar characterization as the intelligent voice of reason.
- In one of the most infamous examples, Sideshow Bob cameos in the Springfield Butte, but since he'd only had one appearance beforehand, he doesn't speak or even attack the Simpsons. Today, he'd be the logical choice for an antagonist of this sort of game, but his villainy wouldn't be established until the end of the first season.
- Several of the game's bosses appeared in the show, but seeing as the show was only in its second season at the time of release, most players won't recognize them. Even longtime fans would be hard-pressed to remember what episode the wrestler at the end of Level 1 is from.
- Also, Smithers has blue hair (as he did in the early episodes) and dresses in a white coat with an orange shirt, rather than a green coat and a white shirt.
- The whole game is quite out of character for Smithers, who is usually shown to do the right thing in spite of his devotion to Mr. Burns. In one episode, he didn't even want Burns taking candy from a baby. He's unlikely to go along with kidnapping one!
- Barney has blond hair and wears a green shirt in the game just like he did during most of the first season.
- Bart is wearing a blue shirt (as shown in most merchandise of the time) instead of the signature red one he's well-known for, though he wears the red one in the intro. The change makes it easier for players to distinguish him from Lisa during the game.
- Lisa is listed as being 7 years old instead of 8. She would have a birthday not long after the game's release. Similarly, Homer and Marge's respective ages are listed as 35 and 34 instead of 36-40.
- X's for eyes to indicate death would later be prohibited by the show's drawing guides and were only used once on the show as part of a dream in "Bart the General".
- A few animations show Marge hiding rabbit ears under her hairdo (something that was planned in pre-production but scrapped for the show proper).
- One stage takes place at the Channel 6 studio, except in place of the recurring reporter Kent Brockman (who is recognizable even to the most casual fan of the show), the news is anchored by a one-off reporter from the Season 1 episode "The Call of the Simpsons"◊.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Legend of the Lost Spatula was made when the TV show was in its first season, and it shows. Characters use their less refined designs from the first season, the Flying Dutchman is the Big Bad and rules over a Fire and Brimstone Hell that's never seen or referenced in any other media, Plankton is a background NPC with two lines of dialogue instead of the central antagonist, and the game features characters, locations, and places that have almost never been referenced since: SpongeBob can wear his hall monitor uniform and equip the moon rock gun from "Sandy's Rocket", "the carnival" (an assortment of fishing bait) appears as a platforming area, and the boss of Jellyfish Fields is the generic giant jellyfish from "Jellyfishing" instead of the more recognizable King Jellyfish from "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic". Bubble Bass also appears as a mook; after one major and one minor appearance in the first season, he would disappear from the show, only returning after The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- The earliest video games, with the most famous being Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories, were made when the rules of the card game weren't fully conceptualized and predate the manga's Battle City arc. Major differences include no tributes being necessary to summon level five and higher monsters, all monster cards being normal monster cards, only one card being placed on the field each turn, fusion being done without the card Polymerization, and the majority of the possible fusions not being actual fusions in the TCG. Additionally, plot-wise, the story of Forbidden Memories is based on what's pretty clearly a very early version of what would become the Millennium World arc: Priest Seto is a strictly villainous figure as opposed to the ultimately-redeemed Well-Intentioned Extremist he'd become, the other characters all have past-life equivalents running around Egypt, there's a pair of Canon Foreigner characters named Heishin and Nitemare/Darknite that serve as the Big Bad and Final Boss rather than Akhenaden and Zorc, Siamun Muran (named Simon here) plays a far more major role, and Bakura is pretty irrelevant rather than being The Heavy. Aside from the Millennium World aspects, Ishizu/Isis is depicted as a malevolent figure, predating her appearance in the manga when she was nothing of the sort.
- A number of video games have featured characters before they actually dueled in canon, which led to them being given decks that had little to do with their strategies when they did duel. Bakura is a big recipient of this, given that it took a whole 150 chapters after his introduction in the manga for him to duel onscreen, revealing his strategy to be one based around Fiend-type ghost monsters. Video games went all over the place with him: he uses a Dragon deck in Dark Duel Stories, a Spellcaster deck in Forbidden Memories, and a Plant deck in Duelists of the Roses.
- The Yu-Gi-Oh! game Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist had its big selling point be that it would be the first game to feature the Egyptian Gods in playable form, but came out before Ra, the third and strongest God, had been played in the manga. Consequently, its version of Ra has a completely different effect from the effects Ra ultimately received. Additionally, the game associates Ra with Joey as much as its two fellow Gods are associated with Yugi and Kaiba, seemingly under the impression that he'd go on to be the wielder of it. This not only canonically never happened, but is outright impossible by the rules the series presents regarding Ra. If anything, Joey's defining moments in the arc to follow ended up being facing off against Ra's wielders, nearly getting killed by the God twice in the process.
Web Games
- Mata Nui Online Game was developed as a minor offshoot of the 2001 PC game The Legend of Mata Nui and had many restrictions. LOMN's main characters, the six Toa, could only make small appearances and the visual design was based on prototype toys and early game environment concepts. When LOMN was cancelled shortly before its intended release date, MNOG had to pick up the slack using its limited resources.
- Because of the Toa's brief screentime, their depiction is closer to their early mysterious concepts than the more fleshed-out, "superheroesque" characters from the comics. They speak in a serious, elevated tone rather than snappy comic book-style banter. To be fair, they are mostly seen in serious scenarios, and mainly from the player's POV, for whom the Toa would be mystical and awe-inspiring.
- The Golden Masks are shown to be separate from the Toa's regular masks, with Lewa getting a Golden Mask from his village's shrine before Onua gets his. Later canon established that the Toa got their Golden Masks at the same time by fusing their normal masks together, which they did at the Kini Nui temple, not in their shrines.
- Makuta had no clear form, nor character when the game was made, so the developers created their own version based off early incomplete concepts. Ironically, many fans favored this mystical and coldly indifferent "force of nature" interpretation of Makuta over his many later unambiguously evil iterations.
- The Great Takara dance is mentioned a few times and Ta-Koro has a Ta-Matoran dance troupe. Tribal dances were entirely removed from the story at LEGO's request for fear of upsetting real-life Polynesian tribes.
- Despite the emphasis on world-building, the Three Virtues, aka the core mantra of the franchise (Unity, Duty and Destiny) are never mentioned as a unified idea, as they would only be set in stone two years later. The 2003 Mata Nui Online Game II would remedy this by leaning heavily into the characters' belief system and philosophy.
Western Animation
- The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: The episode "Michael Korvac" is the very first out-of-comics appearance of any version of the Guardians of the Galaxy, airing three years before the movie was released and became an Audience-Coloring Adaptation. Here, the characters' designs and personalities are much more accurate to the original 2008 comic series by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who also cowrote the episode, thus standing out significantly from James Gunn's famous Denser and Wackier approach and its subsequent imitations. Gamora and Drax the Destroyer are also absent, which in any post-2014 Guardians adaptation would be unthinkable.
- Captain N: The Game Master has many versions of NES video game characters that seem bizarre and barely-recognizable with respect to the game franchises' later development. It's a perfect demonstration of folks trying to interpret those games with minimal, non-existent, or even contradictory input from their makers.
- Pit was given the Adaptational Name Change of "Kid Icarus" essentially making his name the same as his series of origin.
- The lighthearted and comical treatment of the Castlevania series stemmed from Captain N only having the first three games of Castlevania (1986), Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse to work with, all of which largely had Excuse Plots and served mainly as tributes to old horror films. The series would eventually start taking both its lore and characters more seriously after Koji "IGA" Igarashi became its producer, with most of the pre-existing whimsical aspects being jettisoned or toned down.
- The Big Bad Mother Brain from the Metroid series is portrayed as a comedic and talkative Large Ham, whereas the canon character from Super Metroid onward would be increasingly characterized as a very sinister Silent Antagonist bordering on a Mechanical Abomination.
- The elements from The Legend of Zelda are taken specifically from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the then-most recent game — for instance, all enemies, bosses and locations are from there. This makes it stand out rather significantly among Zelda adaptations, as Zelda II would later become seen as the stylistic odd duck of the series and largely ignored by the main series, spinoffs and non-game works alike.
- The very last episode of the series was based on Final Fantasy I, more specifically the Elfheim/Astos arc. Because it was the only game that had reached Western shores by that point, none of the modern, familiar series mainstays like chocobos or moogles appear, and the characters are wildly different from how they appear in the game. Astos himself for example, is stocky and ogre-like◊, lacking the spindly whispishness◊ from Yoshitaka Amano's art that's now considered iconic for the earlier entries.
- Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater:
- In this series, her full name is Hello Kitty. Later series would go on to establish that her name is actually Kitty White.
- Due to staples like Badtz-Maru and Pochacco not existing yet, the only Sanrio characters to appear in the show (besides Kitty herself) are My Melody, Tuxedo Sam and Chip, with the rest being wholly original. Kitty's official love interest Dear Daniel had yet to be created, so she gets Ship Tease with Tuxedo Sam instead.
- Looney Tunes: The 1942 adaptation of Horton Hatches the Egg was the first ever adaptation of Dr. Seuss' work. Unlike later animated adaptations which strive to be faithful to both Seuss' art style and his writing's tone, this one does neither. Horton is colored pink and the short is drawn in Bob Clampett's regular art style with no attempt to look Seussian. The short also includes, among other risqué scenes typical of Warner cartoons of the time, a scene where a Peter Lorre-esque fish dies in a Seen-It-All Suicide that's Played for Laughs. Attempts at more adult humor in Seuss adaptations would not happen again until the Live Action Adaptations of the 2000s (although Seuss himself did write for the Private Snafu shorts, which were full of it).
- The Legend of Zelda (1989) was made when only the first two games were out (with the first game being the primary inspiration), and it shows.
- Link at this point in the game franchise had no personality at all, so the cartoon had to make up one from whole cloth, specifically a talkative and flirtatious Jerk with a Heart of Gold. The games themselves eventually went in the exact opposite direction, leaning into mute stoicism as fundamental to Link's literal character, with any romantic interest in Zelda implied and thoroughly chaste.
- The Triforces of Wisdom and Power are green and red tetrahedrons instead of golden flat triangles, while the Triforce of Courage is nowhere to be seen.
- Link fights by shooting beams from his sword, just like he does in the 2D games when at full health, a mechanic that is mostly absent from the 3D installments. The show also reuses sound effects from the original game.
- Many now-iconic staples of the games, like the Master Sword, Gorons, friendly Zoras, and Zelda and Ganon's respective leitmotifs, hadn't yet been created, and so are absent in the cartoon.
- Littlest Pet Shop (1995) has little in common with what later became Littlest Pet Shop due to being released early on the franchise's life. First of all, the animals have more generic 90s cartoon designs as opposed of the franchise's signature big-eyed, bobble-head designs. It also takes place in a pet shop with literal miniature animals. Its style of writing is also very different, taking inspiration of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs with slapstick humor, pop culture parodies, and even occasional sociopolitical satire, a huge contrast with later adaptations.
- Pac-Man (1982): Keeping in with the theme of 80s video game adaptations, Hanna-Barbera's cartoon has some blatant differences from newer takes on the game. The villains are referred to as "Ghost Monsters" instead of either "ghosts" or "monsters", and their personalities are entirely switched around: Clyde is the leader, Blinky is cowardly, Pinky is a slow-witted male shapeshifter, Inky is cross-eyed and The Ditz, and the barely acknowledged Sue (her color changed from orange to purple to avoid redundancy with Clyde) is second-in-command of the ghost gang and the sole female, and the ghosts turn dark purple when Pac-Man eats a Power Pellet instead of blue. The producers also created a Canon Foreigner human Big Bad, Mezmaron, out of whole cloth. Except for Mezmaron (though he may have inspired the Ghost Witch of Netor, a similar human-like villain) and the purple ghosts, most of these elements would be worked back into the games throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, ending when Pac-Man World gave the franchise a Continuity Reboot.
- Peanuts: The early TV specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown were made before fan favorite characters like Woodstock, Peppermint Patty and Marcie were introduced. In their place are characters like Friedanote , Shermynote and Violetnote , who were later Demoted to Extra or written out altogether. The Apple TV+ specials have been bringing back the early characters, however.
- Spider-Man (1967) is the only time the title character has been portrayed using a different voice as Spider-Man, something that no other adaptations have followed suit with. Ironically this is a case of Truer to the Text, as in the comics Spider-Man's mask muffling his voice is why his friends and family don't recognize him as Peter Parker.
- Superman Theatrical Cartoons: The 1940s serials are the second earliest adaptation of Superman (coming just a year after The Adventures of Superman) and contain a lot of weirdness. Clark was raised in an orphanage without his adopted parents around and he doesn't fight any supervillains barring the occasional mad scientist who has no connection to Lex Luthor. Kryptonite is completely absent (it hadn't even been created yet!), as are pretty much all notable characters except Lois Lane and Perry White. Also, Superman's power is a lot lower—his enhanced senses, Eye Beams, and freeze breath are absent, and in one Out of Order short, Superman gets around by jumping, not flying. Superman gained his flight specifically because it was easier to draw and it was later added onto the comics.
- Super Mario Bros. (DiC) were a loose adaptations even at the time, but much of them appear even more loose when compared to later Mario canon. For example, not only are there no implications of romance between Peach (who is redheaded instead of blonde because her design is based on her palette limited sprite) and Mario, but Peach is implied to be a teen while Mario is middle aged. This contrasts with the two being twenty-something Childhood Friends and Implied Love Interests in most post-1980s media. Among other weirdnesses, Mario and Luigi have thick New York accents instead of their signature Italian accents, Bowser uses his Japanese name, King Koopa, and is presented as a Composite Character between Bowser and Wart, the Big Bad of Super Mario Bros. 2. The first show also prominently features enemies from that game that are largely ignored in Mario's current canon such as Tweeters, Albatosses, Trouters, Flurries, Mouser, Tryclyde, etc. The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 features an episode where the Mario Bros. are de-aged into babies, but since the cartoon aired five years before Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island came out, they look almost nothing like the Baby Mario and Luigi of later media (they even keep their mustaches!).
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) is the only cartoon in the franchise not to feature a version of Karai (as she was created after it began airing). Casey Jones only appears in a few episodes, as opposed to being a main character. It's also the only screen adaptation on record to Race Lift Baxter Stockman from black to white.
