When a story existing in one medium is adapted into another medium (or several) and the pitfalls within. Do note that the term "adaptation" is applied very broadly on TV Tropes, and the tropes listed here equally apply to all derivative works: parodies, remakes within the same medium, fan fiction, cover songs, stories based on real events, etc.
Related to Canon Universe.
open/close all folders
Tropes about the media, format, or quantity of the sources and adaptations
Tropes about the media, format, or quantity of the sources and adaptations:
- Adaptation Amalgamation: An adaptation consisting of multiple stories merged together.
- Adaptation Drift: An adaptation deviates more and more from the source material as it goes on.
- Adaptation Overdosed: The work has been given a buttload of adaptations.
- Adaptation Sequence: A work is adapted, then the adaptation is adapted, and so forth.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: The tendency for musicals to be adapted from pre-existing works.
- Animated Adaptation: A non-animated work is adapted into an animated work.
- The Anime of the Game: An Anime based on a Video Game.
- Audio Adaptation: Visual media is adapted to an audio play or radio program.
- The Board Game: A work is adapted into a board game.
- Themed Stock Board Game: A pre-existing board game is given an edition tying into a specific work.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: A work is adapted into a Sequential Art or Comic medium.
- Compilation Movie: A movie made by editing together several episodes of a television show.
- Culturally Sensitive Adaptation: A work that removes something to be more appropriate to audiences and avert Values Dissonance.
- Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: A tabletop game is adapted into a video game.
- Divided for Adaptation: A long work has the adaptation divide it into two or more installments.
- Fanfic: An adaptation written by a fan based on the fan’s favorite book, video game, movie, TV show, celebrity, etc.
- Film Adaptation (Live-Action): An index of live-action movie adaptations.
- Licensed Game: A work is adapted into a video game.
- License-Added Game: A pre-existing video game has a version where the game is retooled to tie into a specific franchise.
- Live-Action Adaptation: A work is given an adaptation done in live-action.
- The Movie: A work is given a film adaptation.
- The Film of the Book: A book is given a film adaptation.
- The Film of the Play: A play is given a film adaptation.
- Non-Serial Movie: A television series is given a movie that is not canon.
- Novelization: A work is adapted into a novel.
- Pinball Spin-Off: A video game is adapted into a pinball game.
- Recursive Adaptation: An adaptation is given its own adaptation in the medium of the original work.
- Recycled: The Series: A movie's premise is adapted into a weekly television series.
- Repurposed Pop Song: A popular song is repurposed for advertising.
- The Role-Playing Game: A work is adapted into a tabletop role-playing game.
- Screen-to-Stage Adaptation: A film is adapted into a stage play.
- Secondary Adaptation: The adaptation is given an adaptation of its own, usually in a different medium from both the preceding adaptation and the original work.
- The Show of the Books: A television show adapted from a book series.
- Sound-to-Screen Adaptation: An audio play or radio show is adapted to visual media.
- Themed Tarot Deck: A tarot deck based on a specific series.
- Tie-In Novel: A work is given an out-of-continuity book adaptation.
- Video Game Movies: Movies adapted from video games.
- Webcomic of the Game: A webcomic that is adapted (often unofficially) from a video game.
Tropes about the details of the development and release of the adaptation
Tropes about the details of the development and release of the adaptation:
- Ability Over Appearance: The adaptation's crew casts an actor who best acted the part, not who looked the part of a character from the original work.
- Adaptation First: The adaptation is localized before the original work.
- Adaptation Title Change: An adaptation of a work has a different title than the source material.
- Ascended Fanfic: A fan-fiction that has been revamped into an original version of its source material.
- Freestyle Version: An artist uses someone else's music for a song, but sings their own lyrics.
- Hard-to-Adapt Work: A work is considered difficult to adapt to other media.
- No Adaptations Allowed: The creator refuses to allow adaptations of their work to be made.
- Overtook the Manga: The adaptation wraps up the story before the original work reaches its conclusion.
- Patched Together from the Headlines: Multiple news stories and hot-button issues are mingled together in an adaptation.
- Recursive Inspiration: For when adaptations take inspiration from franchises the original work inspired. Or when franchises get new installments based on franchises they inspired.
- Refitted for Adaptation: Cut content from the source material is reused for the adaptation.
- Restricted Expanded Universe: The Expanded Universe has rules (imposed by the executives or the original creators) it is not allowed to break, sometimes resulting in Status Quo Is God.
- Self-Adaptation: The adaptation is created by the same person who made the original work.
- Title: The Adaptation: The adaptation's title consists of the work's title, with a subtitle specifying the medium of the adaptation (e.g.: Trope Adventures: The Graphic Novel).
Tropes about the audience and critical perception of the adaptation
Tropes about the audience and critical perception of the adaptation:
- Adaptation Displacement: The adaptation becomes more well-known than the original work.
- Audience-Coloring Adaptation: An adaptation that has a lasting effect on the opinion of the overall franchise.
- Covered Up: The cover of a song becomes more prominent than the original.
- Creator-Preferred Adaptation: The creator finds the adaptation to be superior to their original work.
- Disowned Adaptation: The creator of the original work does not like the adaptation.
- Improved Second Attempt: Parts of the original story that weren't well-received (certain character arcs, storylines etc) are perceived as being better-written in an adaptation.
- Unexpected Character: The adaptation includes a character from the source material who audiences would not expect for whatever reasons, chiefly thematic or licensing.
- Video Game Movies Suck: The opinion that film adaptations of video games are awful.
- The Problem with Licensed Games: Shoddy video game adaptations.
- No Problem with Licensed Games: When the licensed game actually does the source material justice.
Tropes about changes to the overall tone or style within the adaptation
Tropes about changes to the overall tone or style within the adaptation:
- Actionized Adaptation: The adaptation is more action-oriented than the original work.
- Adaptational Consistency: The adaptation removes elements from the original that have since become a case of Early-Installment Weirdness.
- Adaptational Mundanity: The adaptation tones down or even flat out discards any supernatural and fantastical elements from the source material, making the story more grounded in reality.
- Adaptation Inspiration: The adaptation has the same premise as the original work, but not the same tone or presentation.
- Big Damn Movie: A film adaptation is more dramatic than the source material.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The adaptation is more violent than the original work.
- The Cover Changes the Meaning: The song cover plays the song in a different tone or context from the original version.
- Darker and Edgier: The adaptation is darker, grittier, and more mature than the original work.
- Denser and Wackier: The adaptation is sillier and more comedic than the source material.
- Early Adaptation Weirdness: An adaptation varies heavily from the later, more standardized canon of the source.
- Hotter and Sexier: The adaptation contains more nudity and/or sexual content than the original work.
- Human-Focused Adaptation: An adaptation reduces non-human characters' roles so the work focuses on newly-created human characters.
- Indecisive Medium: A work in one medium uses stylistic quirks from another medium.
- In Name Only: The adaptation differs so much from the original work that the shared title is the only indication that the work is an adaptation.
- Kinder and Cleaner: The adaptation uses cleaner language than the source material.
- Lighter and Softer: The adaptation is more lighthearted than the original work.
- Lost in Imitation: The adaptation is influenced more by previous adaptations than the original work.
- Pacified Adaptation: An adaptation is less action-filled than the original.
- Recycled with a Gimmick: The adaptation is basically the original work with a gimmick added.
- Ruder and Cruder: The adaptation is more profane than the original.
- Self-Censored Release: A work featuring mature content is given an adaptation that is tamer.
- Softer and Slower Cover: A song cover that is quieter and slower than the original song.
- Tamer and Chaster: The adaptation has less sexual content than the original work.
- Truer to the Text: When an adaptation is more faithful to the source material than previous adaptations.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: A work is essentially an exaggerated account of real-life events.
Tropes about specific in-universe character or storyline changes in the adaptation
Tropes about specific in-universe character or storyline changes in the adaptation:
- Abled in the Adaptation: A character with a disability in the original work doesn't have that disability in the adaptation.
- Accent Adaptation: A translation gives characters different accents than they had in the original language.
- Adaptational Abomination: Characters are made into Eldritch Abominations in-adaptation.
- Adaptational Achilles' Heel: The adaptation gives a character a weakness or drawback they did not have in the original work.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The adaptation ends differently from the original work.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: The adaptation makes a character more attractive than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: The adaptation changes a character's origins.
- Adaptational Upbringing Change: A character's upbringing is changed in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Context Change: The adaptation has an aspect of the source material, such as a line of dialogue, occur in a different context.
- Adaptational Costume Change: The adaptation significantly changes a character's outfit.
- Adaptational Modesty: The adaptation has a character wear less revealing clothes.
- Adaptational Skimpiness: The adaptation has a character wear more revealing clothes.
- Adaptational Curves: The adaptation makes a character more muscular or curvaceous than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Danger Downgrade: The stakes in an adaptation are lower than in the original.
- Adaptational Diversity: The cast is more diverse than in the source.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: A character appears earlier in the adaptation than in the source material.
- Adaptational Explanation: The adaptation expands on elements of the source material.
- Adaptational Gender Identity: An adaptation changes a character's gender alignment.
- Adaptational Hairstyle Change: An adaptation noticeably changes a character's hairstyle.
- Adaptational Job Change: The character has a different job in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Karma: A character who got away with their misdeeds in the original work receives punishment for their actions in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: The adaptation moves a character's debut to later than occurred in the source material.
- Adaptational Location Change: The adaptation changes the setting to a different location.
- Adaptational Nationality: The adaptation changes what country the character is from.
- Adaptational Nonsapience: A character intelligent enough to speak is no longer sapient in an adaptation.
- Adaptational Protagonist: A minor or major character becomes The Protagonist in an adaptation or Continuity Reboot.
- Adaptational Sapience: A nonsapient being is made sapient in an adaptation.
- Adaptational Self-Defense: An act of first aggression is changed to be self-defense in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Sexuality: A character's sexual orientation is changed in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Skill: A character has a non-supernatural ability in the adaptation that they lacked in the source material.
- Adaptational Slimness: A character is significantly slimmer or skinnier in the adaptation compared to the original work.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: The adaptation changes what powers a character has.
- Adaptational Timespan Change: The adaptation changes how much time passes within the story.
- Adaptational Ugliness: The adaptation makes a character uglier than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Upbringing Change: The way a character was brought up is changed in the adaptation.
- Adaptation Decay: An adaptation of a work is distorted between media.
- Adaptation Deviation: The adaptation makes changes to the original work.
- Adaptation Distillation: The adaptation removes or shortens elements to keep from running too long.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Something in a character's appearance in an adaptation is changed to a different color than in the source material, such as a character's hair and eye color.
- Adaptation Expansion: A short story is given an adaptation that's much longer due to more content added to the plot.
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The adaptation keeps a plot point, but leaves out the reason behind it.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: The adaptation has a plot hole that wasn't in the original work.
- Adaptation Name Change: The adaptation gives a character a different name from the one they had in the original work.
- Adaptation Origin Connection: The adaptation makes it so that two or more characters with unrelated backstories now have connected origins or so that one character is involved with the origin of another.
- Adaptation Personality Change: The adaptation gives a character a different characterization from what they had in the original work.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: The adaptation makes a character less angst-ridden than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The adaptation makes a character more angst-ridden than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Badass: The adaptation makes a character more impressive in terms of powers and/or combat skills.
- Adaptational Comic Relief: The adaptation makes a character serve as comic relief when they did not have that role in the original work.
- Adaptational Dumbass: The adaptation makes a character less intelligent than they were in the source material.
- Adaptational Goal Change: The adaptation keeps a character's moral alignment unchanged but it changes their end-goals or plans.
- Adaptational Heroism: A villainous character is made heroic in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Intelligence: The adaptation makes a character smarter.
- Adaptational Jerkass: The adaptation makes a character meaner and less polite than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: The adaptation makes a character nicer than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Onscreen Appearance: The adaptation shows a character who was The Ghost in the original work.
- Adaptational Seriousness: The adaptation makes a character more serious in contrast to their portrayal in the original work.
- Adaptational Sympathy: The adaptation makes a character much more sympathetic than they were in the original work.
- Adaptational Villainy: A heroic or neutral character is made evil in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Wimp: The adaptation makes a character less impressive than they were in the original work.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The adaptation changes the relationship between two characters.
- Adaptational Friendship: Two characters who weren't friends are made friends in the adaptation.
- Adaptational Romance Downgrade: A romantic relationship from the original is downplayed or Adapted Out in the adaptation.
- Promoted to Love Interest: The adaptation makes a character into a love interest.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation: The adaptation changes how characters are related (when they were already related in the original).
- Related in the Adaptation: The adaptation makes characters who weren't related in the original work family.
- Team Member in the Adaptation: In the adaptation, a character is associated with a team or organization they have little to no association with in the original work.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: The adaptation changes it so that characters who were relatives in the original work are now unrelated.
- Adaptation Species Change: The adaptation changes a character's species.
- Adapted Out: The adaptation omits a character or plot element from the source material.
- Alternate Show Interpretation: A Theater play is interpreted differently than usual.
- Age Lift: The adaptation changes a character's age.
- Anthropomorphic Animal Adaptation: The adaptation changes human characters into anthropomorphic animals.
- Ascended Extra: When the adaptation gives a minor character from the original work a more prominent role.
- Canon Character All Along: A character in the adaptation initially appearing to be a Canon Foreigner turns out to actually be the adaptation's interpretation of an already established character.
- Canon Foreigner: The adaptation features a character who didn't exist in the original work.
- Canon Immigrant: A character created for the adaptation ends up being added to the continuity of the original work.
- Character Exaggeration: The adaptation makes a character into a caricature of their original incarnation.
- Chickification: A female character who can do well in a fight and look after herself is made helpless in the adaptation for the sake of the plot.
- Cipher Scything: Adaptation of a video game with a featureless protagonist either gives the main character more depth and personality or leaves them out.
- Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Adaptations of superhero comics only have heroes and/or villains addressed by their real names.
- Composite Character: The adaptation merges multiple characters into one.
- Compressed Adaptation: The adaptation leaves out some scenes in order to manage a reasonable running time.
- The Cover Changes the Gender: A song cover changes the gender of the original song's viewpoint character.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Sequels to a game with Multiple Endings only regard one ending as canon.
- Death by Adaptation: The adaptation kills off a character who remained alive in the original work.
- Decomposite Character: The adaptation splits a character into two or more characters.
- Demoted to Extra: The adaptation reduces a prominent character to having a less important role.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: A character's death differs from how they died in the original work.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: The adaptation gives a character a disability that they didn't have in the original work.
- Divergent Character Evolution: An adaptation redesigns a group of two or more identical (or at least very similar) characters and gives them differing personalities and characterizations so that they are easier to tell apart and aren't just clones of each other.
- Early-Bird Cameo: A character has a minor appearance before they are properly introduced later in the same work, in a sequel, or in their own series.
- Exiled from Continuity: An adaptation leaves out a character because of some restriction preventing the character from being used, often issues concerning potential copyright or trademark violations.
- Expy: A character that is a deliberate copy of another character.
- Gender Flip: The adaptation changes a character's gender.
- God-Created Canon Foreigner: A character exclusive to the adaptation was created by the original work's creator.
- Happily Ever Before: The adaptation avoids the original work's Downer Ending by ending the story before things get sad.
- Historical AU: The adaptation puts the characters in an entirely different historical time period.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: A historical figure is made more impressive than they were in real life.
- Historical Beauty Update: A historical figure is made more attractive than they were in real life.
- Historical Downgrade: A historical figure is made wimpier and more incompetent than they were in real life.
- Historical Gender Flip: A historical figure is depicted as the opposite gender.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: A historical figure is made more benevolent than they were in real life.
- Historical Relationship Overhaul: The nature or dynamic of the relationship of two historical domain characters is portrayed differently to how it was in Real Life.
- Historical Ugliness Update: A historical figure is made more hideous than they were in real life.
- Historical Villain Downgrade: A historical figure is made less evil than they were in real life, but is not necessarily portrayed as good.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: A historical figure is made more villainous than they were in real life.
- Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: When characters take on their most well known traits in an adaptation.
- Marquee Alter Ego: The adaptation (specifically Live-Action Adaptation) has a character with a unique facial appearance or mask take it off to showcase the actor's face.
- Meta Origin: The adaptation makes it so that all characters' origins were tied to a single event.
- Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Film adaptations of superhero comics have the heroes wear black costumes or costumes with darker colors than what were worn in the comics.
- Mythology Upgrade: Mythical creatures, objects and people are made more impressive than they were in their original myths.
- Named by the Adaptation: The adaptation gives a nameless character a name.
- New Rules as the Plot Demands: Established rules are broken for narrative convenience.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: A work of fiction uses a character that's an obvious stand-in for a real-life historical figure.
- Not His Sled: The adaptation of a work with a well-known plot twist alters the plot twist to surprise people expecting the adaptation to be exactly like the original work.
- Not Wearing Tights: Superhero comic adaptation has the hero wear regular clothing only.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The adaptation changes or omits elements from the original work that would be difficult or impossible to leave as they were in the source material.
- Race Lift: The adaptation changes a character's ethnicity.
- Reimagining the Artifact: The adaptation takes The Artifact from the source material, and reconceptualizes it to accommodate the new medium.
- Relationship Compression: The relationship between two characters develops quicker in the adaptation.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: The adaptation (particularly of comic books) has the hero fight a villain normally associated with a different hero in the source material.
- Schrödinger's Cast: The adaptation has to work around a plot point dependent on a character who was killed off remaining alive or a character still alive in the adaptation having to die.
- Sequel Adaptation Iconic Villain: In an adapted work, an iconic villain from the source material is saved for the sequel.
- Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: A five-point system rating how faithful an adaptation is to the original work.
- Spared by the Adaptation: A character who died in the original work remains alive in the adaptation.
- Superhero Movie Villains Die: In superhero comic adaptations, the villains rarely cheat death.
- Third-Option Adaptation: An adaptation of an interactive work has a third choice made to get around picking between the two choices given in the source material.
- Woolseyism: Translation alters the dialogue so it works better in the new language.
- Xenafication: The adaptation makes a female character more action-oriented.
- You Don't Look Like You: A character's appearance in the adaptation looks nothing like how they were depicted or described in the source material.
- Younger and Hipper: The adaptation makes a character younger.
