One type of fan media I've been exploring a lot is what I like to refer to as "retradaptations", which are basically me taking a modern piece of media I'm a fan of, and reinterpreting it as a loose modernized adaptation of some older work that doesn't exist in our timeline. They're a lot of fun to do because they allow me to come up with something new while using a work I'm a fan of as a basic blueprint.
Here are some examples of retradaptations I've been experimenting with lately.
-
Aggretsuko as a modernized parodic adaptation of a musical children's film Sanrio released in the seventies under the Sanrio Films label. (Which I previously talked about
here in the "Best Movies Never Made" thread.)
- Netflix's
Centaurworld as a loose adaptation of a trippy musical live-action/animation hybrid film released in the late sixties or early seventies, in the same vein as
The Wizard of Oz or
Alice in Wonderland and directed by Ward Kimball.
- Dreamworks'
Madagascar as a comedic in-name-only adaptation of a dark and depressing British novel, in the same vein as
Animal Farm or
Watership Down, about some abused zoo animals struggling to survive on the titular island.
- Dreamworks'
The Bad Guys, but instead of being adapted from a series of books, it's a CGI remake of a 2D-animated Don Bluth/Amblimation film released by Universal in the late eighties or early nineties. (It was inspired by
this fan art I found on Instagram.)
- Smiling Friends as an adult parodic adaptation of some saccharine Hanna-Barbera movie/TV special of the same name from the early eighties, in the same vein as
Care Bears (since that seems to be the kind of show SF is a parody of, plus Adult Swim has made adult parody adaptations of Hanna-Barbera properties in the past, like
Sealab 2021 and
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law).
- The comic strip
Phoebe and Her Unicorn being a modern adaptation of a sixties children's book of the same name that got a TV special adaptation by Bill Melendez in the 1970s.