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Points of Divergence : Popular Culture
Points of divergence pertaining to various topics and works of popular culture.
General alternate popular culture discussions
Pop-culture Timelines Core Thread - Dicussion thread that explores potential popular culture PODs, links to other discussion threads about such PODs and allows members to plug their own timelines with a primary focus on pop culture.
The Culture Club: Alternate Pop Culture - A medley of different projects, the first one being an exploration on a different history of the Flash Gordon franchise (note: other members are encouraged to contribute short ideas).
Let's broaden our minds - Cultural mini-TLs
If fads lived up to the hype !
What would you like to see in a 20th century cultural ATL ?
Motion picture (film) PODs
AH challenge: Tinseltown, Arizona, as an alternate Hollywood
Cinema without Russian Revolution ?
Rudolph Valentino lived after 1926
Challenge: Dali's Giraffes on Horseback Salads gets made
Films in a Nazi victory or predominantly Fascist dictatorship world
WI: Clark Gable captured for Hitler ?
Orson Wells presents "The Batman"
Challenge: Ed Wood, the master of cinema
WI: Studios still owned theaters
Alternate big movie stars in more conservative version of the 1960s
WI both Patton and M*A*S*H* had bombed ?
WI Jean Luc Godard less influential
Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick WI ideas
Challenge: The Godfather bombs
Challenge: Improve George Lucas' Career
No 66' Batman series, The Batman film released in '79 or '80
WI: David Prowse plays Superman
Superman 1978 sets off superhero movies early
Plausibility check: A DC Cinematic Universe in 1978
WI: Walt Disney lives to 80 (1981) ?
WI: John Landis and Steven Spielberg jailed due to an OTL filming accident in the early 1980s
The End of the "Animation Age Ghetto"
Alternate fate of New World Films
WI "Back To The Future" stuck with the original concepts ?
WI: Back To The Future series without Michael J. Fox
To pull a Bruce Willis: Other comedic actors become action heroes
A Spiderman movie in the late 1980s
WI Sony did not buy Columbia Pictures Entertainment ?
WI: Indiana Jones IV Gets Made Earlier ?
WI: Return to the Planet of the Apes gets made
Earliest possible darker Batman movies and alternate Batman movies
Jack Nicholson doesn't sign on to "Batman"
TL Idea: Batman Alternate Actors/Films
Challenge: Eddie Murphy Has a Better Career
An Alternate Disney Rennaissance
WI: Superhero Film Boom in the 90s
Who should've directed 'Watchmen' circa 1990 ?
WI: Tim Burton doesn't make Batman Returns
Challenge: Save Alien 3 (and the franchise)
DBWI : If William Gibson hadn't written Alien 3
More accurate dinosaurs in Jurassic Park
WI: Tim Burton as the director of Batman Forever
DBWI: Joel Schumacher Directs Batman Lives?
WI: Batman Forever, Neither Burton nor Schumacher
Challenge: James Cameron's Titanic (1997) not as huge
Paul Verhoeven adapts "The Forever War" instead of "Starship Troopers"
WI: Kevin Costner not in The Postman
Challenge: Save the Pierce Brosnan era James Bond franchise
Challenge: Better (original trilogy) X-Men movies ?
WI McG's Flyby and Singer's X-Men 3 ?
Challenge: Save Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Career
Terry Gilliam directing Batman Begins...
WI Batman Begins failed at the box-office ?
DBWI: Clive Owen not playing James Bond
Chalenge: Make a stronger fourth Indiana Jones film
The Dark Knight if Heath Ledger was still alive
A Green Lantern movie more in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy ?
Challenge: Save Dragonball Evolution
WI Marvel had the X-Men and Fox had the Avengers ?
Impact on MCU if Marvel acquired X-men film rights
Challenge: Make The Dark Knight Rises as bad as Batman and Robin
Challenge: Make the 2014 Godzilla movie better
Turning infamous flops into succesful hits or blockbusters Core Thread
DBWI: The Worst Sequels Ever Made
Challenge: Some of your favorite films premade into classics
A Very British Filmography (American works remade in a UK context)
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Television broadcasting PODs
Challenge: Kill television (as a broadcast medium)
WI : Delayed massive use of television
Alternate histories of TV shows
Different Actors starring in TV shows
Challenge: Make bad TV shows good
Challenge: Alternate US TV networks
WI the DuMont television network had survived ?
CBC adopted the state-based suppertime bulletins from their Aussie counterparts
List of TV networks from ATL countries I
List of TV networks from ATL countries II
Challenge: Make Lost in Space good
WI No Batman (1966-68) series ?
WI: 1960s Batman not cancelled
WI: Serious Batman TV Show in the 1960s
Challenge: Darkest 1960s Batman TV series possible
WI no Action for Children’s Television ?
Challenge: Save the variety show TV genre
Challenge: Soap opera about the space programme
What if both Patton and M*A*S*H* had bombed ?
WI: Japanese Batman show in the 70s
The End of the "Animation Age Ghetto"
Alternate Series of Blackadder
What if FR3 was privatized, instead of TF1?
DBWI: What if "Empire of Dying Suns" (BBC-TV) never aired ?
WI: Tim Burton's "Batman" Series?
You are given control of the BBC
Buffy the Vampire Slayer starts seven years earlier
The NHK as the sole national broadcaster of Japan for many years
The ABC retained its monopoly on Australian television
WI Mexico's Imevisión remained a public broadcaster
DBWI: WI "Plymouth" (ABC-TV) never aired ?
Challenge: Kill reality television
1990s Live Action Batman TV Show Casting
Steampunk movie or TV show with a mid 1990s POD
Harry Potter and the Small Screen
WI Seth MacFarlane hadn't missed Flight 11 and died during 9/11 ?
Challenge: Keep Firefly flying
WI the Sci-Fi Channel saved "Firefly"
Challenge: Save the History Channel
WI: The Big Bang Theory picked up on its first pilot ?
A feel good DBWI: The Final season of Firefly !
Episodes of a successful Firefly ?
Popculture WI: The BBC making a better Robin Hood series in the 2000s and/or 2010s
DBWI: A retrospective on the TV series The Difference Engine
An ideal modern Batman TV series
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Radio broadcasting PODs
Jewels of Taiwan: Chinese-Taiwanese radio broadcasting PODs
Early radio broadcasting with recording technology (allowing for reruns/rebroadcasts of radio shows)
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Theatre PODs
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Popular music PODs
Plausible suggestions for alternate names of modern music genres
WI: The Rolling Stones break up in 1970, the Beatles keep going
Paul McCartney joins the Electric Light Orchestra
Rock and roll never coming into existence
Challenge: How long can you keep The Sex Pistols together
DBWI: Aerosmith hadn't died in 1977
WI: Van Halen goes thrash metal
WI Michael Jackson was a rock singer ?
Challenge: Longer Disco Backlash
Challenge: Make Shoegaze a dominant genre
Challenge: Make Hole more popular than Nirvana
Challenge : Flunk Sting's career in the 1990s
Challenge: Asian counterpart of Eurovision (aka Asiavision Song Contest)
Music & Youth/Pop Culture in a "No-9/11 World"
WI recent songs in earlier times ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Comic book PODs
A World Without Superheroes: What if Superman had never existed ?
AH superheroes with a European twist
WI: Comic books never get serious
Marvel WI: Gwen Stacy gets spider powers instead of Peter Parker - Developed into a TL.
Challenge: Save the floppy comic book
Comics industry collapses in 1978
Comic WI: Peter Parker had a very special brother...
Several Comic Book What Ifs and What If Seeds
Comic book characters created in different eras
Redesign the Sentinel from X-Men
WI: No Watchmen and no The Dark Knight Returns
Challenge: Prevent the "dark age of comic books"
Challenge: Keep Disney Comics big in America
WI Kevin Smith became Editor-In-Chief of Marvel ?
WI Marvel had the X-Men and Fox had the Avengers ?
Hypothetical: Marvel splits off Fantastic Four/X-Men ?
Impact on MCU if Marvel acquired X-men film rights
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Board games and tabletop gaming PODs
Tabletop gaming POD: Different fate of Mensch ärgere Dich nicht
WI: TSR merges with Games Workshop
Battletech As It Should Have Been
WI: A rather British Dungeons & Dragons
WI: 1980s backlash runs D&D and fantasy out of business
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Videogaming and Internet culture PODs
Challenge: Girl-dominated geek culture (or "No boyz on teh interwebz")
Internet in a continued Cold War
Challenge: Delay video game development
Challenge: The Video Arcade remains popular
Challenge: Make a failed game console successful
Popeye instead of Mario and Donkey Kong ?!
Challenge: With a post-1980 POD, make the Canadian video game industry dominate the market
Come on, Apple ! A 1980s Computers and Video Games ISOT idea
Nintendo keeps its deal with Sony
Challenge: Keep Sega in the console game market
Gaming WI : The "tycoon" subgenre without the contributions of Chris Sawyer
A Tale of an AH Gaming Console War
Challenge/WI: Sonic the Hedgehog does better in the 3D Era
Plausibility check: Fallout "Van Buren" gets released
Challenge: Xbox 360 outsells the Wii and PS3
What if the 360 had a Blu-ray player, and the PS3 a HD-DVD player ?
Challenge: Make terrible games good !
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Various combined popcultural PODs
Tolkien's legendarium (LOTR, Silmarillion, etc.)
WI Robin Hood actually existed ?
WI no sucessful fantasy genre ?
WI: Fantasy genre not based on Norse mythology ?
Effects of a failed Operation Sealion on British popular culture ?
Alternative pop culture in the 2000s
Music & Youth/Pop Culture in a "No-9/11 World"
Pop culture icons not dead before their time
What would you like to see in a 20th century cultural ATL ?
Analogues of the Western genre in alternate timelines ?
Plausibility check: Spy Craze without James Bond ?
WI: Frank Herbert never writes Dune
Books and TV shows effect on history
The cultural effects of Robert F. Kennedy getting elected for US president in 1968
WI: George Orwell lives until 1993
WI: Laserdisc doesn't have a bad launch
Cyberpunk without the influence of Blade Runner
21st century popular culture in a Nazi victory timeline ?
WI: Blue skin seen as fashionable
Challenge: Make Halloween a regional holiday in the US
Alternate endings for films, TV series, books and other works
If modern day films were ISOTed to 1936, which would leave the biggest impression ?
Challenge: Make hard sci-fi popular
Challenge: Keep Canada from being dominated by US and/or UK pop-culture
Challenge: Dragon fad in popculture
WI Tekumel becomes mainstream ?
Challenge: Alternate fictional detectives
Alternate Private Eye Prime Ministerial Parodies
Challenge: Video Game movies become as big as Comic Book movies
The Butterfly Effect and Popular Culture (various small popculture PODs)
DBWI: The Worst Sequels Ever Made
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
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