# Changing the Time Period or Cultural Setting Before Release
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 20, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720 "2016-04-20T13:50:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/1 "2016-04-20T13:50:17Z")
I just read the novel _The Lost Ones_, a circa 1960 “Lost World” novel about a closed society of Vikings living on a Canadian island. The novel was made into a movie by Disney in 1974 as _The Island at the Top of the World_, but with the change of time from a contemporary story to a Victorian era one, with a Verne-esque balloon substituting for the airplane and/or helicopter in the initial story.
This got me thinking about other cases where they changed the time and setting between the original incarnation of something (before its release to a wider audience, or to any audience at all).
I’m not talking about something like those versions of Shakespeare plays transposed to a different time, like the 1995 Ian McKellen _Richard II_, with its setting changed to 1930s England, or countless stage versions I’ve seen. Or even like Kurasawa’s _Ran_ or _Throne of Blood_, changing the setting of _King Lear_ or _Macbeth_ to feudal Japan. In all those cases they took a familiar play by Shakespear and re-set it for interest value.
No, I’m talking about cases where a relatively obscure book or play, or, better still, an unreleased one, gets its setting changed before it become widely known. Besides
the above example, there’s:
– \*\* The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz\*\* – One of the few times Verne and H. G. Wells handled the very same theme. This was Verne’s “Invisible Man” story, written after Wells’ was published. It’s not well known, having not seen much publication in English, but was translated in 1960, and again recently. The version translated in 1960 is based on the version as originally released by his son, Michel Verne. But Michel made significant changes, and the more recent version is Verne’s original. It can be seen that his son changed the tiome period, shifting it backward in time by a century, and making this an uncharacteristic “period” piece for Verne, who almost never set anything before his own lifetime. It also does violence to the plot, because it effectively removes a steamship voyage (since steamships hadn’t yet been invented in the new time setting). Exactly why the younger Verne did this, I don’t know, but I suspect it could be to distance his father’s work from that of Wells.
– **Fantastic Voyage** – I can find no references to it now, but I had read that Otto Klement’s original screenplay for the c1966 film set it further back in the past, and that one of the things Jerome Boxby’s rewriote did was to shift it to the present day.
Any other examples?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/2 "2016-04-20T14:03:45Z")
Sherlock Holmes has repeatedly been reset in modern times. Besides the two current television series, there were the Basil Rathbone movies.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/3 "2016-04-20T14:10:12Z")
Other examples that may not be quite what you’re looking for: _The Warriors_ (1979) and _Chi-Raq_ (2015) are classical Greek works (Xenophon’s _Anabasis_ and Aristophanes’ _Lysistrata_) reset in modern gang-ridden cities.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/4 "2016-04-20T14:22:42Z")
I think **Cal** is looking specifically for cases where the best-known version is the time-shifted one. Even though Holmes has often been set in modern times, everyone knows the original is Victorian.
I can’t think of any examples for time-shifts, but I can think of one for a location-shift: Every version of _Aladdin_ I’ve ever heard of sets it somewhere in the Middle East, instead of China, where the original takes place.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/5 "2016-04-20T14:26:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> I think **Cal** is looking specifically for cases where the best-known version is the time-shifted one. Even though Holmes has often been set in modern times, everyone knows the original is Victorian.
>
> I can’t think of any examples for time-shifts, but I can think of one for a location-shift: Every version of _Aladdin_ I’ve ever heard of sets it somewhere in the Middle East, instead of China, where the original takes place.
Quite right, and you get bonus points for knowing that _Aladdin_ is nominally set in China. It’s interesting, when you realize that the Evil Wizard who poses as his uncle is actually from Morocco, which is about as far away from China as you could get .
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/6 "2016-04-20T15:24:08Z")
“Back When My Hair Was Short” was a minor hit single by the rock group Gun Hill Road in the early 70s. [The original version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE2kQe0PghU) was set in the 60s about a hippie.
[The song was rereleased](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5V0JhouA4) a few months later, with the lyrics rewritten to set it in the 50s (and to remove the drug references). It became the hit.
Most people only know the second version that counts. I do note that it’s easier to find the original on Youtube.
**The Bodyguard** was originally planned for the 1960s, with the Kevin Costner analog being shaken because he was at JFK’s assassination. When the movie was finally filmed, they changed it to the Reagan assassination attempt.
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/7 "2016-04-20T17:53:02Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> **The Bodyguard** was originally planned for the 1960s, with the Kevin Costner analog being shaken because he was at JFK’s assassination. When the movie was finally filmed, they changed it to the Reagan assassination attempt.
Also, Costner’s part was to be played by Steve McQueen and the singer he was protecting was going to be either Barbra Streisand or Diana Ross.
In terms of time shifting this is relatively minor but the film version of _The Natural_ is mostly set in the 1930s whereas the book takes place at the time it was written in the early 1950s.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/8 "2016-04-20T17:59:18Z")
Say, does _Heart of Darkness_/_Apocalypse Now_ count? It’s not exactly a secret that the latter (set in the Vietnam War) was based on the former (set in colonial-era Africa), but I imagine that the film is the better-known of the two.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/9 "2016-04-20T19:09:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Say, does _Heart of Darkness_/_Apocalypse Now_ count? It’s not exactly a secret that the latter (set in the Vietnam War) was based on the former (set in colonial-era Africa), but I imagine that the film is the better-known of the two.
I’d place that outside my restriction\*. _Heart of Darkness_ was very well known before _apocalypse Now_ came out (I, personally, had read it), so it’s definitely a modern riff on something well known…This is true even if the original isn’t all that well known. I just learnmed that the Warren Beatty 1975 movie _Shampoo_ is really a modern reworking of William Wycherly’s 1675 play _The country Wife_ (which I knew about, but never saw or read).
\*Of course, it’s only a matter of time before my own set barriers defining the trope are overwhelmed by the hordes of Dopers that don’t read the OP and storm in to say things like ““West Side Story” is just “Romeo and Juliet” set in a 1950s slum”, which pretty much misses the point.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/10 "2016-04-20T19:12:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> I can’t think of any examples for time-shifts, but I can think of one for a location-shift: Every version of _Aladdin_ I’ve ever heard of sets it somewhere in the Middle East, instead of China, where the original takes place.
Cinderella was also originally a Chinese story.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/11 "2016-04-20T19:52:56Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> Cinderella was also originally a Chinese story.
Not really true. There are Cinderella parallels all over the world, including China (which has the oldest documented version) . As far as I know, there’s nothing to suggest that the European version was imported from China.
In any event, it still doesn’t fit the guidelines.
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/12 "2016-04-20T22:56:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> I can’t think of any examples for time-shifts, but I can think of one for a location-shift: Every version of _Aladdin_ I’ve ever heard of sets it somewhere in the Middle East, instead of China, where the original takes place.
Surely it’s standard for any British panto of _Aladdin_ to be set in Peking. Widow Twankey and her Chinese laundry and all that. The Wikipedia page for the latter seems to agree.
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### Author:  [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/13 "2016-04-20T23:06:49Z")
This is stretching the parameters, but _The Seven Samauri_ was not widely known or seen in the US before the “original” _The Magnificent Seven._ (As a huge fan of _TMS,_ I’m quite excited about the coming version.)
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/14 "2016-04-20T23:15:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> I can’t think of any examples for time-shifts, but I can think of one for a location-shift: Every version of _Aladdin_ I’ve ever heard of sets it somewhere in the Middle East, instead of China, where the original takes place.
In 2000 there was a mini-series _The Arabian Nights_ and in it the Aladdin segment was set in China, with Jason Scott Lee as Aladdin.
> **[Arabian Nights (TV Mini Series 2000) ⭐ 7.4 | Adventure, Family, Fantasy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181199/?ref_=ttmd_md_nm)**
>
> 1h 28m | Not Rated
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changing-the-time-period-or-cultural-setting-before-release/752720/15 "2016-04-21T00:11:54Z")
Huh. OK, now I have heard of versions of _Aladdin_ set in China.