# What fictional franchise, universe, or characters have been reimagined most often? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, movies\ **Created:** [April 21, 2025, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304 "2025-04-21T13:37:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/61 "2025-04-21T19:29:51Z")
My daughter brought up Snow White & Cinderella. I see someone else added Alice of course. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/62 "2025-04-21T19:49:32Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Speaking of Arabian Nights, consider the story of Aladdin. That’s been done to death, and each version appears to be a re-imagining, Have any of the movies made the title character Chinese, like he is in the original story? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/63 "2025-04-21T20:59:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Have any of the movies made the title character Chinese, like he is in the original story? He appears to be Chinese in _The Adventures of Prince Ahmed_, but it’s kind of hard to tell with the images all being silhouettes. I doubt if Diyab or Galland really intended for Aladdin to be Chinese – the Chinese setting was simply to make it seem exotic to the supposed Arabian (and the European) audience, not as something to be taken seriously. Nothing in the rest of the story suggests that it actually takes place in China, including the names used. It seems to take place in some random Middle Eastern country. One interesting thing about the story is that the magician who claims to be Aladdin’s uncle hails from Morocco. If Aladdin really did live in China, it meant that he traveled from Morocco across the known world to get to Aladdin and the lamp. When he threw Aladdin down iinto the Cave of Wonders, he stalked back to Morocco. Then when he learned that Aladdin had the lamp after all, he came back from Morocco. That meant that he traveled that distance _three times_. Ibn Battuta made a journey like that, but it took him about 15 years. > **[Ibn Battuta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta)** > > Ibn Battuta (/ˌɪbən bætˈtuːtɑː/; 24 February 1304 – 1368/1369),\[a\] was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of thirty years from 1325 to 1354, Ibn Battuta visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, but commonly known as The Rihla. > Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in ... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/64 "2025-04-21T22:11:42Z")
Well, yeah, but he was a magician. Who knows what ways he had of traveling long distances? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/65 "2025-04-22T01:45:00Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > I love dead! ? ? ? Umm, I think the confession thread is down the hall… . eta: I meant the “Confessions of someone who followed a band around the country instead of going to college” thread… ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/66 "2025-04-22T02:10:16Z")
It’s a quote from **Bride of Frankenstein** and was meant to contrast the elegance of “Paradise Lost” with the deliberate crudeness of Karloff’s delivery. The point? Hell if I know! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/67 "2025-04-22T02:14:03Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > There’s even an episode of _Beavis & Butthead,_ where Butthead sees the world without him, and it’s **so much better.** Same with Al Bundy in _Married With Children_. He decided not to die since he didn’t want the people that made his life miserable to be happy. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/68 "2025-04-22T03:30:36Z")
The King Arthur universe - Arthur, Merlin, The Knights of the Table Round, Morgan la Fey, etc. - has spawned a kajillion movies and television programs. There’s been a good amount of branching off as well (e.g. Marion Zimmerman Bradley’s _Mists of Avalon_ and it’s television adaptation). ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/69 "2025-04-22T03:37:32Z")
I’m going to suggest Sun Wukong (the Monkey King). There are a metric tons of works mentioning him in various adaptations, just somewhat less common in the West. But it’s unspeakably common in the (translated) Chinese, Korean, and Japanese works I’ve read. And it’s becoming increasingly common in media available in the West as well, including multiple more-or-less serious mini-series/TV adaptations and about 100 flavors of Dragonball of course. 🙂 I’m trying to be more specific than the general categories of “Mythology”, such as the Greek or Chinese mythology upthread - just because I think it makes things more quantifiable. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/70 "2025-04-22T11:12:14Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Sherlock Holmes, along with his sidekick Watson, may be the most rebooted, reimagined, recreated fictional characters ever. Both verbatim, and in thinly disguised analogues like ‘House, M.D.’ and the 1998 movie ‘[Zero Effect](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120906/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1)’. Just as a minor nitpick — I’d quibble over Daryl Zero as being a straight riff on Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the plot loosely follows a Doyle story, and Zero plays the violin, but there’s also a lot of Nero Wolfe DNA in the narrative. Like Wolfe, Zero is an eccentric recluse who stays locked in his apartment, dispatching his assistant to do the legwork and interact with clients. For me, the enjoyment of the story is in the mashup between the two archetypes: what if Wolfe’s eccentricities and awkwardness were turned up to eleven, and then he’s forced to go out into the world and solve a mystery in person, Holmes style? (Disregarding the handful of Wolfe stories where he does, indeed, leave the apartment, and acquits himself generally well.) I now return you to the thread in progress. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/71 "2025-04-22T11:21:09Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > what if Wolfe’s eccentricities and awkwardness were turned up to eleven, and then he’s forced to go out into the world and solve a mystery in person, Holmes style? I’m thinking we cast a Tony Shalhoub type… ---
**Author:** ![OldManLogan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oldmanlogan/32/5237_2.png) [@OldManLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldManLogan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/72 "2025-04-22T11:49:13Z")
Sun Wukong is who I was thinking of. Who is Goku but a reimagining of the Monkey King? Most people in this thread haven’t been mentioning video games, but Dracula and Sun Wukong are boosted by being in a lot of video games. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/73 "2025-04-22T12:00:31Z")
> [@OldManLogan](#): > > Sun Wukong is who I was thinking of. Who is Goku but a reimagining of the Monkey King? When I first read the legend of “Journey to the West” I was struck by a sense of _deja vu_. I had heard this story before. It was in an anime that was released in the US under the title **Alakazam the Great** in the early 1960s. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/74 "2025-04-22T12:02:38Z")
In the 80s, millions of American kids learned about the Monkey King from the TV movie _Big Bird in China_. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/75 "2025-04-22T12:27:50Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Just as a minor nitpick — I’d quibble over Daryl Zero as being a straight riff on Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the plot loosely follows a Doyle story, and Zero plays the violin, but there’s also a lot of Nero Wolfe DNA in the narrative. Interesting, thanks! It’s been a long time since I had seen the movie, so I was going on some pretty old memories. Also I had not yet read any Nero Wolfe when I saw the movie, though I’ve read some Wolfe since. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/76 "2025-04-22T12:33:37Z")
> [@solost](#): > > These are very likely in the running for some point in the future, but I’d guess that Sherlock Holmes has them beat for now, just out of sheer longevity. I’m not sure. Holmes has a huge head start of course, but Trek and Wars rose to prominence in the same era that fanfic exploded in quantity. Volume might well be enough to offset longevity. ---
**Author:** ![f.coli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eada6e/32.png) [@f.coli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/f.coli)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/77 "2025-04-22T13:09:32Z")
One fictional “universe” that has been reimagined widely is our mythical Western. The deadly gunslinger, the heroic sheriff, the brassy tavern girl, the shy schoolmarm, the noble (or cruel) Native American, bank robbers, train robbers, stagecoach robbers vs. the invincible “shotgun” rider, etc. All of these characters and the adjectives have been jumbled and rearranged endlessly. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/78 "2025-04-22T13:59:54Z")
This covers a lot of them with a slight twist (probably NSFW): [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/cWs4WA--eKU/maxresdefault.jpg "The Gunfighter | A Short Film by Eric Kissack (narrated by Nick Offerman)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWs4WA--eKU) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/79 "2025-04-22T14:17:18Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Same with Al Bundy in _Married With Children_. He decided not to die since he didn’t want the people that made his life miserable to be happy. And then, the angel died… ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304/80 "2025-04-22T14:33:10Z")
_Romeo and Juliet_, especially if you count the similar works that preceded Shakespeare by decades or centuries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-franchise-universe-or-characters-have-been-reimagined-most-often/1017304.md?page=5)