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Adapted Out

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During the many years and decades of making an adaption of regular source materials, sometimes new changes have to be made and even risks have to be taken. One of these changes is removing certain yet important characters that are found within the original works, mainly because actor dying, these lines and important parts given are then given to the Canon Foreigner, Composite Character, favoring other characters more, and occasionally given to the Scrappy or the author's preferred shipping, when this happens, it's being Adapted Out. What causes the mention above happening, includes time constraints, budgets, getting screwed, and just being pragmatic.

Doing this sometimes results in accidents, like it turns out that this erased character is really important later on them being accidentally cut will result in an Adaptation-Induced Plothole, Adaptation Distillation, and Compressed Adaptation, the worst of these accidents is when Adaptation Decay, that can occur. Sometimes this particular important character is move for the sequel, so they're not totally gone.

Compare and contrast with Chuck Cunningham Syndrome and Canon Foreigner.

Examples of Adapted Out include:

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Anime and Manga

  • The Bleach Musical that was adapted for the stage removed several important characters, notably Uyruu Ishida and Orihime Inoue, both of whom are insanely vital in later arcs.
  • The Akira film version dropped Kei's "aunt" and Tetsuo's followers.
  • Sailor Moon has some examples:
    • In The Nineties, the anime's doesn't have the following Sailor Guardians: Sailor Ceres, Sailor Pallas, Sailor Juno, Sailor Vesta, and Sailor Cosmos. Though the first four still showed up, especially the villains who've done a Heel Face Turn, but never became Sailor Senshi.
    • The Manga, Shadow Galactica's many various villains are playing the non-existing role for the anime's final season, like Sailor Heavy Metal Papilion.
    • In the Sera Myu musicals, Luna, Artemis, and Diana don't exist, due to practical reasons.
    • In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Umino does not appear.
  • In Vampire Knight, Sara Shirabuki didn't show up in the anime adaptation.
  • The anime adaptation of Ouran High School Host Club adapted out some characters, like Mei Yasumura.
  • Attack on Titan's live action movie omitted both Levi and Erwin. Mainly due to Japanese actors having problems pronouncing their names and not because of the Loads and Loads of Characters.
  • In Deadman Wonderland's anime adaptation has tons of differences from the manga. For example, many characters were axed, including Chaplin.
  • Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z's manga adaptation only has Mojo Jojo and Princess, the rest of the villains were removed.
  • In Pokémon: The Birth of Mewtwo radio drama adaption has a segment adapted for the beginning of the Pokémon: The First Movie. Resulting with huge portions being cut out, whether it's Amber's backstory and Team Rocket's involvement. In the animated version, Jessie's Missing Mom, Miyamoto, and Giovanni's Mom are absent.
  • In Dragonball Evolution's live action adaptation, Krillin is nowhere to be seen.
  • Midori Days's anime only has thirteen episodes, yet the manga has 85 chapters in all. Because of this, characters like Shirou, his daughter, Nao, and Lucy are omitted.
  • In the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, Asuka is the pilot of Eva Unit 03 instead of Toji, who just appears in a supporting role even though it's minor. Even Gaghiel is replaced by an unnamed, clock-like Angel.
    • Considering just how condensed the movies are, most of the Angels are omitted or made into composite characters.

Comic Books

  • The BBC radio adaptation of the Tintin adventures, the Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon dropped both Thomson and Thompson. Instead they made Jorgen that's responsible for the oxygen being used up too quickly in the rocket.
  • Oroku Nagi, the Shredder's older brother, never appears in adaptations outside of the comics. But he played a prominent part of his brother's origin.

Fan Works

Film

  • The live action He Man movie just used a stand-in character for Orko.
  • In Batman Forever, instead of Tony Zucco, it was Two-Face that murdered Dick Grayson's family, similar to what happen with Jason Todd.
  • The Wonder Woman film wrote out the ambassador contest to elect who will be sent into Man's World. Instead, Warner Bros./DC reuses the plot of Diana being told never to get involved in a crisis, mainly World War I, and choosing to ignore said order.
  • Once Upon a Time's Season 4, introduces and incorporated Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Hans, and Sven. Though Olaf was gone and the events of the film are changed, so that way it seems as though Hans is on the loose and still scheming up on how to take over Arendelle.
  • The Inspector Gadget film by Disney, besides notable changes made, completely omits M.A.D., the international crime syndicate, replacing them with a goon named Sykes and Mad Scientist for Dr. Claw. The sequel does the same thing, avoids M.A.D., Claw's much needed goons are a pair of crooks, Brick and McKibble; he eventually hires three criminals, Squint, Jungle Bob, and the Ninja, the latter two are actual M.A.D. agents in the original cartoon.
  • The team in Mystery Men does not included the Flaming Carrot, who was present in the original comic.
  • The Ghostbusters Pinball which was based on the first two movies, has for some reason Vigo the Carpathian was nowhere to be seen.
  • The Casper video game adapations omits Dibs, yet keeps Carrigan.
  • Some Oliver and Company storybook adaptations removes Georgette.
  • Petra's father in The Magnificent Seven, who was also a couterpart of Manzo in the Seven Samurai, never appears despite the fact that he's mention.
  • The Space Jam Pinball game completely omitted Lola Bunny.
  • The Thor: The Dark World video game's earth supporting cast was absent, especially Jane Foster. This means the whole plot about her getting possessed by the Aether was dropped, it's now the Dark Elves using the Uru-forged weapons to destroy the universe.
  • In the current Power Rangers movie (2017), Bulk, Skull, and most of Rita's forces (except for Goldar and Putties) are written out.
  • In Disney's 2016 The Jungle Book reboot, Shanti was cut, this ends with Mowgli staying at the jungle instead of following her and living with humans.
    • In TaleSpin both Bagheera and Kaa didn't get roles.
  • In the theater version of the Little Shop of Horrors, Seymour was made an orphan, however his mother in the original film was a fairly major character.
  • Shrek: The Musical:
    • The UK version omits the Magic Mirror. Lord Faraquaad gets all his much needed information from The Gingerbread Man. Plus, some of the fairy tale characters were also remove and replaced with ones that are recognizable to the UK audience.
    • In community theaters, the Magic Mirror is cut, mainly because it uses motion capture and most theaters cannot afford that.
  • The Revenge of the Sith video game adaptation leaves Padmé out entirely. (Natalie Portman was probably feeling a bit burned out; see the Thor: The Dark World example).
  • Certain toys and Hannah, Sid's sister, were adapted out from Toy Story: The Musical.
  • In Bram Stoker's Dracula, since Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves don't want their likneses to be use, the film got rid of Mina Murray and Jonathan Harker. Though the aftermarket plastics that has their images based on portotypes are available.
  • Too many examples in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like:
    • Both Ant-Man and The Wasp were left out in The Avengers and had their roles as founders given to Hawkeye and Black Widow. Joss Whedon tried to at least include the Wasp as an Avenger, but unfortunately had to write her out.
      • Averted Trope: In later movies, Ant-Man and eventually the Wasp comes in.
    • In Ant-Man, Scott Lang replaces Hank Pym in the stand alone film. Because of Hank's dark history, he was demoted to a secondary mentor role to Scott.
    • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, it's Tony Stark instead of Hank Pym, who created Ultron.
    • The Maximoff twins' father, Magneto, doesn't show up due to 20th Century Fox owing most things X-Men. Even the term "mutant" isn't uttered. Instead, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were given a different background, their powers came from experimentation, and their parents died in a bombing.

Literature

  • In numerous adaptions of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Godfrey Norton, a British lawyer and Irene Adler's husband, plays the part of not existing. Due to writers, authors, screen writers, and such who want to pair up Sherlock with Irene.
    • In the Robert Downey Jr. version, Irene's divorcing Godfrey, because he snores and is boring.
  • In Sony's Peter Rabbit does this with Josephine Rabbit, Mrs. McGregor, and a few others, some of them only appear in the film's prologue.
  • In the film versions of Harry Potter numerous characters were adapted out. Some are omitted entirely, like Ludo Bagman and Peeves, others are absent in the earlier films, yet show up later when they're important with explanations to explain their absents (Like with Bill and Charlie Weasley), and others (like Nearly Headless Nick and Firenze) appear in earlier films but are absent in the later ones. The same thing occurs in the video game adaptations, but there's multiple versions of each game for different platforms, nearly every non-major character that's absent for one game or another without explanation, this leads to many cases of Remember the New Guy? in later games. Kreacher was almost removed from the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, until the screenwriter heard from Rowling that the house elf is gonna be important later on.
  • Twilight ends up cutting up several human characters and Pair the Spares by getting two characters, who had their love interests taken out with each other.
  • The adapations of The Lord of the Rings various examples:
    • Both Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, his wife, and the Hobbits' entire "Old Forest" adventures are absent from both of the films so far.
    • Glorfindel is gone from both adaptations, as well: In the Peter Jackson films, his part of saving Frodo from the Nazgûl was given to Arwen. Though in the Bakshi cartoon version, this role is given to Legolas.
    • Prince Imrahil was omitted from both the Jackson and the Rankin/Bass versions. He played a major role in The Return of the King, were he supporting Gandalf's Minas Tirith defense and Aragon as King of Gondor are fairly important plot points, and he's the main one that figures out that Aragon knows of a cure for Nazgûl victims.
    • In most adaptations, Beregond is cut. He (and his son's) role as Pippin's friend is Faramir in the Jackson films. Since his role in defending the latter from premature cremation is also cut, so Pippin's dash for Gandalf is just as desperate and only came just in time as the pyre is about to be lit. According to Ian Hughes' his character was originally meant to be Beregond but was change into Irolas and the role was reduce.
    • Ghan-burh-Chan and Elrond's twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir, are also gone from the Peter Jackson films. Whereas Quickbeam, the ent, has a Demoted to Extra role.
  • In The Swiss Family Robinson, there's a fourth son. But he was dropped from the Disney movie.
  • Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line film adaptation has to axe several major characters, especially Queen the Texan. Mainly due to the novel having Loads and Loads of Characters.
  • The Chronicles of Narnia's animated adaptation of the The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Father Christmas is absent. Instead it was Aslan who gives the children their weapons. In 2005 version, there was an original plan to do the same in the live action version, that's before someone designed a suitable story for Father Christmas.
  • The Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book omits several characters, notably Tabaqui, the Jackal. Same with some of the live action versions (Though Mowgli's Story has some of them, including Tabaqui, this makes this sequel as more loyal).
  • In Animal Farm's animated adaptation, Benjamin the donkey fills in for Clover, since the latter is absent.
    • Mollie is gone entirely.
  • This happens with Watership Down, because of Adaptation Distillation. Those that didn't appear in the film are:
    • Those Two Guys: Hawkbit, Speedwell, and Acorn.
    • Plucky Comic Relief: Bluebell
    • Strawberry, one of the Cowslip warren refugees.
    • Hyzenthlay's friend, Thethuthinang and Nelthilta, a turncoat doe.
    • The mouse that Hazel saves from a hawk on Watership Down, a character in the books that informs the rabbits that the Efrafans are planning to attack.
  • Jurassic Park's movie version removes Ed Regis, the publicist. Gennaro is a Composite Character of him and the book's Gennaro.
  • The Cider House Rules's adapted screenplay was written by the novel's author, deletes Melony and Angel. This alters the story's second half.
  • In most Oliver Twist adaptations, especially Oliver!, the Monks and the Maylies are omitted. Meanwhile, in the Alan Bleasdale mini-series, both Monks and Rose Mayle are retained, but Rose is Mr. Brownlow's ward.
  • The animated film of The Hobbit the characters of Beorn, Bolg, Roäc, and the Master of Lake-Town are gone.
  • In many adaptations of A Christmas Carol, many are adapted out, like:
    • The Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows Scrooge two kids, who are named Ignorance and Want, and warns that he must avoid them. Some adaptations the Ghost doesn't show Scrooge, the children.
    • Fan, Scrooge's younger sister, is removed in some, like the Mr. Magoo version, which also gets rid of Fred.
    • Many adaptations reduce the six Cratchit children, who are Tiny Tim, Martha, Peter, Belinda, and an unnamed boy and girl, just to three, four, or five.
    • In Dickens, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come takes Scrooge to see some isolated groups of people celebrating: some miners, two lighthouse keepers, and some sailors. This scene is usually always Adapted Out, albeit very few versions, like the animated 1971 film and the A Christmas Carol includes these scenes.
    • The scene were Marley takes Scrooge to the window, Scrooge then sees a crowd of chained spirits, some he even recognizes because a few are his old business acquaintances. Few adaptations include this.
    • The Pensieve Flashback scene, were Scrooge sees himself during his boarding school years, the characters from his favorite books - The Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe - All manifest themselves as real. For brevity's sake, tons of adaptations leave this out.
    • The two young debtors that are celebrating the death of Scrooge are almost always remove.
  • The Percy Jackson & the Olympians film adaptations have some. The Lightning Thief leaves out several characters, including Ares and Kronos, who are two major antagonists in the book series. Others, like Clarisse and Dionysus, were remove. But the sequel has Clarisse, Dionysus, and Kronos, but Circe, Tantalus, and the Party Ponies were shafted.
  • In Journey to the West, it's hard to find any adaptation that didn't reduce Yu Lung's role or outright remove him entirely, but Enslaved: Odyssey to the West does that, but removes Sha Wujing.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has Loads and Loads of Characters that were on the Golden Ticket tour, but most of the adults have their dialogue/plot functions that are handed to others easily. Depending on the adaptation, some fall under this trope, while others are just Demoted to Extra.
  • The film adaptations of Disney Fairies ignores many major and minor characters, like Rani, Bess, Prilla, and Mother Dove.
  • The film of A Dog's Purpose edited down the first 54 pages to less than 4 minutes, just briefly showing Toby with his siblings. The film has Toby and his family Demoted to Extra. Even removing Senora, Senora's friends, Coco, Top Dog, Spike, Rottie, and most of the minor characters.
  • The Little Mermaid has a grandmother in the original. In the Disney adaptation, Ariel (and her sisters) have no known grandparents.

Live-Action Television

  • The Brady Kids, a Brady Bunch cartoon adaptation, has both Alice and the parents absent. Plus, the dog, Tiger, was replaced by Moptop.
  • The original Get Smart series's final season, it's reveal that Max and 99 had twins, a boy and girl. In the revival series, the son, who was now an adult, was in show. Yet there's no mention of his sister.
  • In Red Dwarf novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Kirk, who was a female captain (her name being a Shout-Out to a certain Star Trek captain) replaces Captain Hollister.
  • In the Beetleborgs's original series's final arc, Juukou B-Fighter, has both the heroes and villains coming back from Tokusou Robo Janperson and Blue Swat.Convention Dimension's battle scenes cut out the Blue Swat heroes and the Season 1 finale (That has the Janperson and Blue SWAT characters all omitted).
  • In the Baywatch movie adaptation, Hobie isn't present.

Music

Myths and Legends

Newspaper Comics

  • The animated adaption of Baby Blues removed both Hammie and Wren. It's practical, since it focused on Baby Zoe and neither were born yet.
  • The Boondocks cartoon series deletes Michael Caesar, despite him being an important character, like his best friend relationship with Huey and being a character that appears frequently in the comic strip.

Oral Tradition

Pinball

Podcasts

Professional Wrestling

Puppet Shows

Radio

  • In the BBC radio version of the Flight of the Conchords, Rob Brydon plays the narrator, but he's dropped entirely from the TV adaptation.
  • In Episode 6 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Haggunenons were written out and replaced by the Disaster Area in the novelized version as part of The Restaurant At the End of The Universe. This eliminated the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal's only actual appearance, yet the latter is still mention in some of the Guide's entries that were moved up earlier in the books. It seems that the Hagguenons were John Lloyd's idea and Adams doesn't want the complications of including concepts that were not his own.

Tabletop Games

  • The Queen's Blade's cartoon adaptations took some liberties involving characters and certain plots:
    • Hans, who is the Hobby Japan's Word of God/Author Avatar, doesn't appear in the tv series, but does so in the CD dramas and video games. In the anime, the Head Archangel gets some parts of his role, especially important parts.
    • In the first season, Nyx didn't appear save for a brief cameo. The producers ran out of episodes to include her into. Also, she's not important for the story, plot-wise (despite having a designated voice actress). This was amended by the season season.
    • Alice, who is the main protagonist of all of Queen's Gate novels and gamebooks, just appears in the Queen's Gate Spiral Chaos game and was completely removed from the anime. Plus, neither her European family nor friends and even her backstory from the novels are mentioned in the game.
    • Noel Vermillion was being in a crossover character for only the Queen's Gate Spiral Chaos game and is the only one from her universe that appears in the game. Besides being mentioned and what her motivation is, Jin Kisaragi didn't appear. It's kinda egregious, while the events in Queen's Gate aren't canon for Blaz Blue universe, the two characters are important for Hazama's plans to work and he's not mentioned at all.
    • None of the Sword of the Unicorn characters from the novels appear in any form, since the novels' events aren't canon, and took some liberties with the backstory, which is established. (For beginners, there's no QB tournament here).

Theater

  • The Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical (that's loosely based on the Spider-Man trilogy's first two films) uses other characters that didn't appear in the films and omits Peter Parker's best friend, Harry Osborn, rendering Norman Osborn and his wife, Emily, seemingly childless.
  • Paint Your Wagon's film adaptation removed both Jennifer and her boyfriend, Julio.
  • Camelot's film version eliminated Nimue and Morgan le Fey for some reason, since they both appeared in the original play, even though each of them have one-scene each.
  • Chicago's musical version got rid of Jake, who is a reporter that also doubles as an Audience Surrogate.
  • In some Annie addaptations for example:
    • Both Rooster and Lily, who are two major antagonists, were cut from the 2014 film version. Since their roles in the musical was just to impersonate Annie's parents, that won't necessarily work out. So their role is given to Guy.
    • Because of Setting Update, Mr. Bundles, the laundry guy doesn't appear as well.
  • In Pokémon Live!'s Dubai adaptation cuts out both Professor Oak and Delia Ketchum. Meaning that huge plot portions were scrapped as well.
  • Gounod's Roméo et Juliette cuts out Lady Capulet, Lord and Lady Montague, Balthasar, Peter, Sampson, and other minor characters. Instead, they added new characters, like a troublemaking page named Stéphano.

Video Games

Western Animation

Web Animation

  • RWBY Chibi does this, when compared to its source material. With the exception of the bad guys, none of the adults are to be seen, Glynda Goodwitch and Winter Schnee are namedropped, whereas Headmaster Ozpin and Professor Port are heard offscreen. Episode 21 has this effect, which adapted popular fancomics into shorts, whereas Dumb_RWBY removes Winter and Ironwood. Though the "Cinder Who" replaces Glynda with Sun and Mercury in the "Cinder Stalls" episode.

Web Comics

  • An original webseries called, The Noob, had a character, who was Evil All Along, was introduced with the context's equivalent of a fake identity which lasted in just a few episodes. But the novel and comic shows the character under her true identity. While the fake one was mention in the novel, but seemingly disappear in the comics, then briefly showing up in a subplot.

Web Video

Other Media

Real Life

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