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* Used in-story in [[Ayn Rand]]'s ''[[We The Living]]'', where Kira and Leo go to see a movie called ''The Golden Octopus'', which is a laughably censored American film with obviously different-looking Russian footage added at the beginning.
* The one extant translation of [[Stanislaw Lem]]'s ''[[Solaris]]'' into English was based on a French translation rather than the original Polish novel, and suffered accordingly. Lem, who was fluent in English, vocally disapproved of the double translation, but the rights to the novel belong to his Polish publisher and they have thus far had no interest in commissioning another.
* This sort of thing happened even before animation itself: In the 19th century, the works of [[Jules Verne]] got altered drastically when translated into English, generally by utterly incompetent people who made basic mistakes and replaced all of the greatly-detailed (albeit [[Science Marches On|outdated]]) science with ''even worse'' scientific and mathematical errors, and often cut out entire chapters. The most [[All the Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|egregious]] example is quite possibly an early translation of ''[[Journey to
* The German translation of Terry Pratchett's ''[[Good Omens]]'' completely omits the homosexual content about Aziraphale: "gayer than a tree full of monkeys high on nitrous oxide" becomes "whimsical (verschmitzt) as a tree full of monkeys" which doesn't really make sense. Also, Shadwell's "Southern Pansy" becomes something else entirely. It's not really clear why, because neither are those lines likely to be offensive nor is German society extra sensitive about homosexuality.
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* To capitalise on the success of ''[[Power Rangers]]'', Saban licensed ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX]]'' and turned it into ''"Saban's [[Masked Rider]]"'': a gay old [[An Aesop|Aesop-tastic]] romp starring a [[Human Aliens|superhero alien]] [[Humans Through Alien Eyes|learning about Earth culture]] with his adoptive American family. Later the editing got so shoddy that at times you could clearly see the original Japanese actors, or the fact that the footage they were splicing in was from two seperate movies (''[[Kamen Rider ZO]]'' and ''[[Kamen Rider J]]'') starring completely different heroes. Reportedly, ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' creator [[Shotaro Ishinomori]] was so incensed by Saban's take that he swore never to license the franchise again.<ref>Which is why ''Dragon Knight'', below, was made almost ten years after his death and its creators had to prove to Toei that they wouldn't repeat Saban's mistakes in order to get the license in the first place</ref>
** ''[[Kamen Rider Dragon Knight]]'' did much better,<ref>at least, with the adult [[Periphery Demographic]] that makes up the the western ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' fanbase</ref> even winning a Daytime Emmy for stunt choreography. Its ratings meant not enough of the intended demographic were watching to keep it alive. The last two episodes weren't even aired, though were made available on the website. Odds are, we aren't getting that second season. It, too, is dissimilar from its footage-sake, and it's best if you don't go in with a "Ryuki Dub" mentality (see ''[[Power Rangers in Space]], [[Power Rangers RPM]]'', above.) Interestingly, ''Dragon Knight'' became a [[Recursive Import]] and did quite well back in Japan.
* This happened to ''[[Star Trek: The
* In one of several early, unsuccessful atempts to introduce ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' to American audiences (unrelated to ''And Now For Something Completely Different''), American network [[ABC]] bought some episodes from the John Cleese-less final season with the sole intention of cutting out separate sketches and inserting them as filler into a different show, called ''The Wide World of Comedy''. This was done very clumsily, with rampant censorship, and the result was reportedly incomprehensible. The Pythons, who had in their contract a clause that their show would not be re-cut without their permission, used this as grounds for a breach of contract lawsuit against the BBC, who held the rights to series. The result was that all material produced by Pythons for the BBC became their intellectual property, which was unprecedented at the time.
* The HBO broadcast of the ''[[Extras]]'' Christmas special did this with some jokes, cutting or replacing references to British celebrities who aren't known in America. It was mild but still silly, because the show in general is still full of Britishisms that don't necessarily translate. It also makes a scene about talking celebrity dolls very jarring. The original one has a Jade Goody doll that says a catchphrase and then the racist remark she made about Shilpa Shetty's name on ''[[Big Brother]]''. The American version replaces it with a Kramer doll that does a ''[[Seinfeld]]'' quote followed by the part of Michael Richards's notorious onstage rant about the black members of his stand-up audience where he reminded the white people present them that in the past they could have lynched them—which is less [[Never Live It Down]] and more [[Dude, Not Funny]].
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** Atlus tried to make up for their blunders in the first game [[Author's Saving Throw|to some extent]] by {{spoiler|pretending Nate/Kei never got a last name change, Guido Sardenia was an alias (as they couldn't rename him Takihisa due to the spoken cutscenes calling him Guido), so they broke even and established his original name was Guido Kandori, as well as few other minor changes to compensate.}} It's still a much messier [[Retcon]] that Nyarlathotep was manipulating things from the beginning, as his name was changed to Massacre for the US release.
** The real strange part is that ''[[Atlus]]'' today is one of the most respected publishers in the West for its studious attention to detail and its respect for the titles it brings out. Obviously they learned their lesson, as the US release of ''Persona 2: Eternal Punishment'' made no attempt to hide the fact that the game was in Japan, and recently the PSP remake was released in the US, ''with better translation'' and the entire game translated.
* In Japan, ''[[Ace Combat]] 3: Electrosphere'' was a fast-paced flight arcade game with highly competent teammates, a deeply involving, character-driven, completely non-linear storyline, featuring five young pilots caught in the middle of a struggle between two megacorporations, a guerrilla faction hell-bent on digitalizing everybody's minds, and a secret peacekeeping force where some dark monkey business is going on deep inside; all of that interspersed with beautiful, sleek anime cutscenes by [[Production I.G]]. When the game was released in the West, the editors somehow thought Western gamers were a bunch of hotheads who just want [[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000|mindless, fast-paced action and slaughter]] (and weren't willing to risk the huge expense of translating a game that had underperformed at retail compared to the previous entry in the series), ''and everything that made the Japanese version stand out from the rest was horribly destroyed''. The truly intelligent teammates were removed, making all your missions solo. The original plot was replaced with a bland, highly generic story about a peacekeeping force who just jumps in and ruins enemy stuff every time something bad happens. The anime cutscenes were replaced with text slideshows that just threw an [[Info Dump]] on what was going on. The entire "story tree" was replaced with a completely linear plot that just goes from point A to point B. Even Dision's quest for causing massive mayhem was [[Retcon]]ned with [[
* XS Games bought the rights to two unrelated [[Bullet Hell]] shooters, ''[[Gunbird]]'' and ''[[Shikigami no Shiro]]'' (''Castle of Shikigami''), and released them as ''Mobile Light Force'' 1 and 2, respectively. The original Japanese scripts were tossed out completely and replaced with an English script that made no sense, and the original covers were supplanted in favor of a [[Angels Pose|Charlie's Angels-style cover]] that had [[Covers Always Lie|absolutely nothing to do with the game]]. After great anguish from fans, XS Games brought over ''Castle Shikigami 2'' uncut, though the translation was still filled with [[Engrish]]. The third game was brought over by a different publisher, Aksys Games.
* Then there's the first ''[[Ranma ½]]'' game, which was edited into ''Street Combat'', changing the premise and removing all Japanese elements and renaming and redrawing all the characters completely differently.
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* Nintendo of America's [http://www.filibustercartoons.com/Nintendo.php self-imposed decency guidelines] scrubbed almost all references to religion, Nazis, sex, and gratuitous violence from the NES & SNES.
** If you didn't beat it, you probably didn't know ''[[Bionic Commando]]'' was about stickin' it to Hitler.
** ''[[
** Oddly averted in ''[[Harvest Moon]]'', which features an apparently unaltered church complete with pastor and gigantic gold cross.
* Germany is infamous for its game edits. [[No Swastikas|Nazi symbolism is verboten]], so games like ''[[
** "They're just machines" is common there, too. The back page of the official guide to the N64's ''Turok: Dinosaur Hunter'' touted the PAL-version replacement of all the human mooks with robot soldiers as a feature.
** One of the worst examples is the removal of Nimdok and his section in the PC game ''[[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]]''. What makes this seriously stupid is that ''the game wasn't changed to not require his section to be completed to beat the game'', making the game [[Unwinnable]].
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