When Franchises Unironically Copy Their Parodies

[vanguard333]

Whenever a franchise is successful enough, it is inevitable that parodies are made. Sometimes, a later installment of the original franchise, made after the parody, will, with complete seriousness, do something that the parody had already done as a joke, and expect the audience to take it seriously.

If you know of any examples of this, list them here. I'll start:

1. In Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi (made in 2017), one plot point has two of the main characters go to a resort planet to find a way to break into an enemy ship, and, upon arriving, they are immediately arrested for a parking violation. In Spaceballs: a Mel Brooks parody of Star Wars made in 1987, there is a funny scene where the main characters break into an enemy base by deliberately committing a parking violation to lure away the guards.

2. In the 2021 Star Wars Spin-off series Book of Boba Fett, there is a scene where, in the background, a Tusken Raider is raking the desert sand for no discernable reason. Again, in Spaceballs, there is a joke where the villains are ordered to search for the main characters in a desert, with the order being "Comb the desert!" and the joke is that they take it literally: they rake the desert sand using giant combs.

3. (Spoilers for the 2015 Bond Movie Spectre, as well as the third Austin Powers movie):

Spoiler

In the 2015 Bond Movie Spectre, which reintroduced the evil organization Spectre, as well as the classic Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Bond sees the mysterious leader of Spectre in the 1st act and recognizes him as his adoptive brother, who was supposed to have died when Bond was still a child. In the second act, the villain reveals that he faked his death when he and Bond were kids and that, ever since then, he's been going by the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld. That's right; the big reveal of the movie Spectre is that James Bond and Ernst Stavro Blofeld are actually brothers.

If that sounds familiar, that might be because the main plot twist of the third Austin Powers movie was that Austin Powers and Dr. Evil: parodies of Bond and Blofeld respectively, are brothers, but in the case of that movie, the reveal was intended mainly for comedy.

 

If it is just a small moment, no need for a spoiler tag, but if it is a major plot point, please put it in a spoiler tag.

If you can't think of any examples to list, feel free to discuss examples that others have already listed.

Edited March 3, 2023 by vanguard333

[SoulWeaver]

Continuing to go off of Star Wars, there was some guy - George Lucas, I want to say? - who shipped the prophesied hero kid from Phantom Menace with the barely-tween-queen girl from the same movie so hard that he produced an entire fanfic put to film about them having romance and getting married. The Star Wars franchise, for whatever reason, decided they liked the idea so much that they just made it a real thing in the next movie, Revenge of the Sith.

While this is generally regarded as an abysmal executive decision by most Star Wars fans, said fans are willing to forgive Mr. Lucas for his ridiculously bad romance writing abilities on account of his sideplot of attempting to advance the actual Star Wars story inadvertently furthering the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a good direction. Star Wars compounded on this with Revenge of the Sith, to the point that Obi-Wan became quite possibly the best-written character in the entire franchise, rivaled only by the great Jar-Jar Binks.

(Disclaimer 1 this is a sarcastic comment for anyone who didn't catch that)

(Disclaimer 2 I actually liked a great deal of Attack of the Clones, this is not meant as a serious attack on the movie)

[Etrurian emperor]

There's a Youtuber named JelloApocalypse who does parody videos under the name ''This is basically(insert name here)''. One of these parody videos was one about Fire Emblem, particularly the series during the 3ds era. In some ways Engage comes off as if it was using those parody jokes as a check box on what to include. 

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

7 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

1. In Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi (made in 2017), one plot point has two of the main characters go to a resort planet to find a way to break into an enemy ship, and, upon arriving, they are immediately arrested for a parking violation. In Spaceballs: a Mel Brooks parody of Star Wars made in 1987, there is a funny scene where the main characters break into an enemy base by deliberately committing a parking violation to lure away the guards.

This is like that scene in Sonic for Hire where the little person from Golden Axe says that Star Wars is a parody of Spaceballs except it actually happened in real.

6 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

Disclaimer 2 I actually liked a great deal of Attack of the Clones, this is not meant as a serious attack on the movie

The one guy to actually like Attack of the Clones.

[Armchair General]

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

There's a Youtuber named JelloApocalypse who does parody videos under the name ''This is basically(insert name here)''. One of these parody videos was one about Fire Emblem, particularly the series during the 3ds era. In some ways Engage comes off as if it was using those parody jokes as a check box on what to include. 

 

Honestly, the series' greatest achievement is that it's still around because it keep reusing the same pool of stereotypes. And that vid more or less covers the starting roster of Engage, hilariously enough.

 

I'm just waiting for IS to break  the trend and give us an lunatic right off the bat or have an playable character executed for bullshit reasons

Edited March 4, 2023 by Armchair General

[rdrouyn]

Engage is a parody of the Awakening/Fates duology, whereas Awakening is a parody of FE1 combined with a parody of the child bearing mechanics of FE4 (Fates is where the parody of the FE4 mechanic goes into absurdist territory).  So the first parody of a parody. 

[vanguard333]

On 3/4/2023 at 5:00 PM, rdrouyn said:

Engage is a parody of the Awakening/Fates duology, whereas Awakening is a parody of FE1 combined with a parody of the child bearing mechanics of FE4 (Fates is where the parody of the FE4 mechanic goes into absurdist territory).  So the first parody of a parody. 

Interesting argument, but this topic isn't about parodies of parodies; this is about a franchise unironically doing something that a parody did as a joke, some time after the parody released.