The 3 that come to mind for me are Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The Princess Bride. All three are poking fun at their respective genres but also are great examples of the genre. I’m curious if Lemmy has other such examples.
Galaxy Quest
I still say “Never give up! Never surrender!” occasionally to this day
It’s legitimately one of the best Star Trek movies.
There is a curse in the Star Trek movies where every other movie in the franchise is terrible. The first one is bad, the second is good, the third is bad, and so on. This almost fits perfectly, but it inverts from the 10th movie onwards. The 9th is bad, the 10th is bad, the 11th is decent, the 12th is bad…
However, if you add Galaxy Quest into the line up, then it’s the good Star Trek movie between the 9th and 10th, and the pattern holds.
TMP and Insurrection are great Star Trek films! Insurrection is arguably the most TNG of the TNG movies.
Everybody is talking about movies so here’s some books: Discworld by Terry Pratchett started as a parody of the fantasy genre but evolves into one of the richest fantasy worlds you’ll even have the pleasure to read.
For sure, it’s one of the greatest fantasy series ever written.
I’ve been considering reading these books. This might just be the thing that pushes me to start.
Just to let you know, Pratchett’s writing improves massively over the series. This means, if you read it in chronological order, you start with the least good books (Colour of magic, and light fantastic).
There are multiple story arcs, however, that can be read semi-independently. The “Witches” arc, or “City guards” arc are an easier in point for many people.
I personally read them in chronological order. I knew the earliest books wouldn’t be as good, so got to watch his writing improve, and the world crystallise. I knew about the slow start however, and so wasn’t put off by the “average” level writing, at the start.
https://www.hookedtobooks.com/discworld-reading-order/
I’ve always read them in published order personally, books tend to reference earlier novels in the series and a lot of little in jokes appear as the series progresses.
The first 2 novels have a slightly different “feel” to the others, then he settles into a style that continues to the end.
Scream was incredibly meta. It references plenty of slasher films and even has one character talking about the rules of slasher films.
While it’s not exactly a parody, it does poke fun at its own genre a lot.
Heathers. it was made to parody adolecent movies and its considered the mother of all adolecent movies (like, the mother of netflix-like movies.)
Starship Troopers
DO YOU APES WANNA LIVE FOREVER!?
James Bond. Ian Fleming wrote a series of novels parodying spy novels, and they’ve turned into one of the best spy movie franchises, with no hint of parody left.
Though when I go back and watch the Pierce Brosnan movies, it’s obvious they’re a parody.
What’s weird is how serious they seemed in the 90s when they came out. But they’re so silly.
None of the Bond movies are serious, they’re all clearly campy and fun movies. Timothy Dalton is the closest to the Bond of the novels.
The unbearable weight of massive talent, with Nic Cage.
Night & Day, with Tom Cruise.
Upvoted for Nick Cage.
After many seasons, it turned out that Joss Whedon was secretly the Big Bad.
Anyone know what’s up with him?
Last I remember hearing allegations from the Justice League team… Nothing further.
He’s made some of my favourite movies, including both Avengers 1 and 2, and Cabin in the Woods… So it was disheartening to hear such stuff about him.
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Goddammit. We’ve both shattered each others “ignorance is bliss” moments lol.
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That’s a bummer.
I love her in so many things.
I haven’t seen Charisma so idk any of the rest but I’m sad that he created some of my favourite work and destroyed his reputation and my respect for him all at once.
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Dammit. Honestly, Allison Hannigan not saying anything hurt me more.
Hot Fuzz is what I came here to suggest - it’s the best ACWATNOBI (A Cop With A Theory No One Believes In) spoof/film ever.
I also think Cabin in the Woods did a great job balancing spoof (or at least meta) with actual horror.
The Orville had some genuinely good episodes that told a great message.
Not Another Teen Movie
This Is Spinal Tap.
Tucker and Dale Vs Evil. Starts fine and eventually becomes a horror. It’s great.
Konosuba. It’s a parody of the Isekai Anime genre. And holy shit is it funny 🤌🏼.
Isekai refers to the trope in many popular anime where the main character or MC (majorly a male, also majorly either socially awkward, inept or both) either dies in the real world and somehow gets reincarnated/transported, or plays a VR game or reads a book that sucks them into that world.
These shows tend to have many recurring cliches; a harem of attractive women that all want the attention of the MC, MC being essentially OP at whatever fantasy world skill structure exists, shitloads of fan service (mostly overly sexual portrayal of the women in those worlds, but also random and long action sequences), overly complicated rules that they will somehow obey and many many more. I’ll be here all year listing each trope.
But Konosuba mocks the concept of the Isekai genre, and actively makes sure to do something that wouldn’t occur in a typical show.
What ended up happening was that in their quest to make the perfect parody, they ended up striking gold, and created one of the best Isekai shows. All because they wanted to make fun of that exact genre.
It’s not even like they “became the very thing they swore to destroy”, since the show doesn’t at all take itself too seriously…
There’s 2 seasons, a movie and a spin-off prequel that follows one of the main characters and leads upto the first episode of the main story. All of which is amazing and insanely hilarious.
100% recommended.
Hate to break it to you, but Konosuba isn’t a parody, it’s just a comedy isekai.
Hate to break it to you, but Konosuba isn’t a parody, it’s just a comedy isekai.
My initial reaction to this response.
But then I checked on Anilist:
(Idk how to add images or gifs to a comment response so I’m just gonna tell you what it says)
Tags for Konosuba: Isekai - 97% Satire - 94% Parody - 90% Primarily Female Cast - 86% Male Protagonist - 84%
Idk man. Anilist seems to think it is 94% Satire and 90% Parody.
Have you even seen what people write on anilist, MAL, etc.? Hell, even just social media in general. I don’t trust the general polulace to understand nuanced differences like that
But, are tags crowdsourced? I believe only reviews and ratings are crowdsourced. Everything else is managed by the Anilist team, right?
I checked right now, but I can’t really see an option to change the tags on a particular show… I checked on my smartphone via browser, so I might be wrong. Will check from my laptop in a bit.
Also, where did you get the information that it isn’t a parody, if not from these sites?
Crunchyroll doesn’t list it as a Parody, so you might be right. But they also don’t have Parody as a genre, so that doesn’t really hold any value.
Note: I’m having a genuine discussion. I don’t want this to seem like a debate or an argument. It’s just me and commenter OP having a normal conversation in a regular tone.
The Orville. Homage more than parody I’d say.
Better Star Trek than a lot of actual Star Trek
After watching Season 2 of The Orville I’m of the opinion that Seth MacFarlane should be put in charge of the next mainline Star Trek series. The man truly gets Roddenberry’s vision.
Damn, really?? I never watched it because I can’t stand McFarlane but I have loved trek my whole life. I figured it would be a family guy version of Star trek.
No, it’s like a love note to TOS. All of the Treks that followed were a bit more serious in tone, which is fine and dandy, but The Orville captures the spirit of the original series very well. Strange New Worlds is somewhat similar to the original series in tone, but doesn’t have that 60s campy feel.
Season 1 leans into the comedy angle, Season 2 onwards is basically TNG. Seriously, its better than Discovery and Picard.
I didn’t like discovery or Picard, felt way off from Trek to me, but strange new worlds is amazing imo. I’ll check it out though, admittedly I never even gave it a chance.
Watch Picard Season 3, it’s probably the best Trek I’ve seen since Deep Space Nine’s final two seasons.
