Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"The following is based on actual events. Only the names, locations, and events have been changed."''|'''''[[Anchorman]]'''''}}

The truth is a funny thing. It's slippery, it's not always self-evident, it can seem [[Reality Is Unrealistic|implausible]], it can even be inconvenient, and more often than not it's just plain boring. Very Loosely Based On A True Story occurs when a writer decides that reality just doesn't pack enough punch in some way, and decides to improve on the historical record. Arguably, this has actually ''saved'' some [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story|'''er...true stories.]]''' For example, ''[[The Patriot (Film)|The Patriot]]'' would have been two and a half hours of a group of Minute Men hiding for hours in swamps sniping English troops and then running away had they kept it true to the historical events of the time. Doesn't exactly sound riveting, does it?

[['''Very Loosely Based on a True Story]]''' often occurs because of [[Executive Meddling]], especially if some of the characters are based on living persons who might sue them if the depiction is too unsympathetic. Another reason can be to make characters less three-dimensional so as not to [[Viewers are Morons|confuse the viewers]], whom they believe won't accept a socialist, atheist, or gay hero or a villain who loves his spouse. Sometimes historical incidents will be changed because they don't fit into [[Hollywood History]] or because the truth would be inconvenient, as when cowboys in old Westerns were all played by white actors when [[Race Lift|many real cowboys were black, Hispanic, or American Indian]].

See also [[Skepticism Failure]], [[Documentary of Lies]], [[ButThe ItTasteless But ReallyTrue Happened!Story]], [[Inspired By]], [[Suggested By]]. Anything based on [[Urban Legends]] overlaps with this trope pretty heavily. Compare [[Roman à Clef]], which is ''tightly'' based on a true story, and [[Biopic]].

* [[Alan Moore]]'s ''[[From Hell]]'' was based primarily on an earlier book entitled ''Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution'', which was later largely discredited. Moore, in the book's lengthy annotations, freely admits he doesn't believe a word of it, but was never one to let facts get in the way of a good story. Despite this, the actual history portrayed in the book was [[Shown Their Work|vigorously researched]], more so than some scholarly works on the Ripper. [[The Movie]], however, plays fast &and loose with both the conspiracy theory &and the real history.

* In the Indie chiller ''[[Open Water]]'', it's actually based on a true story, but the events of the film have been invented because no one can know what actually happened--andhappened—and the actual couple were older.

* The movie ''Primeval'', while it deals with an actual, real-life giant crocodile (Gustave), exaggerates every other aspect of the events it claims to recount, from doubling his number of human kills, to depicting him seeking out and attacking entire groups of clearly defended humans (the real Gustave strikes at groups of three or fewer tourists, primarily when they are off-guard, and certainly when they lack shelter). And that's without mentioning the film's ads, which portray him as "the most prolific serial killer in history"... though, to be fair, that last [[Executive Meddling|probably wasn't the filmmaker's idea]]. On top of all that, it's a case of [[Never Trust a Trailer]] -- Gustave—Gustave only appears in brief stretches, and most of the film deals with a local civil war, complete with [[Anvilicious]] moral about how we Americans ignore fighting in other countries. The crocodile is reduced to [[Chekhov's Gun]].

* ''[[Enigma]]'': The [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre:Katyn massacre|Katyn Massacre]] definitely took place, and the British and US governments did indeed suppress evidence of it in order to keep their fragile alliance with the Soviet Union from falling apart, but the events as depicted in the book are entirely fabricated; the only spy to make it to the Bletchley Park station was British and passing information to the Soviets. The 2001 film takes it up a notch by cutting Alan Turing out of the film completely and assigning his role in the war to protagonist Tom Jericho, where in the book Jericho is a junior member of Turing's cryptanalysis staff.

* Story lines concerning the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies:Cottingley Fairies|Cottingley Fairies hoax]] are sometimes played, at least relatively, straight or assert that Elsie Wright and Francis Griffiths did take photographs of fairies... despite the fact than anyone can tell they're fakes nowadays just by looking at the things. Even Wright's and Griffiths' admission that most of the photos were fakes doesn't stop this.

** This happens in ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' where the fairies are part of an episode's back story, and at least one of the fairies in one of the photos is real.

* ''[[Butch Cassidy and Thethe Sundance Kid]]'': The screenwriter kindly informs us at the start of the movie that "Most of what follows is true."

* ''[[School of Rock]]'' was inspired by the story of [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langley_Schools_Music_Project:The Langley Schools Music Project|The Langley Schools Music Project]] but was otherwise completely fictional.

* The 'based on true events' part of the movie ''[[Wolf Creek]]'' seems to be limited to "there were some British backpackers murdered in Australia one time." And the movie was actually written ''prior to'' the disappearance of Peter Falconio and Ivan Milat's killings, but was not filmed until years later -- solater—so, cashing in rather than inspiration. For the record, neither case happened anywhere near (within a thousand miles of) Wolf Creek; the Ivan Milat murders didn't even happen in the outback.

* Fritz Lang's famous film ''[[M (Film)|M]]'' was based on cases of several child-murderers (and at least one cannibal) throughout Germany over the previous few years, although it was most directly inspired by one in particular. Although in this case, Lang actively denied that there was any connection.

* Murderous [[Psycho Lesbian]] sisters Claire and Solange in ''[[The Maids]]'' are kind of based on Christine and Lea [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Papin_sisters:Papin sisters|Papin]] who really were murderous lesbian maids... Well, resemblance ends here.

* The 2003 remake of ''[[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Film)|The Texas Chainsaw Massacre]]'' was heavily touted as being based on a true story. The film chronicles an inbred family of kidnappers, torturers, serial killers, and implied cannibals who brutally slay a carload of road tripping teens. The actual case it was based on was a solitary, fairly quiet man who killed only two middle-aged women, without a chainsaw, and in ''Wisconsin.'' While two murders are indeed tragic, that's still a lot less than the scores of murders implied in ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre''.

** It also has some relation to the legend of [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawney_Bean:Sawney Bean|Sawney Bean]] which has been around for several hundred years but is probably fictional.

*** The Sawney Bean family was the direct inspiration for ''[[The Hills Have Eyes (Film)|The Hills Have Eyes]]''.

** The same story that "inspired" ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' (Ed Gein) also inspired ''[[Psycho (Film)|Psycho]]''. Norman Bates was a good deal closer to Gein, but the story still deviated pretty far.

* The horror film ''[[The Strangers (Film)|The Strangers]]'' is a prime example of this trope: it opens by labeling the plot of the film as "based on true events" -- supposedly—supposedly the Manson Family murders. Similarities are slight. Another thing in the movie with a basis in reality is a technique employed by burglars (burglars, not serial killers) in which they knock on a random door to ask for a person who doesn't live there. If no one is home, they break in and steal stuff.

* ''[[Suspiria (Film)|Suspiria]]'', believe it or not, was inspired by what co-writer Daria Nicolodi's grandmother claimed really happened; that she (the grandmother) as a young woman fled a music school because she found out they were practicing black magic.

* The non-supernatural parts of ''[[A Nightmare On Elm Street (Film)|A Nightmare Onon Elm Street]]'' is inspired by events that happened in the hometown the director lived in as a kid. Specifically, Freddy is the name of the kid who tormented wee little Craven, Freddy's appearance was based on that of a old homeless man wee Craven had a terrifying run-in with one night, and the "died in their sleep" thing was based on a few cases of young Cambodian refugees dying in their sleep of no apparent cause after repeatedly saying they were frightened to go to sleep.

* ''[[Jaws (Filmfilm)|Jaws]]'' was loosely inspired by a series of shark attacks along the New Jersey shore in 1916.

** A similar parody occurs in the trailer for [[Terry Gilliam (Creator)|Terry Gilliam]]'s ''[[The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Film)|The Adventures of Baron Munchausen]]'', where it is claimed that "this story is based on real events. We have the movie to prove it."

* The movie ''[[Twenty One21 (Film2008 film)|21]]'' and the book ''Bringing Down the House'', both based on the exploits of a blackjack card-counting team based at MIT, both fall squarely into this trope. Probably one of the most infamous changes is that the protagonist, who is Chinese-American in real life, [[Race Lift|became a Caucasian in the adaptations--but]]—but in comparison to some of the other inaccuracies, that's a ''minor'' deviation from the truth. Most of the supporting roles are [[Composite Character|Composite Characters]]s, with one possibly based on three distinct individuals, and several key plot events were entirely invented by the book's author (who was also a co-writer of ''21'').

* Spoofed in the '90s remake ''[[Attack of the 50 -Foot Whatever|Attack of the 50 Foot Woman]]'' where the scientist introducing the movie assures us that everything that happened is absolutely true.

* ''[[An American Haunting (Film)|An American Haunting]]'', being an adaptation of an adaptation of a southern United States folk legend, takes several liberties with the story, most notably: {{spoiler|Betsy Bell's sexual abuse by her father.}}

* The film ''A Place in the Sun'' is adapted from the novel ''An American Tragedy'', which is itself based on the story of the 1906 murder of Grace Brown by her boyfriend Chester Gillette. While the movie takes liberties with the story--Brownstory—Brown was a lovely young woman but is portrayed as frumpy and nagging, the real-life murder was certain but left ambiguous in the film (possibly an accident), the plot follows the real-life events--Brownevents—Brown and Gillette were romantically involved and she was insisting that they marry due to her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, while he was reluctant because doing so would have ended his chances of advancing into wealthy society. After inviting her away for the weekend under the pretense of it being a wedding trip, he took her out onto a lake where he promptly struck her on the head and threw her into the water to drown. The movie has them ''both'' falling out of the boat, but the fade to black leaves the viewer wondering if he might very well have tried to save her and simply been unsuccessful. In both mediums, the man was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

* ''[[Brotherhood of the Wolf]]'', surprisingly, was based on [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Gévaudan:Beast of Gévaudan|actual events]], although the conspiracy angle was a fiction. It is still unknown exactly what was responsible.

* Oliver Stone's ''JFK'', [[Who Shot JFK?|arguing for a conspiracy]]. Real story: nobody's sure, but [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jfkmovie.htm here's a place to start.]

** Don Bluth's [[Anastasia|1997 animated adaptation]] of the 1956 Ingrid Bergman movie probably takes the most liberties, but then Bluth admitted he never intended it to be accurate or even close: he reduced Anastasia's age by 7 years (she was 15 at the end of 1916 in real life, not eight as at the beginning the film) and made Rasputin into a fantasy character who cast spells, had a talking bat, and came [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]] as a walking corpse; and even more outrageous -- inoutrageous—in the sense of being not merely fantastic but allohistorical -- wasallohistorical—was Rasputin being cast out by the Tsar. In fact, Rasputin (quite undeservedly) remained a royal favorite to the end of his life ''and after.'' As everything was falling apart, Tsarina Alexandra wrote many letters to Nicholas lamenting, "If only our Dear Friend [Rasputin] were still with us! He would know what to do!"

* ''[[Three Hundred|300]]'' is an in-universe example of this. The basic sequence of events is true to life, but the story is being told by [[Unreliable Narrator|a Greek storyteller who is both playing up the heroism of the Greeks and adding fantastic elements to improve the story.]]

*** Being landlocked doesn't stop a nation from having a [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Switzerland:Military of Switzerland|naval.]] [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_of_Switzerland:Merchant Marine of Switzerland|force.]] Nor are countries restricted from having a [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Pend_Oreille:Lake Pend Oreille|landlocked naval base.]]

**** World War II saw tons of landlocked [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Chippawa:HMCS Chippawa|naval]] [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_TecumsehHMCS Tecumseh|bases]], due to the need to train naval aviators. But Georg von Trapp was the captain of a warship -- thewarship—the U-boat ace of the Adriatic, no less.

* ''[[The Bridge Onon the River Kwai]]'' resembles actual history only so far as the fact that a bridge was built over that river and it did get blown up. In real life, there were actually ''two'' bridges and they were destroyed two years after their completion by an aerial bombing. This, of course, means the circumstances under which the bridge was blown up in the film are purely fictional. That should give you an idea how accurate the rest of it is.

** In his memoir Frank claims to have done exactly that (escaped out an airplane toilet). Of course his memoir might have been [[Very Loosely Based Onon a True Story]] as well. In the memoir, he had flown back to the United States on a Vickers VC10, the toilet unit lifts out, so he could have escaped.

* A very notable aversion in ''[[Freedom Writers]]''. It seems incredibly out there, one notable occurrence being getting ''[[The Diary of Anne Frank (Theatre)|Miep Gies]]'' to visit their classroom, which is implausible in real life to say the least. But the actual students and teacher were involved in the making of the film and script writing and such, to make sure it stayed true to what happened.

* ''[[Elizabeth (film)|Elizabeth]]'': Oh, [[The Virgin Queen|Elizabeth]]. Among its many fallacies:

** Rumor has it that the director, who's Indian, was just using Elizabeth as a [[Lawyer -Friendly Cameo]] for Indira Gandhi and her struggles to defuse religious tension,which might explain the... casual attitude to history.

* Despite being a Disney musical, ''[[Newsies]]'' is based on [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsboys_Strike_of_1899:Newsboys Strike of 1899|a real newsboys' strike]]; the newsies' nicknames are mostly taken from contemporary records, the conditions of their work are fairly accurately depicted, and several of the incidents in the film closely follow the real events, but otherwise it's pretty much fiction. The real Newsboys Strike was led by Kid Blink, who does appear in the film (with an eye patch!) even if he isn't leading the strike.

* The film ''[[The Alphabet Killer (Film)|The Alphabet Killer]]'' was very loosely based on the story of [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_murders:Alphabet murders|three murders in the Rochester, New York area in the early 1970s]].

* [[Roland Emmerich]]'s ''[[The Patriot]]'' is basically a loose and [[Politically -Correct History|PC version]] of the real life of Francis Marion. If you ask, no, he didn't free his slaves.

* [[Dragon: theThe Bruce Lee Story]], starring Jason Scott Lee, claims to be the story of Bruce Lee's life. It gets many things wrong - the time line of his life, his "famous" match with Johnny Sun, his book's publication before his death, the nature of his back injury, and other similar things. It also adds extra fights to the movie (such as one turning Shih Kien, who played Han in [[Enter the Dragon]], into a covert Chinese assassin out to kill Lee), and invented an extra subplot involving a demon chasing Bruce Lee and his son in his nightmares.

* ''[[The Wind and The Lion]]'' is a retelling of the 1904 [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Perdicaris#Perdicaris_incidentPerdicaris incident|"Perdicaris incident,"]] in which a Berber bandit ([[Sean Connery]]) kidnaps an American ([[Candice Bergen]]), leading [[Theodore Roosevelt]] to send in the [[Semper Fi|Marines]] . . . except, in real life, Perdicaris was a man, and there was a lot less shooting and swordplay than the movie suggests.

* ''[[Cellular]]'' doesn't openly brand itself as being a true story or even inspired by one but some elements of the film were [[Ripped Fromfrom the Headlines]], based on the infamous Rampart scandals of the 1990s.

* ''[[Glory Road (Filmfilm)|Glory Road]]'' is a semi-fictionalized account of the events leading to the 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, in which Don Haskins, head coach of the Texas Western College led a team with an all-black starting lineup. However, it makes it seem that Haskins turned the team into a champion in one season (it took several years), turns his playing five black players in the starting lineup into something of a personal statement about race (when, in reality, it was simply because they were his five best players) and exaggerated how much of a underdog the Miners were (they certainly weren't favored, but they'd made the tournament the last few years before 1966).

* ''[[The Emerald Forest]]'' was about a cute little white blonde American kid adopted and [[Raised Byby Natives]] in the jungles of Peru as his engineer dad searched for him. The "true story" is actually a mishmosh of several different accounts, one of which is about a ''Peruvian'' child, the son of a ''construction worker''. The whitewashing was done avowedly to help the audience "relate" to a white father's anguished desperation, [[Sarcasm Mode|as they couldn't have done if he'd been a brown-skinned construction worker played by a great Peruvian actor.]]

* ''[[Sunset (Film)|Sunset]]'': Wile highly fictional, the film does actually contain a few elements of truth. Wyatt Earp did live in Hollywood in the 1920s, did act as a technical advisor on several silent westerns, and was close friends with Tom Mix (who served as a pallbearer at Earp's funeral). The murder in the movie is very loosely based on the events surrounding the death of Thomas Ince (which did not involve Earp or Mix in any way).

* The films ''[[The Gumball Rally (Film)|The Gumball Rally]]'' and ''[[Cannonball Run]]'' (as well as several others) were very loosely based on a real outlaw road rally, the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Baker_Sea:Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea_Memorial_Trophy_DashSea Memorial Trophy Dash|Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash]].

* ''[[American Gangster]]''. Like many of the examples cited here, the basic outline of the story is true, but there are many differences. Film--LucasFilm—Lucas and his wife are childless, Roberts is embroiled in a custody battle. [[Real Life]]--Lucas—Lucas and his wife had a daughter, Roberts never had children. This is just ''one'' of many discrepancies.

* [[Joyce Carol Oates]] was inspired by news of the mysterious death of a college student to write the story ''Landfill''. If anyone interpreted that story as being what actually happened, it would be a serious libel on the student's frat brothers and others. Faced by criticism from the student's family and accused of [[Ripped Fromfrom the Headlines|sensationalism and exploitation]], Oates said that the story was never meant to be taken as anything but fiction, and that she writes however she's inspired to, news being an important source of ideas for her.

* Many fairy tales derived from tales of the lives of saints, such as St. Barbara ("[[Rapunzel (Literature)|Rapunzel]]") or St. Margaret of Cartona ("[[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Literaturenovel)|Snow White]]"). Alternatively, a number of people have been cited as possible inspirations for the fairy tale characters in question, like with [[wikipedia:Margaretha von Waldeck|Margaretha von Waldeck]] and Snow White.

* The middle section of ''[[Special Circumstances (Literature)|Princess of Wands]]'' was inspired by the events at RavenCon, a [[Science Fiction]] convention, in 2006. Needless to say, there was no battle with a demon at RavenCon.

* ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Literature)|Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' was written a thousand years after the events it depicts, and takes far more inspiration from the various legends that had grown around the major figures of the Three Kingdoms period, even freely mixing in supernatural events.

* ''[[Robinson Crusoe (Literature)|Robinson Crusoe]]'' is based off Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor that was marooned on a deserted island of the coast of Chile for four years. He hunted goats and found God on the island, but everything else either pure fiction or taken from other stories of marooned sailors.

* An interesting example is Vergil's ''[[AeneidThe (Literature)Aeneid|Aeneid]]''. While based off of myth rather than history, Vergil's poem does not exactly follow the mythical story either, taking rather extreme liberties with the myth of Aeneas' journey from Troy to Italy.

* The Battle of Roncevaux Pass was a battle where the rear-guard of Charlemagne's army was massacred in the Pyrenees by a small guerrilla force of Basque Christians. In ''[[The Song of Roland (Literature)|The Song of Roland]]'' the battle is between a small Christian rear-guard and a massive army of Saracen Muslims, takes place in Spain, and ends with the entire Saracen army destroyed by the main body of the army. Really, the story only resembles the historical event inasmuch as Charlemagne's rear-guard was destroyed.

* The codifying[[Trope tropeCodifier]] is probably Jack Webb's Mark VII shows, starting with ''[[Dragnet]]'', in which "the names have been changed to protect the innocent". His other productions, including ''[[Adam-12]]'' also included the disclaimer that everything was based on true events, which is a trifle funny when the episode revolved around Jim's inability to tell jokes or Friday and Gannon's weekend sleepover.

* ''[[Law and& Order]]'' bases most of their stories on (or off--often ''way'' off) real cases and incidents. In order to be able to deny that they're referencing a certain real person, they may insert a remark to show that the real person also exists in the fictional world. For example, in one episode that featured a [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]] Ann Coulter, one character remarks that she "makes Ann Coulter look like a socialist" or some such remark. There was also an episode where a little boy who apparently got sodomized by a rich pale white guy who donates a lot of money to charity and whose parents deny anything because apparently they were paid off. [[Michael Jackson|Sounds familiar??]] Debatable, though...

* Parodied in an episode of ''[[Millennium (TV series)|Millennium]]'', where the protagonist Frank Black finds himself on the set of a slasher movie very loosely based on a murder he had investigated years prior. Black, not being much for pop culture, is understandably confused as to why a disabled geriatric victim killed in her driveway would be dramatized as a sexy blond co-ed murdered in her shower. [[It Got Worse|It Gets Worse.]].

* ''[[Little House On the Prairie]]'' is somewhat infamous for this, to begin with the real life Ingalls family lived in Walnut Grove, Minnesota only for about three years, then movingmoved to a farm in Western Minnesota, then to Burr Oak, Iowa, and eventually settling in [[De Smet]]DeSmet, in what is now South Dakota. Mary Ingalls never married, and never regained her sight as she does several times on the show, and the character of Albert Ingalls never existed, being entirely made up for the show.

* Oh, where to begin on the historical inaccuracies in both ''[[The Tudors]]'' and ''[[Rome]]''.{{context|We best pick a place to start then.}}

* When [[David Henry Hwang]] heard over the radio of the incident that formed the basis of ''[[M. Butterfly]]'', he deliberately didn't do any more research, because he wanted an original artistic creation, not something [[Ripped Fromfrom the Headlines]]. He openly admitted this, however, and changed the names of those involved, so he probably shouldn't be ripped on as much as certain individuals above.

* ''[[The Crucible (Theatre)|The Crucible]]'' is based on the Salem Witch Trials; while all of the characters who died in the play died in real life, and the girls who made the accusations in the play made the accusations in real life, all of the girls were older in the play. The real girls ranged from about 8 to 12; the characters went from 12 to 17. Basically all of the motivations in the play were fictional; John Proctor was not a particularly important man, and he and Abigail Williams never even spoke before the trials. The real, 60-something man most certainly did not have an affair with the 12 year old girl.

** This is especially the case with the known facts about King [[Macbeth (Theatre)|Macbeth]]. For example, the real Duncan was not a wise, old king, he was a young man who wasted his wealth. Also, the real Duncan was killed in a fair fight with Macbeth, instead of being assassinated in his sleep.

** Likewise, [[Richard III (Theatre)|Richard III]]. What little paperwork remains from his reign suggests he was the reasonable, competent type with a certain reputation for bravery justified by his death in battle -- thebattle—the last English monarch to do so, as it happens. This impression is at odds with that of the ruthless near-sociopath who murdered several of his 'allies', his wife, brother and two of his cousins and wished to marry a third to secure his succession. Also, Richard is typically portrayed as being quite old and severely deformed (Laurence Olivier, here's to lookin' at you) -- though he died at the age of 32 with at most a minor deformity of one shoulder -- soshoulder—so minor that there is disagreement as to which shoulder it was. (And it could have been due to overtraining -- Richardovertraining—Richard's favorite weapon was the axe, which can't be as easily switched from one side to the other as a sword can.)

* ''[[Frost /Nixon]]'' plays fast and loose with history more than once in the interest of a cool story. Among these:

* Parodied in the ''[[Death Spank (Video Game)|Death Spank]]'' games, where the intro starts off stating that it's "Based on a True Story". This being a game about a Justice-obsessed moron fighting and questing for a piece of bacon.

* In general Japanese game developers tend to have extreme liberties with their own Sengoku era and China's Three Kingdoms era, even more than the example of ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Literature)|Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' above. Listing these games would be suicidal mission, but let's say the only exceptions are the strategy adaptations such as ''[[NobunagasNobunaga's Ambition]]'' or ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Videovideo Gamegame)|Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]''.

* ''[[The Bongcheon Dong Ghost (Webcomic)|The Bongcheon Dong Ghost]]'' is "based on true personal accounts", but it's an urban legend in South Korea.

* [[Cracked]]'s* [http://www.cracked.com/article_16478_7-movies-based-true-story-that-are-complete-bullshit.html 7 Movies Based on a True Story (That Are Complete Bullshit)].

[[Category:Very Loosely Based Onon Aa True Story]]

[[Category:TropeDerivative Works]]