u/AporiaParadox

1. James Bond. 007 was a product of the Cold War, so after the fall of the Soviet Union Bond was outright called a Cold War relic and Goldeneye was about post-communist Russia.

2. The Sopranos. After 9-11, the FBI stops caring about investigating local New Jersey mafia because now they're focusing on terrorism. Thus, Tony is willing to work with the FBI on what he knows about Middle-Eastern criminals.

3. South Park. Since the show is made very quickly, real world political shifts are reflected in the show immediately. This can especially be seen with thole Mister Garrison storyline.

1. Sky Bisons were said to be extinct except for Appa in Avatar: The Last Airbender after they were genocided by the Fire Nation, but in The Legend of Korra we see that it wasn't actually the case, and in the Avatar: The Legend of Aang we see the gaang find a lost herd of Sky Bisons. And of course, Aang himself is thought to be the last Airbender, but they return in full force in Legend of Korra.

2. In Bleach, Ishida believed he was the last of the Quincies. The final arc showed that this was definitely not the case, an entire kingdom of Quincies had been living in the shadows for 1000 years and were now ready to get their revenge on Soul Society.

3. Both the Daleks and the Time Lords from Doctor Who were thought to have all died during the Time War, with the Doctor as the sole survivor. This turned out not to be the case for either.

4. In Star Wars Rebels, Zeb believes he is the last Lasat after the Empire genocided his people. Not only does he run into two other Lasat that survived the genocide of Lasan, together they find out that their planet was merely a colony world, and discover the true Lasat homeworld of Lira San where their people are still thriving.

1. Dragon Ball. Goku would have lost a fight by ringout if he hadn't been saved by his Flying Nimbus/Kintoun cloud. The referees decide to allow it for the first time, but rule that it can't be used again.

2. Legend of Korra. In the Pro-Bending sport, each team has 3 different players that can each bend one element. Korra as the Avatar is the only person who can bend all 4 elements, giving her an obvious advantage. The referees create a new rule that the Avatar can play, but can only use one element.

3. Dungeon Crawler Carl. The rules of the game get patched all the time whenever the crawlers find an exploit. Like when Carl "killed" an invincible Rage Elemental boss monster by tricking it into going to a portal that is designed to destroy mob NPCs that wander off, since even boss monsters counts as mobs, immediately afterwards this is patched. Carl actually hides his planned exploits from everyone because if he says them out loud they'd get patched in advance.

4. Pokémon. Happens all the time in the real world with video games, players are really good at finding exploits, and devs will later have to patch them. For example, Smeargle can copy any move, so players could give it the powerful move Dark Void that can put 2 enemy Pokémon to sleep at the same time, which can normally only be learned by the Legendary Pokémon Darkrai (which can't be used at higher tiers unlike Smeargle). Later generations changed it so that Dark Void only works if used by Darkrai, thus making Smeargle less useful.

1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The main character may have been the one to develop the drug that makes apes intelligent, but it was the executives who then fucked it all up and ignored his warnings, ultimately causing a pandemic that killed off most of humanity.
2. Jurassic Park/World franchise. In particular, in the first Jurassic World the park was actually doing OK until executives demanded a bigger dinosaur and the military demanded a more dangerous dinosaur.
3. The Hulk exists because General Ross and the US military wanted a Gamma bomb, and Ross actually rushed the process even though Banner wanted to be more cautious. And that's not the only time General Ross tried to create weapons that ended up endangering people.

I have noticed that in recent years instead of the old trope of the "mad scientists" being the bad guys who cause death and destruction due to their obsession with science, nowadays media tends to lay the blame on these disasters on the people in power who often ignore the advice of the scientists. I for one welcome this change, the "mad scientist" trope can sometimes feel like anti-intellectualism.

1. Kent Brockman from the Simpsons. The ants never actually took over, but Kent Brockman certainly thought they would, and he preemptively swore allegiance to them and offered to sell people out. Once it turned out to be a misunderstanding and there never were any ant invaders, he was forced to apologize and claim that he still swore allegiance to his country and human president, for now.

2. Star Trek Deep Space 9. Many episodes dealt with the issue of Bajoran collaborators after the Cardassian occupation ended. Collaborators were actually exiled and banned from ever returning to Bajor. In a parallel to real life, Bajoran "comfort women" were sadly also treated with scorn, even though they were victims who were kidnapped and forced.

1. Harry Potter. The Wizarding world keeps magic secret from the Muggle world, meaning that they do absolutely nothing to help Muggles even though they could easily cure countless ailments among other things. As Hagrid puts it, if Muggles knew about magic "Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone". So wizards aren't "afraid" of Muggles (nor should they be given the power difference), they're just selfish.
2. Black Panther. An infamous comic established that Wakanda has the cure to cancer, but refuse to share it with the outside world because reasons, after all we deserve it since cigarettes exist. Since then, comics and other media have been a lot more criticial of Wakanda's old isolationism and Wakanda has opened up and shared it's technology and advances with the world, but the whole cure to cancer thing has been swept under the rug and might as well be non-canon.