🌒✨ Strange Narrative Conflict Ideas You’d Never See Anywhere Else
— and how to take “easter eggs” from famous franchises and turn them into original stories
Sometimes all your fiction needs to become truly unique is adding something no sane person would place in the same universe. It’s in that beautiful strangeness, the neatly-fitted chaos, the “this would never work” that the best conflicts are born.
It doesn’t have to be literal. It can be an inherited power, a forgotten artifact, a rule from another universe, or an entire concept lovingly stolen.
✨ Here are 9 ideas for bizarre, epic conflicts, perfect for crossovers and alternate worlds:
1️⃣ The Dolittle Gift 🐾
(Dr. Dolittle, Robert Downey Jr. version)
Imagine a world where the Dolittle bloodline survived and evolved. The protagonist is a young woman, 19–20, who inherited the ancient gift — able to speak with any living creature driven by instinct:
– animals – plants – insects – alien creatures – kaiju – symbiotic organisms – even biological machines that mimic animal behavior
Suddenly, she becomes a living megaphone of the entire natural world.
Put this into Transformers Prime: Optimus Prime thinks he understands organic life… until he realizes a human girl can negotiate with an Insecticon or a Predacon better than he can.
And just like that: conflict.
✨ And in Pacific Rim? Imagine a Jaeger pilot who can talk to kaiju — and learns about the secret masters of the kaiju, ancient beings who teach strategies humanity never knew existed. Kaiju battles stop being just physical; they become diplomatic, biological, tactical puzzles.
2️⃣ The Persian Sanctuary ⏳
(Prince of Persia, reinterpreted)
A hidden fragment of architecture deep in the desert, older than any recorded civilization. It pulses. It breathes. It bends time.
The entire Sanctuary is a living temporal mechanism, and only someone of ancient Persian blood can activate it. Once activated, it links events and worlds unpredictably, creating conflict between civilizations from the past and the future.
3️⃣ The Traveler of Other Worlds 🌌
(John Carter / A Princess of Mars, expanded)
A man disappears and later returns claiming he visited Barsoom — but his journey spanned several worlds, forgotten realms, and lost planets.
He leaves behind:
Star maps that match no NASA catalog
A sword forged from extraterrestrial metal
A diary about dimensional portals, interplanetary secret societies, and unthinkable creatures
The monsters? Quintessons — organic-mechanical hybrids created by the ancient Quintos Prime, engineered to annihilate entire worlds.
Conflict: the protagonist and her allies form an interplanetary alliance to fight the Quintessons. No negotiation. Only strategy, survival, cosmic war.
4️⃣ Sleepy Hollow 🌲
(1999)
Forests that are living portals, guarded by ancient spirits. Enchanted hearts that can possess objects, people, or even machines. Conflict arises when advanced civilizations (or alien robots) try to exploit these forests, unaware that nature is awake — and fighting back.
5️⃣ The Last Witch Hunter 🧙♀️
Unstable immortality, ancient magic tied to the Tree of Life, and plagues that manifest as living creatures. Conflict: immortality traps the protagonist in a power struggle, while secret societies try to control or destroy the Tree.
6️⃣ TRON: Legacy 💻
Living code, digital beings with souls, technology that can be born, recreated, and rebel on its own. Conflict: who controls the living code? Robots, AI, and vehicles begin acting of their own free will, and entire digital worlds rise against their creators.
7️⃣ Jumper ✨
Hereditary teleportation. Dimensional travelers hunted by secret societies and religious assassins. Conflict becomes global and interdimensional — espionage, strategy, and moral dilemmas about manipulating time and space.
8️⃣ Seventh Son 🪄
Inherited rare abilities, mystical creatures, and artifacts with their own rules. Conflict: the tension between heritage and choice, using power to protect or destroy.
9️⃣ The Golden Compass / His Dark Materials ❄️
Dust (conscious energy), daemons (the animal form of the soul), and parallel worlds connected by ancient physics. Conflict: crossing realities, manipulating living energy, and surviving alongside allies who are not fully human, while ancient secrets shape every action.
💡 Final Tip: Mix these “easter eggs” into impossible crossovers: kaiju with consciousness, dimensional travelers vs. Quintessons, heroes navigating living forests and sentient energy. That’s where truly unseen, unforgettable conflicts are born.
And you? What overrated or forgotten films/stories do you think could become new narrative eggs to give your fiction that unexpected boost?
