History WesternAnimation / StrangeWorld

** Jaeger's wife and Searcher's mom is called Penelope, like the wife of another famous explorer (''Literature/TheOdyssey'')

* BadassFamily: Once they get past their hangups, the Clades all work together with each one's unique set of talents. .

-->'''Ethan:''' This place is alive. It's a living thing. We didn't find the heart of Pando--we found an actual heart.\\

'''Ethan:''' Yeah, and Pando is killing it.

->They're the Clades! They're the Clades!

The plot follows Searcher Clade (Gyllenhaal), a humble farmer who once traveled the world with his legendary explorer father Jaeger Clade, whose legacy he could never live up to. When his country’s president calls upon him for a mission of dire importance, he and his wife and son join a dangerous expedition to a bizarre subterranean world full of equally bizarre lifeforms.

* AsHimself: Parodied - the end credits list Legend and Splat as being played by "himself" and "itself" respectively.

* BizarreAlienBiology: The entire film. Most notably- [[spoiler:the creature has symbiotic organisms that can instantaneously regrow dead tissues, its "blood" appears to be giant schools of flatworm—adjacent cells, it's possible to travel directly from a hole in its back to its lungs to its stomach to its heart, and its heart lies in a cavity near an opening that is also near its face. Despite this, the end of the film depicts it as turtle-like when seen from space.]]

* FantasticNamingConvention: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]], but Avalonian parents seem to prefer names based on the concept of hunting or exploring [[note]]Jaeger (German for ‘hunter), Searcher, Callisto (one of Artemis’s hunters in Greek mythology)[[/note]], navigational, cartographical, or geographical terms[[note]]Meridian (imaginary line used to indicate longitude), Azimuth (the horizontal angle or direction of a compass bearing)[[/note]], or scientific concepts[[note]]Diazo (A formal organic chemistry term for two nitrogen atoms bonded to a carbon atom)[[/note]]. It’s not universal, though, given there are names that don’t fit this pattern, such as Ethan, Caspian, Duffle, and Pulk.

** Jaeger wife and Searcher mom is called Penelope, like the wife of another famous explorer (cue''Literature/TheOdyssey'')

** To ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire''- [[spoiler:The Clades trying to keep president Callisto from making the Pando infection worse is very reminiscent of what happens when Milo realizes Roark's true purposes for visiting Atlantis and tries to stop him- both scenes even take place on similar airships!]] The general tone of the film is also very similar.

** Jaeger wife is called Penelope, like the one of Odysseus, the archetypal traveler and explorer from ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', but maybe ironically this Penelope remarries. Moreover, Odysseus' son, Telemachus is content being a ruler in their hometown of Ithaca instead of a warrior/hero/adventurer like his father.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: After learning the truth about pando, [[spoiler:its roots start to look an awful lot like cancer veins.]]

* GroundedForever: When Meridian meets up with Searcher, Yeager, and Ethan, she is quick to tell Ethan that he is grounded for the rest of his life after taking a skiff and riding off into the strange world on his own.

* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Going off of a photo, Yeager’s wife Penelope is shorter and more slender than her hefty husband. [[spoiler: When Yeager returns to Penelope at the very end, we see Penelope’s new husband Sheldon is ''even taller and heftier than Yeager!'']]

** Pando shares its name with one of the largest known organisms on Earth, a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) colony of genetically-identical aspen trees with a shared root network.]] [[spoiler:It also means [[TheVirus "I spread"]] in Latin. And its name sounds a bit similar to "pandemic."]]

* BizarreAlienBiology: The entire film. Most notably- [[spoiler:the creature has symbiotic organisms that can instantaneously regrow dead tissues, its "blood" appears to be giant schools of flatworm—adjacent cells, and its heart lies in a cavity near an opening that is also near its face. Despite this, the end of the film depicts it as turtle-like when seen from space.]]

* GroundedForever: When Meridian meets up with Searcher, Yeager, and Ethan, she is quick to tell Ethan that he is grounded forever after wandering off into the strange world on his own.

* ActorAllusion: This is not the first time Creator/DennisQuaid and Creator/JakeGyllenhaal have portrayed [[Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow father and son at odds]] with the possibility of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt on the line.

* MissingMom: For once, this common Disney trope is subverted. Searcher tells Jaeger that his wife Penelope is gone, which Jaeger takes as being dead. Searcher then clarifies that she left their house and got remarried to someone named Sheldon.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: Played with in that Jaeger's first reactionto finding out his wife remarried is to declare he will kill her new husband Sheldon.

* NoAntagonist: The main conflict at the end of the film is caused by [[spoiler:Pando, the disease that is ravaging the [[TurtleIsland massive monster that is Strange World]].]] As [[spoiler:Pando]] is neither sapient nor a creature, the closest things the film has to a sentient antagonist are the Reapers, which attempt to eat the heroes several times but are eventually revealed to be [[spoiler:[[NotEvilJustMisunderstood part of the creature's natural immune system]]]], and [[spoiler:Callisto Mal]], who is an antagonist for around 5 minutes of the film's runtime when she [[spoiler:assumes command of the ship in an attempt to continue the ''Venture'''s mission despite Searcher and Ethan's revelation concerning Pando's nature]] before being shown the light very quickly by the protagonists. The film's whole message of protecting the environment and learning to do better as a society wouldn't work with a standard villain.

* PicturePerfectPresentation: used as BookEnds. The introduction of the Clades is the beginning of a comic which becomes animated action. And the outro is the end of Ethan's letter to his father on the farm turning into a comic panel.

* MurderTheHypoteneuse: Played with in that Jaeger's first reactionto finding out his wife remarried is to declare he will kill her new husband Sheldon.

* ActorAllusion: This is not the first time Creator/DennisQuaid and Creator/JakeGyllenhaal have portrayed [[Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow father and son at odds]] with the possibility of TheEndOfTheWorld on the line.

* ActorAllusion: This is not the first time Creator/DennisQuaid and Creator/JakeGyllenhaal have portrayed [[Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow father and son at odds]].

* ActorAllusion: This is not the first time Creator/Dennis Quaid and Creator/JakeGyllenhaal have portrayed [[Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow father and son at odds]].

* ActorAllusion: This is not the first time Creator/Dennis Quaid and Creator/JakeGyllenhaal have portrayed [[Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow]] father and son at odds.

* MurderTheHypotneuse: Played with in that Jaeger's first reactionto finding out his wife remarried is to declare he will kill her new husband Sheldon.