# You can't make a Sequel -- You killed off the Character! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 3, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670 "2020-11-03T19:56:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/21 "2020-11-03T21:54:50Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The winner in thsi category has to be _ **Dallas** _ , where Bobby Ewing wasn’t really resurrected because he’d never been killed: the entire (awful) 1985-86 season had been a dream. There are few dreams more powerful than those of a producer dreaming of more episodes and more sweet, _sweet_ revenue. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/22 "2020-11-03T21:59:14Z")
I love _ **The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret** _, and David Cross made two seasons of a really fun insightful “Oblivious American tries to understand London” series. BUT, he made sure no one could do a third season by having Todd help North Korea blow up a big chunk of the civilized world. People kept after him to do a third season, and he kept saying no. But eventually he came up with a really unique way to do it… He starts off the third season playing Todd as an utterly normal person, with vague memories of Seasons One & Two’s events & characters. And it works. ---
**Author:** ![SacFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@SacFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SacFly)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/23 "2020-11-03T22:02:33Z")
For all the talk about what the meaning of the final Soprano’s scene was, I mostly thought it meant that they wanted to keep the door open for a future project. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/24 "2020-11-03T22:04:23Z")
In _Kingsman: The Secret Service_ Colin Firth’s character is killed off in a fairly dramatic fashion with a bullet to the head. He’s brought back for the sequel _Kingsman: The Golden Circle_ with advanced medical magic by a previously unknown group. At least they didn’t make him all better, but practically so. They used the same magic to revive Whiskey later on in the film. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/25 "2020-11-03T22:05:26Z")
David Chase may have joked about that, but I’m sure that wasn’t his motivation given the way the scene was set up and the controversy it caused. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/26 "2020-11-03T22:13:33Z")
And Saavik had to give him a hand when he started to experience pon farr. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/27 "2020-11-03T22:29:15Z")
To go all metta on the subject, I think this was (more or less) the plot arc between the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. Adams writes the first book. Pretty fun; went over pretty well. OK, let’s do another, but let’s end it. Yeah, but the public wants more. Turns it into a trilogy, like all SF series. He ends it there. Yeah, but the public wants another book, so he writes “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish” with a final ending. He ends it there. Yeah, but the public wants another book, so he writes “Mostly Harmless”, (the fifth book in the increasingly misnamed Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy) where all versions of Earth in all the possible multiverses is destroyed as an “I CAN’T write another book. Screw you guys, I’m going home.” ending. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/28 "2020-11-03T22:30:55Z")
A few years ago Terry O’Quinn (Best known as John Locke on _Lost_) was the guest on the “Not My Job” segment on _Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me_. In the interview they discussed how he had played the killer in a 1980s slasher movie _The Stepfather_ and its sequel. Except his character died at the end of the first movie, so how could he be in the sequel, too? O’Quinn said the producers told him his character didn’t really die, he was just badly wounded but pulled through. Really, though, they pretty much just ignored the fact that he was mortally wounded in the first movie and just made a sequel anyway. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/29 "2020-11-03T22:35:44Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The winner in thsi category has to be _ **Dallas** _, where Bobby Ewing wasn’t really resurrected because he’d never been killed: **the entire (awful) 1985-86 season had been a dream.** Niiiiiiice. That definitely took screenwriting chutzpah to a whole new level. Legendary! ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/30 "2020-11-03T22:44:42Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > And Saavik had to give him a hand when he started to experience pon farr It’s helpful to keep in mind, when they do that Vulcan salute with pressing the palms of their hands together, that Vulcans/Romulans have their reproductive organs in their fingertips. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/31 "2020-11-03T22:47:29Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > Laura Palmer, played by Sheryl Lee, was already dead in the first episode of _Twin Peaks_ . But in the fourth episode, Lee returned as Maddy Ferguson, Laura’s identical cousin. Nitpick: Sherilyn Fenn. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/32 "2020-11-03T22:51:42Z")
Who here remembers the original Bizarro story? At least I think it was the original Bizarro story. It was in a Superboy comic, set in Smallville. It was not a follow-on to some earlier story: Nothing in the story depends on some earlier back-story. And there is no possibility, nor need, for any sequel: Bizarro lives for all of two days and dies at the end (and, btw, he dies a hero for saving the little girl’s life at the expense of his own), and all remaining “mysteries” and loose ends of the story are explained and cleared up, even including why the little girl, alone among all the people in Smallville, wasn’t afraid of Bizarro. She was blind. And she said that Bizarro had a gentle friendly sounding voice. And no, there’s no indication that she would ever regain her sight later. All the Bizarro stories you’ve seen since then were some different Bizarro with different back-stories. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/33 "2020-11-03T22:52:12Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Nitpick: Sherilyn Fenn And then _that_ character is killed off very brutally onscreen. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/34 "2020-11-03T23:08:53Z")
In Jurassic Park 2, Dr. Ian Malcolm helpfully explains that the rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated. Apparently, so were the rumors of his burial and the rumors of the entire island where his grave was being carpet-bombed to oblivion. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/35 "2020-11-03T23:25:31Z")
In _Return of the Jedi_ the evil Emperor Palpatine is thrown into a bottomless pit, and apparently EXPLODES when he hits bottom. On board a giant space station, which very shortly thereafter _also_ explodes. Naturally the sequel “trilogy” brought him back to life for the final installment. (Something something cloning yadda yadda yadda midichlorians technobabble technobabble he reversed the polarity of the ~~Main Deflector Dish~~ Dark Side of the Force etc., etc., etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/36 "2020-11-03T23:33:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In Jurassic Park 2, Dr. Ian Malcolm helpfully explains that the rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated. > > Apparently, so were the rumors of his burial and the rumors of the entire island where his grave was being carpet-bombed to oblivion. To be clear, that was just in the books. He was quite alive and aboard the helicopter leaving the island at the end of the first movie. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/37 "2020-11-03T23:38:52Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > I think this was (more or less) the plot arc between the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books Oh, it’s worse than that. Before the books, The Guide was a radio show. Douglas Adams was only contracted to write the pilot episode. BBC Radio (it was BBC Radio, wasn’t it?) had never done SF/comedy, so Adams assumed there would only be one episode. The episode ended with Arthur and Ford being thrown out of the air lock of a Vogon battle cruiser. Adams had to figure out a plausible way for them to survive. He failed. But he failed in a magnificent way, inventing the infinite improbability drive in the process. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/38 "2020-11-03T23:39:42Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > And Saavik had to give him a hand when he started to experience pon farr. Originally the reason she stayed behind on Vulcan instead of returning to Earth with the rest of the crew to face court martial, was she was supposed to have conceived as a result, but this was cut from Star Trek IV. Pretty much all comics characters have faked their deaths, had imposters die and the original return, been cloned, or just got better for “reasons” at some point. I seem to recall at one point Marvel had instituted a moratorium on returns after death because it had gotten so out of control. Which was supposedly why Colossus stayed dead for so long after he died to cure the mutant “aids” analog. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/39 "2020-11-03T23:49:37Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > The Mummy (1999, set in 1923) and The Mummy Returns (2001, set in 1933) > Ardeth Bey blows himself up with dynamite in the first movie. In the second movie, he is alive and well, with absolutely no explanation. Ardeth Bey is shown very much alive at the end of the first Mummy movie, though. IIRC there’s a bit of a fake out where you think he’s still in the temple when it collapses, but it turns out he found another escape route offscreen while the main characters were dealing with Imhotep, and reunites with them so they can all ride off into the sunset together. Slight cheat, but not the sort of explicit, onscreen death undone by a sequel that’s the subject of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/40 "2020-11-03T23:50:21Z")
If you’re going to talk about H. Rider Haggard, you can’t forget that he started off with two books, _King Solomon’s Mines_, which introduces Allan Quatermain, and _Allan Quatermain_, which kills him off. The next 79 books are supposed to be prequels, but the chronology is as muddled as Holmes’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670.md?page=3)