# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/101 "2020-11-11T01:42:06Z")
The [return of Jean Grey AKA Phoenix from the dead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Grey#Revival), done purely to start a new X-Men book and have Marvel collect more cash on the popularity of their mutant brand, is one of the egregious events that stopped me from reading comics on a regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/102 "2020-11-11T01:42:30Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > We’re up to 94 posts and no one has mentioned John Snow? He was well and truly dead on a show that really was not at all shy about killing off major characters only to be resurrected in the next episode. John’s untimely passing and subsequent recovery is hardly ever mentioned again. Was Jesus Snow murdered and resurrected in the books too? ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/103 "2020-11-11T07:40:45Z")
I don’t know if this is quite what you’re looking for. In 1985 Chow Yun Fat starred in a John Woo gangster movie called A Better Tomorrow. It was a mega-hit throughout Asia and fans absolutely loved his character. But that character dies in the end. To placate the fans, A Better Tomorrow 2 was penned and filmed, with Mr. Chow returning in 1987 as his former character’s twin brother. (He was also in A Better Tomorrow 3 but not in A Better Tomorrow (2010) or A Better Tomorrow 2018 ) * * * I wrote a review of Dark Phoenix recently, in which I lamented the fact that it ends at the gravesites of Jean Grey and Mistique instead of hinting toward them meeting Wolverine and Rogue a few years down the road. Now the First Class can’t eventually grow older and become what we saw in the first Xmen movie, so what could have been a nice circular set of tales (though not a temporal loop) is impossible. Then again, given the comic book comments above (and having followed the earlier link to the convoluted Phoenix biography, it may still be possible! –G! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/104 "2020-11-11T13:25:50Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > We’re up to 94 posts and no one has mentioned John Snow? He was well and truly dead on a show that really was not at all shy about killing off major characters only to be resurrected in the next episode. John’s untimely passing and subsequent recovery is hardly ever mentioned again. But Jon Snow’s a different case from the thing I was after in the OP. It’s not a case of a character getting killed off, then brought back because the audience demanded it or the creator decided he liked him too much – Snow’s death and resurrection appear to have been planned from the start. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/105 "2020-11-11T13:51:42Z")
This (Jean Grey’s resurrection and the launch of _X-Factor_) also utterly destroyed Cyclops’s character. Newly married, Cyclops immediately abandons his wife and newborn son to go join his old teammates and his now-alive-again former girlfriend, pretty much turning him from a decent human being into a complete rat bastard. You know how a lot of people hate Cyclops? It all stems from his behavior when Jean came back. And as you say, it all happened because Marvel was trying to cash in (“Let’s do a book with the original five X-Men!”), not from anything that grew organically out of the characters. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/106 "2020-11-11T13:57:39Z")
In _Dune_ (the novel), the villain, Baron Harkonnen, was killed off in the first novel. In _Children of Dune_, the brought him back as one of the character’s ancestral memories, who ended up taking her over. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/107 "2020-11-11T16:36:19Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Not quite. You have to read the novelization to get the back story, but apparently the shark in J4 is being controlled by a Haitian witch doctor using voodoo. He has some grudge against the Brodie family. The doctor, not the shark. Thanks for that. I initially thought that the whole concept was silly, but now that I know there was Haitian voodoo involved it all makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/108 "2020-11-11T16:42:30Z")
TV Tropes has an entry called “Voodoo Shark” based on _Jaws: The Revenge_. It’s when writer tries to explain a plot hole away, except the explanation _itself_ is a Plot Hole. The one from _Jaws: The Revenge_ is that writers explain the shark wants revenge on the Brody family due to a Voodoo curse but they don’t explain why the Voodoo curse was made in the first place. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VoodooShark](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VoodooShark) ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/109 "2020-11-11T18:25:56Z")
Yes, it is…kinda, Jason drowned in Crystal Lake as a young boy, is mother blamed all the camp staff for his death which sets the plot for the original. The jump scare at the end led to the sequel which created the backstory of Jason haunting the lake and after watching his mother killed on the beach he becomes a revenant. /nitpick - Jason was “killed” in Part IV by Corey Feldman, apparently well enough that they buried him in a grave. Part V - the killer is a copycat and not Jason himself. Part VI - Jason is dug up by Tommy (Corey Feldman’s character) not as a prank but to cremate the body to prevent his return but a couple of timely lightning strikes revive him. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/110 "2020-11-11T19:44:08Z")
Godzilla got killed off, reduced to a skeleton, and his skeleton dissolved at the end of the first movie, **Gojira**. That’s **She** -level destruction that’s hard to come back from. In the second film\* it’s explained that the creature attacking Japan (which has a LOT more teeth) is a second monster. But it and its successors keep getting called “Godzilla” just like the original. Of course, there’s a lot of dying off and sons of Godzilla and the like in the many series that follow. Can’t tell your _kaiju_ without a program. \*(Which was released in the US as **Gigantis the Fire Monster** – which is how I first saw it, but is more faithfully translated as **Godzilla’s Counterattack**. In the 1990s it showed up on home video as **Godzilla Raids Again** , for which someone should be shot. Or at least parboiled by Godzilla’s breath.) ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/111 "2020-11-12T07:17:05Z")
Dawn French’s “Murder most horrid” just didn’t give a damn. Dawn was back in the next episode, playing the murderer, or the victim, or the detective. You may quibble that Dawn French isn’t a character, but truth is, Dawn French has been a character for many years, and her character can handle being murdered and being back again next week 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/112 "2020-11-12T20:18:10Z")
Justified - Season 1 Episode 1 ends with the shooting (justified, of course) of Boyd Crowder - a chest shot, from close range (accross a dinner table) in hazard(ish) kentucky. A shot he should not have survived. Yet - he did - and went on to be in the rest of the series - [Boyd Crowder](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0324658/?ref_=tt_ch) : Truth always sounds like lies to a sinner. ---
**Author:** ![Sepp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Sepp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sepp)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/113 "2020-11-18T08:43:02Z")
“They Live”, both in the movie and in real life. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/114 "2020-11-18T13:22:20Z")
What does this refer to? There’s no sequel to the movie “They Live”, nor to the short story that inspired it. And Real Life doesn’t have a sequel. ---
**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 18, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/115 "2020-11-18T16:43:28Z")
I believe the joke is, “At the end of the movie, the aliens were revealed to humanity, presumably foiling their plot. Yet in 2016, we elected one to the White House in real life.” ---
**Author:** ![GreaterZamboni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@GreaterZamboni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreaterZamboni)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/116 "2020-11-18T20:53:13Z")
But she came back as Lee Meriweather and then Eartha Kitt. ;-0 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/117 "2020-11-18T21:17:00Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE0N2PpjFJ8) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/118 "2020-11-18T22:14:30Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Julie Newmar’s Catwoman fell down a bottomless chasm at the end of her first two-parter episode of _ **Batman** _ in 1966. I don’t think her reappearance later was ever explained. Musta had a bottom, after all. Like the shaft Emperor Palpatine fell into. ---
**Author:** ![TiberiusNeroClaudius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f04885/32.png) [@TiberiusNeroClaudius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TiberiusNeroClaudius)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/119 "2020-11-18T22:31:03Z")
The last episode of the first season of “The Untouchables” was the last when Quinn Martin was the executive producer. He decided to go out with a bang and kill off the darkly humorous gangster Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti who had appeared in several episodes. The Nitti character was popular and actor Bruce Gordon objected(hey 5 or 6 appearances on one show is pretty good for a character actor). So Desilu pointed out the “Untouchables” episodes weren’t chronological and that Walter Winchell’s narration set this one in 1934. Sorry Nitti appeared several times a season the rest of the time the series was on the air. The last episode of James Garner’s series “Nichols” his character was killed off early in the episode. But all of a sudden, his twin brother (played by…) came to town, put down the bad guys and left saying he might return. Apparently although the show was cancelled, this left a backdoor in case it got picked up again. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670/120 "2020-11-18T22:45:09Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > In the _Star Wars_ universe, falling into a bottomless pit is a minor setback. Darth Maul got cut in half and fell into a bottomless pit, and he bounced back from that. I thought Darth Maul died in a castle that burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cant-make-a-sequel-you-killed-off-the-character/924670.md?page=7)