Have you ever watched a movie where a character dies, only to witness the filmmakers lazily bring them back in the following sequels? Not only is this insulting to the audience, it cheapens the emotional weight of the earlier films by decreasing what was once an impactful moment. These are 12 of the worst retconned movie deaths.
1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
This is the final installment in the latest Star Wars trilogy, which follows the continuing adventures of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) as they fight against the First Order and confront their demons.
In the movie, a retconned death occurs when the character of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), who was previously thought to have been killed in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, is revealed to have survived and returned to threaten the galaxy through the lamest piece of dialogue ever to be written, “somehow Palpatine returned.”
2. Fast & Furious 9 (2021)
This is the ninth movie in the popular Fast & Furious franchise, which follows the high-octane adventures of a group of skilled drivers and their allies. In the film, Han Seoul-Oh (Sung Kang), previously thought to be killed in Fast & Furious 6 in a car explosion, is revealed to have survived the explosion that supposedly took his life.
The mental gymnastics F9 writers went through to make this happen is unbelievable – except that it’s not because they didn’t even pretend to have an ounce of respect for their audience.
As one person explains, several movies later, Han returns, saying that he and another character had predicted that his “killer” would predict the impromptu street race, and they use that prediction and the specific circumstances under which it occurs to fake Han’s death, without explaining the mechanics of how it’s done.” They decided to bring back a popular character without regard for how it would be pulled off.
3. Shazam! Fury of Gods (2023)
Billy Batson, a teenager, and his foster siblings are still grappling with balancing their normal teenage lives with their newfound superhero identities after being granted powers by ancient gods. However, their world is turned upside down when three vengeful ancient gods come to Earth seeking the return of their stolen magic.
Shazam! 2 is one of the worst offenders of insulting retconned deaths. A viewer explains, “Billy sacrifices himself to defeat the villains; they have a fairly emotional 5-minute-long funeral scene, then Wonder Woman shows up and raises him from the dead.”
4. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
This is a science fiction movie and the sequel to the cult classic Highlander, which follows the story of immortal warriors who battle each other throughout history. Sean Connery reprised his role as Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, the mentor of the main character Connor MacLeod.
Ramirez was killed in the first Highlander movie via beheading, but in the sequel, it’s revealed that he was brought back to life through a retcon that introduced a new storyline involving alien immortals from a distant planet. It’s even more ridiculous when put this way by a viewer, “Sean Connery had his head cut off in Highlander, but he’s right back in Highlander 2. It’s addressed barely, but not really explained.”
5. Blade: Trinity (2004)
This is the third movie in the Blade series, which follows the adventures of a vampire hunter played by Wesley Snipes. The character of Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who was previously thought to have died in Blade II, is revealed to have been captured by the villainous Danica Talos (Parker Posey) and kept alive all this time by being turned into a vampire himself.
6. Extraction 2
Extraction was an action thriller film that followed Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), a black-market mercenary who was hired to rescue the kidnapped son of an international crime lord.
In the final showdown, Rake is fatally shot but still manages to save Ovi, the boy he’s tasked with rescuing, before succumbing to his wounds. This makes the death emotionally impactful. Considering he was shot in the neck and body multiple times before falling off a bridge into a polluted river, his revival in Extraction 2 makes no sense. It cheapens the ending of the first movie.
7. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
This is the sequel to the original Jurassic Park movie, which tells the story of a group of people stranded on an island inhabited by genetically engineered dinosaurs. In both the book and movie, Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum in the film) becomes seriously injured by a T-Rex. However, Malcolm succumbs to his wounds in the book and dies at the end of this story.
The film adaptation brings him back for the sequel, where he’s not only alive but completely healed and able to survive another dinosaur island.
8. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
This is the sequel to the hit movie Avatar, which takes place on a planet called Pandora and follows the adventures of human avatar Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as he fights to protect the Na’vi people and their environment. At the end of the first movie, Jake Sully kills Miles Quaritch in an epic battle. However, the sequel brings Quarritch back via cloning despite no set-up for this in the previous film, and it comes off as very “hand-wavy.”
This was a cheap way to figure out how to bring back a prominent personality and significant antagonist.
9. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
While it isn’t precisely a retcon death, there’s a scene in The Last Jedi where the ship Princess Leia is in gets blown up. As she gets sucked into space, the camera zooms in on her frozen, motionless face. This could have been a powerful sendoff scene, given that Carrie Fisher had already died in real life, and her scenes in this movie were spliced together with the help of VFX.
However, instead, they show her body slowly flying through space with her eyes open and her arm stretched out until she reaches the airlock of another ship. She somehow survives being sucked out into the vacuum of space and makes her way safely into the other ship’s airlock without sucking all the other people out. It’s a cheap fake-out death that people laugh at every time they watch.
10. Halloween: Resurrection (2022)
This is the eighth movie in the Halloween horror franchise, following the story of masked serial killer Michael Myers and his victims. Naming a sequel to a horror movie, “Resurrection,” is never a good sign, as it’s code for “we just decided we wanted to cash in on this highly profitable franchise by bringing back the villain through whatever means necessary.”
In Halloween: H20, we witness Laurie Strode kill Meyers with an axe, only to reverse this death in Halloween: Resurrection by revealing that Michael had switched places with a paramedic and put the mask on the man before Laurie struck him, allowing Michael to escape.
11. The Matrix: Resurrections (2021)
This is the fourth movie in The Matrix franchise, which explores the concept of reality and identity in a dystopian future world. This fan of the original Matrix movies sums it up perfectly: “The original trilogy ended with our two main characters sacrificing themselves to reach the machine city and end the war between man and machines. Neo surrendered himself to merge with Agent Smith in an act of selflessness… then Matrix 4 brought them both back to life, AND Smith. It makes it feel like all the sacrifice was for nothing.”
12. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
This standalone movie in the Star Wars franchise explores the early adventures of legendary smuggler Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) and his loyal companion Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo). They retconned the death of Darth Maul (Ray Park), who was previously thought to have died in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
In that movie, he was cut in half and thrown down a huge, deep, dark hole. However, it’s revealed that he survived and is still active in the criminal underworld.
Source: Reddit.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
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