5 Worst Ways Sequels Write Off Characters

 I don’t know if you people have heard, but a movie called The Dark Knight Rises came out last week. I have talked to a few people who were upset that there was no mention made about the Joker’s character at all. It’s true. Christopher Nolan intentionally left out any mention of the Clown Prince of Crime. I am very happy that they didn’t even acknowledge the character. It would have been a dishonor to Heath Ledger’s memory to throw in an offshoot statement. For example:

John Blake: “The streets of Gotham are flooded with thugs….”
Commissioner Gordon: “Well at least the Joker is not on the loose, he is one crazy mother f…..”
John Blake: “Yeah, I heard he was abducted by aliens or something….”
Commissioner Gordon: “…Something like that…Anyways, isn’t Bane pretty scary?”

And in case you’re wondering, the Megan Fox picture is just to sell out with hot Megan Fox pics, it makes sense in context. She was written out of Transformers 3, and well, it’s Megan Fox.

I wish I had the neurolyzer after seeing MIB II

We all enjoyed the first Men in Black movie, well, the first time we saw it. The end of the movie shows Tommy Lee Jones retiring from the MIB and having Will Smith’s J replace him. But now J has a new partner, Laurel, played by Linda Fiorentino. You may remember her from the entire first movie. We all know that MIB II was a cinematic catastrophe that should never been made. But its first mistake was early in the movie as J quickly brushes off her absence, saying that she loved the morgue too much and went back to being a deputy medical examiner. Yes, I’m sure that after seeing the wonders of the universe and being an agent in the most secretive agency ever, that she’d just choose to “go back to her job at the morgue.” I wish Will Smith’s character could have been more honest by saying “I killed agent L because she was difficult to work with.” He was being half-honest by saying that she went to the “morgue” after all.

Either Martin Brody or Ted Nugent

Martin Brody is the man. Few people could take down a megaton great white with a rifle while on a sinking ship. That event alone could make him one of the greatest cinematic heroes. Sure, he was doing it to save himself but he took down a giant man-eater. Little did he know, his deathblow would be the first to start a blood rivalry between the Jaws family and the Brody’s. Their war even went as far as Sea World and Jamaica. He saved the day again in Jaws 2. Jaws 3 followed the feud as Jaws stalks the Brody sons and it makes sense for the Roy Scheider to not be there. Jaws The Revenge is where it gets a little dicey. The oldest surviving son takes his mom to Jamaica to hook it up with Michael Caine. But where is Martin Brody? Surely, Scheider was still alive at the time of filming. Well apparently, he said that “not even Mephistopheles could talk him into doing another sequel.” So his beloved screen wife said that he passed away because of a heart attack. He apparently suffered this because of his terrible memories of the shark. You win this time Jaws!

I said there is no spoon!

Remember Keanu Reeves’ band “Dogstar?” What a terrible career move that seemed to be, right? Turns out that was the best possible thing Keanu could have been doing. The alternative was to come back for Speed 2: Cruise Control. Keanu turned down his role of “Jack Traven” even when he was offered boatloads of cash. (see what I did there?) Fox was not happy, but still thought that Speed needed a sequel even without its main star, so they let Sandra Bullock handpick the new lead. She picked Jason Patric and the rest is bad pop culture history. The first scene of the movie has Bullock explaining, “Relationships based on extreme circumstances never work out.” Nice save Sandra.

Cigarettes, Guns, and Aviators. True Bad@$$

One of the best feminine heroes in cinema is the Sarah Connor. Her transformation from weak victim in the first Terminator to bona-fide badass in T2: Judgment Day is iconic. Forget John Connor, I believe she could easily be the leader of the underground human resistance. When the third movie, Rise of the Machines, a Terminatrix (yes, it’s that ridiculous) comes back to wipe out an older John Connor and other generals when they were younger. Linda Hamilton must have read the script because she turned down the role that made her a star. So “they” wrote her out and had John say that she died of Leukemia in 1997 and thankfully she never had to see Judgment Day actually take place. It’s not the worst way to write someone out, but it’s a cop out because the series still needed her. Then when they go to visit her casket, it is loaded with all sorts of guns and explosive devices?! Huh? I’m not claiming Sarah Connor was reincarnated as a rocket launcher, but if anyone were going to be, wouldn’t it be her?

Don’t worry about me Ripley, I won’t make it to the next movie.

Aliens is one of the great 80’s action flicks. You just can’t go wrong with Sigourney Weaver’s role as the heroic Ripley. She takes down the alien queen with style and ends up saving the adorable survivor Newt but also the wounded soldier Hicks and the android Bishop. The movie ends with the survivors finally breathing a sigh of relief as they fly off into the outer reaches of space. And then Alien 3 happened. Most people think of this movie and realize “this is when it gets bad.” Literally, in the opening credits we see Ripley’s ship and everyone sleeping peacefully in their cryo-chambers. Peacefully until some face-huggers (not as cuddly as you’d think) break into Hicks and Newt’s chambers and impregnate them. What a rip-off! After hoping for the best for Hicks and Ripley, the hope was that they’d have their own nuclear family with Newt. The official Alien3 cause of their deaths is that they died when the ship crashed onto the planet. The girl who played Newt was written out because the sequel was shot 6 years after Aliens and she was far too old. Michael Biehn, on the other hand, was written out because James Cameron was no longer on the project, and the new writers wanted to take everything in a new/crappy direction. I wonder how the series would have been different had the writers decided not to cinematically knock the wind out of the viewers by killing off characters off screen. Shame.

A big thank you for the list inspiration goes to Emily. Go check out her fantastic movie site at Movies & Mayhem. Good reading, even if she hates Batman.