20 film franchises that brought characters back from the dead

It’s one of the most infamous lines of dialogue of the new millennium: “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, was ultimately the primary antagonist of the original “Star Wars” trilogy. He was killed by Darth Vader to save his son, Luke Skywalker, but the “Star Wars” films that followed the original three have never had the ability to leave well enough alone. It was decided that, surprise, Palpatine was the ultimate villain of the most recent trilogy as well. They just never bothered to justify why he wasn’t dead.

Originally, the “Fast & Furious” films were going to be mid-budget action flicks with a rotating cast. As such, for “Tokyo Drift,” Han was both introduced and killed. That was going to be that, but then Vin Diesel returned to the franchise, and it was decided that everything was tied together. First, it was inexplicably decided that in the “Fast & Furious” timeline, “Tokyo Drift” came after a few of the films that followed it so that Han could be around. Then, that proved pointless, because they just had Han’s death proved to be faked.

Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, never had the most robust role in the MCU. She was introduced, played by Scarlett Johansson, in “Iron Man 2.” Black Widow was part of the action, but never at the center. She had one of her first real, sizable moments when she sacrificed herself in “Avengers: Endgame,” one of the only true deaths of that film. However, after years of cajoling, Johansson was also able to get her “Black Widow” movie. Since it came out after “Endgame,” it had to be set prior to all of that Thanos stuff.

The original 1954 “Godzilla” was a seminal Japanese monster movie built on the existential fallout of the nation's use of nuclear weapons in World War II. At the end of the film, though, Godzilla is killed. The plan was not for Godzilla to become front and center in a long-running series of silly monster movies. Technically, 1955’s “Godzilla Raids Again” is about a “new Godzilla,” but c’mon. It’s all Godzilla.

When you are a comic book character, it’s not surprising when you return. When you have a second form known as “Phoenix,” it’s essentially a given. The ins and outs of Jean Grey and Phoenix in the two different “X-Men” franchises (which sort of blend together) are a little murky. She’s Jean, and then Jean “dies,” and she becomes Phoenix. Sometimes she goes back to being Jean; sometimes she doesn't. Comic books, you know?

There are a couple of reasons why “The Wrath of Khan” is considered by many to be the best “Star Trek” film. One, Khan is a quality villain. Two, the ending is substantive and a gut punch as Kirk sees Spock sacrifice his life to save everyone else. Of course, the fact that they called the third film “The Search for Spock” was a tip-off that his death was not permanent. Leonard Nimoy directed the film that resurrected him, but the way they made it happen is rather silly.

Poor Ripley. Tough as she may be, she didn’t have the best of times in the “Alien” franchise. First, you know, there was the original fate of the Nostromo. Then, after years in space, she is rescued and has to go through it all over again. The needlessly mean-spirited third film sees her crash onto a prison planet. In that one, she dies, but they weren’t ready to let the franchise go. “Alien Resurrection” is set 200 years after “Alien 3,” and sees Ripley cloned, and still played by Sigourney Weaver.

In hindsight, we shouldn’t have believed for a second that Sue Storm was actually dead. It’s the MCU, after all. For a brief moment, though, we allowed ourselves to think the franchise might have a spine for once. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” introduced a new flavor of the superhero team bespoke for Disney’s Marvel movies. Sue, aka the Invisible Woman, dies in her efforts to stop Galactus. She sacrificed herself for the sake of the world. Then her magic baby brings her back to life.

Time for a horror franchise run. Horror franchises are the primary world in which characters die but are brought back to life. The first “Friday the 13th” movie ends with Jason emerging from Crystal Lake after drowning there years earlier. Eventually, not only would Jason get resurrected time and time again, but the dude straight-up got out of Hell.

“Halloween,” an all-killer, no-filler slasher of the highest order, ends with Michael Myers seemingly dead, but getting away. The second film, though, was supposed to kill Michael off, and the third film didn’t involve him at all. Of course, when “Halloween III” flopped, they opted to bring Michael back, and he’s been bouncing between life and death ever since. Shagadelic, baby.

Freddy is dead, to begin with. In “A  Nightmare on Elm Street,” he has been murdered by a mob and is killing people in their dreams. Does that count as being back from the dead? Perhaps, but it’s really more the way in which Freddy, movie in and movie out, finds his death impermanent. In fact, like Jason, Freddy has also escaped Christian Hell.

One last horror villain for you. The premise of “Child’s Play” is that the soul of a killer ends up in a doll, but then that doll proves unkillable himself. From the more serious installments to the out-and-out campy ones, it’s hard to keep a good killer doll down.

Though “Pirates of the Caribbean” was built upon a Disney ride with essentially no plot, the franchise was a smash success right out of the gate. Johnny Depp’s turn as Jack Sparrow played a major role in that. Like him or not, Depp got an Oscar nomination for playing a pirate in a Disney adventure movie. At the end of the second film, “Dead Man’s Chest,” Sparrow dies facing down a kraken. This was a world already filled with magic, though, so it’s not surprising that he was able to be resurrected.

Hey, a robot alien can die and come back to life as well. Optimus Prime is the leader of the good guy Transformers and is thus one of the protagonists of the film series. Once again, a movie franchise decided to up the stakes by killing off a main character, only to take it back pretty quickly. In fact, after being killed by Megatron in “Revenge of the Fallen,” Optimus Prime is brought back to life in the same movie.

There can only be one! Or not! “Highlander” introduced us all to a series of arcane rules, primary among them that only one Highlander can survive, and so they must perpetually duel to the death. Sean Connery, naturally, played the Egyptian known as the Spaniard, rather than the Scottish guy. Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez is the mentor to Connor MacLeod, before he is killed by the ultimate baddie. Of course, they wanted to make a sequel to “Highlander,” and Connery never turned down a paycheck. As such, they figured out a flimsy reason for Ramirez to return in “Highlander II: The Quickening.”

Quaritch, the environment-hating, money-loving military man, is the ostensible antagonist of “Avatar.” He is killed in that film, but James Cameron is the kind of guy we believe when he says he had, like, six movies planned out from the beginning. Quaritch’s consciousness is placed into an artificially grown Na’vi body, allowing him to return to his nefarious ways.

In the first film of the “Matrix” trilogy (the only one that is any good), Neo finds out he is, in fact, The One. Good starting point. While “The Matrix Revolutions” is flawed, it reaches the logical conclusion in which Neo sacrifices himself to save everyone and reboot The Matrix. After a while, though, Lana Wachowski got the itch to return to the world of “The Matrix.” Thus, in 2021, we got the fittingly-titled “The Matrix Resurrections,” and Neo was back.

In the first “Lord of the Rings” movie, Gandalf the Gray sacrifices himself battling the Balrog to make sure Frodo and the fellowship can complete their mission. If you knew nothing of the books, it would have felt plausible that that was it for Gandalf. Of course, he is a wizard, so maybe it should have been assumed that he would not be that. It turns out Gandalf got a Pokémon evolution in death. He returns in “The Two Towers” resurrected as Gandalf the White.

The power of time travel. James Cameron, well before he had “Avatar” budgets, made a nasty, slick sci-fi/horror movie in “The Terminator.” It ended, fittingly, with the killer cyborg sent from the future being terminated. Several years later, Cameron got to make a sequel, but he changed things up. Now it was an epic action movie, and now there were two “terminators” from the future. The new villain was a liquid-metal variant, while the Arnold Schwarzenegger cyborg was now reprogrammed to side with Sarah and John Connor.