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Professor X has now died four times in movies.
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00:00Killing off a beloved or iconic character can result in an unforgettable movie moment that fans will talk about for years or maybe even decades.
00:09The emotional impact of a meaningful death scene speaks for itself, though sometimes apparently one death just isn't really enough.
00:16These 10 movie characters kick the bucket on screen again and again and again for our apparent entertainment.
00:23And so with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 10 movie characters they couldn't stop killing off.
00:31Number 10. Doctor Strange in the MCU.
00:35Though a good number of the Avengers have died at least once courtesy of Thanos' fateful fingersnap,
00:40Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange holds the distinction of having died way, way more than any other MCU superhero.
00:47In his debut solo movie, Strange unforgettably uses the Eye of Agamotto to trap interdimensional supervillain Dormammu in a time loop,
00:57prompting the incensed entity to repeatedly kill Strange in an attempt to escape.
01:01A hilarious montage shows Strange being killed around a dozen times, incinerated, stabbed, crushed and so on.
01:08But it's implied that the loop went on far, far longer than this before Dormammu gave up and agreed to spare Earth.
01:15Doctor Strange co-writer John Spates has stated that Strange died dozens of times, if not hundreds of times, so there it is.
01:22But that's not all.
01:24Strange was also one of the victims of the blip, which turned him to dust for five years,
01:28and then most recently in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,
01:32the Defender Strange variant is killed by a demon and outrageously resurrected as a zombie later on.
01:38Plus, don't forget about Strange Supreme, the version from Earth-838, who gets disintegrated by Black Bolt,
01:45and of course, the villainous Sinister Strange, who the prime Strange impales during their climactic fight.
01:51Even a conservative estimate put Strange's MCU deaths at close to 30.
01:56But considering how many times Strange must have had to die to exasperate Dormammu enough to leave Earth alone,
02:02he's surely died at least several hundred times, right?
02:05Number 9. Agent Smith in The Matrix
02:08Agent Smith is, of course, the Matrix series' recurring overarching antagonist, for the most part anyway.
02:16Much like Doctor Strange, Smith has technically died many, many times over the course of the original trilogy.
02:22Smith is defeated and obliterated by Neo at the end of the first film,
02:26before returning in The Matrix reloaded with the ability to copy himself onto anybody connected to The Matrix,
02:32with all of these copies bound by a single consciousness.
02:36In The Matrix Revolutions, then, we see Smith die basically innumerable times.
02:40For starters, a Smith-possessed Bane gets beaten to death by Neo,
02:44and then at film's end, Smith is returned to the source by Neo,
02:47destroying both Smith Prime and all of his copies.
02:50Given the implication that Smith more or less assimilated everybody connected to The Matrix,
02:55and we know there are billions of people in it,
02:58it's safe to say that Smith effectively died billions of times at the end of Revolutions.
03:03What a trip.
03:04Thankfully, everybody Smith-assimilated returned to their prior form,
03:08though when Smith himself resurfaced in the recent Matrix resurrections,
03:12he surprisingly managed to survive this time round.
03:15Number 8. Brenda Meeks in Scary Movie
03:18Brenda Meeks is unquestionably one of the greatest, if not the greatest,
03:23characters in the Scary Movie franchise,
03:25and a recurring gag through the series saw her get killed off in one movie,
03:30only to inexplicably reappear in the next one.
03:33A commentary on the horror genre itself, surely?
03:36Brenda's most memorable demise comes in the original film,
03:39where she's murdered by a group of pissed-off cinema patrons
03:42trying to watch Shakespeare in Love in peace.
03:44Brenda's constant talking and generally obnoxious behaviour
03:47sees her get stabbed and beaten by the collective movie-going audience,
03:51before collapsing in front of the movie screen,
03:54a la Scream 2's opening sequence.
03:56She then returns for Scary Movie 2,
03:58where she actually survives, only to die again in Scary Movie 3,
04:02when she's attacked by Tabitha,
04:04a parody of Sadako from the Ring franchise.
04:07To make her death seem even more definitive,
04:10Brenda's corpse is accidentally exploded at her funeral.
04:13And yet, Brenda comes back again for Scary Movie 4,
04:17and though she doesn't actually die in the film itself,
04:19she is killed off in a hilarious deleted scene.
04:22Just as Brenda expresses relief at surviving,
04:25she's crushed by a giant shipping container
04:27that randomly falls out of the sky.
04:30Because why not?
04:31Regina Hall opted not to return for Scary Movie 5,
04:34nor did co-star Anna Faris sensibly,
04:37and so that's all she wrote for the character.
04:39Number 7. Optimus Prime in Transformers
04:43Despite being the most iconic Transformers character,
04:47Optimus Prime hasn't been spared his fair share of death over the years.
04:51Well, whatever dying means for a sentient robot life form, anyway.
04:54Though Optimus has died literally dozens of times
04:57in both the Transformers comics and cartoons,
05:00he's also kicked the bucket cinematically thrice over the last 35 years.
05:04Optimus infamously died in 1986's animated film Transformers The Movie,
05:10expiring from wounds sustained in his battle with Megatron,
05:14and traumatised an entire generation of kids,
05:17and prompted Hasbro to hastily resurrect him in the TV series.
05:21In the second live-action movie,
05:23Transformers Revenge of the Fallen,
05:25at the end of the awesome forest fight,
05:27Optimus is impaled and killed by Megatron,
05:30though is later resurrected by Sam Witwicky.
05:33And finally, in the 2013 animated film
05:36Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Predacons Rising,
05:40Optimus gives up his own life to rejuvenate the well of all sparks,
05:44allowing life to be restored to Cybertron.
05:47As ever, though, it wasn't permanent,
05:49and Optimus was resurrected a few years later.
05:52Number 6. Thomas and Martha Wayne in Batman and DC
05:57Bruce Wayne's parents, Thomas and Martha,
05:59are the all-time recurring punching bags
06:02as tragic superhero origin stories go,
06:05edging out Spider-Man's Uncle Ben.
06:07Despite everybody and their grandma knowing how Batman came to be,
06:11we've seen the Waynes murdered in near-countless
06:14Batman and Batman-adjacent DC movies
06:17over the last three-plus decades.
06:19In Tim Burton's 1989 Batman,
06:21we see them gunned down by a young Jack Napier,
06:24aka The Joker.
06:25And though Batman Forever is technically a sequel
06:28to the Burton movies,
06:30it's really more of a soft reboot,
06:32where we again see Bruce Wayne's parents
06:34shot dead by a shadowy gunman.
06:36They're then shown dying in Christopher Nolan's
06:39Batman Begins,
06:40this time by Joe Chill during a botched robbery.
06:43They also die in the opening titles
06:45of Batman Vs Superman Dawn of Justice,
06:48and again in the climax of Joker,
06:50where they're shot by a rioter.
06:51Furthermore, the iconic scene has been recreated
06:54in the animated films Batman Gotham Knight,
06:57Batman Year One,
06:58Batman The Dark Knight Returns,
07:00Batman Vs Robin,
07:01and Batman Bad Blood.
07:03And let's not forget the single light-hearted depiction
07:06of the Waynes' deaths in Teen Titans Go To The Movies,
07:09where the Teen Titans quite literally wrap a necklace
07:12around Martha Wayne's neck
07:13and shove the pair into the fateful alleyway,
07:16in turn ensuring Batman's creation.
07:18While the recent The Batman was intimately centred
07:21around the Waynes' deaths,
07:22their murders mercifully weren't shown this time.
07:25Because let's be honest,
07:26we're all pretty sick of seeing crime alibi now, right?
07:30Number 5.
07:31Ellen Ripley in Alien
07:33Ellen Ripley is the much-loved protagonist
07:35of the Alien franchise,
07:37and who controversially died at the end
07:39of the wildly divisive Alien 3,
07:42diving into a vat of molten lead
07:43just as the xenomorph queen she was impregnated with
07:46burst from her stomach.
07:48As sad as it was to see Ripley go,
07:50it was a fittingly heroic end for the character.
07:53That is, if not for the fact that sequel Alien Resurrection
07:56went the glorified fan-fiction route
07:58and brought her back by way of clones,
08:01ever a hallmark of quality storytelling.
08:03A clone of Ripley is created using blood taken
08:06before her death,
08:07but because Ripley's DNA combined with the xenomorphs
08:10while she was pregnant,
08:11and xenomorphs have genetic memories of their hosts,
08:14it allowed the new Ripley to retain
08:15some of the original Ripley's memories.
08:18How convenient.
08:19Anyway, the Ripley clone is referred to as Ripley 8,
08:22because seven failed clones were created before her,
08:25yet either died or were euthanised
08:27due to their extensive mutations.
08:29Memorably, we get an up-close glimpse
08:31of the horribly deformed Ripley 7,
08:33who Ripley 8 quickly puts out of her misery
08:35with a flamethrower burst.
08:37Ripley 8 ultimately survives the events of the movie,
08:39but with nobody having a clear idea
08:41of how to continue her journey,
08:43we haven't seen any version of the character
08:45in the 25 years since.
08:48Number 4.
08:49The Camp Nightwing Killer in Fear Street.
08:52Fear Street's Camp Nightwing Killer,
08:54aka Tommy Slater,
08:56is very clearly an homage to Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees,
09:00a camp counsellor who gets possessed by Satan
09:03and goes on a killing spree at Camp Nightwing.
09:05But Tommy himself dies numerous times across the trilogy,
09:08in the 1994 set first film being trapped
09:11in a Shadyside high school bathroom and exploded,
09:14before reanimating to continue his rampage.
09:17In Part 2, 1978,
09:19Tommy is stabbed to death by Cindy,
09:21but again resurrected,
09:22before Cindy again offs him
09:24by brutally decapitating him with a shovel.
09:27But that's not it either.
09:28In Part 3, 1666,
09:31Nightwing resurfaces once more,
09:33dying in another trap set by the heroes,
09:35only to be revived again and finally die for good
09:38when Sheriff Goode is killed,
09:40causing him and the other Shadyside killers to disintegrate.
09:44Number 3.
09:45Nicky in Little Nicky.
09:47Now, admittedly,
09:48in the case of the Adam Sandler comedy Little Nicky,
09:51his deaths all occur in the span of a single film.
09:54But considering that Little Nicky
09:55is neither a superhero film nor a time loop movie,
09:58it is fairly unique in this regard.
10:00The rub is that Nicky is the son of Satan
10:03and sent to Earth to prevent his evil brothers
10:05from taking over the planet.
10:07Nicky, having spent his entire life in Hell,
10:10struggles to adjust to life on Earth,
10:11resulting in him dying a number of amusing times
10:14over the course of the film.
10:16Yet, the stakes are ultimately pretty low in Nicky's case,
10:18as he simply respawns in Hell
10:20or, in the event of a sacrificial death, Heaven.
10:23His deaths include being hit by a train twice,
10:26run over by a bus,
10:27creamed by a truck,
10:28moored by a polar bear,
10:29drowned by one of his friends
10:30and having his skull crushed by a large rock.
10:33In some of these cases,
10:34Nicky voluntarily lays down his life
10:36either to save another
10:37or to quickly get back to Hell,
10:39while in others,
10:40it's the result of sheer clumsiness.
10:42Either way, the guy dies a lot
10:44over the course of Little Nicky's
10:45mere 90-minute runtime.
10:48Number 2.
10:49Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men and the MCU.
10:53Patrick Stewart's performance
10:54as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies
10:57is one of the greatest in the history of superhero cinema.
11:01And so, it's surprising that filmmakers
11:03have opted to kill him off so damn often.
11:06Xavier's first on-screen death came in X-Men The Last Stand,
11:09where he was disintegrated by the Phoenix-powered Gene Cray,
11:13only further frustrating fans
11:14already colossally disappointed
11:16by basically everything the movie had to offer.
11:18It's implied that Xavier came back from the dead
11:21by transferring his consciousness
11:22into the mind of his comatose twin brother.
11:25But in X-Men Days of Future Past,
11:27he expires once again,
11:29being annihilated by a sentinel in the film's climax.
11:32Mercifully, though,
11:33the plot's timey-wimey shenanigans
11:35allow Xavier's death to be undone
11:37and for him to return in Logan,
11:39where he's suffering from
11:40the world's worst case of dementia,
11:42which causes telepathic seizures
11:44that have killed hundreds.
11:45Just as Xavier seems to find some peace, though,
11:48he's stabbed to death in his bed
11:50by X-24, a clone of Logan,
11:52but at least lives long enough to learn
11:54that it wasn't Logan himself
11:55who administered the fatal blow.
11:57And finally,
11:58Xavier, of course,
11:59had a brief cameo appearance
12:00in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,
12:03showing up as the leader of the Illuminati
12:05on the 838 version of Earth.
12:07Xavier telepathically enters Wanda's mind
12:10in an attempt to free her imprisoned 838 variant,
12:13only for Wanda to snap Xavier's neck,
12:15killing him in the real world.
12:17Considering that will almost certainly be
12:19the last time Patrick Stewart plays the part,
12:21it's unlikely we'll see Xavier die onscreen again
12:24anytime soon.
12:26Number 1.
12:27Tree in Happy Death Day.
12:29Though we've generally refrained
12:30from including time loop movies on this list
12:33because it's just too easy,
12:35Happy Death Day is a little bit different
12:37because unlike most time loop films,
12:39it isn't a one-off.
12:40The first film saw protagonist Tree
12:42die like a dozen different ways,
12:44including being stabbed numerous times,
12:46drowned, hit by a truck,
12:47brained with a baseball bat,
12:48blown up, hanged by herself,
12:50and finally eating a poisoned cupcake.
12:52And the sequel, Happy Death Day 2U,
12:55brought Tree back for more punishment,
12:57falling or jumping off buildings three times,
13:00electrocuting herself in the bathtub,
13:02drinking bleach,
13:03diving into a wood chipper,
13:04being blown up,
13:05and driving into a power transformer.
13:07Granted, in the sequel,
13:08Tree is most often killing herself
13:10in order to quickly pass information forward
13:12to the next time loop,
13:13but still,
13:14how many horror movie final girls
13:16have died even once
13:17and yet lived to tell the tale?
13:19And that concludes our list.
13:21If you can think of any that we missed,
13:22then do let us know in the comments below.
13:24And while you're there,
13:25don't forget to like and subscribe
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13:28Also, head over to Twitter
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13:30and I can be found across various social medias
13:32just by searching Ellie Little Child.
13:34I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.
13:36I hope you have a magical day,
13:37and I'll see you real soon.
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