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he Wasp got nothing to do in her own movie.
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00:00Sequels to hit movies can be tough to pull off, as filmmakers need to try and match,
00:05if not exceed, the quality of the predecessor. As such, it's little surprise that so many
00:10sequels end up failing characters from the first film, effectively giving them nothing to do but
00:16flounder around in the periphery, waiting for their queue. I'm Ewan, you're watching WhatCulture,
00:22and here are 10 major movie characters given nothing to do in the sequel.
00:2610. Cyclops, X2, and X- The Last Stand
00:31James Marsden was quite perfectly cast as Cyclops in the original X-Men, and though the first film
00:36didn't really give the character a terrific showing, there was clearly room for growth in the sequels.
00:42But in X2, the best of that X-Men trilogy, he gets captured early on, disappears for a huge chunk of
00:49the movie, and only really returns for a few minutes near the end of the film, while mind-controlled no
00:55less. The worst got saved to last with X- The Last Stand, where he's unceremoniously killed off by
01:01Jean Grey, and that's that. Only a pair of specs to be remembered by. Look, I get it, it's gonna be
01:08hard to displace Wolverine, Magneto, and Professor X for screentime, especially when the latter two are
01:13played by Serene McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart. But given that Cyclops was always one of the most
01:18popular X-Men, it's bizarre how quickly he became a second-rate, also-ran superhero in Fox's movies.
01:259. Buzz Lightyear – Toy Story 4
01:29Though Tim Allen's Buzz Lightyear started to feel like a side character in Toy Story 3,
01:34it wasn't until Toy Story 4 that he well and truly took a formal backseat. With the story being
01:41centered quite blatantly around Woody and Bo Peep, Buzz was basically shoehorned into the film's B-plot,
01:47as he and the other toys attempted to track Woody down. In addition to the size of Buzz's roles
01:53being reduced, many fans also complained that he'd been flanderized, that is, diddly-dumbed down into
01:59a caricature of himself. Couldn't they have just called this a day with Toy Story 3?
02:038. Leonard Bones McCoy – Star Trek Into Darkness
02:08Like many of his co-stars in the excellently cast Star Trek reboot, Carl Urban gave a terrific
02:14performance as Dr Leonard Bones McCoy. Naturally, there was an expectation that he would feature
02:19just as prominently in the next film. Sadly, Bones was basically relegated to background character
02:25status for most of the movie. Honestly, can you remember a single thing he did in the film,
02:30apart from maybe just studying a Tribble? But this annoyed nobody more than Urban himself,
02:34who revealed that he almost turned down the offer to appear in 3-quel Star Trek Beyond,
02:39and worked on another unnamed movie instead. Quote,
02:43I certainly was hesitant about reprising the role of McCoy. I felt that I was in agreement with a
02:48vast number of fans and audience members and critics who, after watching Into Darkness,
02:53felt that the character had become marginalized. And I was not keen to repeat that experience.
02:59Thankfully, the Simon Pegg-penned Star Trek Beyond, underrated by the way, actually gave Bones
03:04something to do and didn't make him feel like a mere accessory along for the ride just because.
03:107. Finn and Rose – Star Wars Episode 9 – The Rise of Skywalker
03:16While many Star Wars viewers will argue that John Boyega's Finn wasn't given nearly enough to do in
03:22Star Wars The Last Jedi, at least his role in that film felt like a continuation of his Stormtrooper
03:28turned Rebel arc scene in The Force Awakens. The Rise of Skywalker, though, reduces Finn to nothing
03:34but a background character, far from his status as basically a co-lead in The Force Awakens.
03:40Remember that thing you wanted to tell Rey? Die? Sure don't. Here he feels purely along for the
03:46adventure, enough that even a promising arc about his Force sensitivity was bizarrely curtailed during
03:53editing. And right alongside Finn, there's Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico, who, after being introduced
03:59as a prominent Resistance member in The Last Jedi, gets barely a minute of screen time in The Rise of
04:05Skywalker. This truly is the worst Star Wars movie, folks.
04:096. Kirby – Scream 6 The 2022 Scream movie was largely
04:15well received as a slick meta commentary on reboots and legacy sequels, introducing a new cast of
04:21characters led by Melissa Barrera and Janet Ortega and having them come up against a new ghostface,
04:27all while Sydney, Gale and Dewey chip in to lend a helping hand.
04:31Like Scream 4, I think the 2022 movie misses the 90s slash early aughts charm of the first three films,
04:38but by and large, the new cast were great, there was some fun commentary and some great set pieces.
04:44I'll never forgive you for killing Dewey, though. Great scene, but I have not recovered emotionally.
04:49Anyway, the follow-up to 2022 Scream, Scream 6, continued the story of the new Core 4,
04:56while only bringing two characters back from the original series of films.
05:00Courtney Cox's Gail Weathers and Hayden Panetti as Kirby Reed.
05:04Gail kind of gets nothing to do in this one as well, literally recycling her
05:08exploit-the-tragedy arc yet again after her ex died, but arguably more short-changed as Kirby.
05:16Ignoring for a second that the bring-back ex-character juice would have been way better
05:21served resurrecting Parker Posey's Jennifer Jolie from Scream 3, also underrated by the way,
05:26Kirby reappears in Scream as an FBI agent sent to investigate the fresh fate of ghostface killings.
05:33But all she's really used for is a red-herring ghostface suspect, and frustratingly one that would
05:39have been a more interesting ghostface reveal than what we actually got.
05:44She shows up again in the finale somewhat bleed and bruised to drop a television on Ethan,
05:48one of the film's three ghostface killers, but that's really it.
05:525. Jane Foster – Thor The Dark World
05:56Among the many, many creative missteps in the second Thor movie is quite literally reducing Jane Foster,
06:03Natalie Portman, to a plot device. Jane's entire arc throughout the movie consists of becoming infected
06:09with the ether, which threatens to kill her, being hunted by villain Malachith, played by a clearly
06:14disinterested Christopher Eccleston, and then pressing a few buttons during the final battle.
06:19Oh, and going on a date with Chris O'Dowd, if you can even remember that.
06:22In fairness, Jane wasn't exactly a great fixture in the original Thor, but at least she had something
06:28resembling agency and played a distinct role in the story. Plus, she and Chris Hemsworth had some
06:33great chemistry, so that's a big plus too. In the Dark World, though, she felt less like a person
06:39and more like a piece of furniture, being literally combined with the movie's MacGuffin in case the
06:44point hadn't been made clearly enough.
06:474. Jennifer Parker – Back to the Future Part 2 and 3
06:52Though Marty McFly's girlfriend Jennifer wasn't exactly a major, major character in Back to the Future,
06:58the movie's cliffhanger ending nevertheless established her as a permanent fixture in Marty's
07:02life, while implying that she would be joining Marty and Doc on the mission to save their children
07:07from their respective grim fates. But Back to the Future Part 2
07:11dispenses with Jennifer, now played by Elizabeth Shue rather than Claudia Wells,
07:15with an almost hilarious efficiency, as shortly after arriving in the future of 2015,
07:21Doc renders her unconscious in order to prevent her from learning too much about the future.
07:26She briefly wakes up, only to faint upon encountering her 2015 self, at which point
07:32Marty and Doc return her to 1985 and dump her, still unconscious, on her front porch.
07:38And that's the last we see of Jennifer until the end of Back to the Future Part 3,
07:44where Marty returns to 1985 with their kid's fate safely averting.
07:48Heck, even filmmakers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale admitted on the trilogy's DVD commentary that they
07:54didn't know what to do with Jennifer in the sequels, and if they'd thought things through more,
07:59they would've never had her get into the DeLorean with Marty and Doc at the end of the first movie.
08:04Number 3, Casey Jones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3.
08:09Is that a Jose Canseco bat? Oh hell yeah, now we're talking!
08:13Beyond the Turtles themselves, one of the easy highlights of the 1990 live-action TMNT movie,
08:18which is also underrated, I'm sensing a theme in this list, was Elias Codius' performance as the
08:24Turtles' ally, Casey Jones. Despite this, Casey was bafflingly absent from the immediate sequel,
08:31TMNT 2 The Secret of the Used, apparently due to Codius objecting to its lighter tone,
08:36with pizza delivery boy Kino basically taking his place. Codius did however come back for Teenage
08:42Ninja Turtles 3, only for Casey to be given an incredibly short shrift in an exceedingly weird
08:50way. Yeah, this one is considered easily the worst for the trilogy for good reason.
08:54Because the Turtles travel through time and swap places with four honor guards displaced from feudal
08:59Japan, Casey is left babysitting the dopey quartet while the Turtles head off on their timey adventure.
09:05That Casey, a proven ally and vigilante, is largely confined to the Turtles' lair, is borderline sacrilege.
09:12The only slight saving grace is that Codius does get to play a second character,
09:17Wit, who ate the Turtles in the past and is heavily implied to be Casey's ancestor.
09:21Still, it's no replacement for seeing a samurai get bonked on the head with a hockey stick,
09:26I needed to see that immediately. Also, it's just infuriating that they brought back such a much
09:31loved character after he sat out the previous movie, only to keep him and his immaculate logs
09:36locked away for the whole film. Given how good that first TMNT movie is, it's such a shame
09:41the sequels never managed to equal it. 2. Hope Van Dyne
09:46Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania
09:49Now this. This is a movie that exists. Given that her name is literally in the movie's title,
09:56it was a reasonable expectation that Hope Van Dyne, aka the Wasp played by Evangeline Lilly,
10:02would have a major, meaningful role in the third Ant-Man movie. And yet, Wasp ends up feeling like a
10:09tag-along for almost the entirety of the threequel. Such that it's tough to remember a single memorable
10:15line or thing she does, outside of briefly helping Scott defeat Kang at the very end.
10:20Ultimately, it felt more like the Wasp of the title, actually referred to Hope's mother Janet,
10:25played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who has a much more substantial upfront role.
10:301. Mako Mori
10:32Pacific Rim Uprising Mako Mori, played by Rinko Kikuchi, was easily one of the most popular
10:38characters in the first Pacific Rim, directed by Guillermo del Toro, certainly more so than
10:44Protagonist Beckett, played by Charlie Hunnam, who didn't appear in the sequel due to scheduling
10:49conflicts. And so, it seemed like a given that Mako would become the new lead, only for the Reigns
10:55to instead be handed to an entirely new character, Jake Pentecost, played by John Boyega. Mako did show
11:02up for a few scat minutes in Pacific Rim Uprising though, briefly meeting with Jake before being
11:07unexpectedly assassinated when her chopper is knocked out of the sky by a rogue Jaeger, Obsidian Fury.
11:15It was a cheap, embarrassing death for a beloved character, enough that many fans of Pacific Rim
11:20simply wish Mako didn't appear in the film at all, rather than get such a perfunctory, unceremonious
11:26demise. Hell, even writer-director Steven Esther Knight admitted that Mako's death didn't really work,
11:32and with Uprising's box office failure effectively ending the cinematic franchise, some fans have
11:38bashed the film from their headcanon and still insist that Mako never died.
11:41Never died.
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