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Killing off the lead and bringing them back for the climax?

R

RaymondLeggs

I was thinking about killing off my female lead, who is the main charachter somewhere in the middle of the second act, then they come back just in time to save the secondary charachter during the final shootout.

Most movies tend to do this at the end, or even have the character be resurrected for the sequel. Star trek 2 & 3 is the only example I can think of at the moment.. But those are two movies not one...

The closest I can think is skyline but that was in the 3rd act.

Are there any other good movies that do this, but not with the indication that there will be a sequel?
 
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Are you saying you want to kill her off in the second act, but she comes back at the end, when you only thought she was dead? Or are you saying she appears in the second act, then comes back at the end, then gets killed?

CASINO ROYALE SPOILER



If it's the latter, Casino Royale did it.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Are you saying you want to kill her off in the second act, but she comes back at the end, when you only thought she was dead? Or are you saying she appears in the second act, then comes back at the end, then gets killed?

CASINO ROYALE SPOILER



If it's the latter, Casino Royale did it.
Click to expand...

It's actually the first. Pretty much during the time of being supposedly dead she has grown a lot as a character and has went from a passive aggressive, to a bad ass during her time away, but there are some clues laid out to infer she was never killed off, that will be tied up at the end.
 
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So, she's not killed off, but the audience believes she's dead? This is not uncommon. But if she's the lead, the film may be a bit dull for the entire second half... Your lead is who the audience should be interested in. Without rhe lead (or leads), there's no movie. Are your secondary characters able to carry the film?
 
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It's going to confuse the audience and probably disconnect them from the film. In
Psycho, Hitchcock killed off the lead 20+ minutes into the film. Audiences were scared and confused, which is what Hitchcock wanted.
Is that what you want? Not only do you kill them off, but you bring them back? Many people are going to struggle with that. Also, I wouldn't recommend killing off a lead. Kill an important character in the film, but not the lead. Maybe a supporting character?

How did the character escape her death? Why did she pretend to be dead? How did she come right at the perfect moment?
 
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cheeseandachallenge said:
actually, I would think killing of the lead is a predictable move. As soon as you do it, people are going to go "oh, but she won't have really died, she'll come back". At least, that's how I'd respond..
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Depends on how she died... I wouldn't be expecting her headless corpse to rise from it's grave!

Thinking of examples, in Machete, Lutz is shot and we assume she died. But she returns at the end, revealing that she actually survived. It works. But she wasn't the lead.

Personally, I don't think it can work with the lead....
 
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Well she gets shot by the bad guys when the main charachters are in the safe house. She Pretended to be dead so that in the mean time she'd be in a better position to deal with the main villains of the story..
 
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RaymondLeggs said:
Pretty much during the time of being supposedly dead she has grown a lot as a character and has went from a passive aggressive, to a bad ass during her time away,
Click to expand...
And none of this is shown to the audience because she has "died".

You have the main character fake her death then develop and
grow while the audience (and all the other characters) think
she's dead? She just suddenly appears fully changed in time
for the final shoot out?
 
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directorik said:
And none of this is shown to the audience because she has "died".

You have the main character fake her death then develop and
grow while the audience (and all the other characters) think
she's dead? She just suddenly appears fully changed in time
for the final shoot out?
Click to expand...


Bingo. Your audience needs to see that character has gone through a transition; otherwise there's no point. Plus, like it was said before, it's a pretty cliche moment in movies now a days.

Remember, your making a movie to tell a story to the audience. If we can't see what's going on in the story, then we can't relate.
 
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RaymondLeggs said:
Looks like It's not such a good idea after all or even that original.
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Not necessarily, it depends how you do it (as with everything). But we can't really tell you how to do it, otherwise it's probably too easy to think of and hence predictable/unoriginal. But maybe instead of having it as a twist, you can show her dying, and then only leave it for a few moments before cutting to her actually being alive? The other characters wouldn't know, and it's not something hasn't been done before, but it might work for your purposes?
 
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For me, batman comes to mind. I can't recall if they thought he was dead or not, but during Bruce Wayne's hiatus, they did a good job of showing his transformation into a bad ass while showing the deterioration of Gotham city, which made the viewer root for him as he trained and made his return more exciting.
 
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Zensteve said:
Based on a true story, apparently. Storyline listing in link explains it all.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817517/
Click to expand...

I laughed really hard at this...lol

I then started laughing even more when they said it was a drama/HORROR

Anyways...back on topic.


You can't kill the main character and then have her/him disappear for a whole act completely, just to have him/her return with some crazy transformation. People would erupt with, "OMG, plot hole!" They want to SEE the awesome and baddass transformation...not miss out on it.
 
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