10 Awful Movie Death Retcons EVERYONE Hated

Unlike every other death retcon on this list, Spider-Man 3 didn't undo the death of Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson), but rather changed the circumstances of his demise in a way that felt horrendously cheap and manipulative.

In Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man film, Ben is killed by a carjacker who Peter (Tobey Maguire) allowed to escape moments earlier. It's a brutal revelation that teaches Peter a painful-yet-valuable lesson about heroism and justice.

But Spider-Man 3 decided to toss this out of the window completely, retconning Ben to have instead been killed by the carjacker's associate, Flint Marko aka Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church).

It was head-smackingly obvious that Flint was revealed to be Ben's true killer in a lazy attempt to force a deeply personal connection to Spider-Man, but this came at the cost of everything Ben's death meant in the original movie - namely motivating Peter to be a better hero.

And worse still, Spider-Man 3 didn't even have the courage of its convictions, as later in the film it's revealed that Marko didn't actually intend to shoot Ben and has been plagued by guilt ever since. Lame isn't even the word.