Sometimes, filmmakers just don't know when they're onto something great; the protagonist, often the hardened hero of a great movie franchise (or occasionally, the devilishly hard-to-kill antagonist), will meet an epic, unforgettable fate, only for the character to be oh-so-conveniently brought back when the studio demands a needless sequel. These characters were once upon a time iconic, memorable, and in some cases flat-out annoying enough that their spontaneous resurrections undid the previous good work, and also made us yearn for them to be killed off a second time. Whatever the reason, these 10 characters were misguidedly brought back from death, and audiences couldn't quite buy it. It would have served each character and each story far better had they just stayed in the ground...
10. Ripley - Alien Resurrection
The Death: In Alien 3, Stalwart franchise protagonist Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) discovers that she is harbouring an Alien Queen embryo, and so to ensure that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation cannot retrieve the Queen and weaponise it, she dives into a blast furnace.
The Resurrection: 200 years later, Ripley is brought back to life through cloning (using blood samples taken before her death), but in the process she has developed some of the Alien Queen's superior physical characteristics, namely strength, speed and acidic blood. Cue to some very, very weird relations between her and the Xenomorphs.
Why She Should Have Stayed Dead: Ripley's death in Alien 3 had enormous weight, but Resurrection completely dismisses that gravity and basically unfolds like a hastily-scribbled fanfic. Enormously contrived, and a pretty silly way to see the Alien franchise out, even with the (oddly bad) contributions of Joss Whedon's screenplay.