Chuck Cunningham Syndrome / Film

Films — Animation

• All Dogs Go to Heaven 2:
  • Flo, Charlie's implied possible dog love interest in the first movie, is never mentioned.
  • Anne-Marie, although she's briefly mentioned in one scene, but not by name.
  • Killer, Carface's sidekick, which makes this the only entry in the series without him.
• In the Direct to Video sequels to An American Tail, Bridget, the love interest of Fievel's older friend Tony Toponi, vanishes without even a mention and Tony starts lusting after other women. This could possibly be because Bridget's voice actress was terminally ill when the movies were made and died soon after (for their faults, the 3rd and 4th films did manage to get most of the original voice talents from the first two movies). It could also have been because the writers wanted Tony to be single so he could interact with Fievel more.
• In the Direct to Video sequels to Balto, Steele, along with Nikki, Kaltag, and Star, along with Dixie and Sylvie, do not appear or mentioned. In the third film, the grizzly bear was also absent.
• In Bambi, Thumper the rabbit has five sisters, but in Bambi II (which is supposed to take place after the scene where Bambi's mother dies but before Bambi becomes an adult), he now only has four sisters! Fridge Horror, really; the reason rabbits breed so quickly is because they tend to get eaten a lot.
• In Brother Bear 2, Kenai's village and the characters in it, such as his brothers Denahi and Sitka, along with the shaman Tanana, are not seen or mentioned in this sequel, not even at Kenai and Nita's wedding in the epilogue.
• Cars 3: Finn McMissile, Holley Shiftwell and the other agents from Cars 2 are not seen or mentioned in this movie. It is also never mentioned whether or not Mater and Holley became a couple after the implications at the end of that film.
• Significant characters from the Disney Fairies franchise frequently fall victim to this when the next movie comes along. Some of the lucky ones are Demoted to Extra but others have simply disappeared without explanation by the next installment even though they had top billing right below Tinker Bell in the previous film.
• Finding Dory:
  • Bruce, Anchor, and Chum are never mentioned by name once during the whole movie. Likely justified as most of the film is spent away from their neck of the woods and there isn't really a good place for them to show up in the plot, but their absence is still noticeable.
  • The pelican Nigel failed to return or get a mention. He was last seen in the first movie sadly flying off after placing Dory and Marlin back in the sea, thinking Nemo was dead. (While it's also a possible sign that they could be saving him to reappear in a later film as well, it's most likely that he found out about Nemo being alive from the Tank Gang shortly afterwards.)
  • The dentist Dr. Sherman, along with his niece, Darla are also absent.
• The Fox and the Hound 2: Big Mama, along with Dinky and Boomer do no appear or mentioned.
• In A Goofy Movie, Roxanne is shown to be Goofy's son Max's love interest. In the sequel, An Extremely Goofy Movie, Roxanne and her best friend Stacey (Max's friend Bobby's love interest) never appear and are not mentioned, despite all the trouble Max went on that summer. Roxanne does appear in an episode of House of Mouse, though. Meanwhile, A Goofy Movie itself removed Pete's wife, Peg and PJ's sister, Pistol along with both the family pets, Chainsaw and Waffles, from Goof Troop, without even a passing mention of any of them in either movie, and with a line in the sequel that explicitly proves Pistol's not around anymore.
• Although The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild explicitly takes place after Collision Course, Shira and Brooke are not seen or even mentioned (nor are Granny and Peaches, but this is excusable since she and Julian left the herd at the end of the movie). This is also the only Ice Age media ever where Scrat is absent due to trademark issues.
• Despite being paired up with Gandalf in the first film, Dumbledore doesn't reappear in The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. Shaquille O'Neal also doesn't reappear and he seems to be replaced by Gary Payton and Sheryl Swoopes.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride:
  • Sarabi, Simba's own mother, is never seen and no dialogue mentions her. Apparently, Sarabi's voice actress died before the sequel was made, and it's possible a replacement could not be found.
  • Shenzi, Banzai and Ed failed to appear as well, although they are mentioned to have fled from Pride Lands following the first film.
• In Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, Thomas and Wiggins do not appear.
• Ralph Breaks the Internet notably has Bowser, who previously appeared in Wreck-It Ralph, but is absent from the film without even a mention or explanation as to why. This was because Universal acquired the movie rights to the Super Mario franchise from Nintendo almost a year prior to its release. Sonic and Dr. Eggman, both of whom also appeared in the prior movie, did return for Ralph Breaks the Internet despite also having a movie in production by a different company by then.
• Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost, the Fully Absorbed Finale to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, features appearances by and references to nearly all of the ghosts from that show except for the bumbling duo of Bogel and Weerd. Scrappy-Doo would also fall into this by being absent in the flashbacks to the original series and never making a comeback in this movie had Flim Flam not mentioned him in passing at one point.
• Shrek 2 introduces six dronkeys, one of which is red and doesn't breathe fire. Unlike the other five, this red dronkey does not appear in any other Shrek installment.
  • Arthur Pendragon does not appear in Shrek Forever After nor its mentioned at all. According to Word of Saint Paul (Mike Myers), his voice actor, Justin Timberlake, was unavailable to provide the voice as he was on tour.
• In Sing, Buster Moon's friend, Eddie Noodleman (grandson of Nana Noodleman), and contestant Mike the mouse are both key players in the film's story. Yet in Sing 2, neither character is seen or even mentioned, with no reason given as to why.
• In Surf's Up 2: WaveMania, Zeke is nowhere to be found, and Cody insists it has always been the Hang 5, who inspired him to take up surfing. In the first film, there was no mention of any Hang 5, and it was Big Z's visit to Shiverpool and gift to Cody.

Films — Live-Action

• Addams Family Values introduces the Addamses' newborn son Pubert, who is then never mentioned or referenced again in any subsequent adaptation of the franchise (outside of an episode of The New Addams Family, where Wednesday claims Pugsley ate him).
• In Bad Santa 2, it's made clear Thurman goes to Willie because he has no one else with whom to spend Christmas. While we're told his grandma died long ago, there's no mention of his dad. Roger should have been out of prison only two years after the events of the first film and he was only in there for white collar crime; he indicated he still cared about his son.
• In Batman Returns, Catwoman, Batman's love interest and villain throughout most of the movie, is last seen on the roof of a building before the movie ends, and is never seen again in the two subsequent films (and is only mentioned once, and in a subtle way, when Chase Meridian says "Or do I need skintight vinyl and a whip?"). Ironically, Selina Kyle (Catwoman's civilian identity) does bring up Vickie Vale, Bruce Wayne's love interest from the previous movie, and Bruce explains that they broke up over Vickie being unable to reconcile Bruce's dual identity. Michelle Pfeiffer was meant to get her own film as Catwoman, but the project fell into Development Hell and eventually crawled out in 2004 with Halle Berry as the star and nothing to do with the Burton films.
  • According to Batman Wikia, Catwoman was supposed to appear in the then planned second sequel directed by Tim Burton, but Warner Bros considered Burton’s dark toned-movies to be difficult to sell to young audiences, so the project was then passed to Schumacher. We know what happened.
• Blade gave us Karen Jenson, a haematologist who develops a biochemical weapon against vampires and even finds a freakin' cure for vampirism. The movie ends on the note that, if she wants to be useful, she'll have to make Blade a better serum to suppress his bloodthirst. She never shows up or is mentioned in the sequels, but Blade doesn't have any serum-related problems (so presumably she did make him a better one), and other characters are mentioned as being cured of vampirism.
• In City Slickers, Ed was the most active of the main characters. In City Slickers II: The Legend Of Curly's Gold, he is missing without explanation.
• The Dark Knight Rises: Due to Heath Ledger's death, the Joker is not released by Bane with all of Gotham's other prisoners. There is speculation that he would have played Scarecrow's role in the plot, were the actor still alive.
• Dr. Dolittle: Rodney the guinea pig is nowhere to be found come the sequel, probably because his voice actor, Chris Rock, declined to return. While Rodney may likely have died of age by Dr. Dolittle 2, this is never addressed at any point.
• In Eddie and the Cruisers, Frank Ridgeway plays a key role in the band and the story. When the sequel comes out, there's no mention of Ridgeway at all. They even go so far as to replace Frank's image with Sal in recycled footage from the first film.
• Predating Chuck by nearly half a century, the first Andy Hardy movie, A Family Affair, features the family's eldest child Joan (Julie Haydon), who actually plays a bigger role in the plot than Andy does. She disappears without explanation for the remainder of the long-running series.
• Frenchy, one of only two students from the original film to be in Grease 2, has very little to do in the sequel and just disappears midway through ... the production had started with the script not finished, and when midway through it was finished and the writers had decided to completely write her out, they let actress Didi Conn collect her check and go. In postproduction they decided to use most of the scenes with her anyway.
• John Tate and Molly Cartwell were last seen "driving down to the Becker's" at the end of Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, and are nowhere to be found or mentioned in Halloween: Resurrection. And we will almost certainly never know, as the series producer Died During Production, then Rob Zombie rebooted the series.
• In Halloweentown, Luke was a fairly important character, and he became even more important in the first sequel. He disappears completely in the third and fourth films, just in time for Marnie to get a cuter, human Love Interest instead.
• Harry Potter:
  • Crabbe disappears from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, when he always appeared alongside Goyle in all of the first six films. Although the filmmakers had a reason for cutting him out (his actor was arrested for drug possession), no mention is given to him at all, Harry never asks where he is, and Malfoy doesn't seem to notice, as he specifically gets Goyle and Blaise Zabini (another Slytherin ally in the books) when he Apparates into the dungeons. Crabbe was supposed to die in this movie too, but due to the character omission they killed off Goyle instead. David Yates apparently stated that the most plausible explanation for the character's sudden absence was to tweak the continuity so that Crabbe didn't exist in the first place and it was always Goyle and Zabini, to the point that the Prince's Tale sequence which uses footage from previous films has Crabbe edited out of the scenes he was previously in.
  • Parvati Patil, who does not appear alongside her sister Padma in the last film (who was seen less in the series than Parvati).
  • Viktor Krum, Cornelius Fudge and Buckbeak, among others. While they're not exactly main characters in the books after their main plotlines end, they do appear in later books. In the films, on the other hand, they're not even mentioned after they've gone.
  • Some of the Hogwarts ghosts didn't make it past the first film. Nearly Headless Nick managed to stick around a little bit longer and was last seen in the second film ^note though John Cleese confirms that he filmed scenes for the fifth movie that later got cut, while Simon Fisher-Becker, who played the Fat Friar, states that scenes involving him and the other ghosts were filmed for the second movie and then deleted . Moaning Myrtle disappears after the fourth film. In fact there was a rumored line from the original draft of the last movie where Harry explicitly refers to the Grey Lady as the ONLY ghost in Hogwarts.
  • Colin Creevey has a sizable role in the second film and is then never seen again. He's sort-of replaced by Canon Foreigner Nigel. What's particularly odd is that when there are pictures of Nigel in companion media, he's often referred to as 'Colin Creevey'.
  • Every previously recurring Hufflepuff student such as Ernie MacMillian completely vanish from the films. Their absence is never brought up and their scenes are replaced by "more important characters".
  • Madam Hooch is only in the first movie due to a conflict with the actor.
  • Charlie Weasley is mentioned a couple of times in the first film and appears in a photo in the third and is never mentioned again. Seamus even states Ginny has "Four" brothers possibly excluding Percy as well.
  • Percy no longer has a speaking role after the third film. He appears briefly in the background in the fifth and eighth films but is never referred to by name. And Seamus implies that the character who Chris Rankin portrays has been demoted to a nameless cousin.
  • Kreacher doesn't appear for the Battle of Hogwarts in the film like he does in the book. No house elves are ever mentioned.
  • Cornelius Fudge simply disappears after the fifth film and his two scenes in the sixth book are removed. His fate is left ambiguous in the books as well, but no minister is even referred to in the sixth film and the Billy Nighy character is just the minister which may cause less inquisitive viewers to assume this as an instance of The Other Darrin.
  • Michael Corner, who was for a time Ginny's boyfriend in the books, appears in one scene saying one line and is never seen or mentioned afterwards even in the scenes where Harry enters the Ravenclaw common room in Deathly Hallows part 2.
  • The Fat Lady is never seen after the third movie and that appearance was a case of The Other Darrin.
  • Barty Crouch Jr. who was Spared by the Adaptation, yet never appears in any of the later movies. In the book, he got his soul sucked out by the Dementor's Kiss. The film merely states he will be sent back to Azkaban. In later movies, Voldemort frees all of the Death Eaters from Azkaban yet Crouch Jr. never appears alongside any of them.
• In High School Musical, during the "Stick to the Status Quo" musical number, three characters decide to follow after Troy and confess their Hidden Depths: a member of the school's basketball team bakes, a smart girl dances hip-hop, and a skater boy plays the cello. While the first two, Zeke Baylor and Martha Cox, become major supporting characters, the skater boy is never seen or mentioned again once the song is done.
• Inspector Gadget 2: Dr. Brenda Bradford is never seen nor mentioned in the film. This is despite the fact that she was not only Gadget's Love Interest in the first film, but she was the one who turned him into a cyborg in the first place. A scientist named Baxter takes her place as the one in charge of the Gadget program and Gadget Model 2 becomes Gadget's new love interest. According to this early animatic, which may or may not be canon, Brenda and Gadget parted ways some time between the two films.
• Harmony from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is not mentioned in the epilogue despite being one of the main characters.
• Jodi from Knocked Up is The Heart of the gang but she vanishes halfway through the film.
• At the end of Legally Blonde, Elle becomes best friends with Vivian Kensington, her rival for her boyfriend. However, in the sequel, Vivian is never even mentioned.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Betty Ross was Bruce Banner's love interest and a major character in The Incredible Hulk. She hasn't been seen or mentioned since, and Bruce is instead shown being interested in Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Even her father, Thunderbolt Ross, got a bus ticket back for Captain America: Civil War. The only major factor even defending her canonicity to the MCU is that she was cited as one of the victims of the Thanos snap.
  • The Incredible Hulk also introduced Samuel Sterns, aka The Leader, who was the Hulk's Arch-Enemy for years in the comics. At the end of the movie, some of Bruce's gamma-irradiated blood drips into a gash on his head, which starts swelling like his comics counterpart. a tie-in comic established that he was taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly after the events of the film, leading to a lengthy period where he was never seen or mentioned again until it was confirmed that he would appear in Captain America: New World Order.
  • Thanos' servant, The Other. While his death in Guardians of the Galaxy would obviously prevent him from appearing in the present of Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame, he does not appear in the former's flashback to Thanos taking Gamora's planet (Ebony Maw is shown in his place), nor does he appear when an alternate timeline version of Thanos and his entire army from a point in time where he would still be alive come to the main timeline for a final battle, where the Black Order is still shown. Although, the alternate Thanos does quote The Other slightly when he recognizes the Avengers and calls them "unruly wretches."
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced a Korean scientist named Helen Cho, who was an ally to the Avengers. Despite last being seen in Avengers Compound at the close of the movie, Helen has not yet appeared in any of the subsequent films.
• Good Burger: Both Mr. Bailey and Mr. Weat weren't mentioned once throughout the second film.
• At the end of The Maze Runner (2014), there are nine Gladers who escaped from the maze. However, in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, only eight Gladers return. One of them disappears after just two scenes and another one disappears after one-third of the movie. What makes it even weirder is that a deleted scene shows that the last one dies in a scene that was included in the trailers and many other promotional materials. The director said that test audiences weren't noticing the background character so when he died everyone was confused who he was. The other two have gotten no explanation for their disappearances.
• In the first Men in Black movie we're told that K was in love with his old girlfriend throughout his career and his original partner was D. In the third movie, J time travels back to the early years of K's career. K is shown to be romantically interested in O and there's no mention of his old girlfriend or D.
• In Mrs. Miniver, the title character and her husband have three children. The eldest son, Vin, is nowhere to be seen in the sequel The Miniver Story. (This was likely due to the fact that Greer Garson, who played Mrs. Miniver, and Richard Ney, who played Vin, married and then divorced in the eight-year span between the two films.)
• Due partly to its long-running status and not-insignificant gaps between movies, the Mission: Impossible Film Series has had several cases of this:
  • The series is rather infamous for its failure to retain leading actresses — not because the characters were disliked or there were problems on set, but because the actresses in question simply haven't been available to return for subsequent films. Notably, Nyah from the second movie, Zhen Lei from the third movie, and Jane Carter from the fourth movie disappeared from the franchise inexplicably. It wasn't until Ilsa, who debuted in Rogue Nation and reprised her role in two more films, that the series actually managed to keep a leading actress on an ongoing basis.
  • Vanessa Redgrave had a memorable role as arms dealer Max in the first movie, but did not reprise her role in later films. However, Fallout reveals that she is the mother of the White Widow, Alanna Mitsopolis, while Dead Reckoning: Part One offhandedly mentions that Max died a while back.
  • Ethan's wife, Julia Meade, seems to follow in the path since she didn't appear in Rogue Nation, but she reappeared in Fallout, where it is revealed that she and Ethan divorced sometime ago, explaining why she is no longer around in his life.
  • Among the men, Billy Baird and Swanbeck from II, and Declan Gormley and Theodore Brassel from III disappeared after their debut movie. Kittridge, Ethan's original boss in the IMF, eventually averted this when he reprised his role in Dead Reckoning: Part One, six films and more than twenty five years after his debut. William Brandt initially looked to be a permanent addition to Ethan's team since he appeared in two consecutive films (Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation), but Jeremy Renner was unable to return for Fallout due to shooting Avengers: Endgame at the time, and Brandt has subsequently been written out of the series.
• In the international cut of Jackie Chan's Mr. Nice Guy, Tara (aka Sandy) and Diana seem to suffer from this, with the former severely bloodied in the construction site fight and the latter last seen getting punched in the face by one of the bad guys. The original uncut version has a later-deleted scene where Romeo visits the two in the hospital and learns where Giancarlo has taken Jackie and the other two women.
• In the MonsterVerse, all the surviving humans who debuted in Kong: Skull Island sans Dr. Brooks (and a post-movie cameo by his wife Dr. San Lin) are completely absent without explanation from all the subsequent MonsterVerse movies and other media, even stories which went back to Skull Island and expanded on Monarch's presence there with Dr. Brooks involved; despite the movie's post-credits scene setting up James Conrad and Mason Weaver to join Monarch after their experiences. At least Weaver and Conrad's syndrome ended after two subsequent movies, four graphic novels and an animated series; six years after their original movie was released, when the characters were brought back for the post-movie storyline of the tabletop game Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure.
• In The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia, Atreyu — who the co-protagonist of the first film and a major character as Bastian's best friend in the second — is nowhere to be seen. The very noticeable actor changes for both Atreyu and Bastian between each film created a lot of dissonance anyway.
• This happens in the Night at the Museum franchise as well with Carla Gugino's character Rebecca Hutman, who despite playing a pivotal role in the first film from 2006, mysteriously and suddenly vanishes from the sequels for no given reason. With Battle of the Smithsonian, the second film from 2009, it would have made sense for her not to appear seeing as we already had Amy Adams as Suspiciously Similar Substitute Amelia Earhart, and it would have been complicated for Gugino and Adams' characters to make a love triangle with Larry, and Gugino was likely filming Race to Witch Mountain around the same time this movie was being made, so it would have made sense for her not to return for the second film, anyway. Though she could have suitably returned in the franchise's third film Secret of the Tomb, released in 2014 (heck, even the Big Bad Duumvirate from the first film returned!), but Gugino was probably busy finishing up filming the first season of Wayward Pines which was still being filmed when this movie started filming, and the screenplay was already written, so it was too late for her to even negotiate a deal to return, anyway. Her character's absence was never even acknowledged at all in the sequels, nor is she even mentioned or seen again, but if there were an In-Universe explanation, it's likely that her character quit her job as the docent of the museum (probably out of protest against most of the exhibits being moved to the Smithsonian Museum in the second film, and her love for history being ruined for her as a result or because of the success of her biography on Sacagawea and no longer needing to go the museum to research about her) and/or she moved away (but then again, this is never even acknowledged in neither sequel). Ditto for Amy Adams' other character Tess, who first shows up at the end of the second film as the museum's new docent, but is herself mysteriously absent nor is she ever acknowledged in Secret of the Tomb (which, unlike Gugino's case, does not make any sense as Adams had a free schedule and therefore could have showed up, and her character's the new docent, but it's likely she probably wasn't interested in returning for a sequel, though if she did return, it probably would have been another case of Suspiciously Similar Substitute to compensate for Carla Gugino's character's absence, or she would have at least appeared in The Cameo).
• Miss Perty from the Eddie Murphy version of The Nutty Professor vanishes in the sequel. Even Buddy Love doesn't know what happened to her and has to ask Sherman (who is his split personality).
• Our Daily Bread was King Vidor's sequel to his silent film masterpiece The Crowd. John and Mary Sims return, but their son is nowhere to be seen.
• In the early Olsen-banden movies, Kjeld and Yvonne had two children: A son Børge and a smaller daughter. As the series went on Børge became an important regular while his sister vanished into thin air.
  • At least in the Norwegian versions, Kjell had two sons and a baby daughter in the first movie, and while the middle son Basse becomes a regular character, the other two have disappeared completely by the second one. Likewise, Benny ends up fathering a kid during the first movie, but both kid and fiance are never again referred to, and the only supporting cast member to reappear is Hansen the bartender. After movie 2, he's gone too.
• Anamaria is never seen or heard from again after the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Interestingly, the cast was told in Dead Man's Chest that Anamaria would appear at the ending of the film, so the shock and surprise of Captain Barbossa greeting them was genuine.
• The Police Academy franchise has a nasty case of the syndrome with characters disappearing between each of the sequels:
  • Their First Assignment: Cadet Leslie Barbara, Cadet Karen Thompson, and Cadet George Martín.
  • Back in Training: Capt. Pete Lassard and Sgt. Vinnie Schtulman.
  • Citizens on Patrol: Cmdnt. Mauser, Sgt. Kyle Blankes, Mrs. Fackler, Cadet Hedges, and Cadet Karen Adams.
  • Assignment Miami Beach: Sgt. Carey Mahoney, Officer Tomoko Nogata, Sgt. Chad Copeland, Officer Sweetchuck, Officer Zed, Officer Bud Kirkland, and Sgt. Kathleen Kirkland Tackleberry.
  • City Under Siege: Officer Tommy "House" Conklin.
  • Mission to Moscow: Sgt. Nick Lassard, Sgt. Laverne Hooks, Sgt. Douglas Fackler, Lt. Proctor, Lt. Moses Hightower, and Commissioner Henry Hurst.
• What's so strange about Road House (1989) is that Dalton, the main character, vanishes in the last moments of the film. No epilogue, no last kiss with his love interest. No nothing.
• In The Room (2003), Only Sane Man Peter abruptly disappears before the climax, as his actor had schedule conflicts. As as result, he was replaced by Stephen, a character we'd never seen before whose name isn't even mentioned except for in the end credits.
• All of Carter's colleagues at the LAPD from the first Rush Hour vanish in the sequels (save for Captain Diel, who appears in a Deleted Scene in the second film and had a brief cameo in the third film.) since they focus more on his and Lee's partnership.
• In Sanctum, both Liz (Nicole Downs) and J.D. (Christopher James Baker) disappear about twenty minutes into the film, during a scene wherein Josh (Rhys Wakefield) is trying to climb a rock formation to save himself from the flooding cave, and they're trying to help him. Despite being two of the very small group of cave divers, no one ever sees or mentions them again.
• Puppy Paws, the son of Santa Paws in Santa Buddies, is nowhere to be seen in Santa Paws 2, despite the latter film being about Santa Paws's pups.
• Bernard is absent in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause and no one mentions him at all. This is particularly noticeable because he was in a high position of authority in the previous movies. David Krumholtz was too busy with the TV show NUMB3RS and couldn't appear. He is in the Novelization, however. The Sequel Series The Santa Clauses, which does bring Bernard back, would eventually explain where he was: he had fallen in love with a human woman and had been living with her for the past several years before the new crisis at the North Pole drew him back to help Scott.
• Scary Movie: Shorty and Ray are completely absent in the third film onwards, having prominently been there for the first two.
• Pyramid Head was a pretty major villain for the first half of the Silent Hill movie. Then he kills off a side character, goes away, and is never seen or mentioned again for the rest of the film. Interestingly, the originally planned ending had six Pyramid Heads come back at the end and butcher most of the characters, but they ran out of money and just had the little girl do it.
• On the topic of Marvel Comics movies, Jameson's son John is last seen in the original trilogy at the end of Spider-Man 2, where MJ dumps him on what was supposed to be their wedding day, and isn't mentioned or seen at all in the third film, though he was present in earlier drafts.
• Carol Marcus in Star Trek Beyond. The previous film, Into Darkness, ends with her joining the Enterprise crew for its five-year mission, but Beyond makes no mention of her or her absence.
• Played for laughs in Summer School. An early scene has a large black student asking to use the bathroom. He's absent for the entire movie before returning for the big test. When asked what happened, he just says he was in the bathroom for the entire summer. "Door was stuck."
  • Even better? He had claimed the computer made an error in his being in summer school. It's then stated that despite not being around for any of the classes, he scored the highest grade on the final exam.
• The Transformers Film Series is bad with this:
  • Maggie and Glen played a major part in the first movie, only to vanish in the sequels.
  • In Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, the Autobot twins, Skids and Mudflap have this happen. After the fight with Devastator, you don't see them again for the rest of the film. They don't even return in Dark of the Moon. This is because everyone, including Michael Bay himself, hated them, considering them unfunny stereotypes of African Americans. They do return in the comic adaptation and novelization for Dark of the Moon... and get blasted into dust by Sentinel after the highway chase along with Ironhide.
  • Transformers: Age of Extinction does this to the entire human cast from the first three movies along with most of the surviving Transformers from the previous movie. However, the latter could be attributed to the actions of Cemetery Wind in the period between the two movies. Agent Simmons, Colonel Lennox, and General Morshower return in The Last Knight.
• The Transformers: The Movie does this to some of the surviving cast members up to that point, as nearly anyone who didn't die or was implicitly shown to have survived is never mentioned again.
  • Shortly after Unicron transforms Megatron into Galvatron, Skywarp and Bombshell are transformed into the identical "Cyclonus and his Armada", however, the "Armada" (which is just one guy) is never seen or mentioned after this scene. It is disputed who got reformatted into Cyclonus and who into the Armada. Bombshell is the one shown in front and Skywarp further at the back so the possibility that Bombshell got formatted into Cyclonus is considered. However, Skywarp is the much more prominent character of the two, much more loyal to Megatron (Bombshell and the other Insecticons consider themselves a separate faction from the other Decepticons), had an original alternate form that resembled a flying vehicle, and has the personality suitable for being Galvatron's/Megatron's new Number Two.
  • If you look closely, whenever Snarl is present, one of the other Dinobots is missing. And the script even refers to "the four Dinobots". It's like the entire production team thought there were only four of them and couldn't decide which four there were.
• X-Men Film Series
  • Nightcrawler was a major character and love interest for Storm in X2: X-Men United, but didn't even appear in X-Men: The Last Stand because actor Alan Cumming found the make-up and prosthetic process grueling and refused to return to it without Bryan Singer. Cumming can be seen in the behind-the-scenes footage for X2 already stating that he never wants to go through the ordeal again. The video game based on the films which takes place between the two movies explains that Nightcrawler, a peaceful man, went abroad to distance himself from the X-Men's violent lifestyle.
  • Poor Riptide. He goes from No Name Given in the previous film to not even earning a mention in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Particularly notable since Erik takes the time to list all the characters not in this movie because they died in between films. Though it can easily be assumed that Trask killed Riptide along with the others, he still goes unmentioned.

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