http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuk ... t-Die.html

Many people think that the only adventure film protagonists who take lives include R-rated films starring reactionary Republicans. However, most film protagonists that I can think of take the lives of their opponents, or the main opponent otherwise dies at the end of the film, even in PG or PG-13 films. This does not automatically get one an R-rating. Nor, despite what some people think, does it make you a Republican, even though many people associate this with Republican reactionaries (who mostly have not had their films in theaters in the last ten years).

Examples: Indiana Jones (remember he cut the rope bridge), Luke Skywalker (blowing up the Deathstar), etc.

Thus, in most adventure films, the main opponent dies. However, I can think of a few counterexamples where in a film the main opponent did not die.

Doc Savage (in fact, in prose, after his first few adventures, Doc Savage may have started the technical pacifist trend); brainwashes his main enemy into reforming

The Saint (1997), even though the prose version had no such qualms about taking a life, in this film, both main opponents live to stand trial

The Harry Potter films?

Masters of the Universe: We find out that Skeletor did not die in a post-credits scene (whether or not he counts as undead serves as another matter-this happens when you make a distaff Thulsa Doom)

The Shadow: Shiwan Khan survived the 1994 version of The Shadow, though the Shadow performed a little surgery to neutralize his psychic powers but otherwise left him unharmed. Somewhat odd, in that in that film the Shadow still used firearms, but in article in Comics Scene, they admitted that they set out to get a PG-13 for that film.

Obviously, films based on comic strips and comic books generally (or at least one would expect them to) have protagonists who would generally refrain from taking lives, so Luthor has survived all live action Superman films he has appeared in since the 1970's. Similarly, Magneto has survived all live action X-Men films (did Mystique?) in which he appears.

Note that I do not count the original Star Wars trilogy as fitting in this deliberation, even though both a reformed Vader and the Emperor do not perish till the end of the last film, since those films serve as more of an integrated arc as opposed to just another pearl on a string, as some would say. Nor does the first TMNT live action film count, even though we retroactively find out in the next film that the Shredder did not in fact die.

Skeletor's a girl?

My favorite example of this is in Robot Jox, where not only does the bad guy survive, but he does so after the sort of "fake out the hero only to try to stab him in the back" lead-ins that claim so many primary villains' lives, then they shake hands!

King Ghidorah survived his first appearance and his second, though demoted to lackey status in that latter film.

Worse, they do that thumbs-up fist bump thing. And they don't even have the decency to kiss their own thumbs first!

Actually, the main antagonist (and many of his tanks) survived perfectly well in Megaforce, driving the "heroes" away quite handily. This is, of course, played as a heroic success by Megaforce, even though their operation pretty much failed.

Whatever Megaforce does is a success, because the good guys always win...even in the 80s.

So that's why it's Dick Cheney's favourite movie.