Make Your Choice pt.12

An in depth look, The Final Chapter

“All of my work has been leading to this.”

Jigsaw (Saw The Final Chapter)

To be completely honest I have actually gotten tired of writing about Saw. It’s been about three weeks since I watched them all, and they have kind of faded from the forefront of my mind. It is also about time that I moved on, but not without one final goodbye.

There was a twist at the end of every movie, from a new Jigsaw apprentice reveal, to how the people in the Game that was played could have escaped. The last five or so minutes of the movie usually serve as plot revelation, showing viewers how Jigsaw pulled off his master plan with a series of flashbacks. I shall now regal you with yet another ranking of the Saw twist endings, hopefully not mixing up what happened in which movie in the process.

The twists will be ranked as follows:

1. Whether or not the twist is realistic; could it happen in real life?
2. Creativity; was the twist clever or was it a repeat of before
3. Predictability; I’m not explaining this one, I think it’s pretty obvious.

1.Amanda is revealed as an apprentice (Saw 2)

In my opinion, this reveal was definitely the best one by far (obviously, or else a different one would be labeled as number one). It had everything, it was creative, it was realistic and it was pretty unpredictable (unless you were obnoxious and read the plot online prior to watching the movie). Since it was from the second movie, it was not something the audience could expect and therefore it was quite the surprise. Added to that the fact that it made re-watching the movie more interesting, since you could try and find clues to the fact she was an apprentice, it made the movie as a whole a lot better too.

2. John Kramer was in the room the whole time (Saw 1)

I struggled with ranking this reveal as second. For one, it was original and unpredictable, but it wasn’t super realistic. I mean, why would John Kramer just place himself on the floor like a dead guy. What does he gain from being in the room with these two guys? Also, from what we know from the first movie, how did he get there? His body was very well staged with all the blood, so that must have taken some time. How did he get the two guys into the room while still having time to stage himself? It doesn’t really work. We find out later that Amanda helped, but we don’t know that is Saw 1. Also, Saw 1 was not my favorite movie, so I didn’t really want to rank the twist so high on the list.

3. Hoffman is also an apprentice (Saw 4)

This twist had the element of surprise and it was realistic too. The problem was that it had been done before. I know they needed another apprentice because Amanda was killed and John died, but this seemed like not the way to do it. We don’t really find out anything about Hoffman either, so we don’t know why he works with Jigsaw yet, so it felt like a copout. They did hint at it the whole movie though, so if you watched closely you might have figured it out, and I liked that.

4. Lynn was Jeff’s wife and it was a test for Amanda (Saw 3)

This was a pretty cool addition to Saw 3. It showed the depth that Jigsaw went into when he was designing traps. It also showed his intelligence since he was able to pretty accurately predict how the subjects would react. It was original and creative, but I didn’t really like how Amanda died. As we have discussed, I really like Amanda.

5. Lawrence Gordon was alive and helping John Kramer (Saw The Final Chapter)

This was an interesting twist. It was yet another repeat of before with Amanda, so it scores pretty low because of that. I mean, it wasn’t creative and it was a repeat and while you couldn’t see it coming, you had no chance of figuring it out based on subtle hints during the movie because we haven’t seen Dr.Gordon since the first movie. This felt rushed and a different decision could have been made that made it more realistic.

6. Hoffman forced Amanda to kill Lynn and Jill tried to kill Hoffman (Saw 6)

I wish Hoffman died and Jill became Jigsaw. I’m sorry, but I felt like the writers had an excellent opportunity here and they just let it go. That being said, it was creative and not a repeat, but it was also kind of obvious. I saw this coming without having to rewatch the movie and it ended in a disappointing way, so it gets a score of bad.

7. There is yet another apprentice (Jigsaw)

So after eight movies, I understand that the writers are running out of ideas. This “twist” was hard to rate though. It was not predictable, and it was a really good reveal in the moment. That being said, it was definitely a repeat, since there were four new apprentices revealed within the span of the eight movies. So no, it was not creative, it was definitely a repeat of other twists and honestly, it should have been predictable. I mean, in 50% of the movies a new apprentice is revealed.

8. Strahm gets killed and framed as Jigsaw (Saw 5)

This is rated as the worst of the twists because, in all honesty, it was not a twist. Everyone expected Strahm to die, and the way he could have survived was pretty obvious. Overall, this felt like a lazy plot addition, and nothing else in the movie could qualify as a twist. The Game played in Saw 5 was really cool, but the twist just did not fit the rest of the movie.

The Saw series is a cornucopia of fun things to talk about, but alas this is the last post on it I will make. It is time for me to move on.

“Congratulations Dr. Gordon… you survived!”

John Kramer (Saw The Final Chapter)