SPOILER THREAD
This thread is here for people to discuss the movie after having seen it. Anyone here who hasn't seen it, continue at your own risk.
shareI saw it last night. By far the best entry in the series since Saw III. They really got the series back on track with this one. I give it a 7/10. A flawed, but well worth entry in the franchise.
I just got home from seeing it and again, I find myself torn the same way I was after seeing VII... I have some issues with this movie.
Firstly, I think the smoother and more cinematic direction and cleaner look of the movie hurt it. It really needed the music video, crazy cut style of I-VI (VII had some of that but was over all slower cause of the 3D) and the overall look doesn't make sense because of how things looked in the first movie (considering the main game is a flashback set before the first)
Second, how can the main game take place before the first movie (and after Cecil's knife chair trap I assume) if there are flatscreen TV's and his puppet has glowing eyes? Even if the game was "never actually discovered" these details still don't make sense and it also makes the first film feel irrelevant/unimportant because the bathroom wasn't actually the first "game" (single Traps and full on Games are different).
Third, Logan is going the exact same route as both Amanda and Hoffman. He is a murderer and uses Jigsaw as a means to excuse his actions (if there is a sequel, I'd like to see this addressed). Also, what happened? Did Logan become his temporary apprentice/partner and then just stop so he could be a full-time coroner? Did Amanda and Hoffman and hell, Dr. Gordon know about him? If he didn't stop working with Jigsaw, where was he throughout the previous movies? You're telling me that Ryan had the ability to go back and completely recreate a game EXACTLY just so he could have bodies that resemble the characters from the actual game just to trick the police and the audience (mainly just to trick the audience)? The Saw movies got pretty far fetched, but NEVER this far...
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Lastly, 4-7 were basically unmentioned and only briefly referenced to with a throw away line "How can Jigsaw come back from the dead?" "It happened before" and that's it. No mention of Dr. Gordon (guessing he just showed up to end John's legacy in 7 and Logan is now just doing things on his own accord without Johns knowledge). No mention of Amanda or Hoffman (not even just throw away lines to acknowledge they existed, considering the police KNEW about them in the previous film), hell even Jill got a mention near the end of the movie. Like I said before, the final twist while logical for the story being told, just doesn't add up in the grand scheme of all of the other movies. The final death was cool but looked too CGI for my taste and the final issue I have with this movie is just like Saw V, there is NO GODDAMN GAME OVER (Seriously, WTF?!?!)
I'm aware a lot of the issues I mentioned COULD be addressed and explained in further sequels. Perhaps flashbacks explaining why Logan stopped working with John (if he even did) but to be honest, I feel like this should be the final film. I would say that it is better than VII in a lot of ways and that this should have been VII but replace Logan with Doctor Gordon and re-write it to fit the rest of the franchise better and this could have been an amazing finale but instead, it feels like a subpar beginning to a new franchise that just couldn't keep up with all of the lore already set up in the previous movies.
I liked the majority of the traps and how even though the main game is similar to game from II and V, it felt different and things were less obvious. I liked most of the characters (mainly that the reasons for them being there are fleshed out pretty well) in the game even though most of them weren't very smart. I liked Tobin Bell showing up for a few minutes and showing that this all took place before his death.
I love this franchise and have been with it since the very beginning. I've seen them all countless times and enjoy piecing together things and watch the story unfold and expand the backstory of characters, but I honestly feel like it's best to leave this franchise alone now or like I said, address a majority of my issues in the sequel. VII was already basically a franchise killer with how bad it was to begin with so I was really hoping for a huge step up.
If you liked this movie, I'm glad. It's clearly not for everyone and I feel that a lot of diehard fans like me will leave with a sour taste in their mouths and feel a bit betrayed.
From what I read, it seems like the filmmakers are trying to avoid much of the convoluted bullcrap Saw IV-VII had and trying to go back to the original style of Saw. Saw IV-VII took too many liberties with the prequels, and pretty much most of the traps save for Saw VI had almost no logical meaning or genius to them. But as long as the story is clear and not hard to follow, then I will be satisfied to see this at the movies.
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