r/saw

It has been spoken of quite a lot how poor the twist in Jigsaw 2017 is, both regarding how the game we see was actually played before all the others and Logan's involvement in being the first helper of John's. There's plenty you could say, but I'd like to focus on Logan being retroactively attached to the backstory of the franchise and how the way it's portrayed does nothing but raise questions.

So in the flashback at the end, see that Logan was the Buckethead that didn't immediately wake up and as a result got buzz sawed in the back. The reason why he was put in the trap was because he accidentally mislabelled John's X-Ray, meaning his cancer wasn't discovered. Despite this, John saves his life, seemingly because of his own mistake of accidentally giving Logan too much sedative balancing things out. You can debate how in character this is, especially for a John Kramer who was just starting out, but that's how it goes, and what we see then is Logan helping John and constructing the Reverse Bear Trap. We do get dialogue between them, and it's clarified that Jigsaw gave him purpose after he came back from the war a broken man. But it's never explained if Logan was involved in the long term or the short term, but neither of these choices work.

1. Short term, he was just recruited for some help and then either left or was allowed to leave.

A more in character version of John would save Logan and then drop him off at a hospital without revealing his identity. But okay, he wants to recruit Logan to help him. Yet that leads to the question:

Why? Logan knows who John is, knows that he's the Jigsaw Killer, has actively assisted him and is perfectly easy to manipulate and keep around. And has John ever been the kind of person to simply let someone walk away of their own accord? Even when someone survives their test, he's still done things like decided to use them in other games or recruit them. And he did everything in his power to keep his identity a secret till he allowed the police to find him on his own terms.

I know that Logan might not have been the perfect accomplice given his behaviour in present day, but that was after his offscreen wife's death. It's likely that beforehand, he could have actually been a solid assistant to John in the long term. Logan would have been far more capable than Amanda or Hoffman too. Plus, John had no leverage over Logan beyond simply having saved his life, so Logan easily could have been the kind of person to betray his new master.

The idea of Logan only being a short term partner makes Jigsaw look incredibly short sighted and also doesn't seem to fit his characterisation. Why is Logan the one person allowed to walk away or be sent away, when Dr Gordon, Hoffman, Amanda and so many others weren't?

Finally, it gets weirder when you consider that Logan's sin was one that resulted in John only getting diagnosed with cancer when it was too late to fully treat it, and yet the mistake with the sedatives was enough to make John go "You know what, not only do you not deserve to die, not only can you come and help me, but you can also leave when you want to". Hoffman was kept under blackmail because he copied a Jigsaw trap and individuals that did far less harmful things to Jigsaw were either put in traps or kept around. The idea that he could find it in his heart to allow Logan to go free, again especially before Saw 1, is laughable.

This is all speculation, but given the tie in it does make sense to consider the other films. However, if Jigsaw got a sequel and tried to explain how Logan was there during the other movies, that would run into other issues too.

2. Long term, he was around for certain entries in the series.

Obvious question is where was he, which is amped up by how much we'd already seen in flashbacks of the building of the various Jigsaw games that 3 different apprentices took part in. Maybe Logan helped out, but we never saw it. The answer is that he wasn't conceived in the other films, but even if you put aside him not being shown or mentioned, it still raises questions that I don't even think a Jigsaw 2 could have answered reasonably.

If he was around up to the events of Saw 3, it would already be absurd because if they needed someone to help keep Jigsaw alive, they didn't need Lynn Delon to do it. Logan had worked in a hospital for years and easily could have had the surgical means or know-hows to help keep John alive. Maybe they would still need Lynn for some of it, but it comes across like it's taking an unneeded risk.

Also, if Logan was faithful enough to keep around, why was Amanda at all trusted with continuing his work, and why was Hoffman given any remote amount of leeway when even John knew he was far from the right guy? Importantly too, why did Logan never raise a finger or try and get involved in the events of anything after John died? If he owed something to Jigsaw, then why didn't he get involved in anything and why was he never trusted enough to be told to do something? Lawrence Gordon, a crippled Doctor who had only done surgery for the games, was essentially asked to take out Hoffman if Jill died, but Logan wasn't given the same command even though he's more physically capable?

Basically, it implies that John made no use of this perfectly good follower and essentially got screwed over because of it.

Stuff like this is why it's a lot better for Jigsaw to be in it's own continuity, because otherwise if you care at all about that then this just breaks your brain and devalues the John Kramer character.

As many characters as you want to think of 😆😆😆

I think John is The Real Slim Shady and he’s wearing the hat

I hate saw 3d. I don't even capitalize it. I have capitalized it a handful of times for consistency in papers, but when typing about it casually, I always show it the ultimate disrespect by not capitalizing it or referring to it as SAW VII / saw vii.

It's a misogynistic piece of shit. The acting is the worst the series has to offer. The dialogue is the worst the series has to offer. The set design and lighting make it look like a low-budget porn. The story is paper-thin and rushed. The traps have so little meaning to them and serve mostly the misogyny to kill women in much more brutal ways than the men. It's an abomination, and affront to the legacy of the franchise, and I hate it.

But I sort of love it. There's something alluring to how bad it is. That allure converts into genuine entertainment at how fucking terrible it is. I love it in how much I hate it. It's honestly one of my most-watched movies in the series, even though it goes against every single thing I hold near and dear to the franchise. When I first saw it, I yelled at the screen when Dr. Gordon was revealed as an apprentice, and then yelled even more when they fucking retconned Darren Lynn Bousman's limp during Michael's eye surgery (his words: "I just wanted to add a little flair"; perhaps a paraphrase) into being Dr. Gordon and proving all the fucking Gordon lovers right and putting just the most violently rotten and abundant egg on my face and the face of everyone that fought against it with Darren's quote. I fucking HATED it.

But over time, I guess that hate has cooled down and turned into an admiration of sorts. It's impressive how terrible the movie is. Like it's a cinematic achievement the likes of which I have a hard time finding another analog for. It's like if a newborn baby somehow mopped the floor in a hundred-meter dash against Usain Bolt. Like that's how impressive it is.

But credit where it's due, it actually is my favorite Charlie Clouser work of the entire franchise. And the Bobby storyline, while underbaked, was such a cool concept. And the Dr. Gordon stuff I've cooled down on now (I would hope so, after almost 16 fucking years. But I've been known to hold a grudge). So not everything is bad about it. Just 90% of it.

My favorite quotes:

"I think we're breaking UP with you, D I N A!"

"That lady's crazier than a sack full of cats" (tie: the scene where he keeps calling Jill crazy)

"It's a safe house, Jill! SAFE. HOUSE."
"Gibson, this just arrived, it's from Hoffman" (or whatever

"It's just a bottle, Cale!"

Disclaimer: I might have the quotes slightly wrong. But oh my goodness, how gloriously bad it all is.

So there's my confession.

obviously we know its in the town of Cityton, but what US state do you think it's set in, based off just vibes, settings, anything? im not from america i dont know much. but what do yall think?

Every other trap in the series actually played out at least once, not counting plans in lairs. Why then is the eyeball trap scripted as just a dream? If we are just supposed to see that John is thinking about these things, why not have him make a sketch of it. Why devote so much screen time to a trap just to pull the worst trope of "it was all a dream"? And I hope the reason is more than they had a trap idea but needed to fit it in the timeline.