The first Saw film was a largely self-contained story of two men being put to the ultimate test in a horrific game of survival. As the franchise continued, though, any simplicity went right out the window. With each new Saw movie, save for soft reboot Spiral, the lore became more complex and complicated as new events were introduced leading up to and after that first film. Now, with Saw X, the creative team has returned to one of the most ridiculously detailed mythologies in film and–not surprisingly–it’s not always easy keeping things straight.
Saw X, the 10th movie in the franchise, is somehow set a mere three weeks after the first film. Sure, star Tobin Bell has aged 20 years since that movie, but his character of John Kramer/Jigsaw remains a 52-year-old man suffering from terminal brain cancer. When revisiting events that have been unspooling over the course of two decades, making sure the timeline adds up is no easy task. According to director Kevin Greutert, though, there’s also nothing more important.
“You have to really do your homework when you make a Saw film and try to think things through and obsess on the details,” he told GameSpot. “There are lots of ways to make little mistakes that the fans will catch and you’ll never hear the end of it.”
Then again, Greutert has an ace up his sleeve. He’s worked on every Saw movie, save for Spiral. He began as an editor on the first five films, before directing Saw VI and Saw VII 3D: The Final Chapter. He also has a lot of the same creative team to rely on, including producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules. And according to Koules, the story and the timeline clarity are whipped into shape long before they start figuring out what games Jigsaw is going to play.
“We work on the script first,” he said. “So we work on the timelines, we work on the logic, we work on the story. And then we literally put placeholders in for traps. So the traps are the last thing to go.”
The focus on the franchise’s continuity came in very handy on Saw X and also changed one pretty big detail on the film.
“In this movie, in particular, we thought we’re going to do between Saw 2 and 3,” Burg revealed. “And it was Kevin Greutert who said, ‘Yeah, but [Amanda’s] relationship with [John] is different then.’ So if you want them [to have] this relationship, like we wanted to have in the script, it needs to be more between Saw 1 and Saw 2 or it wouldn’t have made sense.”
While it’s reassuring to know how much time is spent making sure the timeline works, it would be amazing for an official source that documented it all. Perhaps one day, after the Saw franchise retires (if that ever happens), Lionsgate could release some sort of coffee table book filled with a detailed timeline and a horrific guide to Jigsaw’s traps. We all want that in our living rooms, right?
Saw X is in theaters now.
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