Line #32 YMMV/SawX


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' '''[[YMMV/{{Saw}} Main YMMV Page]]'''\
2	''Film/SawI'' \| ''YMMV/SawII'' \| ''YMMV/SawIII'' \| ''YMMV/SawIV'' \| ''YMMV/SawV'' \| ''YMMV/SawVI'' \| ''YMMV/Saw3D'' \| ''YMMV/{{Jigsaw}}'' \| ''[[YMMV/Spiral2021 Spiral]]'' \| '''''Saw X'''''-]]]]]
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4	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: "The Air That I Breathe" by Music/TheHollies, which plays in the trailer, is a fittingly breathtaking piece that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the film.
5	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Cecilia. She was initially welcomed by audiences back during the film's few days after its release for being a genuine enemy who, instead of going by the instructions she's given, attempts to get her way around Jigsaw's games in favor of fighting John and Amanda more directly, helped by her genuinely terrifying amorality. However, her reception became divisive over time, with a good chunk of fans who've stayed with the franchise for a longer time critcizing that she comes off as rather cartoonish or hard to take seriously due to her crimes constantly getting more depraved and over-the-top as the film goes (particularly her willingness to kill her subordinates rather than try help them if only out of PragmaticVillainy, since she could have trouble finding new people to replace them in her scam group), not to mention it arguably comes off as too contradictory towards how she was presented as a villain with a layered personality before the movie's main game begins.
6	* BrokenBase: ''Saw X'' is widely considered the first ''good'' installment in the series after [[Film/SawI the original film]], hailed as both a return to form by featuring the much-anticipated return of fan favorites John, Amanda[[note]]Who has not been seen in 14 years prior in ''Film/SawVI''[[/note]], [[spoiler:and Hoffman]] [[note]]Although it’s dependent on who you ask if [[BaseBreakingCharacter his cameo appearance is either a good or bad thing.]][[/note]], and incorporating a much better plot and characterization. It also helps the film’s case that it came after [[Film/{{Jigsaw}} two]] [[Film/Spiral2021 entries]] that were either [[ContestedSequel mediocre at best, and forgettable messes at worst]]. However, over time since the film's release, points of contention and debate among the fanbase grew over the fact that ''Saw X'' is an interquel set between the first two movies; [[ArcFatigue essentially adding an unnecessary storyline/entry to an overarching plot that’s been going on for more than two decades.]] Some fans would have preferred it if ''Saw X'' were either a continuation of ''Film/Saw3D'' that has a more satisfying (and ''actual'') conclusion to the series; a [[ContinuityReboot hard reboot]] that has entirely new characters, elements, and plot of its own; or, considering that it’s still set after the first film, an [[AlternateTimeline alternate continuation branching from the first film only,]] something akin to ''Film/Halloween2018''. The fact that the upcoming ''Saw XI'' is slated to be a sequel to this film and thus ''another'' interquel that’s further adding to the aged and bloated storyline has plenty of fans concerned that there won't ever be a real ending they had hoped for over a decade in sight.
7	* CatharsisFactor:
8	** [[spoiler: For those who dislike Jigsaw’s sense of omnipotence, how brutally he tortures others without ever receiving anything close to it, this film finally features him in a trap of his own creation thanks to Pederson and Sears forcing him into the Blood Board, though it comes with a child being forced onto it with him.]]
9	** By the same token, [[spoiler:John and Amanda turning the tables on Cecilia and Parker and outwitting them is equally satisfying to watch, if not moreso, considering that they scammed innocent people dying of cancer out money and then pretty much laughed in their faces upon realizing they were scammed.]]
10	* EpilepticTrees:
11	** The fact that Creator/ShawneeSmith returns as Amanda Young for this installment left some to believe that Mark Hoffman is also making his grand return, with most pointing to the trailer captions highlighting a "Detective" as evidence to back this up. Many have also stated the voice in the trailer who says "Out of all the men to cheat, you picked John Kramer?" sounds a lot like Creator/CostasMandylor's voice.[[note]]This even carried over to some foreign dubs, such as the person speaking this dialogue in the Brazilian Portuguese version of the trailer being precisely the same Brazilian voice actor who dubbed Hoffman from ''Saw III'' to ''VI'' (''3D'' was the only exception).[[/note]] [[spoiler:Hoffman's voice is heard talking to John on the phone, and his physical return is ultimately confirmed in TheStinger, where he helps John in setting up Henry's trap.]]
12	** Since ''X'' is an interquel, and the series' tendency of flashing back to past movies, it's a common theory that Carlos would become the next Jigsaw, given [[IntergenerationalFriendship the friendship he forms with John]] as well as [[spoiler:surviving a trap at a young age, which could potentially lead him down the same path as Amanda of becoming another one of John's apprentices.]]
13	* EsotericHappyEnding: The movie ends with [[spoiler: John, Amanda, and Carlos walking off into the sunset, which is treated as an entirely positive thing. Carlos' survival is definitely positive, not to mention the fact that John has given him all the money that Cecelia and Parker swindled out of their victims. On the other hand, John and Amanda are now free to torture, mutilate, and kill more people, as shown in the films that follow this one chronologically]].
14	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: Cecilia asks John what he does for a living, and he responds that he's a [[ExactWords sort of life-coach]] [[MetaphoricallyTrue who helps people work through their emotional issues.]]
15	* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: While Tobin Bell's abilities as an actor have never been in question, seeing as how he's been a beloved horror icon for decades, here he really gets to show his acting chops as he presents a much more vulnerable, sympathetic side to John Kramer -- managing to display a human side to the character that's balanced alongside his usual presentation as a [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] SerialKiller.
16	* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: Anyone who's watched the film is likely to say Cecilia is the most detestable person in the franchise, or at least one of the most detestable, especially given her contrast with John throughout the movie. While John is, well, [[SerialKiller Jigsaw]], he has many humanizing moments in the film; Cecilia, on the other hand, easily shows that she's a lot more immoral than him. For starters, aside from being the ringleader of a medical fraud group that robs from the dying and desperate, she kills one of her own underlings (Gabriella) despite her succeeding in her trap, tries to use the intestines of another dead one (Valentina) to get an advantage for her personal survival, and forces [[ChildrenAreInnocent Carlos, a child,]] into the Bloodboarding Trap [[EvenEvilHasStandards to John's horror]].
17	* JerkassWoobie:
18	** [[spoiler:Of all the scammers, Gabriela is the most sympathetic one to both Amanda and John from the word go, and after John discovers the scam's true nature, it's immediately clear why: she's a hopeless drug addict who was likely roped into the job by her dealer, Mateo. During the game, Amanda easily relates to her as she used to be a drug addict herself, and John clearly had some level of empathy for her too. They're clearly happy to have Gabriela taken to a hospital after she passes her test... and Amanda has one ''visceral'' reaction when Cecilia kills her.]]
19	** [[spoiler: Even though she appears to be somewhat apathetic as one of the scammers, [[DisposableSexWorker Valentina]] has garnered some sympathy for the horrific circumstances that led to her death, which started with her being abducted shortly after a near-rape encounter with a prostitution client. Then she's placed in a trap that requires her to cut off her leg with a Gigli saw and extract the bone marrow through a surgical vacuum to stop the timer. Her having endured her trap, only to end up failing at the last second just because her bone marrow was too slow to fill up the container in time, seems downright unfair to plenty of viewers]].
20	* KarmicOverkill: Despite them being willing accomplices to the scam, some viewers felt that [[spoiler:Valentina, Mateo, and Gabriela]] were underserving of the traps they were placed in, or at the least, didn't deserve to die so horribly. It's made more apparent when [[spoiler:Cecilia, the head of the scam organization itself who arguably deserved far worse in comparison, continued her atrocities by killing a wounded Gabriela, placing a child in a trap against John out of spite, and murdering her lover to save her own life]].
21	* MemeticMutation:
22	** "Saw [[WesternAnimation/PAWPatrolTheMightyMovie Patrol]]."[[labelnote:Explanation]]''Saw X''[='=]s release date being moved to September 29th placed it on the same release day as ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrolTheMightyMovie''. With this occurring not long after the simultaneous release of ''Film/{{Barbie\|2023}}'' and ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}'', which led to the "Barbenheimer" meme, many have labeled this release date as "Saw Patrol" and state it to be the sequel to "Barbenheimer". Some detractors complain that this is a ForcedMeme, given how intensely promoted it has been by both movies' distributors from the outset, whereas "Barbenheimer" came about and spread much more naturally. Similarly, while ''Barbie'' and ''Oppenheimer'' are both films with a significant overlap in audience if not tone and genre, very few people were actually interested in watching both ''Saw X'' and ''PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie''.[[/labelnote]]
23	** Boston Sawx [[labelnote:Explanation]] A number of people have made jokes about pronouncing the title as if it were a single word, pronounced as "Socks" in an exaggerated Boston accent.[[/labelnote]]
24	** Epic Bad Luck [[labelnote:Explanation ('''SPOILERS''')]]In the post-credits scene, Hoffman refers to Henry cheating John of all people as this. The line gained a lot of mileage from ''Saw'' fans due to how hilariously cheesy it is. [[/labelnote]]
25	* MisaimedFandom: People who saw the official pre-release video clip of the Eye Vacuum Trap have claimed that it's one of the easiest traps in the franchise to beat, saying that a bit of {{Fingore}} is nothing compared to the [[LifeOrLimbDecision Life-or-Limb Decisions]] that define many of the other traps, and the victim should have just turned the dial straight to 5 to win. These people completely ignore that the poor guy is in shock (which anyone would be if they didn't have the AudienceAwarenessAdvantage), and Jigsaw likely designed the trap so the dial couldn't be turned more than one increment at a time. And while yes, it ''is'' less painful than other traps, it's because those were particularly gruesome, not that this one is tame. Plus, if he ''did'' win, the same people would probably complain about not getting to see the trap in action. [[spoiler:The trap turned out to have been an ImagineSpot anyway, so it's a moot point how he would've reacted or how easy it was.]]
26	* MoralEventHorizon: If one doesn't consider the entire con to be one in itself, any viewer who sympathizes with [[spoiler:Cecilia]] will probably have that end when [[spoiler:she murders Gabriella in cold blood, and later forces a child into a trap just to torment John]].
27	* NarmCharm: [[spoiler:Hoffman]] describing [[MuggingTheMonster accidentally conning John]] as "epic bad luck" in a perfectly deadpan tone is objectively very silly. It's also a very funny way to end such a grisly film, and it suggests that the creators are aware of how the ''Saw'' fandom has come to perceive the characters (alongside the last few films in general, despite his absence in them) as a bit of a goof. And all in all, it might be silly, but it's also terribly accurate.
28	* NauseaFuel:
29	** Were you among the viewers that couldn't stomach the brain surgery scenes in ''Film/SawIII''? The Brain Surgery Trap is just as disgusting, with the added "bonus" that it's self-inflicted and there are close-up shots of Mateo's exposed brain matter. [[spoiler:Mateo even successfully pulls a piece out and places it in acid with it visibly dissolving.]]
30	** Valentina's trap not only requires her to amputate her own leg, but also ''extract bone marrow from it''.
31	** The Bloodboarding Trap is almost akin to the [[Film/SawIII Pig Vat]], only more disgusting than anything violent. Despite, that it's still pretty nasty to watch John and Carlos suffocate from falling blood onto their faces, choking and spitting out the blood that falls into their mouths. It's also a mystery how and where John even got that much blood, whose blood it once belonged to, and how old it was until it was used in the trap; it could've been simply animal blood or even worse, human blood, with possible bloodborne diseases and all.
32	* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/SawX Has its own page]].
33	* OneSceneWonder: [[spoiler:Hoffman only shows up in the mid-credits scene, but what few seconds he had of screentime left a strong impression thanks to it marking his return to the series after over a decade of absence since ''3D'', topped off by his [[MemeticMutation memetic]] "epic bad luck" quote.]]
34	* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: The film defied all expectations by not just being well-received by audiences (especially after the tepid response to the previous installment), it also ''finally'' earned broader respect from critics, netting an 80% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the first "Fresh" film in the franchise, a title that evaded even [[Film/SawI the first film]] (widely recognized as [[FirstInstallmentWins "the genuinely good one"]] up until that point). Points of praise include making the story an early {{interquel}} -- conveniently sidestepping the franchise's later KudzuPlot and giving an opportunity for the beloved Creator/TobinBell a return to the spotlight as the series' VillainProtagonist -- as well as stronger character focus and a surprisingly poignant script, balancing out the terrifying traps with sincere character drama and heart. The film was so well-received that it was announced shortly after that a sequel would be released the following year, something that hasn't happened since ''Film/Saw3D''[='s=] release a year after ''Film/SawVI'', nearly ''15 years'' prior, though it ended up being pushed back a year.
35	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: The targets of Jigsaw's traps are a {{Snake Oil Sales\|man}}woman and her accomplices who claim that they're being [[ConsumerConspiracy persecuted by Big Pharma]] because their revolutionary cancer cure would make them obsolete, when in fact they're selling false hope to dying people in order to steal their money while not caring one bit about their continued suffering. Coming out as it did in the wake of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, it's not difficult to read into the film a metaphor for various quack doctors who, at the height of the pandemic, promoted various miracle cures while claiming that the medical establishment was out to kill people, profiting handsomely off of treatments whose effectiveness was dubious at best. In truth, the basic plot outline had already been completed [[https://web.archive.org/web/20230927232543/https://ew.com/movies/saw-x-tobin-bell-jigsaw-nicole-kidman/ before COVID,]] and was originally intended as the ninth film before ''[[Film/Spiral2021 Spiral]]'' was made instead.

Context YMMV / SawX