If anyone thought that Tobin Bell would have an issue when it came to not being included in Spiral, they were overestimating his reaction since Bell knew about it and wasn’t too bothered to hear that it was happening. One of the best points made was that Spiral was related to Saw but was trying to be its own thing. Adding Tobin to the movie would have essentially made it another Saw movie, and while the thought is that Tobin might not be done quite yet, Spiral was meant to be its own creation, as the killer was a copycat of the infamous Jigsaw, but was still very much a different person. Since its inception, Saw has become an institution unto itself, and as such could have easily taken over Spiral had such an inclusion been made. Translation, Tobin was kept out in order to keep Spiral unique. The fact that the master architect behind the many traps and devilish designs in the movie wasn’t a part of it didn’t really bother Tobin all that much since he was aware of what was going on. Had he been kept in the dark and had to find out like the rest of us then it might have been a little different, but it still feels as though he would have been supportive.
Seriously, when a story gets big enough it’s necessary sometimes to simply accept that others will want to take off in a different direction using the source material as a home base for the idea even as they do their own thing. In a way it’s kind of flattering since the idea that anyone would try to create another movie that’s directly related to such a franchise is evidence of how inspiring the horrific images and scenes have been. Some of us still can’t watch the Saw movies without having to look away every now and then and possibly mute a few scenes (ripping flesh is kind of gut-churning to some folks), but the acknowledgment that this was in fact a great franchise is hard to deny.
It’s interesting to think of how far this idea might go until it runs out of original ideas if any such thing is possible. One thought about the Saw franchise is that it can possibly be revitalized, not rebooted, every few years or so if one really had the inclination to be this patient. It’s already happened that the Saw movies have switched things up as they’ve gone along, as they kind of had to at one point since Jigsaw was dead by the end of the third movie. But the game he set in place and all the working parts that came together had a long time to be revealed since everything was so intricately woven together. It’s even possible that there’s more to think about, and more to reveal, but it might be time to simply move ahead and let the next batch of stories pulled from the idea as they will since there are bound to be a great number of stories woven into the fabric of Saw, especially given all the people that had to be used to enact Jigsaw’s plans.
This makes a person think really when trying to connect all the lives that were affected by Jigsaw and his need to get people to appreciate their lives or punish them, no matter what he said. The guy was very similar to Charles Manson apart from the fact that he wasn’t crazy, but the fact is that the original Jigsaw didn’t kill anyone. He usually gave them a chance to live, and if they didn’t survive it means they weren’t appreciative enough of the life they had. The next Jigsaw in line did kill people, however, as the traps became inescapable after a while, meaning that a life had to be lost no matter what. Escaping by the thinnest of margins, and with the absolute certainty that blood would be shed, was a horrifying way to present these movies initially, since it meant that as much as Jigsaw did give people a chance to live, he wasn’t letting them off lightly. Just imagine having to dig a key out of your already-mutilated eye, or having to saw off your own foot.
Yeah, the horror of these movies is that every trap, every scenario, ended in bloodshed no matter what happened. It’s amusing, morbidly so, that at one point people might have thought that being forced to crawl through bundles of razor wire was bad. That was barely a warmup for what was coming since the traps and situations only got worse from that point on. The fact that Spiral didn’t use Tobin Bell wasn’t a slap to the face after all that’s been done, but a wise omission that made it clear that Spiral would honor the franchise, but needed to be its own movie.Spiral
Follow Us
