6 Times the Charm? 6 Times the Yawn!

Now I have never seen any of the "Saw" films, and to be honest, I don't have much intent to, but since there is some relevance to this in the geek world, I felt that I might offer some commentary, since I seem to at least be somewhat entertaining at it.

So this weekend, we have the opening of the sixth "Saw" film, cleverly named "Saw VI" I was asked to see it yesterday evening, but I was not able to make the showing, and knowing the popularity of these films, there would have been nowhere to sit to "Enjoy" the movie (Especially since I have no familiarity with the previous 5 films).



The idea of Saw VI begged me to ask the question: When a movie reaches the sixth part, does it ever mean anything good?

I am going to use film franchises that have reached a sixth installment, and we'll examine whether or not the idea of those franchises have remained "Fresh" or "Fail"

First example: Police Academy 6: City Under Siege.

To be frank, the series itself is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I felt that after "Superstar" Steve Guttenberg left after Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, the franchise lacked a lot of its charm. Matt McCoy took over the "Mahoney" role, playing Nick Lessard in Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach, and really had about as much sexual charm as a loaf of bread. By the time the sixth movie was reached (of 7 in total) The only saving grace of the series was Larvelle Jones' sound effects, and of course, Callahan's Breasts! They even stopped using "The Blue Oyster" after #4, which was always a funny bit.

Verdict: FAIL!

Second Example: James Bond.

Now in all, there have been 22 James Bond films in all, and yes, at points the franchise has been somewhat stale, however the movies do stand the test of time, and I think that mostly the series has remained Fresh.

Now the sixth Bond film in the series was: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". It was the first film not to feature Sean Connery as Bond, and it was panned by a lot of the critics, who I imagine at the time were expecting another Connery.

The film itself is one that stands alone from the rest for many reasons, 1. That it doesn't have an actual "Song" Tied to it, as well, it was the only film to feature Bond's "Wife", Teresa (Tracy) who was unfortunately killed only minutes after they were married.

Of the 22 Bond films, I would easily say that this one is in my top 5. (#1 being The Man with the Golden Gun, remember that, there might be a quiz later) And of the series as a whole, I love them all, and when I am in the mood for Bond, I'll spend days watching 007.

Verdict: FRESH!

Third Example: Star Trek

Including 2009's blockbuster feature, Star Trek has had 11 (Count them) ELEVEN! feature films. The first 6, and the 11th focussing on TOS (The Original Series) and 7-10 mainly featuring TNG (The Next Generation)

It's hard to say whether or not all of the films can count as one franchise, or 2-3 different ones. I count them all as one, and I imagine most of the fans do as well.

The Sixth film in the series was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. By the time this film was released, in 1991, the series more or less had grown stagnant. (2, 3 and 4 being the only real entertaining films, all of which took place back to back to back, chronologically) Star Trek 5 was ridiculous, and don't get me started on how much I can't stand Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (Note: I love the Fight that Raj and Sheldon had about which one sucked more on the Big Bang Theory episode: "The Lizard-Spock Expansion"



However as a whole, I find that the series is entertaining, I will watch the movies whenever they're on, but I am ambivalent about a score for this one. The newest film renewed my love for Star Trek, however the last film (Nemesis, and to a degree, Insurrection) left me with a pain in my gut that hurt worse than the last time I ate something that had ketchup in it.

Verdict: FAIL, but no longer....

Fourth Example: Nightmare on Elm St/Friday The 13th/Halloween

All three of these films can be classified together. Why? Because it's always the same principle. Bad Guy kills a lot of people, Bad Guy is hard to kill. Bad Guy gets killed after 90 minutes of epic struggle, then bad guy is resurrected to do it all again.

Each of the three example's original films, were benchmarks in the horror community/genre. With each of them inspiring the horror films that we see today, such as the reason for this article, Saw. But as the film's sequels themselves were produced, the characters as a whole became less appealing, and more like comic fodder.

Even the reboots of the series as a whole seem to be lacking.

When you're struggling to make a sequel/reboot of something that has succeeded so many times before, maybe it's time to come to the realization that the course has been run. Trying to squeeze every last dollar out of something marketable is the benchmark of our society, but c'mon, seriously. Do we really need 10 Friday The Thirteenth movies (Minus the Reboot, as well as the classic, Freddy Vs. Jason) 7 Nightmare on Elm St. movies (Again, minus Freddy Vs. Jason) and 8 Halloween movies (Plus 2 additional movies in the now: rebooted series) Redundance, thy names are Freddy, Jason, and Michael, and let's just throw in Jigsaw now, shall we?

Verdict: FAIL!!!

So, in conclusion, there are a multitude of series that I could use, these seem to be the most relevant to conclude my point, I could have added The Rocky series, which with the except of #5 were all classics, I could have also added the Godzilla movies, but they're too easy to pick at, and I could have also included the total allotment of Batman movies, but I loathe Joel Schumacher and Tim Burton to a degree unheard of by civilized man. To summarize, very rarely do movies reach this level of sequeldom, but in the end, is the end-product worth it? Very rarely, if ever.