10 Movie Franchises That Stupidly Killed Off Their Best Character

The Saw franchise is a fascinating beast, given that revealing the overarching antagonist to be a terminal cancer patient, John Kramer (Tobin Bell), seemingly placed a low ceiling on the series' longevity - at least with Kramer at the helm.

And so, Saw II introduced an apprentice to keep his legacy going, Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), before Saw III committed to pulling the trigger - or rather, turning on the circular saw - and having Kramer be brutally killed by one of his test subjects, Jeff (Angus Macfadyen).

It was a bold move, except that Kramer, with his ominous screen presence and fascinatingly twisted methodology, was by far the Saw series' most compelling character, ensuring he left a massive void in his wake.

And to make matters worse, Amanda also died at the end of Saw III, ensuring there wasn't even a character the audience was familiar with to continue his work.

As such, Saw IV was forced to awkwardly introduce a new apprentice, Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), all while the series continually found contrived ways to keep Kramer in the periphery - typically through flashbacks and outright prequels.

After the last two Saw movies, Jigsaw and Spiral, again attempted in vain to move the series on from Kramer with new villains, it's telling that the upcoming Saw X will be a prequel set between the first two movies, with Tobin Bell again reprising the role of Kramer.

Basically, the filmmakers wrote themselves into a corner with Kramer's death - far more of a corner than the audience simply accepting that Saw's dying villain was still alive.