13 Things You Didn't Know About Friday 13th: The Final Chapter
12. The Final Chapter Finally Catches Up The Timeline… Kind Of
Friday The 13th Part 2 was, for reasons that have never been made clear, set five years after the first movie, but only actually released a year later, meaning that it was set in the near future (no jet packs though, sadly).
Of course, whether that near future is 1984 or 1985 is up for debate: as previously discussed at length in these articles, the timeline of the franchise is famously wonky, and the original movie could be set in either 1979 or 1980.
Well, since Part 3 and The Final Chapter are set in the same timeframe as Part 2, and since The Final Chapter was released in 1984, it seemed as though real life had finally caught up with this fabulous, shiny, science-fiction narrative.
What a relief! From now on, all of the movies in this franchise will be set in the era in which they are released! There will be no further huge jumps into the future!
Well, no. 1985’s A New Beginning involves another five year time jump into 1989, and 1986’s Jason Lives is a year after that. Astonishingly, 1988’s The New Blood involves still another huge time jump (either seven years or ten years, depending on who you ask). 1989’s Jason Takes Manhattan is a year further on, while 1993’s Jason Goes To Hell is supposedly set in 2003.
The main action of 2002’s Jason X is, of course, set in the far, far future: 2455, to be exact… but by this point, the future is just so passé.