9 Major Retcons That Saved Iconic Movie Franchises

3. The Secret Apprentice - Jigsaw

The Saw series kind of ended unceremoniously. After seven movies, the finale to this winding horror narrative was supposed to take place over two films which were condensed into one, with the final reveal showing that Gordon, the original Saw survivor, was the "true" mastermind following John Kramer aka Jigsaw's death.

In classic horror movie fashion the series returned for another instalment a few years later, this time an apparent soft reboot that would act as the base for even more sequels. While it was confirmed that Kramer would appear in some form - potentially even back from the dead - nobody had any clue as to how closely the new flick would follow the original timeline.

Focusing on the first ever Saw trap, the twist was (because there's always a twist) that the movie actually took place across two different timelines, one set after the events after the last film, and one set prior to the very first. Kramer was still dead, and it was actually his secret apprentice (seriously, how many does this dude have?), a man he took pity on during his first ever attempt at a "game", who's adopted the Jigsaw moniker.

It was just as convoluted as anything from the previous series, but it kicked the franchise into gear enough to justify another upcoming sequel - even if it didn't make any sense as to why this character had never even been mentioned before now.