The pen is mightier than the machete

I sure shut down this loser on a Facebook discussion of this franchise.

ME: I don’t like how they used Tommy Jarvis in Part 6. They should have moved on to other characters for awhile and then eventually brought an older Tommy back in a formulaic Crazy Ralph “you’re all doomed” type of role.

DUMB RETARD: that’s why you are not a writer or director TOMMY WAS A STRONG CHARACTER like a hero to a Jason the villain I agree with you one the Tommy coming back but it should of been a character like creighton duke come back just to kill jason

ME: Yes, because the goal for all writers and directors should definitely be to go with the most obvious and cliched choice of a hero/villain paradigm. /sarcasm

Both 4 and 5 used Tommy well, especially at the end, where we have cliffhangers indictative of trauma. So much creative possibility for the character, but no, they went with a generic savior-of-Crystal-Lake hunts down it's destroyer.

The old "Crazy Ralph" parallel I mentioned... look, I don't know if that's undeniably the way to go. But this opens up opportunities for the audience to attach themselves and want to explore another memorable character and his own backstory of Camp Blood in the '50s and '60s. They killed off Crazy Ralph in the second movie, sure, but they used the archetype for additional characters in 3, arguably 5/6, and 8. A deranged character who warns others of their impending doom is more quintessential to "Friday the 13th" than the fast aging, manufactured hero Tommy turned out to be.

You mentioned Creighton Duke. Yes, I agree. Even Duke was better and more interesting than Tommy. Jason Goes to Hell is one of the most underrated entries, and Jason Lives certainly one of the most overrated.

With Tommy Jarvis... we never even explored him again, and the subsequent nemesis for Jason was more often a woman.

It might be time to admit that though 6 indeed has it's charms in a few ways, the Thom Matthews version of Jarvis from it as presented isn't one of them. It wasn't as iconic as they hoped it would be. Why? Who knows, but I say because it was juvenile, lazy and unoriginal—particularly in the 1980s.

DUMB RETARD: Shut up, fag.