The Friday the 13th franchise has seen many strange facelifts and changes over the years, but by far one of the series' most controversial and memorable decisions is the introduction of Uber Jason in Jason X.
Before Jason X’s release in 2001, the Friday the 13th franchise was flailing and in need of a major hit. Talks over Freddy Vs. Jason continued to stall and the futuristic Jason X was meant to be the appetizer in the meantime. The radical space-set premise of Jason X was supposed to hopefully rejuvenate the series. Ideally, Jason X would give the films new life, while still leaving enough of a gap in the main continuity to remain making movies set in modern times. In spite of these optimistic aspirations, none of this would come to pass and Jason X was faced with a number of production problems behind the scenes. The movie failed to meet the lofty expectations that were placed on it, but it’s not without its good ideas.
Jason X fast-forwards to the year 2455 where the Earth has become borderline toxic and the trek towards Earth II begins. Jason X explains that Jason Voorhees was cryogenically frozen in the year 2008, but he awakens in the future and undergoes a technological upgrade to become the behemoth, Uber Jason. Uber Jason makes waste to most of the crew on The Grendel spaceship, but he meets his own demise after he’s blasted into space and burns up in Earth II’s atmosphere.
Uber Jason Has Gained A Rich History Beyond His Jason X Appearance
Uber Jason only appears in the one film, Jason X, which basically takes place at the end of the franchise’s lifespan. However, Uber Jason has proven to be fascinating enough that Friday the 13th supporting material has kept the character alive and deepened his story. Jason X gets explored in a number of comics and its own series of novels. These side stories have Uber Jason fight his way through a prison planet, get sent to Earth II, and nearly see the government clone him into an army of Uber Jason supersoldiers. All of these new traits and storylines indicate that there is plenty of existing material to pull from for any future Jason X/Uber Jason films. It’d be exciting to see some of these moments come life and play out for real as opposed to in a comic book or novel.
The most interesting angle from this expanded look at the Jason X universe turns Uber Jason into a villain for Jason Voorhees. Finally Jason is given a worthy adversary. It also means that a return of Uber Jason doesn’t mean that he’d have to replace regular Jason in a Friday the 13th movie. Uber Jason could be the primary antagonist, but he could also square off against Jason or even team up. Either angle there is particularly exhilarating. Any other context for “two Jasons” in a Friday film would seem ridiculous, but Jason X has actually done the legwork with Uber Jason to make this fantasy a reality. Unfortunately, the most recent rumblings regarding any reappearance of Uber Jason are from the cancelled character skin and level design from Friday the 13th: The Game. That being said, the Friday the 13th franchise has stalled as a whole and has seen trouble getting a new installment rolling, regardless of whether it’s a sequel or a reboot. Maybe Uber Jason and an injection of Jason X are exactly the ingredients that are needed to bring the series back to life.