Yarr! What the hell be goin' on?

[mollyringle]

Saw the third Pirates of the Caribbean film at last. Let's see if I got this straight. (THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD, SHOULD YE CARE.)

1. Will, Jack, Elizabeth, Davy Jones, Barbossa, Cutler Beckett, and the Navy guys are all double-crossing each other to the extent that only 3% of the audience could remember what everyone's true motives actually are.

2. Despite tantalizing us with sizzling Jack/Elizabeth tension in the second film, and despite Will and Elizabeth only sulking around each other for most of this film, Elizabeth suddenly marries Will at the last minute. Then when she has ten years to loll around without him, she doesn't go find Jack. What gives?

3. Oh, I see. She was busy raising a kid. Also, she doesn't age in ten years, despite the hard life of raising her son alone, and possibly some light secretarial work to keep them fed.

4. Tia Dalma is Calypso, and freeing her would unleash the fury of the seas, which sounds cool, so they do that. But all she does is create a maelstrom in the water, which doesn't actually do anything except spin two boats around for a while. It doesn't even kill Davy Jones--that, apparently, was Jack & Will's job.

5. After seeing two pirate ships destroy the trading company ship, the fleet of several hundred turns tail and runs away. Yeah. Right.

6. Keith Richards has a boat. Not that he and the other international convention of pirates actually help, or anything.

7. Jack has multiple clones running around. They're probably inside his head, but then why are they still chatting with one another after he leaves the room? Maybe the Disney writers just need a primer on Point Of View issues.

8. Getting a new captain means the Dutchman's crew no longer has to wear barnacles and starfish upon their faces, for some reason.

9. Argh. They've totally set it up for a FOURTH film. You've got some seriously awesome writing to do for that one, team, if you want to win this audience back.

10. This isn't really a plot summary point, just an observation: Orlando Bloom left me lukewarm for the first 2.4 hours of the film, but looked totally hot in his Dread Pirate Roberts get-up at the end. Plus, the mythological touch of being the underworld's ferryman and getting only one shore leave day every ten years was cool and poignant. Too bad it was buried in all those other confusing plotlines.

But those beaches sure were pretty...

Comments

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

10 is so totally true. Not an Orlando fan at all, but MAN he rocked that leather.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Heck yeah he did. (And I guess he can father kids even when technically dead. Or immortal. Or whatever.)

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

Hee. Have you seen Ask-a-Ninja's review of this flick? Much awesome.

"I'm just going to play you the review of Pirates of the Caribbean 2, because this is essentially the same movie. Only when I say 'Kraken' replace it with 'Keith Richards'. When I say 'plotline' replace it with 'plotline' and then multiply the general confusingness of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 by a bucket of chickens."

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Only when I say 'Kraken' replace it with 'Keith Richards'.

LOL

Oh, so true.

Or multiply by a bucket of odd white crabs, in this case.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for that!

That movie was pretty and action-packed as heck, but every time I start bringing up the general confusion that's supposed to be the plot, people start scowling at me.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it wasn't just me. Felt kind of stupid to be getting confused by a Disney flick. :)

[pith]

From what I've read, there's not supposed to be a #4. Of course, this is Disney... but I like to think Johnny Depp would have the sense to get out while he can. To me, he looked bored through the majority of the movie anyway.

Will & Elizabeth clearly have Legolas Syndrome, the inability to get dirty unless in extreme peril. No matter what happens, Will and Elizabeth are either annoying clean and fresh-looking or, if they have some dirt, it is artfully placed, so as not to disturb their blank androgynous prettiness. Blech. I'd be happier with Will- and Elizabeth-free PotC movies.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Heheh...not only do they have the well placed dirt, but apparently Elizabeth shaved her legs while on a pirate ship. Uh-huh...sure. :)

[modmerseygirl.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the movie, but did find it a little difficult to follow at times. Still, there was a great deal of pretty. :-)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Aye, the pretty kept it enjoyable. The boat turning upside down looked quite cool, as well.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I watch everything late these days. :) Enjoy when you do see it, just don't think too hard about it!

[sopdetly.livejournal.com]

#10 = TRUE TO THE MAXXX.

As for the rest of it? I dunno, I followed it pretty well. Mostly I wasn't thinking too much about it. I figure, I went into the first one just for pretty men as pirates, and I got sooooo much more than that. So long as that base expectation was met for the other movies, I'd be totally happy.

Also, a note: Beyond being a good mum, if Elizabeth had gone seeking other adventures, it might have been enough to deem her "unfaithful" and force Will into a lifetime of ferrying, which is what happened with Davy and Calypso. That was one thing they really didn't explain very well in the movie -- when Will comes home after the credits, he's home for *good*.

(Ack wrong button!)

Finally, I thought the mid-battle wedding was adorable. But I'm a sap like that, and being Disney, it wasn't like the two of them weren't gonna end up Happily Ever After. (Though that bit with his boot and her leg and his lips...oh my.)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, playing with a 2-year-old while watching films these days does lead to my occasional confusion with the plot. :)

when Will comes home after the credits, he's home for *good*.

I totally didn't realize that! Cool. That makes it cheerier. So is he still dead/immortal at that point, or does he get to put his heart back in and live again?

The wedding itself was cute; I just didn't think the couple seemed so "together" by that point. But I guess they remedied that on the beach.

Though that bit with his boot and her leg and his lips...oh my.

I said at that point, "Porn! Finally!" :)

[indis-earfalas.livejournal.com]

About #8. I think that Davy's and his crew was like that because he wasn't doing his job properly, or something along those lines. I only think that because Calypso (before she was all big and RAWR) said "You're not doing your job properly" (not the exact words) ... maybe. LOL

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

That's what I assume too, though the details of why it leads to barnacles on the face escape me. :)

[ladymurmur.livejournal.com]

#4 has been my biggest complaint. At the VERY least, let her superimposed face rise up out of the maelstrom as Davey falls.... ANYTHING! It seems like they just totally forgot about that whole Calypso plotline... Sorry, the intern responsible for that storyline had to go back to school and we couldn't get another intern... ?!?

And they never really did explain WHY the one day in ten years, or why the underworld needed a ferryman or what went wrong when Davey Jones wasn't performing his ferrymanly duties...

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to let some of it slide as basic mystical "that's just the way it is" rules, but yeah, dropping entire plotlines confuzzled me.

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

I'd beg to differ on the first part of 10, he was total hotness throughout the film ;) A bit mopey during the first two-thirds, certainly, but hotness incarnate throughout the film. Though I will grant you that it was especially large amount of hotness at the end.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I did expect some dissension on that point, so that's fine. ;)

[kirstenfleur.livejournal.com]

#5: WORD. Really. That was the stupidest moment in the whole film. I'm still wondering why the heck the trading ship didn't FIRE BACK, given it was a rather heavily armed vessel. Sigh.

#8: didn't the barnacles and starfish come about because Davey Jones had abandoned his job? I thought Tia Dalma had explained that when they were sailing through the Oceans of the Dead, or whatever they were- when they saw the dead below them, and she said that they were supposed to be in his care, because they'd been lost at sea.

I liked #3 much better than #2, anyway. Their kid at the end- that was the same actor that was hanged at the beginning, wasn't it?

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I think you're right on #8, though the exact reasons didn't get through to my brain.

Their kid at the end- that was the same actor that was hanged at the beginning, wasn't it?

Hmm, maybe so. What was that supposed to mean then, I wonder?

[gavinworld.livejournal.com]

I've got a friend who's a huge Pirates fan, and even he just couldn't get into the third movie.

I saw the first one and found it entertaining, but I just haven't felt motivated to see the others.

It doesn't help that I've never been much of a Bloom fan and think Depp is good-looking only when he's had a bath, shave, and haircut. I think that the most attractive guy in POTC is actually Jack Davenport (Norrington).

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

It's highly lightweight entertainment. Perhaps better when on rum. :)

Wasn't Davenport in "Coupling" too? I just watched the first season. Funny stuff. Though I'm odd and ended up finding Jeff the cutest.

[gavinworld.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's Jack in Coupling. I think he's extremely talented and funny, especially when Steve goes on one of his rants. I'm actually in the minority around here as a Steve fan, though - Greg and several of our friends also think Jeff's the cutest.

Glad you liked the first season. I think that "Inferno" and "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love" are possibly the two funniest half hours in television history.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Those episodes did have some good Steve rants. But as a linguist I have to go with the mutually unintelligible Hebrew/English conversation between Jeff and the Israeli girl as my favorite.

[gavinworld.livejournal.com]

That is a good one, and brilliantly done. I find the eps. where things go especially badly for poor Jeff hard to watch sometimes, though.

[impetuousnote.livejournal.com]

Wait they had a son? Did I miss that part? I hope there's not going to be a 4th!

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

It was after the credits at the end, for whatever reason. Odd that way.

Thanks...

[naill-renfro.livejournal.com]

...for making me laugh at one of the most painful movie-going experiences ever.

POTC I was the most perfect Hollywood movie ever, with the possible exception of Casablanca.

POTC II was mostly boring; it had its moments, but ground to a complete halt whenever Squidface was on-screen.

POTC III: Words cannot describe the agony. I went in expecting another regurgitation of POTC II, and fully prepared to be offended by the misuse of Chow Yun Fat as the Stereotyped Asian Pirate. And the opening scene, if grim, was actually pretty cool. After that, though...

Sure enough, I wasn't disappointed -- the Singapore stuff was as bad as I'd feared, but almost immediately it became clear that the waste of Chow Yun Fat was as nothing to the waste of every other actor in the movie. It was as though the moviemakers hadn't seen either of the previous movies, had no idea who any of the characters were or how they were supposed to act, and had chopped up random story ideas to make Plot Salad. Even Pintel and Ragetti weren't much fun. Nothing made sense, but by the time Capt. Jack reappeared in the Peanut Scene (which looked as though it had been salvaged from the Yellow Submarine cutting-room floor) I was long past caring; only the fact that I was in a foreign country and had no wish to make a spectacle of myself kept me from throwing things at the screen.

But you've inspired me: Quite by chance, a rather low-quality DVD, presumably (ha!) pirated, has fallen into my hands, with comically flawed Engrish subtitles. I'd meant to post some screenshots months ago, for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but never got around to it -- now I will, if I can face seeing the thing again.

Good news: I've revisited Disneyland twice since the movie came out, and although Squidface is still in the POTC ride (projected on a screen of mist), none of the POTC III nonsense seems to be.

/If I keep using that T-shirt icon long enough, will it acquire a certain retro charm?

Re: Thanks...

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Don't worry too much about the T-shirt. Definitely, retro charm. :)

Yeah, total waste of actors--and I think too many actors/characters was partly the problem. They needed to cut a few subplots.

Engrish subtitles is exactly what we need to remedy the headache!

fourth?

[patrick roberts (from livejournal.com)]

The first Pirates of the Caribbean was great, not too sure about the other two, tho the special effects were top notch of course. if they come out with a fourth, do you think it will maintain the quality of the first?

Re: fourth?

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

It did look pretty, no doubt about that. I can't see the fourth working as well as the first without a major overhaul of writers and some relentless cutting of subplots...