#There’s totally tons of ghost swans what are you talking about??

[beebiejr]

Swans

Imagine pray tell if you will

Tim swanified and angry: *Agreesively honks and puffs up chest/wings at Danny because get away from me?? Who do you think you are??*

Danny sensing something’s up with this swan: WOAH BACK UP WHO ARE YOU???

Tim pausing from where he was just biting Danny: …honk..?

Danny eyeing him suspiciously: …Wanna see my Yeti doctor?

Tim curious and wondering if this guy is sane follows Danny through his strange Lazarus green (but less rotten food smelling, more like lemon or grapefruit) portal because why not? Actions are better than words, especially when you don’t have any!

Or hear me out perchance maybe please

Tim angerly honks and gets defensive: HONK! HKEEEEHHHR!!! (WHO ARE YOU? WHERE AM I? WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE ARE MY ARMS?!?!?)

Danny who understands most languages because ghost stuff plot plot plot: Woah there dude! Just passing by, what happened?

Tim even angrier because he figured out he was a bird, possible swan?, and what? You understand bird? Stupid stupid IDIOT: HHKEEEHRRRRR KERRRRHHH *very intense hissing and honking* (OH LOOK AT THIS WISE GUY, what do you speak bird, *swan version of scoffing* WHAT DO YOU THINK? I JUST MAGICALLY KNOW WHY IM A BIRD?? NO! NO I DONT KNOW WHY! Fucking idiot..

Danny, offended and petty: Well I WAS going to help you but…

Tim getting confused: Honk??? (What is this guy on???)

Danny turns and starts to walk away but peaks his head over his shoulder: I mean if you want help you can follow me, I know a great doctor!

Tim lost and upset: *swan sigh* honnkkkk… (Finneeee…) *starts waddling poorly because he’s got weird ahh legs plus kinda dragging his feet*

Idk I just want a Tim Drake that’s literally a drake, I don’t care if it’s dragon or duck/duck adjacent. GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEEE

[avelera]

POTC:5 - A Hot Mess, with some glimmers of heart

I actually wrote this a few days ago on the plane and consistently forgot to post so here we go Maggie’s analysis of the hot mess that is POTC5 (and thoughts on how it could have been improved). 

So PotC:5 was a hot mess and totally deserves a hard 57% rating, with a good portion of that rating based latent affection for the franchise.

THAT BEING SAID, they broke Will’s curse so given that I have been waiting 10 YEARS (10 YEARS IN AZKABAN/ ON THAT ISLAND WITH ELIZABETH) for that to happen, and it happened, I’m gonna say my time may have been 90% wasted but I’m not unhappy that I saw it.

The thing is, I think there were scraps of  good movie in there somewhere. Not in the same was as say, Wonder Woman (where I think there was a superb movie in there had they only been allowed to simply rearrange some of their scenes and tweak a plot twist or two) but still. Frankly, I don’t think the scenes that would have made POTC:5 great were even shot, but there’s some structural hints towards their potential.

So here’s what I would have done to tweak POTC:5 to make it a better story along the lines of a novel. To my admittedly untutored eye, there was a lot of things that look like they could have been improved, and maybe there was even a stage of the script where the writers would have liked them to be improved, but things such as studio requirements, actor availability, and actor preference prohibited it. I have no idea what the exact making of this movie entailed but let’s just say, for example, I don’t think Keira Knightley wanted to make this movie, even though it would have been vastly improved by her presence.

Tweaks and Improvements:

1) Replace or at least partner Elizabeth with Barbossa. Frankly, we left her as Pirate King and it would have been amazing to see her *ahem* Swanning around on that opulent ship along with him, enforcing her title. I would have adored a subplot in which Henry has either essentially run away from home or, say, a respectable life that Elizabeth set up for him, or that he has simply gone missing and she’s been looking for him. Frankly, the very idea that Henry could be working on breaking the Will’s curse and have a lead and Elizabeth isn’t on that boat with him is crazy to me. The only understandable explanation is metatextual, ie Keira wasn’t available for the film. Pirate King Elizabeth should have been on that quest with them, and it could have provided some really excellent moments of action, pathos and even comedy. It may have also spared us some of the unrelenting fixation on fathers too, or at least balanced it with one present, capable mother instead of the endless string of fridged Disney Moms like Carina’s.

Some scenes it would have allowed - fuckin’ Pirate King Elizabeth overtaking Henry & Co. and giving the “I’m not here to stop you…. I’m here to join you.” speech. Moments of bonding between Henry and Elizabeth. Elizabeth expressing her loss of Will, and Henry sharing it. Humorous tension of having your mom onboard when you’re starting to crush on a girl and also prove yourself. Elizabeth’s total lack of interest in Jack and their inevitable banter… I mean frankly, the only reason not to have her is how much she would have stolen the show. MOVING ON.

2) Carina should have been Salazar’s daughter, not Barbossa’s. Frankly, the Barbossa thing just made… no sense at all. He’s never mentioned or shown interest in a family before, it just doesn’t really fit with his story, and I’m pretty sure that even if he wasn’t a ghost at that point of her conception (assuming Carina is younger than Henry but that’s not necessarily a given), it means he had her after POTC:3 which is… weird. Unless I’m missing something from POTC:4.

Reasons Carina should have been Salazar’s daughter instead:

Shared features: We got quite a few interesting close-ups of Salazar’s black waving hair, which looks a great deal like Carina’s. In contrast, technically under all the liver damage, Barbossa does have blue eyes but there any resemblance to Carina ends. Salazar actually looks at least a little like he could be her father, enough to serve as an actual clue to her heritage instead of the out of nowhere revelation about Barbossa. There’s the issue of the accent but they could either hand wave that by saying she studied in England or hire a hispanic actress, or have the actress assume a hint of a Spanish accent. Either way, it’s not a huge hurdle.

Salazar was clearly a good guy and successful before his transformation into a ghost thing, it explains how Carina got such a high-end education as to be an astronomer and a horologist, something that was never explained by the film, because by all accounts if the ruby was all Barbossa left her and she didn’t spend it, Carina would have grown up penniless. Salazar, as a Spanish officer of his own ship, would have been in a much better position for his family and estate to see that his daughter had a fantastic education.

It would have allowed Carina’s story to mirror Henry’s, that both of them are trying to free their father from a sea curse. Frankly, her not believing in magic and still going after the map thing is a bit of cognitive stretch. Having both of them trying to break a curse on their father would have been a nice parallel. You could even have it that Carina is skeptical about her father’s curse, but still sees the trident as a means of “freeing” him or at least convincing him to come home if he’s just gone mad. It could also provide a dramatic scene where maybe her whole life she hasn’t allowed herself to believe that her father was really “cursed” rather than dead or a deadbeat, and she tries to convince Henry that his father is no more cursed than hers and is only absent. Then, at the first sight of magic she could have a true moment of emotion, realizing it was indeed a curse that kept her once-heroic father away from her and her family.

Frankly, Salazar’s story is all over the place. Especially his morality. I get that this is “Pirates” of the Caribbean so the pirates are the good guys, but he was something of an actual good guy at least along the lines of Norrington before he went down and became all ghosty. Also, the moment where they become human again was actually rather emotional. I didn’t really understand why he was still a bad guy after they got turned back? Why the vengeance? How about instead let him get an actual redemption arc, his daughter talking him down from his mercilessness towards pirates because they’re the ones who helped free him. That also eliminates the need for Barbossa’s rather random and out of character “sacrifice” at the end, if he doesn’t need to die taking down Salazar.

(I gotta say, for like a split second I thought the witch would turn out to be Carina’s mother and her and Barbossa gave her up to give her a better life so failing a Salazar parenthood I could totally accept that too.)

3) Just… less Jack Sparrow, please. His wacky hijinks are at their best when they’re played against someone who is actually trying to pursue the plot. That’s why he was such a good foil and antagonistic ally for Will and Elizabeth, he’s best when he’s a wild card. But also, the schtick is getting a bit old. Hence why it would have been nice to have Elizabeth in the film to play off him a bit.

That being said, the glimpse we got of Young Jack the Sparrow was waaaay hotter than I expected, like I never had a real thing for Sparrow like many others did but godDAMN young cocky pirate kid who is just finding his sea legs, wasn’t totally crazy yet, and looked like he walked off the set of Black Sails was one of the small highlights of the film. It just goes to show what giving Jack Sparrow even a dash of integrity can do to strengthen the character.

Another thing absent from the film which was desperately needed - some connection between Henry and Jack Sparrow. It seemed assumed but never shown. Really, we got a ton of Jack Sparrow being disdainful of Will and Elizabeth, but I’d like to think that he would feel at least a little protective of their child. There was moments in the film that seemed to hint at that, but it would have been nice to get a verbal admission at some point (unless I missed it) along the lines of how he actually does care about them beneath his wacky and selfish exterior, and by extension doesn’t want their son to die.

Overall the film felt like 3 or 4 film ideas sort of crammed into one story. I definitely saw snippets of discarded plots, the whole possession of Henry came out of nowhere (though I forgive it because possession is my jam), Salazar’s pathos went in and out in favor of him in the end just remaining a monster despite the fact he just got his life back, Carina’s backstory and relation to Barbossa makes no sense at all, Elizabeth not participating makes no sense at all, and characters would randomly move vast distances or have extremely helpful coincidences just when they needed them to a level that went beyond “fun adventure story” and into “writer clearly ended up in a corner, again” territory.

I think the best parts of the film came down to Henry’s authenticity and his quest to save his father. The scene at the beginning where he meets Will by nearly dying was perhaps my favorite of the whole film, if not for the ending, and with just those two I would have been quite content. The film really needed to be more about that and less about Sparrow hijinks, which are always a great spice but they are a terrible center piece. POTC has consistently been the story of Elizabeth and Will, and it loses a lot of its fire when it shifts to be about Sparrow rather than their story serving as a stage where he could serve as jester and commentator. If this was to be the story of the next generation of Henry and Carina, it should have been allowed to remain fixated on them, and allowed there to be pathos in Carina’s story as much as Henry’s, which is why I think a parallel lost father and a connection to Salazar would have added a great deal.

I’m not sure if there’ll be a sixth film. It’s probably better if there isn’t. But I would be willing to drag myself back to the theater if we can finally see Will and Elizabeth again because frankly, apropos to nothing, their reunion was the single hottest most powerful moment of the whole movie and I’ll take a lot of confused garbage for that.