#if you want to watch a movie for Elizabeth swann watch dead man’s chest

[allthethoughtsandstuff]

13 year old me watching potc: 😮🥹☺️🫶🏻

21 year old me watching potc: 😮🥹☺️🫶🏻

[eli-am-confused]

Ok I’ve been rewatching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and I have some THOUGHTS!

(I have not finished the fourth movie so this is about the first three, tho really mostly the third one, At World’s End. This also mostly has nothing to do with Captain Jack Sparrow because he is perfect, no notes)

1) Why didn’t Elizabeth join Will on The Flying Dutchman at the end of At World’s End?

And you may be saying “Eli you have to be dying in order to join the crew!” Stab her! Easy fix! That’s how Will died!

Next you’ll try to be like, “Eli you have to be afraid of death to join the crew!” Bitch where? Yeah at first it may seem like that because Davy Jones is going around “are you afraid of death?” But the guys gambling their years? Will offering to join the crew for eternity as a bet? None of them were afraid to die in those moments! I think all that is needed is an agreement (most of the time audible) to staying on as crew and how many years they are willing to serve.

To anyone that wants to argue that being crew of the Flying Dutchman is an eternal punishment no it is not. It was only that way because Davy Jones created that situation from his own betrayal and grief. Will would never create such a hostile work environment so long as his father (and/or Elizabeth) are there to keep him sane.

So I think at the end of that movie Elizabeth should have either stabbed her self or made Will do it and join the Flying Dutchman’s crew for as long as he was captain. I think she would make it as first-mate while also still holding out her title as King of the Pirates so they could be equals to one another. Elizabeth goes to the pirates meetings as both the King of Pirates and representative for Captain Will of the Flying Dutchman. They live together happily. The End.

The only excuse I will take for Elizabeth not joining the crew of the Flying Dutchman is that she has given herself the duty of protecting Will’s heart as the King of Pirates which brings me onto my next point.

2) If Elizabeth Swann didn’t get to keep her title as King of the Pirates I’m going to riot!

I think if she didn’t become a part of the Flying Dutchman’s crew then she should’ve taken Will’s heart and kept it at the cove where all the pirates held their meeting! At the cove she continues building it up as a pirate stronghold and place of neutral pirate territory (meaning a place of relative peace).

“Eli why would pirates have a king who rules over them?” That is not what Elizabeth as the King of Pirates would be doing. She would hold the cove as a pirate stronghold, be able to call on the nine pirate lords when the need arises, be the final deciding vote in major pirate decisions that need a deciding vote, and be a middle man when pirates (specifically lords) are having major issues that can’t be resolved any other way. The cove would be yet another safe place for pirates to convene when they need to and Elizabeth as the King would oversee it with her crew.

In this she would have her own crew or multiple crews for different purposes. One of her crews goes to sail the seas and pillage and bring back riches for the cove and the other stays and keeps everything running, they can even switch off (other pirates would not be required to pay taxes to Elizabeth in this scenario). If you think a pirate captain owning multiple ships and crews under their command is unrealistic then look into the real life Pirate Queen Zheng Yi Sao (also just look into her cause she’s really cool and if you like pirates you’ll love her story).

This way Elizabeth could protect Will’s heart at the pirate stronghold she is king of but she could also still go off to sea to see Will when she wants to.

3)I hate love triangles and think polyam relationships are fun (basically fan fiction)

Anyone else watch the fight scene in Dead Man’s Chest and were like “damn James and Will should kiss.” Cause…

Wow guys way to have both the gayest choreography and eye contact I’ve ever seen as someone who watched Spies are Forever. Like they also right after this fight over Elizabeth but damn if I couldn’t cut their sexual tension with a knife. Anyone else but Captain Jack Sparrow would have been so uncomfortable being the third wheel of this fight.

And I know what you’re saying “Eli James dies saving Elizabeth and her crew in At World’s End.” Yeah, ok, but what if he didn’t? This is my post about my thoughts I’m allowed to write some fan fiction while I’m thinking about it!

Anyway here’s my thoughts on how their polyam relationship could go if the writers weren’t cowards.

I think they all go on to do completely different things, separating for as long as they want basically. Elizabeth keeps being King of the Pirates basically as stated above, Will becomes Captain of the Flying Dutchman as he does in canon, and James either becomes a pirate himself (joining either of their crews) or keeps hunting down pirates as he’s been doing the whole series (preferably not working for the East Trading Company anymore for obvious reasons of the company just being the worst(you know what I’m talking about here)).

If James becomes a pirate he would stay on as Elizabeth’s first mate. He takes care of the other half of her crew while she’s away. James spends most of his time out at sea collecting treasure for the pirate stronghold but when Elizabeth wants to sail he stays at the stronghold to keep things (Will’s heart) safe there. Elizabeth and James take turns on visiting the Flying Dutchman.

If James continues doing as he has always done and hunts down pirates then there could be a much more interesting story there. I don’t think he’d actually continue to try doing any real damage, he’s more of a double agent. He pretends to be really dead set on hunting down the King of Pirates and the Flying Dutchman basically keeping all the other pirate hunters away from Elizabeth and Will. I’d love to see all three of them actually pretending to hate each other and be dead set on each other’s destruction but then when they capture each other they’re just like “are you doing ok? Do you need anything? Fruit? A warm blanket? Are you taking care of yourself?” And they’re just generally so sweet to each other. They play up hating each other because they’re all bored af and live for the drama ngl.

In that terms there are two ways it could go as they grow older. Either the hatred and bitterness become real and they actually end tragically or Elizabeth and James just join the Flying Dutchman’s crew and they continue on going and being really sweet and taking care of the souls they fairy on. Both options could be so much fun!

And with that onto the last real thing I wanted to talk about that has nothing to do with Elizabeth and Will.

4) Gay pirates getting married!

Just so everyone is aware this was a thing back in the day. Pirates very often got gay married and would share all of their loot with one another and basically do everything with one another. Sound familiar? Cause it should.

That’s right. I’m 100% convinced these two idiots were married! And you might be like “Eli they made some pretty creepy remarks.” Yeah, they did, they’re pirates and bad people. Pirates don’t generally care about that type of stuff but I’m also sure they fucking talked shit out.

Anyway they definitely got married by Captain Jack Sparrow but then then they mutinied they got married again by Captain Barbossa just to “make sure it’s still legit” but in reality they just wanted to get married again. I’m sure Barbossa didn’t actually care tho as he enjoys weddings too and is always happy to up his Captain credits.

Also!

Barbossa married these two as well! If no one remembers the end of At World’s these two join the pirates! I think that they got married like right after they left Jack and Mr. Gibbs. Barbossa again wanted to up his Captain credit.

That’s it those are most of my thoughts! If anyone wants to talk about any of what I’ve said here I’m happy to talk about it with someone. If not I’m honestly just surprised you read it all thank you!

[itistimeforusalltodecidewhoweare]

Buffy Summers, Natasha Romanoff aaaand Elizabeth Swann for the character ask game 👀

you should've seen the way i just started grinning in class <3

Buffy Summers

How I feel about this character i love buffy so much. i've been stuck mid season 5 on my rewatch for ages because i don't want things to happen. it's rough out here

All the people I ship romantically with this character zero controversy here i think because it's angel, spike and faith

My non-romantic OTP for this character buffy and willow mean everything to me. but also giles!!! 😭

My unpopular opinion about this character idk if this is unpopular but i thought buffy forgetting everything after "i will remember you" was increddibly satisfying from a narrative perspective (even if it hurt like a bitch). also sarah michelle gellar is such an underrated actress.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. i wish we'd gotten more time/interactions of buffy with other slayers!!! introducing the concept of "there always needs to be a slayer" for a main character that dies in season one only to underutilize it should be criminal

Natasha Romanoff

How I feel about this character sometimes i forget how much i love nat and then i watch an instagram reel or something and i'm like HER

All the people I ship romantically with this character … see, no one actively. i see steve and nat in a sort of schrödinger's ship way where i both like them and don't like them at the same time. i'm very neutral about buckynat, but then i've never read many of the comics.

My non-romantic OTP for this character steve, yelena, clint. probably in that order.

My unpopular opinion about this character i liked the black widow movie!! a lot!! even if it came 5+ years too late!!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET NAT BACK OR AT LEAST AN ALTERNATE VERSION OF HER. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE GET ALTERNATE GAMORA BUT NOT ALTERNATE NAT. i will never forgive endgame's sins

Elizabeth Swann

How I feel about this character honestly one of the reasons i'm bi probably. love of my life. made me consider pirate as a job prospect at eleven years old.

All the people I ship romantically with this character it's gotta be will turner. gotta be. as much as i love both norrington and jack as characters, nah. canon did right with that one

My non-romantic OTP for this character the dynamic she has with barbossa in at world's end is a delight to watch—as is the slightly awkward "we used to be engaged and because of me your life went to shit" situation with norrington in dead man's chest

My unpopular opinion about this character okay like this is me being nitpicky about realistic things in a fantasy action film but like. sword fighting is hard. as is firing a musket. why (apart from her short fumble with the decorative sword in the first movie) is she naturally good at all these things? we couldn't have gotten a side remark of her training between movies or something if we don't get to see it happen?? anyway this might be my love for training sequences speaking

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. never. do you hear me. never not in a million years would elizabeth swann, elected pirate king, stay on a goddamn island for ten years. are you goddamn insane?? no!!

give me a character;

[scottishoctopus]

Do you ever get sick of pirates of the caribbean? Asking to the lovely person behind all this.

Hello! Surprisingly, I never do get sick and tired of this franchise no matter how many times I watch Dead Man's Chest which is one of my favourite movies and it's also such a comfort movie for me to watch whenever I'm feeling like a dumpster fire.

Honestly I won't be shocked if I've gone and sat down to watch either one of these movies for the hundredth time. I don't think I could ever go and be like "Okay, I'm bored of these movies".

I just love the POTC universe so much, there are so many awesome characters with such depth and personality to them and they are all just so easy to like and get attached to. The main three movies are full with such incredible storytelling and lore about the world of POTC. With curses, sea monsters and godesses, humans who became literal skeletons and fish people and of course pirates.

I remember before I got completely obsessed with this franchise, I randomly felt the need to watch Dead Man's Chest for no reason and that's when the Davy Jones obsession began.

And even before Davy Jones was a character that I got completely attached to, I always enjoyed to watch Captain Jack Sparrow in the movies doing what he did best. Johnny Depp has always been one of my favourite actors too.

I have to mention the music as well, oh my god I absolutely adore the soundtracks of the movies. Whenever I listen to Hans Zimmer's beautiful score, it just makes me want to become a swashbuckling pirate and go sailing on the ocean. It just fills me with such joy. Heck even today when I was walking home from work this morning I was listening to Jack Sparrow's theme with such a grin on my face.

To answer your question again, nope I will never get bored of this franchise. No matter how many times Disney disappoints me by firing Johnny Depp and rebooting the franchise with a female lead when we already have such well developed female characters in POTC.

(Seriously, we have bloody Elizabeth Swann, the Pirate King!)

[ginnyzero]

Writing Betrayal

Writing Betrayal

It’s the third act of the story, your heroes are in the fight for their lives (sometimes literally) and absolutely nothing must go wrong. But wait, someone close and important has decided to change sides.

CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL

The horror. The gut punch. The characters are now in even more dire straights. People may be dead.

Now, how do you, as an author, go about writing this to get the most reaction out of your audience?

Firstly, you have to write the character into the story.

No one is going to care about the third cousin once removed if he never appeared in the story before this betrayal scene. Your betrayer should be one of the main characters of an ensemble, or someone your main characters hang out with quite a bit.

The main characters trusted this character, we should too. They were friends. The reader should feel like this character is their friend.

Example 1: Cypher from the Matrix. Cypher was one Morpheus’ crew on the Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus trusted him enough to have him handle setting up missions and standing watch keeping an eye on the Matrix. During the film, Cypher makes several come ons to Trinity, and expresses doubt to the new guy, Neo, about leaving the Matrix. (Foreshadowing) and is later shown actively betraying Morpheus to Agent Smith. Without those few scenes where Cypher is the ‘star’ of the movie, the betrayal wouldn’t have been as impactful.

Example 2: Elizabeth Swann from PotC: Dead Man’s Chest. Elizabeth is one of the heroes of the movies, if not the Heroine of the original Pirates trilogy. They follow her journey from a rather spoiled Governor’s daughter to becoming a pirate captain in her own right. We are constantly with her. She’s the good guy! And then, the kraken comes, the sailors have to leave the Black Pearl as the Kraken is after Jack Sparrow. And Elizabeth makes a choice, to betray her friend, the one in the last movie she stood between him and certain death and she MANACLES him to the MAST.

This betrayal of her own ideals and doing what is expedient over what is right is when Elizabeth truly becomes a pirate and has to spend the next movie fixing her mistake to assuage her guilt (Going into the cave of World’s End) before she can return and be willing to live on land again.

Secondly, give the betrayer a valid grievance.

When the betrayal pops out of nowhere because it’s an expected trope of whatever genre you’re writing, often the motivation of the betrayer is completely glossed over or not mentioned at all.

Your betrayer is the hero of their own story. They need to have a reason for doing what they are doing. It doesn’t really matter the reason. It can be as petty as they like, what matters is this reason is important enough to them that they are will to go against the people who love and care for them to attain it.

Of course, the betrayer may have never actually loved or cared for these people and just pretended. Valid option! Or maybe the betrayer isn’t betraying them at all and this is part of a grander scheme. Also valid option!

But there has to be a reason. “You didn’t pay me enough attention, give me the reward I thought I was due, I didn’t get the girl” are all petty but valid reasons.

Example 1: Cypher. Life outside the Matrix wasn’t what Cypher envisioned. He didn’t like the clothes, the food, and the accommodations. He wanted to go back into the Matrix even though it was fake. He was willing to kill everyone on the ship to do so. (Whether or not the machines would actually do this was never explored, though implied heavily they would betray Cypher in turn.)

Example 2: Elizabeth. She is facing the proverbial rock and a hard place choice! She either betrays Jack and leaves him for the Kraken and the crew is almost sure to survive. Or they take Jack with them and the Kraken ignores the Pearl entirely and comes after the life boat and they most assuredly all die. One life, or everyone’s life.

Thirdly, we need to like this character enough that we are rooting for them to not betray the main characters and be part of the team.

Likeability is a very alchemical thing. But if the character comes off surly, whiney, or downright skeevy (especially to the female audience) then it is less likely the reader is going to want that person to be part of the gang.

Example 1: Cypher. Okay, Cypher is not the best of examples because Cypher is honestly a bit skeevy. He hits on Trinity when it’s pretty clear she’s told him to back off already. However, when he’s talking to Neo about “why didn’t I take the blue pill” you and Neo don’t know if he’s just talking out his rear end or if he really means it. Cypher is trying to be friendly even.

Example 2: Elizabeth. She’s the heroine of the story. She’s done awesome things like parley with pirates, stab a pirate, sword fights, fake fainting to cause distractions. Basically, she’s been pretty cool the entire two movies as she sets off to save Port Royal/Will Turner in her noble way. This is excellent motivation!

Lastly, there should be some foreshadowing. OMINOUS MUSIC

This is kind of a culmination of everything before. Basically, you need to set up your betrayal. In order to set up the betrayal, the reader needs to spend time with the characters and they have to have a good shown motivation to betray the heroes. And we don’t want the betrayer to be twirling their mustache throughout the story because that doesn’t make the betrayal a surprise! There should still be clues. Things perhaps should be a bit off. Maybe there is a conversation about feeling underappreciated or they made the wrong choice. Maybe the character shows mild resentment. Or the heroes almost catch them in the act of doing whatever they are doing to betray them but the betrayer has an excuse to hand.

There needs to be something that the reader can go back through the story and go “ah, I see it now” before they’re finished.

Example 1: Cypher. Cypher and Neo have a conversation about Cypher’s thoughts on taking the ‘red pill.’ Cypher tries to frame it in such a way he’s encouraging Neo in the “we’re in this together” group think mentality. (Men do this a lot by assuming your thoughts on a subject when it is their thoughts they’re trying to impose on you in a bid to make you feel included.) You can’t tell at this point if Cypher means it or if he’s trying to figure out what Neo thinks or if he’s just talking. It is only later with the dinner with Agent Smith you find out he really does want to go back into the Matrix.

Example 2: Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s betrayal was foreshadowed more subtly than Cypher’s. Mostly by using a romance subplot where Elizabeth is torn between her love for Will and the feelings she has for Jack. The compass that doesn’t point north is the plot device here. (And the fact that Jack does return those feelings.) It’s her frustration with herself and in fact, with Jack combined with the intense need for everyone to survive, that has her throwing morals to the wind and betraying her friend Jack (and making Will think she no longer loves him because they don’t end up talking like adults. Ugh.)

There you have it, four pieces of advice to make your betrayals come off with plenty of emotional impact for the reader so it feels satisfying. This is, of course, all from the point of view of the good guys are being betrayed. If someone from the other side is betraying the bad guys, that’s a different kettle of fish entirely.

[amandaklwrites]

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (POTC #2) (2006)

Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy

Rating: 10/10

Movie Review: 

Here we are, with the second POTC movie. One I clearly haven’t seen in years because there were parts I couldn’t remember. Which makes me glad that I am bingeing through the movies close together so I can see how the storylines sweep together. 

The opening image of Elizabeth Swann on the ground, in her wedding dress, in the pouring rain is one of the best openers I have ever seen. It immediately starts the mood of this story. Within that first scene (by the way, Will was HOT AS SHIT in his wedding suit, can we bring that please????), we know everyone’s goals, their drives. We see how they’re willing to fight for each other. It’s showing their love. Will makes a deal, Elizabeth saves herself with a pistol to a man’s head. They are using their “street smarts” from being amongst the pirates to save themselves and each other. 

I’ll talk about things in whole, instead of breaking it down like I did with the first movie review. Because at this point, we know everyone-- we know where they stand, what they want, who they love, it’s just more added into the storyline for these characters. 

Davy Fucking Jones is so damn terrifying and cool. Let me be frank for a moment: Davy Jones had never been a person in folklore (at least that I have found-- they can’t confirm if it was a real person or someone like Robin Hood who could’ve existed but there’s no proof), so I don’t know why it’s called Davy Jones’s Locker. Who is Davy Jones? The term of the Locker just meant shipwrecks. And then The Flying Dutchman ship was a separate sailing folklore, about a ghost ship people would see before they die, like as an omen. These are real stories, ones even my grandfather knew when he was in the Navy (guys! Whenever they crossed the equator, they would play a game across the ship in honor of Neptune to protect them while sailing-- HOW COOL IS SAILING FOLKLORE???). But I LOOOOOOVE how these screenwriters combined to the two. They seamed the stories so flawlessly that I kind of want the two of them to exist with one another forever now. IT IS PERFECT. Davy Jones’s Locker is the Flying Dutchman, that he “protects” the dead sailors, and that they are still seeing the Flying Dutchman before they die, still as an omen. What a fantastic way to put two stories together. And the twist that Davy Jones is horrible and “evil” because he has no heart. A story as old as time, but hey, it works. It makes SENSE. I remember thinking that stories are all about love, aren’t they? It’s always about love, whether you have it or not. And Bill Nighy does such a wonderful job at this role. If you look up the actor, you would never, ever suspect him being able to play one of the best villains in film history. But this actor does it all with voice and HIS EYES. Look at his eyes, constantly. I found myself staring into his eyes more than at his tentacles. Because Nighy told the story of Davy Jones through his eyes, and my god, he’s a master. 

Bootstrap Bill Turner is everything we needed, don’t you agree? We finally get to meet Will’s father! And he’s incredibly heartbreaking. This is a man trapped in this hell, and yet, he’s still willing to protect his son through this world that he knows so well. LOVE. Didn’t I say love is at the heart of these stories? I only wish we had learned more of Will’s mother and family life-- was his father always a pirate? How long had been one? And did Will’s mother know? Because Will sure didn’t. And he went searching for his father. (*wink wink* think of POTC #5 foreshadowing *wink wink*). But seeing their relationship unfold her was incredible. We watched a father meet his adult son, and a son meet his father again as an adult. In some ways, they weren’t exactly Father and Son, they were friends. (I can see this, because my grandfather didn’t meet his father until he was 13, and he says he saw his dad more as a friend than a father). We saw a father have hope after finding love for his son once again (he was no longer stagnant, he had something to fight for), and a son finding more of himself with his father. Another love story. 

Tia Dalma is freaking incredible. Her magic, her wisdom (while being vague) creates a new atmosphere that just ADDS to the story. They brought in a new magic system that is similar to voodoo/hoodoo (I think it is supposed to be heavily based off of it), and I adored it. I craved it. She’s one of my mother’s favorites and my oldest friend who’s like my sister said she always remembered Tia Dalma from the movies. She leaves an impression, because she creates something to the stories that is new for us. 

Norrington’s return can be expected, but how he returns is rather unexpected. We see a man broken by a decision he made, suffering consequences that he doesn’t like. At the end of POTC #1, we saw a man, a soldier, knowing that maybe the system he’s in isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But when he decided to set Jack Sparrow and Will Turner free, that system tossed him away. Now, a man so lost in what he should do, not knowing who he should become, he takes advantage and steals (PIRATE!) papers so he can go back to the system he thinks he belongs. He wants to be a Commander again. He wants to be a part of the world he only knows. He’s afraid of change. He doesn’t know what to do. 

Honestly, this entire film series is about everyone finding themselves, discovering who they want to be. Facing change in the face and what they will do because of it. Even some of these sides characters. 

I forgot how creepy Beckett is. He’s the true villain of the story. He’s a man in power who takes advantage of that power to do things that are despicable and terrible. He’s someone without a heart. Did you catch that? Beckett and Davy Jones are doubles. They are used to show two different sides-- Davy Jones had his heart broken, so he cut out his heart and became heartless. Beckett has his heart, but he’s still heartless. Interesting how the living human is somehow worse than the “creature,” isn’t it? I hate Beckett and don’t want to talk about him anymore. Because I know you all hate him just as much as me. He sucks, he’s vicious, and that’s all we need to know. 

Now, to me, this movie, at the core, feels like the first one. But it also feels different. I think it’s because we are more in this world, we understand it more, and it’s not so mysterious. But it’s really dark in the sense that we see the more viciousness of the world (the crow taking out the guy’s eye out at the prison is disgusting, lord). 

Jack Sparrow is now the captain of his ship again. But he’s also hiding away from Davy Jones, from the deal he made with the “Devil.” Like I said in the first movie review for this series, we know Jack will do whatever he can to protect himself, and this movie truly shows that. But I think he’s also learning more in this movie-- especially when he sees more of how Davy Jones treats his men. He’s scared, he doesn't know what to do-- much like Norrington. Now, saying this, I thought it was horrible that he willingly tricked Will to leave him in his place aboard the Flying Dutchman. Like, huh? I know Jack Sparrow always has a plan, but this one didn’t feel like that. But it was a learning point for him, I think, and that was the point of this movie for him. He’s making mistakes, he’s learning. 

Elizabeth dressing as a boy and reentering this world of pirates is absolutely wonderful. Seeing her in the clothes (after she’s out as herself) and fighting with swords is what I adore about her. She’s easily the one who can transform into what she needs to protect herself, rather adaptable, and she’s doing it find Will and save him. Her entire scene with Norrington, Jack, and Will fighting for the chest is such a great scene. Her yelling at them and then fainting just shows her willingness to try different things. She’s intelligent, that’s for damn sure. She’s trying different tactics to get men’s attention-- knowing and understanding her place as a woman and hilariously using them to her advantage-- even though it doesn’t work. But her sheer strength and will to protect herself and her love shows and breathes more life into her. My only complaint is, Elizabeth, why the hell didn’t you tell Will that the kiss with Jack was a trick? I get why she didn’t, okay, but it didn’t help anyone. Communication is key in a relationship! But it’s fine, I suppose. She’s figuring things out herself. 

I must say, Barbossa coming back is WONDERFUL. He’s such a fan favorite I think, and of course they have to bring him back. I will fight anyone who doesn’t want him back. He’s the perfect, hilarious tension with Jack. 

I may be forgetting some other comments I wanted to make, but if I am, I will add more as a thread on here. But I think I have mentioned all my main thoughts of this movie. It’s wonderful, it’s a joy, and just a great adventure. 

And also, I wanted to add, at the end, this is my favorite part of the whole series, quite honestly. Right when they see the native peoples on the island chasing after Jack when they are trying to escape. 

The best. 

[robins-treasure]

Pirates of the Caribbean ;3

Top 5 Favorite Characters:

5. Jack the Monkey

4. Elizabeth Swann

3. Will Turner

2. Jack Sparrow

1. Hector Barbossa

Other Characters You Like: Davy Jones, Tia Dalma/Calypso, Joshamee Gibbs, Carina Smyth, Henry Turner, and Shansa

Least Favorite Character: Phillip

OTPs: Will/Elizabeth, Davy Jones/Calypso, Hector Barbossa/Margaret Smyth, Jack/Angelica (Despite my mixed feelings about Angelica, I still ship them)

NOTPs: Phillip/Syrena, Henry/Carina (I love their interactions, but I just don't ship them romantically)

Favorite Friendship: Jack Sparrow/Hector Barbossa

Favorite Family: The Turner family

Favorite Episode: I'm skipping this one because it's not a TV series.

Favorite season/book/movie: My favorite Pirates of the Caribbean movies are Curse of the Black Pearl and At World's End

Favorite Quote: "You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!"

Moment that made you fangirl the hardest: The ending scene in Dead Man's Chest when it is revealed that Barbossa is back from the dead. (No joke, I saw this movie in the theater when I was 5 and I freaked out when I saw him. This was before Barbossa became my favorite.)

When It Really Disappointed You: I was disappointed with On Stranger Tides for a few reasons. (One reason: the scene with the wild boar was unnecessary)

Saddest moment: Barbossa's sacrifice in Dead Men Tell No Tales

Most Well Done Character Death: Barbossa's death in Curse of the Black Pearl and Beckett's death in At World's End

Favorite Guest Star:( I'm gonna name one star who has only appeared in the sequels for this one.) Bill Nighy.

Favorite Cast Member: Geoffrey Rush

Character You Wish Was Still Alive: Hector Barbossa (He deserved a happy ending where he is sailing with his daughter on the Queen Anne's Revenge as they're following the stars)

One Thing You Hope Happens: A spin off movie or Disney+ series about Barbossa. (I think Geoffrey Rush deserves to play as Hector Barbossa one more time)

Most Shocking Twist: Barbossa is Carina's father

When did you start watching/reading: When I was real little

Trope you wish they would stop using: Plot holes

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: I wouldn't say it's better than other movies...

Funniest Moment: "Why is the rum gone?!" from Curse of the Black Pearl, "I've got a jar of dirt!" from Dead Man's Chest, the pistol scene in At World's End, Jack and Barbossa at Ponce De Leon's ship in On Stranger Tides, and Carina trying to explain to Jack and the pirates what a horologist is in Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Couple you would like to see: I would like to see a flashback scene with Barbossa and Margaret so we could see what their relationship was like.

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: I honestly don't know.

Most Boring Plotline: The sidestory with Phillip and Syrena

Best Flashback: The opening scene with Henry and Will Turner in Dead Men Tell No Tales

Most Layered Character: both Jack and Barbossa

Scariest Moment: One word: Kraken

Grossest Moment: When the Kraken roars and spits some pretty gross stuff at Jack

Best Looking Male:

Best Looking Female:

Who You're Crushing On: I wouldn't say I have a crush on him, I just really love everything about Barbossa in this franchise.

Most Beautiful Scene:

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: It really bothers me that the writers of Dead Men Tell No Tales forgot that Jack got the compass from Tia Dalma...

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: I started liking it more around the time Dead Men Tell No Tales was released in theaters.

[ck-the-overanalyzer]

I Overanalyze: Can A Good Pirate Be A Good Man?

**Please note: this post contains spoilers for all the first 3 Pirates of the Caribbean films: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, and At World’s End. If you don’t want spoilers, don’t read.**

**A second note: this post is very long, as is my love for Pirates.**

I grew up watching Pirates of the Caribbean. When I was very little my dad and I would have movie nights while my mom went out with friends. We’d pull out the TV trays and watch movies while eating dinner (something my family doesn’t normally do). Then after dinner my dad would lay across the couch and my little four or five year old self would lay on top of him while we watched. You can see why I associate Pirates with fond memories.

As I got older and began to better appreciate films from a creative standpoint, my love for these movies grew. They feature a fun story line, a well built world, and multifaceted, strong characters. But I think that perhaps having grown up with these movies has made it so that I don’t recognize the novelty of them.

The concept behind the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie is certainly a novel one. I think this can be demonstrated by a line Captain Jack Sparrow says in The Curse of the Black Pearl. The line is given just after Will and Jack set off together and Will asks Jack about his father. Jack admits to having known “Bootstrap” Bill Turner and then adds “good man - good pirate.”

I don’t even remember the first time I saw this scene. Whenever I watch it and see Will get upset, insisting his father was not a pirate, I know he will end up discovering that his father was both a good pirate and a good man. But I wonder how people in the theaters must have felt the first time they heard it. How could a pirate possibly be a good man? By definition, a pirate plunders, steals, and kills. These traits are the opposite of those of a good person. I wonder if there were overprotective parents wondering if they should have let their kids watch this. Or maybe there were many that didn’t allow their kids to see it. What was Disney doing making a movie where pirates were the good guys anyways?

“Good man - good pirate.”

I’d like to take a moment to further break down and analyze this phrase. Let’s start with what it means to be a good pirate.

One potential meaning of the label “good pirate” is that they are good at pirating. They are good at plundering, stealing, and killing. This definition seems to directly contrast the “good man” label. And, given what we know about ol’ Bootstrap, isn’t what I think Jack intended by this statement.

Another possible definition is that maybe one is a good pirate when they keep to the pirating rules - The Pirate Code. This seems to fit what we know of Bootstrap. It didn’t sit right with him that they mutaneed against Jack and left him on an island to die. He seemed to have better respect for the captain and for the code. This is contrasted by Barbossa, who states “the code is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.”

Alright, so if this is what Jack intended by “good pirate,” let’s move on to “good man.” A good man is generally considered to follow the rules. As we’ve discussed, the Pirate Code is the rules that the pirates are to follow, and Bootstrap seems to adhere to this. He also seems to have a sense of right and wrong (he feels that betraying and abandoning Jack was wrong) and justice (he claims that they deserve to be cursed to pay for their crimes). So perhaps by general, law-abiding standards, one could not fully consider him a good man. But by these standards, he definitely seems to fit the bill. Furthermore, he does seem to know that pirating is bad, as it was why he left Will and his mother and stated that it wasn’t a life he wanted for Will.

Now, we don’t really get to see Bootstrap until Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, but The Curse of the Black Pearl had to adequately support the theme of a good pirate being a good man in order for it to be successful and for more movies to follow. While Bootstrap is the one Jack was talking about when he gave the statement and theme of the movie, the story follows Jack himself, using him to show the example of a good pirate and a good man.

Our good old favorite Captain Jack Sparrow also fits the bill of a good pirate, good man, though perhaps not as well as Bootstrap Bill. He, like Bootstrap, follows and respects the Pirate Code. (Perhaps he gets this from his father, Captain Teague, being the keeper of the code.) He keeps to the code, following the pirate rules, but more than that, he has a basic respect and care for human life. These traits are what make it so that we can consider him a good man.

Captain Jack is contrasted against Captain Barbossa, who I argue fits the bill of a good pirate but bad man. He is a good pirate in the sense that Bootstrap and Jack were not; he is good at pirating; good at plundering, stealing, and killing. He has no respect for the code and, more importantly, no respect for basic human life. He is more than willing to take life when the opportunity arises.

Let’s walk through some scenes in the The Curse of the Black Pearl in order to explore the contrast between these two characters and better establish a good pirate, good man vs a good pirate, bad man.

The scene that allows our dear main characters, Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann, to first meet begins to define Jack as a good man. He is in the midst of attempting to commandeer a ship when Elizabeth passes out and falls over the edge of a high wall, sinking into the depths. Now, Jack is a criminal. He does not belong in this town. He is currently in the process of committing a crime, trying to steal from right under the guards’ noses. And yet, he hands off his beloved items and dives into the water to go after some sinking woman that he doesn’t even know. He didn’t even get a good look at her, so his motivation couldn’t possibly be related to her being attractive or of high standing. It is just simply: someone is in trouble and he is able to help. He saves her life, but wounds up being caught and chained because of it. Elizabeth, recognizing the selfless act of a good man as what it is, protests his arrest. Commodore Norrington’s statement may at this point reflect the thoughts of the audience: “One good deed is not enough to rid a man of a lifetime of wickedness.”

As we know, Jack ends up escaping from his captors, hiding out in the blacksmith’s shop. Which brings us to the meeting of our next dear main character, as well as our next scene that shows Jack’s character as a good man.

When Will Turner returns to the blacksmith’s shop, he notices that some things are the way he left them but others are not, and then meets the infamous Captain Jack. Armed with what he knows of pirates - that they are vile, evil people, and that this one in particular threatened his secret crush - he is ready for a fight. Jack, however, does everything he can to not fight (and more importantly: not kill) Will. He has a short sword fight with Will, treating it as a lesson, and then turns to leave. But Will blocks him. A longer and very cinematically pleasing sword fight breaks out, but it ends with Will having sand blown in his face. Jack then pleads for Will to move out of the way: “Move. Please move.” It is only when Will refuses that he draws his pistol, though he doesn’t want to shoot it. (We know he intends this shot to be for Barbossa, but everything about his mannerisms suggest that he also doesn’t want to kill Will.)

Well, Jack indeed ends up getting captured. Our next character showing scene comes at the introduction of the movie’s antagonist and Jack’s foil character: Captain Barbossa.

The Black Pearl responds to the call of the cursed Aztec gold and appears at Port Royal with cannons blazing. This alone shows Barbossa’s character; he is going to get that gold, and he doesn’t care who dies in the process. His men raid the beach, attacking and killing many of the port’s inhabitants, not to mention the vast property damage. Their arrival is loud and unmissable. Elizabeth ends up going to the ship with Pintel and Ragetti under the protection of parlay, and this is when we first see the dread pirate “so evil that hell itself spat him back out.” Barbossa follows the code this time and negotiates with Elizabeth, ultimately kidnapping her and delivering the line about the code being more like guidelines and not applying to her anyways.

We will now jump forward to Will and Jack’s escape from Port Royal. They board The Dauntless and force the crew off of it, and it should be noted that they do so without harming or killing any of the crew. Perhaps the crew is willing to disembark because, as Lieutenant Gillette states, “two men cannot man The Dauntless.” When Norrington comes on The Interceptor to catch them, Will and Jack pull the ol’ switcheroo and steal The Interceptor instead, leaving The Dauntless in such shape that it can’t pursue. Thus they stole a ship and escaped without killing a single person, all thanks to Captain Jack’s ingenious.

While they begin sailing in pursuit, Barbossa blackmails Elizabeth into having dinner with him and then shows her the nightmares of their curse before ultimately locking her up for the rest of the trip. You know, a real gentleman.

Eventually they arrive at the Isla de Muerta and they take Elizabeth to try and break the curse. Now, to his credit, Barbossa does choose to cut Elizabeth’s palm rather than kill her, saying “waste not.” However, I posit that his intentions here were not pure. He wasn’t done with Elizabeth. He had mentioned that, as part of the curse, they couldn’t “feel the warmth of a woman’s skin” and that they had an “insatiable lust.” His demeanor towards Elizabeth up to this point doesn’t suggest gentlemanly intentions. The lack of gentlemanly intentions are added to after he catches up to and sinks The Interceptor, throwing Elizabeth to his crew in order to repay her “taking advantage of his hospitality.” When making Elizabeth walk the plank, he asks for the dress back, his crew hooting and hollering as she undresses into her dressing gown. He sends Jack off with just the one shot in the pistol even though he is banishing both of them, encouraging him to “be the gentleman and shoot the lady, then starve yourself.”

Taking a step back to before he sinks The Interceptor, Jack tries to negotiate going over and getting Barbossa what he needs, to which Barbossa replies “That’s exactly the thinking that lost you the Pearl. People are easy to search when they’re dead.” Jack had such a reputation for not wanting to unnecessarily spill blood that it had upset Barbossa, and apparently other crew members, enough that they wanted to overthrow him. 

This time when Barbossa and his crew take Will, the true Turner child, to Isla de Muerta, they say they will kill him and spill all of his blood. It could just be as the second mate says: they are just doing it to be sure. But as far as Barbossa is concerned, there is no real reason to keep this kid alive after using his blood. He serves no purpose and his life is meaningless to him.

Now, it is often difficult to follow dear Captain Jack Sparrow’s plans. In the original plan, he spoke of leverage, and it seemed that he was going to use Will in order to regain The Black Pearl, perhaps throwing Will away and letting him die. However, in his adjusted plan following he and Elizabeth being saved by Norrington, it seems he has accounted for saving both Elizabeth and Will. We cannot know for sure, but I would be willing to bet that Jack had planned on finding a way to ultimately save them both in his original plan, as well.

Whatever the case, his second plan ends up succeeding, at least on his end. He warned Norrington that he may want to defend The Dauntless, but Norrington ignored him, which ultimately lead to some loss of life on the ship. (It would have perhaps been less had he listened, showing Jack again seems to be thinking about how to preserve life.) Will and Elizabeth both end up surviving, Jack kills Barbossa with the single shot he’s been holding onto to repay his backstabbing old friend, and the curse is broken, allowing the rest of the crew to be killed or taken into custody. After selecting a fair bit of his enemies’ treasure, he requests that Will and Elizabeth drop him off at The Black Pearl.

However, when they leave the cave, they find that The Pearl is gone, as Gibbs and the others escaped on it. Elizabeth tells him that she’s sorry, to which Jack only replies “They’ve done what’s right by them.” Afterall, when leaving the first time, he had told them to keep to the code: “anyone who falls behind is left behind.”

Later, after Will frees Jack from the gallows and The Black Pearl rounds the bend, coming to retrieve her captain, Jack tells Gibbs “You were supposed to keep to the code.” Gibbs replies “We figured they were more actual guidelines,” echoing what Barbossa had told Elizabeth and what she, in turn, had told Gibbs and the rest of the crew. Jack then gives a very quiet, very sincere “thank you.”

Now Captain Jack Sparrow, the good pirate and good man, sails off with his crew after having reclaimed his beloved ship. The movie does a wonderful job of showing its theme and bringing across its point. Besides seeing it in the contrast between Jack and Barbossa, you can also see it in the changes in opinion of Elizabeth and Will throughout the movie.

When Will first meets Jack in the blacksmith’s shop, he tells of his distaste for pirates with lines like “I make a point not to get acquainted with pirates” and “I practice so that when I meet a pirate, I can kill it.” He refers to the pirate as “it,” showing that he doesn’t even truly consider a pirate to be fully human.

As mentioned at the top of this post, when Will and Jack are sailing away on The Interceptor, Will becomes offended at the possibility that his father could have been a pirate, though Jack states that he was a good pirate and a good man. (Here too, it should be noted, Jack is not eager to fight Will, finding it unnecessary to do so. Also, I guess, he needs another man to help him man the ship and bring it into Tortuga.)

After Will rescues Elizabeth and leaves Jack behind, the two are below deck in The Black Pearl and Elizabeth returns Will’s medallion. When he asks why she took it, she replies “Because I was afraid you were a pirate - that would have been awful.” This shows that, despite her obsession with pirates, she considers them to be awful people. This is perhaps fueled by her recent interaction with said pirates, but even as a young girl she considered them to be awful, thus taking the medallion from young, unconscious Will.

You can see Will’s expression change when she says “that would have been awful.” You can see him look at the medallion and think it through before he says “It wasn’t your blood they needed. It was mine. The blood of a pirate.” He slams the medallion down on the table, the realization hitting him: the filthy blood of the foul creatures he so despised flowed through his veins. You can just imagine what he’s questioning. Does that make him filthy like them? Does Elizabeth, the woman he loves, view him as awful, given his heritage?

These scenes are greatly contrasted with those that accompany Jack’s hanging at the end of the movie. As Jack’s crimes are being read out, Elizabeth states “This is wrong.” The man up there, though a pirate, had saved her life multiple times over the past few days. While not the most upright of gentlemen, she knows him to be a good man.

Her father’s response is interesting. “Commander Norrington is bound by the law, as are we all.” He doesn’t deny that this is wrong. He doesn’t point out the wrongdoings and foul deeds Captain Jack has committed. He just states that this is what they must do. Their hands are tied. (Norrington, it should be noted, looks somewhat displeased with this exchange.)

Will then saves Jack from the gallows, but the two are surrounded by guards. Norrington, Elizabeth, and Governor Swann come over. Governor Swann expresses his disbelief at Will’s attempt, stating “He’s a pirate.” Will’s reply shows how truly full circle he has come.

“And a good man.”

He then adds “If all that I have achieved today is that the hangman will claim two pairs of boots instead of one, so be it. At least my conscious will be clear.”

Will has found that Captain Jack Sparrow, a good pirate, is also a good man, and he is willing to die to stand by that. Elizabeth joins him, showing that so is she (though it is doubtful that the Governor would allow his daughter to be killed here, and she didn’t directly participate in the rescue attempt other than feigning passing out, so she’s at less risk).

After Jack falls into the water and is rescued by the crew of The Black Pearl, the Governor states “Perhaps, on the rare occasion, pursuing the right course requires and act of piracy. Piracy itself can be the right course.” This statement seems to follow a sort of “Robin Hood,” vigilante mentality. Maybe you must occasionally bend, or even break, the rules to do the right thing. Governor Swann also thinks that Jack is a good man, even if a foul one he’d rather his daughter not associate with.

After Norrington leaves, the Governor turns to his daughter and Will, asking if this is truly the man she wishes to marry. While he will acknowledge that a man of filth such as a pirate can be a good man and do the right thing, he is still a man of high standing and wishes that for his daughter. He states “After all, he is a blacksmith.” I propose that Elizabeth’s reply, “No. He’s a pirate,” has a deeper meaning. Given the theme of the movie, and how the two’s view as changed over the course of it, I posit that it could be replaced with:

“He’s a good man.”

Evidence of Jack being a good man while Barbossa is a bad man can be found throughout the rest of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, as well. Will and Elizabeth’s perspectives of pirates continue to evolve. While the theme becomes less of a major focus in the later movies, The Curse of the Black Pearl’s defining theme: “Good pirate, good man” is still a key part of the series.

If you’d like to see more evidence through out the following movies, here’s part 2.

[tespuco]

PotC Liveblog: Dead Man’s Chest

I’d been looking forward to rewatching DMC for some time. It was the movie that canonized my OTP and inspired so many amazing Sparrabeth fics. I fondly recalled seeing it in theaters with my family, my eyes and shipper heart growing bigger and wider with every subtext-laden appearance of Jack’s compass. I remembered feeling personally betrayed by Elizabeth’s death-kiss, like the writers had deliberately buoyed my hopes only to ruthlessly crush them. Unlike CotBP, I had only seen DMC once before, and I couldn’t wait to appreciate the complicated Jack/Elizabeth dynamic with more mature eyes.

Boy, was I disappointed. Not by the Sparrabeth, thank the gods, but by literally everything else.

Is it just me or was this movie composed of a bunch of standalone scenes and set pieces strung together? Did they bring in Tim Burton just to direct the visuals of the interrupted wedding scene? Why does the Turkish prison sequence look like the opening cutscene to a high fantasy RPG videogame with the brightness setting turned down to zero?

OK I laughed at Jack popping out of the coffin and using a femur as a paddle, but I’m confused about everything else

Oh look, the crew’s on the verge of mutiny again, and this time it is Jack’s fault

Listen, I have Ted Elliott’s compass meta tattooed on my heart, but in retrospect the “Why is all the rum gone?” scene was probably too subtle. The audience doesn’t even know at this point how the compass is supposed to work. Maybe if they had the balls to actually include the deleted Sparrabeth scenes in CotBP, Jack’s emotional turmoil wouldn’t have seemed so opaque!

Still, a character being Vexed about their affections/feelings and doing a poor job of managing that vexation is my idea of high romance

(and both Jack and Elizabeth are quite vexed with each other indeed)

I CANNOT believe I had to sit through an uninterrupted half hour of racist filler that does absolutely fuck-all to advance the plot while ticking at least four boxes on my postcolonial bingo card what the fucking fuck

Let’s tally the cinematic sins: unfunny physical comedy in a style that would’ve been more suited to animation; indigenous cannibals speaking in unrealistic, buffoonish gibberish; said cannibals worshiping our hero (and later a dog) as a deity; and worst of all--

All the brown men that Gibbs hired as extras additional crew for the Black Pearl in DMC were put into a separate cage from the recurring white characters from CotBP (btw Anamaria is absent without even a throwaway line of explanation) because apparently even barbaric islanders know and practice segregation

And so segregated, the crew enters the stupidest, most contrived rat race up a cliffside with each other that ends with the brown people’s cage falling into the ravine THEREBY GETTING RID OF ALL THE CHARACTERS OF COLOR IN ONE FELL SWOOP

Also egregious racism aside, I’m put off by the film’s rather cavalier attitude towards gratuitous loss of life? Idk I feel like in the midst of all the action and adventure CotBP knew how to handle death and violence with the appropriate modicum of gravity and horror

Meanwhile on the island Gibbs is just like “oiya we’re standing in cages built from the bones of our former shipmates ha ha”

As for Jack - Jack has yet to save a cat or anything else besides his own skin, so he’s rapidly losing the goodwill he accumulated in the first film

holy shit yet another Elizabeth Swann-related realization about my sexual awakening: her look as a cross-dressing stowaway - pretty, delicate features in a boyish, flat-chested, slender form - is literally my sexuality 

She’s literally pulling the strings of all the men on that ship! What a puppet-master queen

Tia Dalma’s interest in Will and the “touch of destiny” line is an interesting bit of foreshadowing that doesn’t get any payoff in this film. DMC and AWE have been criticized for being impossible to watch as standalone films, but I think there’s something to be said for a universe that strives for internal continuity and demands more than a casual investment in its proceedings (a related but distinct model from the MCU)

If you gave me half a reason to I would ship Jack Sparrow with anybody and everybody. Look at the flirtatious lines and looks he exchanges with Tia Dalma!! Give me that story! (Actually, artaxastra did, twice: once in her standalone Creole!Jack origin story, And All of Them True, and once again in Gods and Heroes, a Jack/Calypso interlude in her Outlaws and Inlaws ‘verse)

Tia Dalma’s acceptance (and release) of Jack’s payment for her services tells me two things about her that I really like: (1) she’s like a magpie that collects interesting miscellany (witty tricksters, cunning pirate lords, undead monkeys). and (2) she’s not interested in caging creatures (the foreshadowing!!)

FINALLY WE GET SOME JACK/ELIZABETH INTERACTION

God bless Keira’s face and acting choices!! The chemistry!! All the little smiles and smirks they share!!

How doth she look at thee? Let me count all the ways: her amused, tentatively credulous smile at Jack’s storytelling and posturing over a magical compass and chest, while Norrington scoffs disbelievingly in the background; her having to bite her lips and walk away before Jack notices her giddiness because she literally cannot handle their flirting; her little laugh as he gently rebuffs the idea that he’s a good man

Also “I have faith in you. Both of you,” were her parting words to Will and here she gets a chance to tell Jack in person yay

Their little dance of “persuasion” is hot and all (Jack literally looks like he has to bite back a groan and whimper), but I’m really here for the banter (“Friendly?” / “Decidedly not.”); they get each other, and, under the right conditions, can communicate so effortlessly

“Why doesn’t your compass work?” - alright so ofc I love the legendary “curiosity” exchange, but I’m so confused by the abrupt transition in their conversation here? Like why didn’t she follow through and tug on that line of inquiry?? The “Because you and I are alike” line that follows makes no logical sense in context (ETA: I guess it could suggest that Elizabeth already knows why the compass doesn't work for him, because he's torn between doing the right thing and the selfish thing... But at this point she doesn't suspect him of lying to her, so...idek)

“You’d never put me in a position that would compromise my honor” - my god what a TEASE my queer heart

Oh, Norrington, what’s happened to you?? What happened to serving others, not just himself?? :(( It kinda confuses me that he goes on about the “dark side of ambition” and the “promise of redemption” when he’s the one who voluntarily resigned from his post...

Norrington carrying both shovels while Jack just poses prettily though lol

JACK’S COMPASS FINALLY WORKS FOR HIM BECAUSE THE TWO THINGS HE WANTS MOST IN THE WORLD--THE CHEST AND ELIZABETH--ARE IN THE SAME PLACE AND HE KNOWS IT

idk I guess some people find the three-way swordfighting scene hilarious but I’m with Elizabeth on this one: men are stupid 

ugh this script makes no sense

I’m so fucking confused by the narrative logic here: if Jones is dead, there’s no one to call off the Kraken?? But isn’t Jones the one calling the Kraken in the first place, to settle Jack’s debt? So if they killed Jones, wouldn’t the debt be null and void? NO JONES, NO KRAKEN, DUUUH.

OK but Jack is really unlikable in this film, last-minute “heroic” acts notwithstanding. Give me fix-it fics please

I mean it’s rather telling that by the time Jack returns to the Pearl there are only enough survivors to fill a single longboat. Oh yes he “saved them all” - the few that were left!!

This script has more holes in it than the Pearl does right now: everyone unquestioningly follows Will’s orders like he’s the captain (what happened to the dork who shouted, “Aye! Avast!”?? And there’s no evidence that since his engagement post-CotBP he’s practiced any sailing)

I mean it’s like no one but Elizabeth even noticed Jack was gone; the moment he comes back Gibbs chirps, “Captain, orders?” as if he never left. This coward just abandoned you all!!!

“It’s only a ship, mate.” - This is actually just the saddest line, and I’m glad Elizabeth was there to witness it because if there’s one thing she took away from their fireside conversation in CotBP it’s that the Black Pearl is more than a ship to Jack; what it really is is freedom, and here Jack’s set to lose both

And that’s what Elizabeth--not the Kraken--definitively takes from Jack: his freedom. Not just his ability to run away from his fate, but also the chance to take a stand and face it. (I like to think that, more than the murderous act itself, is what he finds so hard to forgive post-DMC. The darker Jack in salr323′s oneshot, Perfidy, written post-AWE, articulates this eloquently: “You know nothing of my debt, love, nor of my payment. But had you allowed me a nobler death, my account might have been lighter.”) His last act of defiance entails reclaiming what choice he has left: slipping slickly out of his shackles, hat on, “hello beastie,” into the monster’s maw.

Ugh they could have given Jack’s whole arc with Davy Jones such PATHOS instead of waiting until the very end--he struck a deal with the devil in all his youth and despair and hubris; now the bell is tolling and he realizes 13 years is nothing, no time at all, and he’s not ready to die; not today, not ever--yes it’s selfish and dishonorable (Will’s willing to square the debt of a father he hardly ever knew; he wouldn’t have blinked at paying his own) but how human is that? to fight and run even as the flames lick your heels? 

omg Jack is the jackrabbit

The irony of that eulogy still gives me feelings tho: “Guess that honest streak finally won out.” Elizabeth wrested away Jack’s control over his own story, so now she has to write it for him. When she toasts, “He was a good man,” it’s in both unearned homage and recompense. 

“And the world is a little less bright.” - OK but that’s too much. Moving words from Gibbs, but here it’s like he’s speaking directly to/for the audience, and not in a good way. It’s too obviously meta, and especially out of place in a film where Jack did not shine very bright at all

In-universe, it’s not very believable that two pirates like Pintel and Ragetti--who mutinied against Jack before, without a hint of remorse!--would now risk their lives to save him

Honestly if Disney wanted to include familiar faces/fan favorites in the supporting cast for AWE, they could’ve easily written a more realistic line like, “what the hell do we have to lose?” or some more selfish motive, none of these panegyrics

btw who are the native people standing in the swampwater? holding candles with mournful tears in their eyes?? no seriously who are they??? (I dearly hope such a striking tableau was meant to hint at Jack’s history with Tia Dalma and the residents of this bayou, but the more cynical part of me thinks: “Now hiring: extras of color, to play the part of human candlesticks lit in exaltation of an ambiguously white man” The writers get no benefit of the doubt from me after forcing me to sit through that cannibal island act)

It sounds sadistic of me but seeing how anguished Elizabeth is after claiming she’s not sorry gives me life

She keeps crying, and can’t even bring herself to drink Tia Dalma’s concoction against cold and sorrow! She just fakes a sip, which is such a great little character beat, because it shows she doesn’t think she deserves the remedy! She’ll just have to live with it...

That is, until Will decides he can’t stand the sight of her grief, and opens up Pandora’s box for her despite just catching her passionately kissing another man: “If there was anything to be done to bring him back, Elizabeth...” He really is too good for this world

And Elizabeth MUST know there’s a price, that she’d be staking not just her own life and happiness but her betrothed’s, and yet selfishly, always selfish, she says, “Yes” 

BARBOSSA!!! Still the most epic character reveal ever. I still remember the theater bursting into gasps and applause, good times

[ramajmedia]

Pirates Of The Caribbean: 10 Worst Things Captain Jack Sparrow Ever Did

Captain Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is considered such a goofy, lovable character by so many fans that people even dress up as the pirate for birthdays, renaissance fairs and other occasions. As funny as the eccentric Captain can be, he's also pretty much the worst person ever, and his actions speak even louder than his fast talking (which is saying something).

RELATED: Pirates Of The Caribbean: 10 Hidden Details About The Main Characters Everyone Completely Missed

Jack Sparrow isn't only a thorn in the side of authority; he also tends to be terrible to the people who care about him, proving over and over again that he is always his own number one priority. Let's take a look at some of his worst deeds ever.

10 He Sold Out His Friends

It doesn't matter if you're Jack Sparrow's crew member, acquaintance, enemy or even lover-- if it profits him at all, he's bound to sell you out. Even when he helps people, it's usually part of a complex scheme he's whipped up to better his own life, usually in terms of his own freedom, riches or other benefits.

From the moment Jack Sparrow saves Elizabeth Swan onwards, everything he does is the result of duplicitous decision-making, yet audiences continue to come back for more. It can't be denied that it's entertaining, but that doesn't mean he's a decent human being.

9 He Tried To Romance Elizabeth Swann

It's one thing to flirt with someone to gauge interest, but when that person makes it clear that you're making them uncomfortable, you back off immediately. It's what a good person does, so it's the opposite of Jack Sparrow's actions. He hits on Elizabeth Swan over and over, infuriating the young woman who is obviously in love with someone else and promised to yet another person.

Captain Jack was perfectly happy trying to romance a young lady who wanted nothing to do with him. Not that she didn't do the same thing right back to him when leaving him for the Kraken later, but still.

8 He Let Will Go Down For His Debt

Watching Will Turner pay Jack Sparrow's debt to Davy Jones was one of the most painful moments for fans of the franchise. Jack convinces Will to help steal Jones' heart and approach the captain, even going as far as suggesting Will say the words, "Jack Sparrow sent me to settle his debt." This made Will a member of the crew of the Flying Dutchman, of course.

RELATED: 10 Movies That Broke Their Franchise’s Timeline

Will's fate is tied with the ship, and by the end of the film, fans witness him reunite with Elizabeth (for just one day) after a decade has gone by, as per the stipulations of his new position. It's appalling that this occurred because of his involvement with Jack.

7 He Made The Deal With Beckett

Jack's constant double crossing and betrayal of everyone in his life is something audiences get used to quickly, but when he sinks as low as to make a deal with Beckett, it is despicable. He's a pirate, of course it's part of his big plan in the long run, but if he hadn't been able to get onto the Flying Dutchman, the bargain he struck would not have served him well in the end.

RELATED: MBTI® Of Pirates Of The Caribbean Characters

That would not have boded well for Jack and all of the pirates at Shipwreck Cove, who would have simply been at the mercy of Beckett's attack.

6 Jack Helped Blackbeard Get To The Fountain Of Youth

One of the worst things Jack Sparrow has ever done was assist the world's most ruthless pirate in almost becoming immortal, thus condemning the world to Blackbeard's cruelty. He did it only to get to the Fountain of Youth himself, yet again putting his own selfish desires ahead of the greater good. He would have succeeded, too, had Barbossa and the Spanish fleet not arrived in time to prevent it from happening.

He also attempted to stage a mutiny aboard Blackbird's ship, which not only failed but resulted in the unnecessary loss of life of several members of the crew.

5 He Ruined Angelica's Future

The love of Jack's life, Angelica, was committed to a life as a nun before he plunged into her life. Jack mistook the nunnery as a brothel and seduced her, which forced her to give up her vows and leave with him to engage in a life of piracy. Sure, she made the decision, but she was young and innocent when he stumbled upon her, and she never forgave him for that.

RELATED: The Ultimate Pirates Of The Caribbean Gift Guide

She tells him, "you betrayed me! You seduced me and you used me. I was innocent of the ways of men," and all he can do is make a sarcastic quip to the effect that it didn't seem like she had been so innocent at the time.

4 He Almost Let Gibbs Hang

Trust Jack Sparrow to swoop in at the last minute to save his oldest friend only when it serves him. Jack has betrayed his crew countless times, so it's a wonder any of them continue to put up with his shenanigans, but the worst time he betrayed a mate was when he almost left Joshamee Gibbs to hang.

While Jack did save Gibbs at the last minute, it was a risky move that had about as much of a shot working as it didn't. He took a huge chance on his friend's life, and he has executed other plans with more finesse.

3 He Almost Fed His Crew To Cannibals

In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Jack Sparrow took up residence on a remote island, where he infiltrated a group of flesh-eating humans. Debate around whether or not Jack Sparrow actually became a cannibal himself rages on between fans of the franchise.

When he lead the tribe, it's clear that he was willing to sacrifice his own crew to save his own life yet again. It's one of the funniest moments as he runs away from the tribe, but it's also one of the most sobering as we realize that he's looking out for number one.

2 He Was Careless With Angelica's Life

Jack Sparrow has been careless with the hearts of many ladies throughout his life, often the point of being yelled at, slapped and generally despised for his ill treatment of his past romantic partners. The worst of these incidences involved the supposed love of his life, Angelica, whom we met in On Stranger Tides.

Even though Jack claims to have been in love with Blackbeard's daughter, he was totally willing to not only play roulette with the Fountain of Youth chalice, but also abandon Angelica to what could have been certain doom. He was completely willing to leave her behind if it meant getting his ship, once again choosing himself over others.

1 He Took Out Mass Lives

Time and time again, Jack Sparrow has demonstrated that he values no lives other than his own. The best example of this occurred when Jack was so eager to save himself against his debt to Davey Jones he set out to find 100 souls to hand over in exchange for his own. Jack literally believes that his own life is worth more than 100 other lives.

It wasn't the first time he'd done it, either; Jack happily restored the missing Aztec gold to just in time to see his former crew perish while they believed themselves to be invincible, and he's also assisted Blackbeard in luring mermaids to their demise.

NEXT: 10 Most Expensive Movies Ever Made

source https://screenrant.com/pirates-caribbean-captain-jack-sparrow-worst-deeds/

[skarletterambles]

Pirates of the Caribbean 5

I just got back from seeing Dead Men Tell No Tales.  I have thoughts.  Quite a few of them, actually.

I should preface this review by giving a bit of background on my involvement with this franchise.  I saw the first PotC movie in the theater seven times.  I saw Dead Man’s Chest three or four times and loved it.  I saw At World’s End exactly once, hated it with the passion of a thousand burning suns, and never saw it again.

I was--and am--a hardcore Sparrabeth shipper.  The canon status of Willabeth only explains part of my disillusionment with the franchise, however.  My biggest problem was how Elizabeth had an amazing character arc over three films, going from a prim-and-proper governor’s daughter to the ass-kicking Pirate King, pursuing her dreams in defiance of society’s expectations, outwitting both the EITC and legendary pirates, leading an armada in battle...and then had it all stripped away at the end of the third movie, where she is left literally barefoot and pregnant to wait for her man to come back.  I was--and am--livid.  I felt betrayed, both as a fan and a feminist, to see one of my favorite characters do a 180 like that.

So I have very strong feelings about these movies.  I’ve tried to get over it in the years since AWE, with limited success.  Against my better judgment I did see On Stranger Tides in the theater, and thought it was mediocre.  Since Elizabeth wasn’t involved I could just ignore its existence, for the most part.

Then the fifth movie was announced, and Will was going to be in it.  I had hoped that maybe, just maybe they could try to rectify some of the mistakes (read: character assassination) of the past.

They didn’t.  But they still came up with a pretty good movie.  Honestly, I’d even give Dead Men Tell No Tales four stars out of five.  I was riveted to the screen for most of it, and it was thrilling to hear the theme music and see the familiar faces.  It was exciting and entertaining, the special effects were impressive, and there were some good laughs.  Plus, zombie sharks!

Do I have issues with parts of it?  Yeah.  And I’m going to ramble at length.

**** MAJOR POTC: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES SPOILERS BELOW ****

Sequel creep is definitely at work, where each installment has to be bigger and zanier than the last.  The gags are broader, the willing suspension of disbelief gets even more strained, the stakes are higher, and it becomes almost like a Saturday morning cartoon version of itself.  

Thinking back to CotBP, we had to buy into the curse turning Barbossa and his crew into undead, but other than that the world operated on fairly realistic terms.  Yes, there was movie logic involved as far as coincidences, travel times, fast wound recovery, and all that, but it still felt more or less like the real world.  Stakes got higher with each sequel, until we have whatever the hell that “bank robbery” was in DMTNT.  

Don’t get me wrong; it was an enjoyable action sequence, but it felt more like a cartoon than anything that could happen under the laws of physics as they exist in our world.  That’s not inherently a bad thing, but the tone was noticeably different compared to the earlier films.

Moving on, I was glad Captain Salazar didn’t have that slurpy, blood-drooling voice through the entire film.  When I first heard that in the early trailer I was both grossed out, and concerned that he would be hard to understand.  Instead it was just that one scene, and he spoke normally the rest of the time.  He was a great villain, from his badass and scary entrance through to his delightfully ironic death.  He was genuinely threatening, which was kind of surprising considering the cartoony feel of some of the action scenes.  Javier Bardem killed it.  Thumbs up to him!

The legend surrounding the trident, and the map to find it, seemed cool until you thought about it for more than two seconds, and then it didn’t really make any sense.  Calypso is the Sea Goddess in this universe, so where did Poseidon come in?  How can his trident override curses that she put in place?  If it could be broken by a single sword blow, how did it stay intact under the sea for (presumably) thousands of years?  I mean, sure, maaaaaagic, but...eh.

And why did Will get all barnacley anyway?  Elizabeth waited for him, so that part of the curse shouldn’t have kicked in.

And what will happen to the souls of the dead without the Dutchman to ferry them to the afterlife?  

And what happened to Bootstrap Bill?  Did Will figure out how to free him and let him move on to the afterlife?

And if breaking the trident cancelled all the curses related to the sea, how did Davy Jones appear in the after-credits scene?  (Assuming it was him.  The gait, crab claw, barnacles, tentacley silhouette and the music box theme all pointed to it being him, anyway.)  I could almost buy him coming back to life when the curse was broken, but as a normal human again, not ol’ squidface.  The mythology makes no damn sense at all!

This review is coming across pretty negative so far, but I really did enjoy the movie.  I thought it was much better than OST, and felt like a return to the original vibe of the series.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching (almost) every minute of it, and I left the theater grinning and humming the theme music.  As a summer popcorn movie, it’s pretty great.  It’s just when the adrenaline wears off and I start thinking and analyzing that I see the issues.  And, like I said, I have a long history with this franchise, so overthinking it is what I do.

There were definitely some surprises, although I saw a couple of the twists coming.  The instant I realized Carina was Hector’s daughter, I was like, “Well, he’s going to die saving her somehow.”  And I was right.  It was sad (and that damn monkey gave me more feels than any creepy little primate has a right to), but at the same time I’m delighted at how his character grew into so, so much more than he was originally planned to be.  He was supposed to be a one-shot villain in CotBP, but Geoffrey Rush is so damn awesome, and he and Johnny Depp brainstormed a history between their characters, decided his first name was Hector, and one thing led to another and here we are, genuinely mourning him in the fifth movie.  It was a worthy sendoff for a memorable character.

One of the themes that got raised over and over in the earlier movies was the idea that it’s possible to be a pirate and a good man.  Bootstrap Bill Turner was.  Jack is.  Was Hector Barbossa a good man?  I don’t know if I’d go that far, but he wasn’t 100% evil, either.  And he was a lot of fun to watch.

Henry definitely reminded me of Will.  He had the same wide-eyed earnestness about him, as well as the tendency to charge into danger because it’s the Right Thing To Do without thinking through the full plan first.  Elizabeth’s legacy is a bit harder to see, except in the first two scenes.  Keeping a secret stash of pirate memorabilia and legends?  Totally Lizzie.  Back-talking authority figures?  Yep, Lizzie’s genes are in there.  And later, in the jail, taking Jack’s ego down a peg by scoffing at his legendary reputation in comparison to the reality of a scruffy, rum-soaked pirate?  Also from the Swann side of the family.  So I think they did a pretty good job of making Henry his parents’ son. 

I just wish we had more information on how he was raised, and where.  I always imagined him scampering around Shipwreck Cove and up the rigging of Elizabeth’s ship(s), the mischievous pirate prince.  Based on the house Elizabeth is living in at the end, and the fact that he was enlisted in the royal navy, I don’t see that happening in canon now.

When Carina was introduced I had a couple thoughts:

1.  “I wonder if she’s related to any existing characters...  No, don’t be silly.  This isn’t a fanfic.  They’re trying to move the franchise forward into the next generation.”  (Or not.) 2.  I don’t want to like her because no one can ever replace Elizabeth Freaking Swann the Pirate King as the best female character in these movies.  And that’s still true, but she definitely grew on me.  She had a fairly good balance of “smart woman who can take care of herself and doesn’t need a man to complete her story” and “too perfect to be likable or believable.”  I could have done with a costume that didn’t draw quite so much attention to her heaving bosom, but I suppose there’s some vaguely historical style going on.

Honestly, there’s a reason her backstory could have been lifted from a story on Fanfiction.net circa 2004:  those kinds of long-lost relative reveals can be a hell of a lot of fun.  Especially when you have Jack there to tease “daddy” Hector mercilessly.

I’m glad they didn’t have her be Jack’s daughter, though.  That thought crossed my mind, too, and that would have been...not good.

Pity Hector never got to introduce himself to Elizabeth and Will as the father of their potential daughter-in-law.  Awwwwwkward!  Bwahahaha!

Speaking of the dreaded Willabeth...  Jack saw them smooching in his spyglass, made a face, and announced that it was a revolting sight.  Same, Jack.  Same.

Therein lies my biggest complaint about the movie, and, as I mentioned above, it’s just the latest sprout on a tree of dislike that I’ve been nursing since the ending of At World’s End was leaked.  How in the seven hells they thought it was an appropriate, satisfying, logical plot development for Elizabeth Freaking Swann the Pirate King to end up standing around passively on a beach in a frilly dress and a fucking corset, waiting for the menfolk to do the important stuff, I will never, ever understand.  It’s a slap in the face of everything her character arc was over the first three movies.

“Sure, little girls, you can have adventures and play pirate for awhile if you want to, but in the end you still have to get married, grow up, conform to society’s beauty standards, put aside those dreams, and take care of your husband and children.”  Fuck that with a rusty garden trowel.

And here, when they had the chance to redeem that travesty, when they could have showed a glimpse of her at the helm of her own flagship, or holding court with the other Pirate Lords, or just simply wearing pirate-type clothes and carrying a sword, for the love of all things holy, did they do any of those things?  Oh, no.  No, they doubled down and had her be so passive that she didn’t even get to speak.  (Doesn’t that mean they don’t have to pay Knightley as much?)  Literally all she’s there for is to be a reward for Will upon his homecoming, and then sleep with him--on land in a fancy house that could have been in Port Royal, for all we know.  Any journey her character had is moot.  She’s back to square one, and it makes me want to throw things.

Oops, I was going to keep that rant short, and failed.  Oh well, it’s a sore spot, obviously.  I have never felt so betrayed by a franchise as I did when they did that to Elizabeth in AWE, and it still stings after all these years.

My ire didn’t even stem from my shipping preferences, although that certainly was salt in the wound.  If they couldn’t give us a series of movies with Jack and Lizzie, the best pirates in the world, having amazing adventures while flirting like they did in DMC, at least they could have given us a sort of open ending, where she, Will and Jack all sail in their separate directions, knowing that their paths would cross in the future in any number of entertaining ways.  I’m never sure if I should blame the writers, the studio, or the actors, or all of the above, but I would have bought, like, ALL THE TICKETS to see those movies.

But, alas, that’s not what we got.  We got OST and DMTNT instead.  OST was quite forgettable, but DMTNT packed a pretty good punch and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.  I won’t say it totally redeemed the franchise for me, but it’s got its head above water for the first time since DMC, so that’s progress.

Should you see it?  Yeah, I think so.  If you enjoyed the precious PotC movies, or just like pirate movies in general, it’s a fun couple hours.  Just don’t think too hard about it afterward (like I did.)

[orionredstarr]

Close-Up: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio on 'Dead Man's Chest'

I stumbled across this old article from 2006 when potc2 was first released and found it a very interesting piece -- how the writers described the characterization and concept of Jack Sparrow, the actor Johnny Depp how he was playing Jack, and in relation to Kiera Knightley who plays Elizabeth Swann. There were some interesting nuances you might like to read in this potc ‘time capsule’ so have fun reading!

:)  ORS

article by Scott Holleran

During a recent interview about Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean series—including next year's installment—writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio demonstrate clarity, intelligence and a flash of the randy humor that's made the franchise a hit.

Meeting at the Walt Disney Studio in Burbank, the brains behind the spectacle that now opens Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest are a couple of pals who grew up in Orange County with frequent trips to Disneyland. Three years after Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl took Hollywood by storm, its writers are ready to go another round.

Box Office Mojo: Is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest exactly the movie you wrote?

Terry Rossio: It's not an easy question. There are things I would change. But there are aspects that exceed what we wrote as well. The trade-off is probably worth it— Ted Elliott: —life is full of these little trade-offs— Terry Rossio: —and there are relatively few. They amount to quibbles. I'd say it's 90 percent of what we wanted.

Box Office Mojo: Did you choose the darker tone?

Terry Rossio: I'm not sure it is darker. You could just as easily say it has more slapstick. Maybe it extends further in each direction—maybe there are occasionally darker alleys. Hopefully, those are balanced. Ted Elliott: We didn't intend to have sequels. The first [movie] is a story in and of itself, a sort of capital 'r' romance in the Prisoner of Zenda sense that ends in an idealized love between Elizabeth and Will. So, what happens after that? Ideals are very difficult to [achieve] in this world. It's much more interesting to watch somebody struggle, where it's not so easy to know what's the right thing to do at all times.

Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Terry Rossio: In the first film, Jack Sparrow wants to get his ship back, and that's what he's focused on. Though he does some underhanded things, he's aligned with the heroes for the most part. That's kind of uplifting. In the second [movie], Jack Sparrow is more desperate. His needs put him at odds with pretty much everybody—his crew, Will and Elizabeth and, obviously, Davy Jones. His desperation is magnified, and that may go a long way toward that impression that it's darker.

Box Office Mojo: Davy Jones talking about death is definitely darker.

Ted Elliott: Well, we're using the same palette that we used in the first movie. But we're definitely using different values in different combinations and, yeah, we actually do set out to suggest the world of pirates is darker. The darkness was implied in the first and we're making it more apparent in the second [picture] because we are ultimately leading to this climax [in the third picture]. It's a far more interesting type of drama to see people operating in this morally ambiguous world.

Box Office Mojo: When did you first ride the Disneyland attraction?

Ted Elliott: I was seven or eight years old. We grew up in Orange County [California], so Disneyland was always about 15 minutes from the house. I spent a lot of time there. Before we started working on the movie, I'd probably been on the ride at least a hundred times. It was my favorite ride. Number two was Monsanto's Adventures Through Inner Space—I just liked the idea of things getting really tiny and walking around in that environment—but number one was Pirates of the Caribbean.

Terry Rossio: My experience was similar. I'd been on it maybe a hundred or two hundred times before we even contemplated doing the movie.

Box Office Mojo: Were you drawn to the attraction's horror features?

Ted Elliott: It was the totality of the experience. That ride begins with what is a dark ride feature. It really does—the skeleton, the cursed treasure—it's always been part of the ride. Right at the beginning, the skeleton warns you to keep your hands and arms inside [the boat] and says that Davy Jones is waiting for those who don't obey. It always had this supernatural aspect of legends that we all associate with the sea. But there had never been a movie that tied pirates to it. Terry Rossio: For me, what the ride accomplishes so well is that sense of a fully realized fantasy. It's a tip of the iceberg feeling—like [you are entering] a world that has its own rules and is its own reality. It's like going into the world of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. The ride felt like little vignettes or episodes that feel as if they have a larger story behind them. I was curious to find out: how did those guys get there? How did the dog get the key? What's going to happen? The fun of doing the Pirates of the Caribbean films is that you get to create a world. I think that's what audiences like—they want to go visit that world. They want to visit those characters and look around corners and see where that path leads or where that ship came from. Box Office Mojo: Is there more gunplay in the sequel?

Terry Rossio: No. There's more pet violence perhaps. But don't overlook the rather brutal moment [in the first picture] of the butler coming to the [governor's residence] door and being shot. Ted Elliott: Also, the first death we see in the first movie is Will throwing an axe into somebody's back—when the pirates are invading Port Royale—and he doesn't know that the pirates are unkillable. From Will's point of view, he is the first person to commit actual violence.

Box Office Mojo: Is the third picture done?

Ted Elliott: No. We still have a couple of months left to shoot. We shot the location work simultaneously with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest but the plan was always that we would have something left to shoot.

Box Office Mojo: Is the title Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End?

Terry Rossio: That's what we're campaigning for—but it's not set. Ted Elliott: I like it because then you could say 'POTC: AWE.'

Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Box Office Mojo: Johnny Depp has received widespread praise for his portrayal of your character, Captain Jack Sparrow. How much of your writing remains in that characterization?

Ted Elliott: We wrote a very specific character and Johnny played that character but his performance was one neither of us could have imagined. We wanted to create this trickster. If you go all the way back to [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel] Treasure Island, we kind of borrowed the moral ambiguity of that story. The whole thing comes down to [young boy] Jim Hawkins making the call as to whether [pirate] Long John Silver is a good man or a bad man—that's the emotional crux of that story. Silver does kill people—he betrays everybody—and this moral ambiguity is inherent in the pirate/swashbuckler genre. To that regard, the trickster archetype seemed appropriate. That's what we wanted to do with Jack Sparrow. Whether Johnny identified that consciously, he definitely found a perfect performance. Terry Rossio: The world wants there to be movie stars and, in a sense, the story becomes Johnny Depp—because people want that. In terms of understanding why he's [created] an iconic character, the story becomes 'Johnny Depp is brilliant' which of course is true because Johnny Depp is brilliant. People are not necessarily as interesting in pedestrian reality. You still have a storyboard artist who comes up with a visual of Johnny first stepping onto the dock as the ship sinks. We wrote that [scene in which Jack Sparrow is introduced]. We wrote lines like: 'you're the worst pirate I've ever heard of—' and [the response] 'but you have heard of me.' People quote those lines. If the character had walked on screen and just stood there and said, 'hello,' it wouldn't be the same. So, clearly the screenwriting goes into the creation of the character. And I have to credit Gore Verbinski's direction. Ted Elliott: When we were writing and making the first movie, [we had in mind] the Sergio Leone [spaghetti] Westerns like The Man With No Name [movies]. The Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef characters are essentially gods compared to all these mortals. They can shoot better, they can ride better, they're smarter, they're faster and they don't say much. To some extent, that's what we were playing in the first [Pirates], that Jack and [Captain] Barbossa [played by Geoffrey Rush] are kind of pirate gods. They come into the lives of these two mortal characters— Terry Rossio: —and we continue that into At World's End— Ted Elliott: —and, to some extent, Jack is the demi-god, the trickster. He straddles both sides. Is he on the side of the gods—is he opposed to the gods?—is he on the side of the mortals? He's on his own side. Terry Rossio: You can also track the dialog in those [spaghetti Westerns]: the less words you say, the more god-like you are—and, in Pirates of the Caribbean [pictures]— Ted Elliott: —pirates talk. Terry Rossio: —the less Johnny says, the more truthful he is. The more words he uses, the more you should mistrust him. Ted Elliott: So, yes, there is some conscious thought given to the behavior of Jack Sparrow.

Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Box Office Mojo: Does it concern you that Jack Sparrow will be perceived as less likable in this movie?

Ted Elliott: More interesting, not less likable. I can't say what everybody's going to feel, but, certainly the intent here was for people to be surprised by what Jack is doing. My argument against making him more likable is that he [ought to be] understandable. Everything he does is perfectly within character and, in a way, all we're doing is revealing greater character depth. His character in the first movie included things that were less than admirable, less than likable.

Terry Rossio: The most important commandment is to sustain interest—if you do that, everything else follows; you can move people emotionally, you can make them laugh, you can do all sorts of things. It's most important to demonstrate character complexity or to let characters do things that create interest, because that's how we live our lives day to day. Same thing with complexity. For some reason, there's a focus when people talk about movies about the idea of somehow 'getting it,' like things should be easy or clear. What really goes on in movies is that things are beguiling or intriguing and interest is sustained by seeing glimpses of a world or a story. That's what happens in real life. People have to navigate the world based on incomplete information. That can draw people into a story. Yet, for some reason, people don't understand that and they're resistant to that technique. Luckily, we get to do it in these movies, which I think actually works. Likability and simplicity are not all they're cracked up to be.

Box Office Mojo: What is the meaning of the series?

Ted Elliott: It's a study of what is a pirate. How free can you really be? What are those trade-offs? Jack kind of represents the ultimate free man—he really has no obligations to anybody, and, obviously, if you make an obligation to somebody, you're limiting your own freedom. But, if you're not willing to limit your own freedom, you can't have those relationships. If you look at Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest from that point of view, you kind of see what really leads to Jack's ultimate fate and why Elizabeth does what she does.

Box Office Mojo: Jack Sparrow's an anarchist?

Ted Elliott: Essentially, yes, he really is. Terry Rossio: I wouldn't say he's a complete anarchist— Ted Elliott: —he's opposed to social structures, he's opposed to government— Terry Rossio: 99 percent of that's correct but Jack has his own internal moral landscape. The choices he makes are not necessarily inconsistent with forming relationships.

Box Office Mojo: Is there an inner goodness to Jack Sparrow?

Terry Rossio: No. Jack says it clearly [in the first movie:] there's what a man can do and what a man can't do. Those words encompass his inner contradictions—that's what's so beautiful about them—he's saying you cannot generalize, you cannot philosophize, you cannot come up with a simple [moral code]. It's almost saying each situation calls for its own resolution; there is simply what you will do and what you won't do. Ted Elliott: He's also saying, judge by deeds, not words.

Box Office Mojo: Do all the characters return in the third movie?

Ted Elliott: Yes.

Box Office Mojo: What are the mechanics of your writing partnership?

Terry Rossio: We do the back and forth exchange of files. One of the techniques we learned while working in animation [on Shrek] is to work in sequences. For me, it's easier to attack a three-page thing than the entire script. Ted Elliott: I know writers who actually work in the full draft and I can't figure out how they do it. If you have a hundred pages, if you want to get to a scene in the middle, you have to go through all that other stuff. Whereas, if you've broken it up into sequences, you only have to deal with exactly the part you need to work on.

Box Office Mojo: How do you take a step back and look at the big picture?

Ted Elliott: That's why the cards are up on the storyboard. We work out the story on index cards to break it down. Terry Rossio: Truth be told, sometimes, you don't get that view of the Big Picture until opening day. Also, it's a very immersive job; you wake up and you're on a set and talking to actors and going to story meetings and, with the amount of time you spend understanding how a story should work, you don't necessarily have to go to the boards. You're living the film as it's being made, and you can sometimes tell [what to write] because you know that world so incredibly well. You [already] have the context of the larger movie.

Box Office Mojo: How do studio pressures affect the writing process?

Ted Elliott: You're ultimately trying to create a physical object. It's wonderful to imagine, but once you start rendering the script as something physical, you have to deal with the physics. It really comes down to the physical constraints on what's mostly intellectual. The reason I became a screenwriter is to make movies. If I just wanted to write screenplays, that's all I'd do. If I just wanted to be a writer, I'd never write screenplays. There is much more satisfactory work than writing a screenplay because it's not the final work. You're not actually writing to communicate with your intended audience; you're writing to communicate with the people who are making the movie. Terry Rossio: Sometimes the physical constraints on a movie are the people working on the movie and Ted's much more able to navigate that. Ted Elliott: I come at it from the point of view that, if Terry, for example, doesn't get my idea, I'm not communicating my idea—not if it's really a great idea—or, it may not be a great idea or, in Terry's subjective opinion, it's not a great idea for the movie. [Director] Gore [Verbinski] may initially disagree with an idea [in the script] and we may have arguments. But what eventually develops is a new idea that we're all satisfied with.

Box Office Mojo: Can you give an example of an idea you refused to compromise?

Ted Elliott: In the very first meeting we had on Pirates 2 and possibly Pirates 3, we kind of pitched to Gore, [and producers] Jerry Bruckheimer, Mike Stenson and Chad Oman how the movie ends—I don't want to spoil it—with Jack, Will and Elizabeth. We said 'this is what we want and then in Pirates 3, this happens.' They were like, 'nyahh.' But we've learned an important lesson, which is that the right idea at the wrong time is a wrong idea. So, we stopped and said, 'alright,' and talked about what more we wanted to do with this movie. A couple of weeks later, Gore had come back to those [same] ideas and, now, they're there. There is a point where the writer has to be allowed to take responsibility for the work—or not take responsibility for the movie.

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lego pirates of the caribbean xbox 360

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lego pirates of the caribbean xbox 360

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean cheats & more for Xbox 360 (X360)

Cheats

Unlockables

Hints

Easter Eggs

Glitches

Guides

Achievements

Get the updated and latest LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean cheats, unlockables, codes, hints, Easter eggs, glitches, tricks, tips, hacks, downloads, achievements, guides, FAQs, walkthroughs, and more for Xbox 360 (X360). AllCheatsCodes.com has all the codes you need to win every game you play!

Use the links above or scroll down to see all the Xbox 360 cheats we have available for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean.

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Also Known As: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

Genre: Adventure, Action

Developer: TT Games

Publisher: Disney Interactive

ESRB Rating: Everyone-10

Release Date: May 10, 2011

Hints

Secret Points

On each of the 4 level-select maps, there is a 6th secret point. Once you completeall 5 stories for a movie, a skull and a cross bones appear on the map.Finally highlight the skull and cross bones with the cursor to earn the “You’reoff the edge of the map” Achievement or Trophy.

Cheats

Cheat Codes

Ammand the Corsair : ew8t6tAngelica (Disguised) : dlrr45Angry Cannibal : vgf32cBlackbeard : d3dw0dClanker : zm37gtClubber : zm37gtDavy Jones : 4djlkrGovorner Weatherby Swann : ld9454Gunner : y611wbHungry Cannibal : 64bnhgJimmy Legs : 13glw5King George : rked43Koehler : rt093gMistress Ching : gdetdePhillip : wev040Quartermaster : rx58huThe Spaniard : p861joTwigg : kdlfkd

Red Hat Unlock Codes?

There are no codes this time for the Red Hats in LEGO Pirates Of The Caribbean.Treasure x2 can be found by quickly jumping on the 5 pillars on the beach in frontof the Level Select boards. It costs 500,000 studs. This should get you on yourway to completing the game quicker!

The Green Flash Achievement

You’ll find the clock tower on the left side of the balcony above the tavern. Youwill need to use Jack’s compass to find the key on the left. Then afterwards placethe key on the crank and turn it to raise the green bars along the side of theclock tower.Select a female character and jump to the green bar. Afterwards swing and jump upto the next set of green bars and finally to a 3rd one where you will be able topull yourself on a platform. This will earn you “The Green Flash” Achievement orTrophy.

Unlockables

Currently we have no unlockables for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Easter eggs

Currently we have no easter eggs for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Glitches

Currently we have no glitches for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Guides

Currently no guide available.

Currently no guide available.

Achievements

Achievement List

A pirate’s life for me (15)Test any custom character

A weather eye on the horizon (15)Use a spyglass

And really bad eggs (25)Play as all the Extra Toggle characters

At World’s End (20)Complete the Film 3 story

Aye-aye, captain! (15)Play a level in co-op

Believing in ghost stories (25)Unlock all the cursed Black Pearl crewcharacters (Single Player Only)

Dead Man’s Chest (20)Complete the Film 2 story

Did everybody see that? (20)High dive into the Maelstrom

Do you fear death? (25)Unlock all the Flying Dutchman crew characters (SinglePlayer Only)

Fight to the bitter end! (20)Defeat 100 enemies

Fire! (15)Fire 100 cannonballs

Five lashes be owed (15)As Jimmy Legs, whip Will Turner 5 times

Gents, take a walk (20)Walk on the sea bed with all possible characters

Hello, beastie (25)Get eaten by the Kraken 10 times

Hello, poppet! (15)Unlock all Elizabeth characters (Single Player Only)

Here there be monsters (15)Get eaten by a creature in deadly water

Hoist the colours! (50)Sail all the minikits in the hub

I am a bad man (15)Play a level with all Extras turned on (Single PlayerOnly)

More what you’d call guidelines (15)Complete the Brethren Court

Now bring me that horizon (100)Complete the game to 100% (Single PlayerOnly)

On Stranger Tides (20)Complete the Film 4 story

Parley! (25)Unlock all characters (Single Player Only)

Pieces of Eight (88)Reach 888,888,888 studs

Savvy? (15)Unlock all the Jack Sparrow characters (Single Player Only)

Sea turtles, mate (25)Ride on all types of animal in the game

Take what you can (65)Collect all Gold bricks (Single Player Only)

The best pirate I’ve ever seen (15)Complete Port Royal in Story withoutdying

The Brethren Court (25)Unlock all the Pirate Lord characters (Single PlayerOnly)

The Curse of the Black Pearl (20)Complete the Film 1 story

The Green Flash (15)Watch a sunset

The pirate all pirates fear (25)Unlock all the Queen Anne’s Revenge crewcharacters (Single Player Only)

The worst pirate I’ve ever seen (15)Complete Port Royal in Story with zerostuds

There’s the Jack I know (25)Get True Pirate in all levels (Single PlayerOnly)

Try wearing a corset (15)Do 5 lady backflips in a row

Welcome to the Caribbean! (12)Complete Port Royal

What do you want most? (25)In any level use only the compass to find all it’ssecrets in one go, alone.

Wind in your sails! (15)Hit a flying parrot on Smuggler’s Den

You filthy, slimy, mangy cur! (15)Complete all the Guard Dog levels

You may throw my hat (40)Collect all the red hats (Single Player Only)

You’re off the edge of the map (15)Highlight the secret 6th point on all 4level select maps (Single Player Only)