Yay, I love these films!

I have read and heard criticisms of the sequels, I've heard Mark Kermode on AWE and OST, and I'll even acknowledge some of those criticisms, but my opinion has never been changed. They're just too fun to hate.

It's okay with me if it's okay with your mom.

/would make a great father, ladies....

Not having themes, arcs, and motifs doesn't make a movie bad. Being dull makes a movie bad. But what makes a movie dull or pointless is very hard to define.

The best movies I can think of that don't have a strong theme are probably Ghostbusters and The Blues Brothers, and they're undeniably great. Even Back to the Future proposes the theme "be bold: get what you want". Bllues Brothers has strong character arcs (they're on a mission from God, after all), but Ghostbusters doesn't (well, Venkman stops torturing college students, so that's something). Ghostbusters DOES have strong visual motifs (statues are repeatedly used to suggest that spirits are all around us).

PotC:CotBP doesn't have any of these ("pirates" doesn't count as a visual motif; it's a pirate movie), but it looks great and is a lot of fun. The writers tried to give Will and Elizabeth arcs (assertiveness and independence), but it's weak tea compared to Jack's rags-to-riches greatness.

That's a good reading. Pretty much every protagonist gets more than he bargained for, but the fact that it can be extended to Barbossa is good. Altho I think Jack is left out.

Of course, if this were an animated Disney movie, they'd hit that beat HARD. We'd get a song solo expressing those desires explicitly and later a comic relief character wryly commenting on their ironic fulfillment.

"Mrs. Norrington!"
Can't you just see it?
"Mrs. Norrington!"
His "little wife"
No sir! Not me!
I guarantee it
I want much more than this provincial liiiiife!

Some day some pirates will come
Some day I'll have to run
And I'll scream, but I'll scream with gleeeee
Because secretly I'm yearning to be freeeee

Out where they walk
Out where they run
Out where they drink rum all day in the sun
Wanderin' free
Wish I could be
Part of their piracyyyyyy!

/This comment was brought to you by Copy 'n' Paste Theater

The monkey and the parrot would also be mortal enemies if it were an animated film. That is, until they became close friends by the end of the second act. And they'd look like Apu and Iago.

Honestly, if they were to stick Jack Sparrow into just about any shit movie, I would instantly want to see that movie. I'm a firm believer that characters and their relationships are the most important aspect of a film and override any other aspect. If you make characters that are good enough, you can have the rest of the movie be substandard in just about every way and still walk away with a big hit on your hands. Pirates had one of the most iconic characters ever, and had that character craftily manipulating all the other characters to achieve his goals. What you guys said about him not being the main character but being the reason people went to see the flick is spot on.

That's one thing that I think Brad Bird has backwards. He claims that story is the most important thing, but he's also been smart enough to put really interesting and endearing characters into all of his movies. There are plenty of movies that are brought out of mediocrity by their awesome characters.

That said, I know full well that the following Pirates movies had lots of issues and got worse as the films went on. But the fact that there were at least two or three characters that I totally fucking loved in each installment meant that I couldn't really care less if the movies are too convoluted or have scenes that are effectively padding. I get to see these awesome characters throw banter around or act like... well... like themselves. That just makes these movies way more fun to watch than a lot of big action blockbuster movies where you're watching Action Hero Cliche #2 go head to head with Over Acted Eeeeviiiiiilllll Guy Cliche #4.

Movies like Live Free Or Die Hard, X-Men: Wolverine, xXx, G.I.Joe, Expendables, Prince of Persia.

Not that they don't often have their own little moments, it's just that a really great character will give you tons of opportunity to have tons of great moments, where you'll only manage to stumble accidentally onto a funny line or something once in a while if you don't have a good character to work off of.

Personally I find Jack Sparrow overrated. It was interesting when he was this oddball side character, the funny man to the straight Norrington, Turner and Elizabeth triumvirate,  and it was fresh,  but then the next two films (not seen the 4th yet) overplay the card and Depp ends up playing almost a parody of Sparrow.

I don't think it's story vs characters, in my mind, to have a good story means to have characters that we care about doing things that we care about. An engaging, 'real' character is one that serves and gives meaning and/or relevance to a story. And the story is what drives and develops the character. Personally,  I don't believe you can get a good character without a story there to provoke (re)action.

Last edited by redxavier (2011-05-24 22:06:12)

Well, really, movies are about the characters and how they change. If the characters are good enough, you don't really need them to be doing much of anything in terms of plot. Cast Away is just a guy on a beach doing stuff. Guy makes fire, guy makes tools, guy performs self-dentistry. There's a plot, but you can literally get all of the beats out in a couple sentences. They spend 100 or so minutes telling a story you could type out roughly in a paragraph, but it works because you want to hang out with this guy in this situation for a while.

I do agree, tho, that bad plot is worse than no plot (or extremely simple plot, cause it's really hard to not have some kind of story going on). It's true as well that a movie about Jack Sparrow cooking and eating breakfast would probably be dull. Maybe. Actually, I'd watch that...

But yeah, a character's arc is essential to having a good story, and there's not really an arc for Jack, aside from his weird relationship with Elizabeth. Does he have a real arc in the new flick, or is it just "Jack Sparrow Being All Awesome And Stuff: The Movie". I imagine that's what they needed those few new characters in that flick.

I was going to see it this past weekend, actually, but I got to the theater and thought to myself "I haven't seen that Lincoln Lawyer flick, and I heard it's good...  I'll have at least a couple months to see Pirates", so I bought a ticket for that. The girl said it was in theater 18. The guy who ripped my ticket said "Theater 18". I walked into theater 18 and sat through a half hour of garbage, and then Something Borrowed started playing. I obviously had some questions for the people I had previously spoken with. I was informed that on Sundays, the place decides arbitrarily to re-arrange the screening schedules and theaters, which - apparently - are the same throughout the previous week. This sounded like bullshit to me, but I acquiesced and just accepted a free movie ticket.

I got to use acquiesce in a sentence, too.

I loved Ronin. The only thing about that movie that really drives me nuts is the HORRIBLE smoke effect in one scene. They added it to fix a continuity problem, but it would have been so much better looking if they had just reshot one or the other of those two shots.

Why?

You know what? I'm intently not listening to this. I love all 3 Pirates films (not counting OST, since I've yet to see it, and I reckon it should've been called Jack Sparrow and the *insert event/thing here* instead) equally, and considering you don't, I'm not gonna let you ruin this for me like you did the Matrix sequels. Even though I heartily agree with the latter.

OST has me really confused, cause people I thought were going to hate that movie liked it and people I thought were going to like it hated it. I have no idea what to expect now.

"A tour de force performance from Zarban," - Teague Chrystie, Down in Front