Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » October 13th, 2015, 12:51 pm

That's the only issue I think I will have with 5, Bill, is that all previous plot points sound as if they will all be null and void, which is a shame since they did set things up in 4 for obvious continuation.

Even if they swapped the stories and jettisoned these elements, they should still be addressed or else there is no reason for 4 to exist (some may say in more ways than one!). I still have hope that Cruz will at least return with voodoo Jack at some future point, as it would make sense and I think there is some fun plot mileage to be had from that scenario.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by EricJ » October 14th, 2015, 1:17 am

Bill1978 wrote:Back to the topic. I never fully understood the massive hate thrown at 3. ?
Remember when we thought Gore Verbinski was a raving straitjacket-ready lunatic after Lone Ranger?
It didn't START there. :shock:

Basically, the voodoo/Davy Jones mumbo-jumbo started by Rossio & Elliot in #2 had dug itself far into its own self-created-universe hole, it couldn't climb back out again and leave any room for the fun action scenes of the first movie, or much fun in general.
Jack is basically an afterthought to the entire plot, and when we do see him, he comes off as a bit of an unemployed-buddy loser without any of his usual quick-thinking plot rescues...We're left thinking, why is he in the movie at all, and with Gore, Ted and Terry's supporting-character plots flailing in a half-dozen directions to wrap themselves up, there's no one around to give us a decent answer. By that point, we give up caring about finding one, so I sort of forgot why Voodoo Lady turned into Godzilla, or why turning the map over was so important.

4 had the comforting book shackles of being conventionally straightforward, and it's a step up, but not all the way up.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » October 14th, 2015, 5:08 am

No, no...at least three was entertaining, even if we didn't know what was going on! The fourth lacks this on top of a story that has no direction. Jack is even more of a supporting squeeze-in here (because he was) and has even less to do. At least in three he was front and center of a big bunch of characters. In four, the big bunch of characters take over and he's on the sidelines with nothing to do, a bit like Indy at the end of Raiders.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by EricJ » October 14th, 2015, 11:48 am

Still, just like the Hobbit sort of disappeared out of the Hobbit Trilogy once the screenwriters got going, Jack in #3 sort of disappears out of The Saga of Will Turner, once his screenwriters get going.
This is starting to become the peril of linked-serial movies, that they're already making the next movie before anyone can ask whether it might be starting to go off the rails.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Dacey » March 24th, 2016, 12:27 pm

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift--that is why it's called the present."

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » April 21st, 2017, 5:48 am

Was just going to comment on the new trail and saw that no-one was talking about Pirates 5 for a long time!

What's the feeling on this? Tired retread or a fun-looking reboot to the series?

I'm kind of feeling a bit of both. Interesting that Depp has been AWOL since his personal shenanigans last summer, although he has been busy shooting Murder On The Orient Express and I hear nothing but good words for him from that. He's pretty safe with Jack Sparrow, although I'm finding him a bit of a parody of himself, mostly from the writing, which doesn't seem as sharp as on previous films.

Speaking of which, there's a shot of Elizabeth Swann in the new Japanese trail, which has been getting a bit of buzz around the web, even though we knew Orlando was coming back and so it might have followed... But is that actually a new shot? Without checking, it kind of looked the same as the final post-credit scene we saw at the end of World's End, although her clothes may be different. Maybe this is how she sees Will returning, just as she saw him (from the same hill?) at the end of World's End?

I'm hoping Pirates 5 will be a fun return to the first and second films, and have a Civil War type vibe that gives new life to the series rather than it feeling stale. The return of so many of the original cast gives me hope, although the writing is where I'm a little apprehensive. I want to like this, but after the WTF fourth one, it's open at this point...

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by EricJ » April 21st, 2017, 1:43 pm

Ben wrote:Was just going to comment on the new trail and saw that no-one was talking about Pirates 5 for a long time!

What's the feeling on this? Tired retread or a fun-looking reboot to the series?
When they first showed the unhelpful teaser of "Jack Sparrow vs. Zombies", I thought, "THIS is our villain??" (No, seriously, even if they don't go loopily over the edge like Pirates 3 did, literally, there still has to be some sense of Jack vs. some epic myth of the sea, like Blackbeard or Davy Jones...Or the cursed skeletons from the Disneyland ride.)
Seemed like the whole point of Disney still doing the movie at all dated back to their old issues over #3, #4's domestic-vs-world box-office, and Lone Ranger, and whether they could still make new Pirates movies without Gore Verbinski and/or Jerry Bruckheimer, without losing studio face.

But that was a teaser, and now the full trailers are promoting "The final chapter!", which means they're going to go Full Circle and give us the Origins of Young Jack (who's in for the betting pool that they'll at least consider trying to spin off a Depp-free prequel?), and why our villain has an epic grudge against him.
Oh, and since Pirates 4 "didn't count", we also find out what happened to the next generation of Turners.

Okay, that at least seems like SOME kind of actual movie, whereas 4 and the teaser to 5 didn't. Like the joke about why Final-chapter movies do so well, it's just a matter of giving the public what they want. :wink:

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » April 21st, 2017, 3:14 pm

Bruckheimer is producing this one too.

And bad as it was, I hate that they left Penelope Cruz on the island with Voodoo Jack. Lots of possibilities there.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Randall » April 22nd, 2017, 2:02 am

I, uh, haven't watched the third one yet.

:oops:

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » April 22nd, 2017, 4:06 am

Which you should do if you have an interest in the new one, since it'll explain Will and Elizabeth's status for when we see them again.

But it looks like you can forget the fourth one (Stranger Tides), which was just poor, really, even though it made a lot of money and had Cruz in it, sadly left alone on an island with a revenge subplot for Jack that looks like it's also going to be left high and dry...

The third film, World's End, is a big splashy mess, but it's suitably epic an does at least feel as if the original trilogy has been building to this climax - the end especially is big and bold and, even if you can't always make out what the heck is going on, you can just sit back and enjoy the scale, ideas and craftsmanship of the last third particularly.

I'm hoping the new one has the humor of the first, the inventiveness of the second and the scale of the third, all while pulling together a more cohesive storyline than the fourth. Not much to ask, right? ;)

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by EricJ » April 22nd, 2017, 12:47 pm

Ben wrote:The third film, World's End, is a big splashy mess, but it's suitably epic an does at least feel as if the original trilogy has been building to this climax - the end especially is big and bold and, even if you can't always make out what the heck is going on, you can just sit back and enjoy the scale, ideas and craftsmanship of the last third particularly.
If you remember how Bilbo Baggins sort of got swept aside by the time we got to the big splashy mess of "Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies", Jack sort of gets swept aside by the time we get to P3.
We're SO wrapped up in tying up the hundred loose plot ends in the Will, Dad and Davy Jones storyline from P2, there's not much time for anything else, and then they bring in six more important new unexplained characters from the Pirates Council, of which Jack has a little to do with, but more that they can just bring in that tribute Keith Richards cameo. (He's Sparrow Sr., get it?)
Jack wasn't even in the original book for P4, but at least they managed to invent something for him to do.

The problem with Jack just not doing very much in P3 is that he doesn't seem to be very useful when he's not doing anything--He may be a loser, but he's an accidental genius loser, and when he's not given any chance to prove it, he pretty much hangs around being a woozy loser, while everyone else is worrying about Will, Elizabeth and Barbossa's big missions.
The impenetrable Rosso & Elliot mumbo-jumbo reaches a point where you know Lone Ranger is about to happen next, and even if you didn't see "A Cure For Wellness", you sort of get a hint about why Verbinski won't be asked back to do any more.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » April 22nd, 2017, 2:18 pm

So...what I said.

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by EricJ » April 22nd, 2017, 2:29 pm

Ben wrote:So...what I said.
Yeah, only you liked it.

(And forgot, pretty much what I'd said two years ago, but at least managed to put it into context--We didn't yet have the Hobbit Trilogy metaphor yet to say "That's what it reminded me of!")

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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by Ben » April 23rd, 2017, 4:56 pm


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Re: Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

Post by ShyViolet » May 5th, 2017, 12:54 am

You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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