I pretty much love the first
Pirates of the Caribbean, which could have been terrible and turned out to be genius.
I like the rest of the trilogy and even part 4.
So when I say I'm filled with meh concerning the recent teaser trailer reveal that another PotC is coming -- and one apparently scored without Zimmer's (or maybe we should say Badelt's) iconic themes...
...this is why.
The more horrorish vibe is, I guess, kind of appreciated for being a little different, but (a) I don't really think it fits the series; and (b) I don't trust that the trailer's tone will be evocative of the movie anyway.
may I recommend binge watching Black Sails. O0
You gotta love the way those wind-powered sailing ships just pass right through the narrowest of openings. Just like they had engines or something. ;D
I liked #1
#2 was OK, but got a little silly toward the end
#3 was crap
#4 was mostly good, but the encounter w/ the cannibal tribe was pretty stupid
We'll see what happens here
And Black Sails is pretty damned good
...I cannot for the life of me remember a cannibal tribe in #4. I remember hot cannibal mermaids, but I thought that was one of the better sequences. (If also more than a little stupid on some points, like them being driven toward shore by a ship shooting fire on the water's surface, like they couldn't just swim beneath it.)
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 05, 2016, 10:47:52 AM
...I cannot for the life of me remember a cannibal tribe in #4. I remember hot cannibal mermaids, but I thought that was one of the better sequences. (If also more than a little stupid on some points, like them being driven toward shore by a ship shooting fire on the water's surface, like they couldn't just swim beneath it.)
However they ended up in the giant wicker balls climbing the cliffs.
That was the second film -- and yes, silly Caribbean cannibals were involved.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on October 05, 2016, 09:46:30 AM
may I recommend binge watching Black Sails. O0
I think Black Sails got better each season. Was a bit 'meh' with the first one. Second kinda caught me here & there. Watched third season pretty much straight through.
At this rate, 4th season may be pretty good.
I gave up on Black Sails when the guys started kissing each other. Not my cup of Grog.
Quote from: Sir Slash on October 07, 2016, 12:52:15 PM
I gave up on Black Sails when the guys started kissing each other. Not my cup of Grog.
Sounds like a certain old Robert Crumb comic strip...
Quote from: Sir Slash on October 07, 2016, 12:52:15 PM
I gave up on Black Sails when the guys started kissing each other. Not my cup of Grog.
oh they're well past that now and going for lesbian prostitute sex.
I had no idea pirates had so much fun. I guess that's where the 'Ho' comes from in "Yo Ho Ho. A Pirate's life for me". ;D
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on October 07, 2016, 07:15:30 PM
Quote from: Sir Slash on October 07, 2016, 12:52:15 PM
I gave up on Black Sails when the guys started kissing each other. Not my cup of Grog.
oh they're well past that now and going for lesbian prostitute sex.
Yep.
Haven't seen the dudes smooching since. Now it's the wimins rubbing donuts, or a threesome.
None of the first, and little of the latter, in the third season.
Glad they mostly got away from nub-bumpin filler and started pushing the story more.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on October 05, 2016, 09:46:30 AM
may I recommend binge watching Black Sails. O0
Just because I kind of appreciate the more horrorish vibe of undead pirates as an attempt to change things up a bit, doesn't mean I much appreciate pirates and all that they entail in real damn life. :buck2: (I'm not even very fond of the PotC glorifying pirate modes of life. That I like the films anyway as much as I do, is a testament to them getting enough around that for me to be entertained. That I like the
One Piece anime more depends largely on the heroes not really acting like pirates at all, and frequent reminders that REAL PIRATES ARE FREAKING MONSTERS! -- which the hero, being functionally retarded, can't understand, he thinks piracy is about friendship and following your dreams. :2funny:)
Undead pirate thread: ARRIISSEEE!
Some time ago there was a Jack Sparrow origin game, which was loosely regarded as canon; we're apparently going to get the cinematic canon origin now. In flashbacks.
The final adventure! -- ...begins?
So... the start of a new trilogy? I knew the producers were angling for one, and I can sure understand #4 not really starting it.
While this is a much more informative and generally better trailer than what has come before, I'm still pretty meh about it. For one thing, the main villain is a pirate hunter who is still trying to be a pirate hunter except an eeeeeeeviilllll pirate hunter. Which seems like the series glorifying piracy again. ::)
Woo-Hoo! Un-Dead sharks! Dats wat I be taukin' 'bout Willis. :arr:
I like Javier Bardem enough that I might watch this one.
He's clearly swinging for the fence parking lot.
UNDEAD PIRATE THREAD ARISE!
When I saw the first longer non-teaser trailer for PotC5 a few weeks ago, I thought, "Man, the writers are trying maybe a little too hard to get back to the Will/Elizabeth couple dynamic, perhaps..." Then I thought. "Huh, I wonder how much time is supposed to have passed; the boy supposedly knows Jack Sparrow, and the Spaniard thinks he's the key to getting in touch. Is this supposed to be the Turners' son?!"
Now some sharp-eyed viewers have spotted a few frames of Will Turner (as captain of the Dutchman) in the trailers.
Quote from: JasonPratt on March 31, 2017, 08:21:24 PM
When I saw the first longer non-teaser trailer for PotC5 a few weeks ago, I thought, "Man, the writers are trying maybe a little too hard to get back to the Will/Elizabeth couple dynamic, perhaps..." Then I thought. "Huh, I wonder how much time is supposed to have passed; the boy supposedly knows Jack Sparrow, and the Spaniard thinks he's the key to getting in touch. Is this supposed to be the Turners' son?!"
Now some sharp-eyed viewers have spotted a few frames of Will Turner (as captain of the Dutchman) in the trailers.
we already know the boy makes it to at least 10, since that's the scene at the end of the 3rd movie
True, but my impression was that PotC4 hadn't gotten nearly that far caught up to the post-credit scene of 3.
Quote from: JasonPratt on March 31, 2017, 08:21:24 PM
Now some sharp-eyed viewers have spotted a few frames of Will Turner (as captain of the Dutchman) in the trailers.
And I now see that IMDB has Orlando Bloom officially listed as part of the cast for the last Pirates film as well. Interesting...
I don't think this is intended to be the last one. This is the beginning of the end; I think they're intending a new trilogy, for (as it happens) two trilogies and a not-really-important connecting film in the middle. (It was okay, though; I liked it, arguably better than 2 and 3, which were noisy, draggy, tone-deaf plot shuffles, albeit occasionally entertaining ones.)
What has you thinking/saying this is the only the first film in a new trilogy? (No offense, but I really hope your wrong. Entertaining as the franchise has been, it's past time to put it away.)
(1) I heard buzz about a new trilogy back before #4, with the idea being that if 4 did well enough they'd make a second trilogy. But if the property seemed played out with audiences, then they only risked one film which they could probably recoup internationally and on video.
(2) One of the trailers says "the end begins" or something like that. If this was the very start of a series it might be a portent of doom in-story. This far into a series, it's typically a calculated promotional tease to play with fan emotions: WAIT THIS IS THE LAST ONE?! OH GOOD IT ISN'T. WAIT THE LAST ONE IS COMING!
This fits buzz I heard back before #4, and film companies are historically more likely to plan a trilogy (for an original work not an adaptation) than a duology or quartology or whatever. (Edited to clarify: I haven't heard trilogy buzz yet since the new film started marketing, however.)
Thus I infer that plans for a final trilogy are in motion.
Added to this, Johnny Depp hasn't succeeded in migrating well to other franchises and he's getting old for giant moneymakers like this. He'd be strategically wise to plan a cash out while he still can.
ScreenRant interviews the young man in the trailer, very much confirming this is Will Turner's son. (Though nothing is said about Elizabeth which seems odd.)
http://screenrant.com/pirates-caribbean-5-henry-turner-will-son/
It hasn't come across in trailers yet, but the overarching plot (CLEARLY AIMING FOR MORE THAN ONE MOVIE!) is Henry Turner trying to save his father from being Captain of the Flying Dutchman, first by finding the trident of Poseidon. (Why that would make any difference... who knows? Maybe it dissolves into a tower of crabs.)
International trailers are confirming that Elizabeth will be in the film as well.
Just got finished doing a retrospective rewatch of 2, 3, and 4. I was rather meh about 2 and 3 when I first saw them in theaters (unlike 1 which I adored from the first); but I appreciate them a little more on each rewatch at home. I think I notice new details on each watch.
#4 (released 6 years ago!), I liked immediately a lot more than 2 and 3, and that opinion hasn't faded -- I still like it second best of the series, although its silly 3D in-your-face bits don't age well. I hadn't recalled that the film ends with a rather strong bit of plotting that in one case clearly carried over into the new film(s): Jack and Gibbs are still searching for a way to free the Black Pearl, trapped in a bottle by Blackbeard. Far more subtly, Barbossa ends the movie in command of the Queen Anne's Revenge (and crew, sans zombie officers) and rather more importantly wielding the very powerful Sword of Triton, a magical artifact that allows him to control any nearby ship (especially his own) telekinetically. Hopefully this won't be just waved off between films. (I'd like to see Penelope Cruz and her character back again, too, but I guess she isn't strictly necessary. She was just fun. :smitten: )
So far 2/3 and 4 separately, have tried to do different things (more and less ambitiously) with undead pirates. I have trouble believing the new film(s) aren't going to that well too often now. I do however suspect that the current plan is to set up a final duology, using #4 as the jumping off point (creating a de facto trilogy like with 2 and 3), with an option to expand into a final 7th film if reception of this one merits it.
For anyone who doesn't want to do a recap watch of the prior 4 films.
I heard a news blurb recently that claimed the master footage for PotC5 is being held for ransomware.
Yeah, I read that as well. I thought it was a joke at first, and the ransom demand was going to be a chest of dubloons and a fast sloop.
Early reviews are coming in; here's Mr. Sunday Movies who is, as always, quite a hoot. His opinion of "Dead Men Can't Jump"?
Eh, better than 2 or 3, but not as funny (?!), more of the same, surprisingly glad to be back in this story's universe. Could be a lot worse, some great things in it but those are also more of the same. People who are fans of the characters may like it better.
Less positive review from the gal at Beyond the Trailer
And she went in ready to love it.
Ouch.
QuoteThis review will be short and dismissive. The movie under consideration — "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" — is, by contrasts, long and punishing. Its pleasures are so meager, its delight in its own inventions so forced and false, that it becomes almost the perfect opposite of entertainment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/movies/pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-men-tell-no-tales-review-johnny-depp.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/movies/pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-men-tell-no-tales-review-johnny-depp.html)
Undead fragments of pirate bottles arise!
Bro and his girls got me PotC5 for my birthday this past weekend and I watched it for the first time.
Thoughts, with some spoilers for a film that has been out for a few seasons now and which there's almost no reason to bother watching really:
1.) The direction felt very weak. As did the score where it seemed obvious the original Badelt/Zimmer music cues were stitched in occasionally. The original music was so forgetful I forgot that another composer had done it.
2.) I can't testify to the theatrical experience, but on Blu the film seemed to have been shot on such ultra-high def and/or on the 48fps high speed digital (introduced with the first Hobbit film long ago), that practically every scene looked like an unusually high budgeted television show. This was not to the advantage of the experience.
3.) This crop of undead pirates (or non-pirate but very piratey pirate hunters) didn't stand out very distinctively, except for their fragmented look which was played with a lot. Arguably the best part of the film, but that's not saying much.
4.) I was worried when the trailer editors thought Bardem's line of "People? no no no, Pirates!" was supposed to be so good as worthy to be put in the trailer. Because it wasn't. At all. My worries came to fruition: most of his lines are a garbled mess, except when he's telling his flashback story. (He does look cool in the ghostly holographic-caught-in-the-moment-of-destruction fashion of his crew.)
5.) For the first time in the series, islands just pop up nearby when clearly they haven't been, as convenient to the plot. The Devil's Triangle arch (which on maps looks nothing like the same thing) might be kind of explicable that way, except no one on the ships reacts like it's weird that this thing just popped up out of nowhere. And other, normal islands do it, too.
6.) Item #5 might be an example of bad macro-blocking design for scenes in general. A house being dragged through town might disappear as it turns a corner (turns a corner??) and then reappear half a minute later in more or less the same place. When plot convenient.
7.) While I'm complaining about the Devil's Triangle, its functioning is kind of pointless and unexplained. For this series, that's lazy as hell.
8.) Relatedly, random bald hot bad teeth witch who exists solely for plot convenience and maybe a bit of visual flair. She VERY LITERALLY pulls a key item, previously given away in order to trigger a plot ability that has never been spoken of before (and which technically might have counted as already triggered a few times previously in other films), out of plot-nowhere with the toss-off explanation that she has her ways. This was around the point I totally lost patience with the film. I think somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 through it.
9.) While I'm complaining about the dumbass islands, let me give an appreciation to the gemstone island that mirrors a star field toward the end of the film. That looked awesome. :clap:
10.) The parting of the sea to get to the Trident of Doom or whatever, not so much. I assume the Trident of Neptune or Poseidon or PlotGuffin is why the film might be considered a finale to the series, since it breaks all curses at sea, meaning no more undead pirates or things like that, the end. Except that Davy Jones appears to be back in the post-credit stinger. This movie doesn't give a flying crap about its own story mechanics.
11.) Relatedly, for literally no explained reason, Will Turner (no dad around) has been cursed with the Dutchman disease. In the previous films this was explained as a definite result of Jones' broken heart after being jilted by a (the?) sea goddess. No explanation here, it's simply a plot motivation. (He also doesn't appear to be doing his job, just sitting on the bottom of the sea in a wreck of the Dutchman.)
12.) Remember how Barbossa got the magical sword of Blackbeard at the end of the prior film? He does almost nothing with it here, including when he might have used its magic powers to defend himself. I say "almost nothing" because he does use it for one purpose that he could have done (and would have been motivated to do) in the seven story-years since Potc4, namely freeing the Black Pearl from its cursed bottle state.
13.) Jack carries the cursed bottle with him in his jacket where it could and should have been easily destroyed, but isn't.
14.) We meet Jack's heretofore unknown uncle, for a 30 second non-cameo that comes from the nowhere and goes to the nothing. A few cheap jokes are involved, which the film itself pokes fun at for being so weak. What in the actual hell, movie?
15.) The new young couple are necessarily more interesting than the missionary and the mermaid from Potc4, simply because they're doing more in the plot (although the prior couple were more thematically interesting). But they made such little impression I don't recall their names. Both are related to characters from the films, although science-girl's relation to the plot is necessarily treated as perfunctory on her side. (She's Barbossa's daughter, and he has a small character arc about this. Good for him? -- and then he dies. Also another way this could be considered "the adventure ends".)
16.) There's a tiresome running joke where she's considered a witch, often for no good reason even by the standards of the supposed plot-setting other than the modern snide assumption that anyone and everyone "back then" would have considered a woman who knows science to be a witch. Considering that there are actual witches in the series (including one in this film, rather surprisingly), maybe this is understandable; but considering that they look and act so greatly different from Ms. Smyth, you might think people would get a clue anyway. It's a plot point dropped in for lazy jokes and lazy plot tension, and then stomped repeatedly into the ground.
Any or all of this might be forgiveable if the plot and Jack Sparrow were up to par.
17.) The prior films had some overly convenient and dumb plot holes sometimes, but they were at least seriously trying to be witty and often succeeded. This film's plot fails so hard to be witty that I can't even tell that the writers (and anyone else involved in the story) were trying.
18.) This becomes particularly grating when Ms. Smyth's scientific knowledge ends up having next to no real impact on resolving the plot. Literally anyone at the right time with the right pieces could have gotten the key clues, which weren't hard to understand; and the film itself goes out of the way to remember that any ocean navigator would know enough about stars to navigate the ocean (although then to make her look more necessary the film pretends that captains and navigators were doing this by a sort of brute instinct. To hell with you, movie.)
19.) But by far the worst transgressor of this film's anti-wittiness is Jack Sparrow. It isn't only that the humor constantly misfires (with so few successes that those felt like random accidents of low probability) -- for God's sake, the film stops for about five minutes to run a skit about Jack being shotgunned into a wedding in the middle of a whale's skeleton, that comes out of very literally nowhere and which disappears after serving no purpose to the plot other than drawing out the run-time, and this tedious time-waster is as unfunny as it is confusing for its existence (where and when it happens) at all.
But no, it isn't only that the humor surrounding him (and generally in the film) is dull and scatty. It's that the writers (one of them supposedly Ted Russo, a chief writer of all prior films) seem to actively shift gears to a new thesis that Jack survives and occasionally wins by random dumb luck and otherwise is both totally incompetent and has no real idea what he's doing. He flings pickle slices of ideas up onto the window, so to speak, to see if any stick, and if not well then dumb luck or someone else saves him. And he can hardly be bothered to be bothered about the result. Maybe this was supposed to reflect dottering old age and alcohol poisoning (and scabies) catching up with him -- it may very well reflect the real-life deterioration of Johnny Depp personally after the sort of life he has lived (he had his lines fed to him through an earpiece for this film, during shooting) -- but it isn't entertaining, and it isn't why audiences love to watch his character in these films.
20.) While I'm at it, all those "effects" he carries or hangs about his person? Which are supposed to represent events in his colorful life, and which Depp (and/or the writers) have come up with amusing half-stories for behind the scenes? Nope, all given to him at one time, back when he first became a captain, and five minutes after he also gets the magical compass. When the new explanation is more boring than the prior explanation, and doesn't even arrive with a necessary tradeoff in explaining or advancing the current plot, then you have failed this series, movie.
(https://38.media.tumblr.com/d582f71583afe15b55876024a766fd4a/tumblr_n3d6ohC9DH1qkuz88o1_400.gif)
Much to my unexpected surprise, Lindsey Ellis dropped a video essay about Potc1 (mostly) today. Yo ho ho! :smitten:
You have not failed this series, Nostagia Chick.
Appropos of nothing, I was randomly considering tonight that Disney ought to cleanse their palette of the burning crash of the PotC franchise by working on adapting Russel Thorndyke's Doctor Syn / Scarecrow novels. I mean again: Disney made a good stab at adapting one of them earlier innn... 1964, I think? Starring none other than the DangerMan / Prisoner Himself, Patrick MacGoohan. :coolsmiley:
In 1963, Hammer Films (under their Hammer Horror line) adapted, in a coterminous production with Disney (filming overlapped but different projects) the first book of the series, which chronologically is also the dead last story, as Captain Clegg (another alias for Dr. Syn), released in the US with the somewhat misleading title of Night Creatures, and starring Peter Cushing in the title role.
The same first/final novel also served as the basis for George Arliss' final film (also in the title role) back in 1937, iirc (I don't have it at hand atm), at a time when Thorndyke was smack in the middle of writing what eventually became the whole cycle. (First novel published in 1915, but he wrote them until 1944. First sequel, actually the earliest prequel, was 1935, twenty years later! Gives hope to some of us authors. ;) )
Theoretically, Disney wouldn't even have to finish out with the death of the main character: that story is set near the start of Britain's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, and he could just go back to being a notorious-but-secretly-kind-hearted pirate in protection of his beloved home (though not necessarily the crown) against the French, having faked his death once again.
For those who don't know or remember, the main character, Christopher Syn, is a talented theological scholar from the mid 1700s, whose wife thinks he isn't exciting enough so she has an affair with a sea rogue who absconds with her to the waters of the New World. When Syn finds out, he resigns his studies and promptly starts a campaign to accrue several dozen Levels In Badass by hunting for the pirate to rescue his wife (and, unbeknownst to him, his son whom she had just conceived before the affair). In a strategy that would later inspire the author of the Green Hornet, he decides best way to find the pirate is to become a pirate, and so he and his trusted (and far more ruthless) sidekick pretend he's a murdering super-criminal named Captain Clegg in order to keep the truly villainous crews in line whom they have to work with.
While he does find his wife twenty-ish years later, and manages to sort of rescue her and get vengeance on his foe, he fails to save her life and learns his son has been lost in the meantime as well. Wiping out the pirate fleet in a roaring rampage of genius revenge, he turns his back on the whole sordid business and comes home -- but on the way to find an old seminary friend in southern England, his ships wrecks on the Romney coast in a storm. Most of his crew is lost and he's presumed dead, but a noble vicar from Romney Marsh actually dies diving into the stormy water to save as many of the crew as he can.
Inspired by this feat to remember his old days and dreams, Doctor Syn petitions his friend for the now-vacant job, and becomes the new vicar of Romney Marsh.
Unfortunately, the whole area is infested with more-or-less cutthroat smugglers, in bed with pirates; and his sidekick gets deeply involved with the gangs. Moreover, Syn comes to realize that most of these folks are simply trying to feed their families against the harsh royal taxes (this now being the reign of King George III and approaching the Revolutionary War in America.)
In order to help his flock, and also to regulate the smuggling activity on the coast, Syn and his sidekick create the persona of the mysterious Scarecrow, who with Syn's daring and genius progressively wipes out and assumes control of the smuggling gangs. (Parts of this story may have also inspired the recent series Breaking Bad, come to think of it.) Only a few gang members know the Scarecrow's true identity, and that he's really a nice guy at heart, who is mostly (but not entirely) bluffing the smuggling crew to keep the shadier characters in line.
This is where the original 60s TV miniseries (later edited to a film) comes in, as the Scarecrow in one of the middle books helps incipient rebels trying to start the American Revolution.
So he's a darker Robin Hood character, operating much along the line of the later Green Hornet: pretending to be the scariest of villains but actually trying to do good.
I'm honestly amazed Disney hasn't revisited this yet. I know they haven't forgotten the character, exactly, because one of the Captain Sparrow comic books featured a crossover story with him, and they've somewhat recently adapted the MacG era film into a graphic novel miniseries. (They also released the miniseries and film compilation in a collectors' tin several years ago; I naturally own it. ;) )