On Pirates 3, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Franchise

[arcticwolf489]

Warning: treacherous commentary and spoilers ho. Traverse these waters at yer own peril.

I tried to post this on May 25, but LiveJournal was being retarded and wouldn't let me. If you have my Facebook, you can see all sorts of further discussion and commentary on the matter. If you don't, you'll just have to manage somehow.

Positive aspects of Pirates 3:

1. 
   
   That was on MSN's front page today, and the rampant pirate puns and commentaries that will be all over the news and such made the movie worth it. Even though nothing ever goes within single quotes except quotes within quotes, and even so, it should've been italicized because it's a movie.
2. As Marissa pointed out, Mr. Bloom's acting has much improved in this movie. Maybe the script was just more dramatic, but he was pretty good.
3. Jack's father.
4. They simplified the Will/Elizabeth relationship.
5. Everything involving the Pieces of Eight was great.
6. I can finally get a Barbosa action figure.

Reasons that Pirates 3 disappointed me:

1. If that plot were a fanfiction, I would probably have loved it and suggested to the author that it was on par with the movie itself. As it was the movie, I am more convinced that it would have been better off as a fanfiction.
2. That's still not the way a movie ends. They had it right for Pirates 1, but they seem to have since forgotten the meaning of the word "end."
3. Everyone was still at each other's throats throughout the movie. Pirates 1 was so great because they were all working together and all of their goals were accomplished, though it went through a series of convoluted events to reach that point.
4. I noticed one (1) instance of clever language and SAT vocabulary. One. The use of words (words, WORDS) was a significant percentage of my inclination to be a Pirates fangirl. I guess fighting for your life against fish people and the East India Trading Company can set a person on edge more than fighting to the death against zombie-pirates, but at least Barbosa ought to have pulled out a few more remarkable utterances.
5. It didn't even have the ridiculously awesome imagery that only could have been pulled off in a Pirates movie that made Pirates 2 well worth it. Sure, it had some, but there was nothing on par with the water wheel. The imagery based on characters largely involved characters new to Pirates 2. There was Jack's introduction, the wedding, and the parlay on the sandbar, but none of those lasted very long or were particularly striking compared with the giant Tia Doma or What's-His-Face with chipped wood of his ship flying around him.
6. Is it just me, or has Jack's midichlorian count jumped significantly while he was dead? He couldn't have jumped onto a mast-post like that before.
7. What is the target audience of this movie? They include bawdier jokes and heavier violence (I actually had to look away in a few scenes in this movie), but the intelligence has been replaced with slapstick comic relief. The references to the previous movies feel like lame private jokes, and they only used the most commonly known lines from Pirates 1. What's-his-face still shows concern for his immortal soul, but that's all I recall.
8. Where is Annamaria?
9. Why does every single character need his own plot line based on nautical mythology? Was it really necessary to turn Tia Doma into Calypso? Well, I guess it was if they wanted a legitimate reason to bring Jack and Barbosa back from the dead, and they did manage to do that well enough, but still.
   Jack's headband thing has its own plot line, for crying out loud.
10. Pirates 1 was an awesome movie because it never took itself too seriously. Pirates 2 was less fun, but still rather light considering the subject matter. Pirates 3 had none of that whatsoever.
11. King of the Pirates? Wait. King of the Pirates?? No. Just... no.
    And it's not like she did very much with it, for all the trouble they took to put it in.
12. It was more of an action movie than a Pirates movie.

I think I have more, but that's all I have the energy to remember right now.

When all was said and done, my impression was that I was largely disappointed, but at least I was dressed like a pirate and I knew where my towel was. My own geekdom saved the movie as far as I'm concerned.

The entire movie had the feel that it was a calculated attempt to attract as many people as possible, while Pirates 1 just felt like a fun movie and Pirates 2 felt like a legitimate attempt of a sequel. I guess that's what happens when the producers figure out they're making money off of a movie. It does not make me happy, but I guess I can go with it.

It's not as though it was the worst movie ever. It's just that it's not what Pirates should be. I enjoyed it, to some extent.

Will I go see Pirates 4? I don't know. If I know people who are going, I'll tag along, I guess, but I'm just as happy to wait for the DVD. I will, however, dress like a pirate for opening day.

I think my other problem was that I ended up in the theater my friends weren't in, so I was just hanging out with my parents. Which was all right, I guess, but being with the rest of y'all would've made the experience better.

May the force be with you hoopy froods.