Somewhat belated thoughts on POTC: AWE, since the film has only been out for like, eighteen months
First of all, thank youceitfianna for the card and cookies! I was very happy when I saw that package on my porch today. =D And the cookies are delicious!
Instead of doing necessary and useful things, like, say, job and apartment searching, I spent some of today rewatching parts of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which is now available on my On Demand (after I bought the DVD, natch). I've come to the sad conclusion that, as a whole, I dislike this film. When it first came out, I was so blinded with Barbossa-lust that I was more than willing to overlook the things that bothered me; now I watch it and cringe more often than not. There are some really lovely moments, but overall the plot is messy and too crammed with ZOMG SPECIAL EFFECTS and just... too much of a good thing, really. What I loved about The Curse of the Black Pearl (other than, you know, the utterly fantastic badassness of Barbossa) was that the supernatural elements, while an obvious focal point, did not overwhelm the plot, or the nitty-grittyness (if that's the right word!) of life at sea. There was a nice balance between the just-plain-gross and the gross-enough-to-be-silly, whereas everything in AWE is just plain silly. If that makes sense.
I also feel like the film's creators took some of the most unique traits of the central characters -- the little (or not so little) personality quirks and habits of Jack, Barbossa and others -- that worked so well in the first film, and BEAT THEM TO DEATH WITH A BLUNT OBJECT. Jack's eccentricities were particularly abused, I thought (and that goes for Dead Man's Chest as well). And they tried so hard to wrap up the main characters' stories that others, like Norrington's, suffered beyond repair. I can't watch his last scene without wanting to chuck something at the TV. And Elizabeth? She kind of annoys the beejesus out of me in this movie. She's a character that I want to like, but as the darling does-it-all Pirate King of the trilogy... yeah, she annoys me. (Though I really did like her in CotBP, where she has mostly just her wits and a healthy dose of moxie to outfox Barbossa and crew.)
Speaking of my beloved Barbossa -- is it just me, or was his accent all over the place in AWE? Generally I think his scenes contain the aforementioned lovely moments, with a few notable exceptions in my mind, but his accent distracts me in several places. I'm especially thinking of the scene where he and Jack are standing by the slain kraken. Barbossa sounds so Geoffrey there, he's almost out of character to me. I adore Geoffrey, of course, but I'm not sure what was going on there.
One last gripe. The Tia Dalma-Calypso/Davy Jones storyline has so much potential for awesomeness, yet it feels so muddled. Assuming I understand this correctly, Davy Jones betrayed Calypso by telling the Brethren Court how to imprison her in human form -- yet Calypso never realized that Jones was the source of this betrayal, until Will tells her just after her release in AWE. Does that not make sense to anyone else? I mean, wouldn't the method of trapping Calypso be a relatively secret thing, known only to those closest to her? And didn't she know that Jones was a little irked with her after she failed to show up for their once-in-ten-years rendezvous? (I know the reason she didn't show up -- changeable as the sea and all that -- but her being a goddess, and Jones an undead squid-man apparently capable of zipping across the ocean at will, I find it hard to swallow that they had absolutely no contact prior to Davy's deal with the Brethren Court.)
Anyway. So, yeah, I'll just be over here lovingly stroking my CotBP DVD. Because the first film will always be the true gem, IMHO.
...rather randomly. I'd like to read Calypso/Odysseus fic. Is that wrong? I'm not even sure if the Calypso created by the POTC folks is supposed to be the same Calypso from Greek myth, but while watching Tia Dalma scenes today, I couldn't stop thinking how hard it'd rock if Odysseus showed up.
Instead of doing necessary and useful things, like, say, job and apartment searching, I spent some of today rewatching parts of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which is now available on my On Demand (after I bought the DVD, natch). I've come to the sad conclusion that, as a whole, I dislike this film. When it first came out, I was so blinded with Barbossa-lust that I was more than willing to overlook the things that bothered me; now I watch it and cringe more often than not. There are some really lovely moments, but overall the plot is messy and too crammed with ZOMG SPECIAL EFFECTS and just... too much of a good thing, really. What I loved about The Curse of the Black Pearl (other than, you know, the utterly fantastic badassness of Barbossa) was that the supernatural elements, while an obvious focal point, did not overwhelm the plot, or the nitty-grittyness (if that's the right word!) of life at sea. There was a nice balance between the just-plain-gross and the gross-enough-to-be-silly, whereas everything in AWE is just plain silly. If that makes sense.
I also feel like the film's creators took some of the most unique traits of the central characters -- the little (or not so little) personality quirks and habits of Jack, Barbossa and others -- that worked so well in the first film, and BEAT THEM TO DEATH WITH A BLUNT OBJECT. Jack's eccentricities were particularly abused, I thought (and that goes for Dead Man's Chest as well). And they tried so hard to wrap up the main characters' stories that others, like Norrington's, suffered beyond repair. I can't watch his last scene without wanting to chuck something at the TV. And Elizabeth? She kind of annoys the beejesus out of me in this movie. She's a character that I want to like, but as the darling does-it-all Pirate King of the trilogy... yeah, she annoys me. (Though I really did like her in CotBP, where she has mostly just her wits and a healthy dose of moxie to outfox Barbossa and crew.)
Speaking of my beloved Barbossa -- is it just me, or was his accent all over the place in AWE? Generally I think his scenes contain the aforementioned lovely moments, with a few notable exceptions in my mind, but his accent distracts me in several places. I'm especially thinking of the scene where he and Jack are standing by the slain kraken. Barbossa sounds so Geoffrey there, he's almost out of character to me. I adore Geoffrey, of course, but I'm not sure what was going on there.
One last gripe. The Tia Dalma-Calypso/Davy Jones storyline has so much potential for awesomeness, yet it feels so muddled. Assuming I understand this correctly, Davy Jones betrayed Calypso by telling the Brethren Court how to imprison her in human form -- yet Calypso never realized that Jones was the source of this betrayal, until Will tells her just after her release in AWE. Does that not make sense to anyone else? I mean, wouldn't the method of trapping Calypso be a relatively secret thing, known only to those closest to her? And didn't she know that Jones was a little irked with her after she failed to show up for their once-in-ten-years rendezvous? (I know the reason she didn't show up -- changeable as the sea and all that -- but her being a goddess, and Jones an undead squid-man apparently capable of zipping across the ocean at will, I find it hard to swallow that they had absolutely no contact prior to Davy's deal with the Brethren Court.)
Anyway. So, yeah, I'll just be over here lovingly stroking my CotBP DVD. Because the first film will always be the true gem, IMHO.
...rather randomly. I'd like to read Calypso/Odysseus fic. Is that wrong? I'm not even sure if the Calypso created by the POTC folks is supposed to be the same Calypso from Greek myth, but while watching Tia Dalma scenes today, I couldn't stop thinking how hard it'd rock if Odysseus showed up.