My 3 Cents on AWE
FireMan and I had a nice date, waited at theater for an hour and a half to get an aisle seat ( pregnant women pee a LOT, fyi), and finally got to see the movie. Couldnt post this last night cus I was just too, too exhausted.
Sigh. Here goes.
Did anyone feel like they were in a David Lynch movie for a couple of scenes in there? (headscratch)
What I liked:
-How Murtogg and Mulroy joined the Pearl. Too cute.
-Visual effects, Elizabeth's costumes, aerial shots
-all the shirtless Jacks in the Locker ( skinny!yum)
-The whole Brethren Court scene ( esp. the line, Liz:" Its madness!" Jack: "Its politics!")
-the lovely scene with all the pirates sailing into battle, with all the flags unfurling
-Jack the Monkey and Cotton's parrot doing all kinds of piratey things. Teh cute.
Now, on to the snark.
What i REALLY hated overall was the complete lack of character substance. Liz was emotionally devoid of anything, like a plastic action figure of herself. Jack was funny, but that was it. The ingenious characterization Johnny Depp showed in the last 2 movies( good man/ bad pirate, cares for nothing but himself/ loves Elizabeth) was gone. That brief little second when Liz was saying goodbye to him was the only brief glimpse of human emotion in his face the whole movie. Will was just a nasty little shit, in my eyes, and I actually smiled when he got stabbed ( and I like Will!). If i had not read the spoilers, I would have thought, Yay! Now Liz and Jack can have a good conversation, get some of that lovely unresolved sexual tension back, and go do piratey things together. But since I knew better, I knew that wasnt the way it would end.
Jack was reduced to nothing but comic relief, with nothing of the substance he showed during DMC or even during CotBP. He was a shell, prancing around for S&G. Hot, but a shell nonetheless. VERY disappointing.
Plot was so convoluted that even I was scratching my head halfway in, and I can usually follow pretty much anything.
I thought that Norrington and Weatherby Swann's deaths were half-done, tacked on like an afterthought, with no respect to their place in the story. That really annoyed me, and though the scene with Elizabeth and her father in the Locker was good, we should have had at least a little more story and buildup before such a character was unceremoniously bumped off, no?
The Kiss was barely mentioned, and even then only as a joke. There was a good hour and a half's potential material just in dealing with that, IMHO, that they left out. Yeah, the movie was long, but if it had taken that time to deal with the fallout of the Kiss, it would have been time better spent. I have a whole alternate AWE in my head right now that I may write, just for my own closure, getting the confrontation between J and E and possibly Will regarding the Kiss and Jack's feelings for Elizabeth out in the open. MANY things remained unsaid, which could have been dealt with in a lovely and satisfying matter, but the writers chose not to even touch on it, which I think is cheap, lazy and a cop-out. There could have been a great below-decks scene with J and E, like the one with Will early on, with words and body language conveying what we already knew from DMC. Even if she DID marry Will in the end, so long as there was good writing in dealing with the UST and emotion that was obviously between them in DMC it would have had a satisfying feel. But it didn't. I felt cheated.
Ok, now the ending.
Yeah, I'm a feminist. I minored in Women's Studies. I've danced at more Ani DiFranco concerts than I can count. I've been in equality and anti-domestic violence marches in 3 cities. But I am also a stay-home mom who, at this point in my life, feels blessed to have my husband paying the bills and hauling his carcass off to work every day so I can care for my son and gestate my little one. I don't feel at all that I am diminished in the least by being a mother and staying home. After all, I have the most important job on Earth - growing a little human being into a big human being.
That said, I HATED the ending. I thought the perfect ending (if it had to be the same idea) would have been for Will to drop her off on the Asian pirate ship or the Pearl, and he go off in TFD. She'd be a pirate captain in her own right, doing what she loves, rather than being dumped on a beach to work on her tan for 10 years. In the 10 Years Later scene, their ships could be meeting, and they could reunite that way. The Kid could even be there with her on her ship. She'd in in character, be a pirate in her own right, and be the Elizabeth we all had begun to love while still having her Faithful Lovey-Dovey thing with Will. But they took the cheap, eays way out. It was almost like by the time Hour 2 rolled around, they'd already gone through the film's budget, so they had to do it on the cheap. Also explains why only 2 (two!!) of the ships ( the Pearl and TFD) were involved in the battle in the Maelstrom, while all the other Armada ships and Pirate ships just stood by twiddling their thumbs while the battle went on. A real feat of cinematography would have been to have ALL of the ships fighting on the periphery, ina massive battle, but i reckon that would have taken time and money, both of which seemed to have run out by that point in the movie. HATED how Jack went off in the dinghy and how the compass pointed to rum, which I thought was beyond cheap and stupid. He was RIGHT BACK to where he came in in CotBP, as if all 3 movies had never happened. For that matter, so was Elizabeth. Why make the movies at all, then??
Ok, I'm done. Thats what I think. Now, what to do?
I am still a Sparrabeth shipper. I dont care if the series is finished, and poorly at that. I feel a great deal of creative inspiration from these 2, and AWE isn't killing that. I will take my inspiration from CotBp and DMC, and keep writing and reading and get my satisfaction from that.
Illegitimum non carborundum - Dont let the bastards get you down.
-Laurel
Sigh. Here goes.
Did anyone feel like they were in a David Lynch movie for a couple of scenes in there? (headscratch)
What I liked:
-How Murtogg and Mulroy joined the Pearl. Too cute.
-Visual effects, Elizabeth's costumes, aerial shots
-all the shirtless Jacks in the Locker ( skinny!yum)
-The whole Brethren Court scene ( esp. the line, Liz:" Its madness!" Jack: "Its politics!")
-the lovely scene with all the pirates sailing into battle, with all the flags unfurling
-Jack the Monkey and Cotton's parrot doing all kinds of piratey things. Teh cute.
Now, on to the snark.
What i REALLY hated overall was the complete lack of character substance. Liz was emotionally devoid of anything, like a plastic action figure of herself. Jack was funny, but that was it. The ingenious characterization Johnny Depp showed in the last 2 movies( good man/ bad pirate, cares for nothing but himself/ loves Elizabeth) was gone. That brief little second when Liz was saying goodbye to him was the only brief glimpse of human emotion in his face the whole movie. Will was just a nasty little shit, in my eyes, and I actually smiled when he got stabbed ( and I like Will!). If i had not read the spoilers, I would have thought, Yay! Now Liz and Jack can have a good conversation, get some of that lovely unresolved sexual tension back, and go do piratey things together. But since I knew better, I knew that wasnt the way it would end.
Jack was reduced to nothing but comic relief, with nothing of the substance he showed during DMC or even during CotBP. He was a shell, prancing around for S&G. Hot, but a shell nonetheless. VERY disappointing.
Plot was so convoluted that even I was scratching my head halfway in, and I can usually follow pretty much anything.
I thought that Norrington and Weatherby Swann's deaths were half-done, tacked on like an afterthought, with no respect to their place in the story. That really annoyed me, and though the scene with Elizabeth and her father in the Locker was good, we should have had at least a little more story and buildup before such a character was unceremoniously bumped off, no?
The Kiss was barely mentioned, and even then only as a joke. There was a good hour and a half's potential material just in dealing with that, IMHO, that they left out. Yeah, the movie was long, but if it had taken that time to deal with the fallout of the Kiss, it would have been time better spent. I have a whole alternate AWE in my head right now that I may write, just for my own closure, getting the confrontation between J and E and possibly Will regarding the Kiss and Jack's feelings for Elizabeth out in the open. MANY things remained unsaid, which could have been dealt with in a lovely and satisfying matter, but the writers chose not to even touch on it, which I think is cheap, lazy and a cop-out. There could have been a great below-decks scene with J and E, like the one with Will early on, with words and body language conveying what we already knew from DMC. Even if she DID marry Will in the end, so long as there was good writing in dealing with the UST and emotion that was obviously between them in DMC it would have had a satisfying feel. But it didn't. I felt cheated.
Ok, now the ending.
Yeah, I'm a feminist. I minored in Women's Studies. I've danced at more Ani DiFranco concerts than I can count. I've been in equality and anti-domestic violence marches in 3 cities. But I am also a stay-home mom who, at this point in my life, feels blessed to have my husband paying the bills and hauling his carcass off to work every day so I can care for my son and gestate my little one. I don't feel at all that I am diminished in the least by being a mother and staying home. After all, I have the most important job on Earth - growing a little human being into a big human being.
That said, I HATED the ending. I thought the perfect ending (if it had to be the same idea) would have been for Will to drop her off on the Asian pirate ship or the Pearl, and he go off in TFD. She'd be a pirate captain in her own right, doing what she loves, rather than being dumped on a beach to work on her tan for 10 years. In the 10 Years Later scene, their ships could be meeting, and they could reunite that way. The Kid could even be there with her on her ship. She'd in in character, be a pirate in her own right, and be the Elizabeth we all had begun to love while still having her Faithful Lovey-Dovey thing with Will. But they took the cheap, eays way out. It was almost like by the time Hour 2 rolled around, they'd already gone through the film's budget, so they had to do it on the cheap. Also explains why only 2 (two!!) of the ships ( the Pearl and TFD) were involved in the battle in the Maelstrom, while all the other Armada ships and Pirate ships just stood by twiddling their thumbs while the battle went on. A real feat of cinematography would have been to have ALL of the ships fighting on the periphery, ina massive battle, but i reckon that would have taken time and money, both of which seemed to have run out by that point in the movie. HATED how Jack went off in the dinghy and how the compass pointed to rum, which I thought was beyond cheap and stupid. He was RIGHT BACK to where he came in in CotBP, as if all 3 movies had never happened. For that matter, so was Elizabeth. Why make the movies at all, then??
Ok, I'm done. Thats what I think. Now, what to do?
I am still a Sparrabeth shipper. I dont care if the series is finished, and poorly at that. I feel a great deal of creative inspiration from these 2, and AWE isn't killing that. I will take my inspiration from CotBp and DMC, and keep writing and reading and get my satisfaction from that.
Illegitimum non carborundum - Dont let the bastards get you down.
-Laurel