I just finished viewing M&C dvd from Netflix. I would like to rant that this was the 3rd “damaged” disc I’ve gotten out of 10 so far, I would often have to skip entire chapters of the movie due to it freezing. Netflix should do some sort of inventory quality control.
Anywho, I have a question, when the French ship was defeated, the “doctor” handed over the commander’s sword. Later on, there was a conversation about how the real doctor dying month’s earlier due to fever. I am not positive, but does that imply that whoever that man was posing as the doctor was actually an officer, and the British crew that took control of the vessel might be in for some danger later on? Is that why there was another change of plans, and Russell Crowe decided to follow the ship once again?
Exactly, although I think they implied that the “doctor” was in fact the French captain himself. After all, he was supposed to be as bold and resourceful as Aubrey (Crowe) himself, so the phunty surrender was just another move in the two’s complex game of chess.
I liked the ending a lot. No rest for the wicked, etc.
and it also sets up nicely for a sequel should they elect to shoot one.
I’ll second Alessan - my impression was that the Frog ‘doctor’ was actually the captain, and the reason for Aubrey turning the ship around to catch up with the prize was the assumption that Lt. Pullings and his crew were about to have serious trouble.
Great flick, superb detail, though they didn’t get Maturin quite right, if you’ve read the books. To be fair, one film doesn’t provide near enough time to develop that character. I’m hoping for a sequel.
Echoing others… the ‘doctor’ was actually the captain, who was preparing a mutiny on the Acheron once most of the British sailors left and there was simply a small British contingent of officers on board.
I think we’re definitely meant to infer that the “doctor” was actually the captain of the Acheron. If I remember correctly, as soon as he hears about the real doctor’s death, Capt. Aubrey (Russel Crowe’s character) says something like, “The doctor gave me the captain’s sword!”
Meaning that the wily captain had managed to properly offer surrender to a worthy opponent even while bluffing his way out of trouble.
Unless there is something in the actual books that refutes this, I assumed Aubrey turned the ship around just to be able to catch the French captain, not because he was particularly worried that the one guy could capture the other ship (they didn’t have James Bond novels in those days, where a single man could defeat entire enemy strongholds singlehandedly).
There were no telephones, etc., and no way to communicate with the other ship. If the other ship had gotten to any port, the French captain would have slipped away and escaped. Once free, he could do tremendous damage to the British by commanding another ship once he returned to France. Catching up to the ship before it reached land was the only way to prevent this.
Well, we aren’t talking about a single man taking over an enemy stronghold either. The entire (surviving) crew of the Acheron was still on the Acheron and they were the ones actually operating the ship. The British had probably only sent over a handful of officers to run things and keep order. Since they thought he was the doctor, the officers would probably let the captain wander freely and it would be a simple matter for him to organize an attempt to retake the ship.
I don’t believe anything like what happened in the end of the movie was in any of the books (having read the entire series), but I may be wrong - I started reading the series six years ago and may have forgotten some details.
The movie, btw, draws its title from two different Aubrey/Maturin books, with Master and Commander being the first of the series and Far Side of the World somewhere towards the back-end. The movie script draws on scenes from a few different A/M books but is not found in any single novel. For instance, ‘The Far Side of the World’ sees Aubrey take the ship around the Horn after an American privateer, not a Frenchie. And if I remember correctly, Maturin’s self-operation came about after fighting a duel, not following an accidental shooting. None of this takes away from the film, imho.