I didn’t get a chance to see this film in the theater, but I rented the DVD last week. What a great movie! Smart, funny and wonderful action sequences. I have watched it three times now and I really do love Johnny Depp’s performance.
There is however a pretty big mistake in the movie. Jack Sparrow (it is revealed at the end of the film) is undead just like the crew of the Black Pearl. The way to tell who’s “cursed” is moonlight - what seems to be a normal human being is shown to be a living skeleton in moonlight.
Now think back to the scene where we (the audience) first find this out. Its when two of the Pearls crew are looking for loot and stumble upon Captain Sparrow locked up in jail. One of them throttles Jack around the throat and his arm is revealed to be nothing but bones in the moonlight. See where I’m going with this? Jack is in the moonlight the entire scene. . . yet looks normal! Whoops! D’Oh!
How could the movie’s makers miss that?? The reason I am surprised is that, as I mentioned before, its a very smart movie. Its obvious that they went out of their way to make sure every small detail was remembered and every small plot point was in place. So how can they have missed something so obvious?
Can anyone shed any light (pun intended) on this? Am I the one missing something?
Jack wasn’t cursed until the pirates all got back to the treasure chest, whereupon he deliberatly stole a coin to becomeaccursed and thus be immortal during his fight with Barbarossa.
He then gave the coin to Orlando Bloom, who returned it to the chest, rendering all the pirates mortal, just as Sparrow ran Barbarossa through…
Near the end, where the pirates have Will, Jack shows up (again)… he delivers his line about how Will gets to die for Elizabeth “like you promised”.
Jack talks to Barbossa, reveals that the English are outside, waiting for the mortal pirates to emerge. While talking, on the line “… Ever… last… one…” Jack picks up several of the coins from the chest, for emphasis, and tosses them back in… except one. There’s a pretty clear shot of him sliding the coin into his cuff or something. I’m surprised at just how many people missed this.
Well, Keira Knightley played Queen Amidala’s stand-in, a handmaiden named Sabe, in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, so you’re not the only one who thought Keira and Natalie look similar. I heard that the girls’ own mothers saw them on the Star Wars set in the full makeup and costume, and couldn’t tell their daughters apart.
I always thought Natalie Portman was beautiful, but after Pirates and Bend It Like Beckham, I honestly think Keira just edges her out in the gorgeousness department.
Well others have explained what actually happened already, but did you watch the “stinger” at the end of the credits? The monkey was “re-cursed” when it took a coin from the chest. The curse doesn’t actually take effect until a coin is taken from the chest. Since Jack Sparrow was marooned on the rumrunners’ island when Barbossa and the Black Pearl’s crew were originally cursed, there was no way he could have been cursed sooner as he wasn’t part of the crew when the coins were taken.
MY question concerns the monkey swimming back to the cave after the credits: I was under the impression that most apes (except humans) and monkeys are unable to swim. I remember him falling overboard after sliding off the cannon when he was struck, and he was apparently rendered mortal when the other pirates were, after he was already in the water IIRC. So I’m asking, can that species of monkey swim?
You know, I’ve been wondering about something. Since the Act of Union was in 1707, why is the Union Jack flying over Port Royale (which was destroyed by an earthqake in 1692)?
PotC lost all believability for me when Jack looped his handcuff-chains around the rope in order to slide down the rope (on his way to the blacksmith’s shop to break said chains). This actually startled me when I watched the movie.
You know, NothingMan, my dad came to the same conclusion you did. He wouldn’t admit “the truth” was possible until after he’d seen it a second time and saw what I told him was true.
The cursed pirates as undead skeletal wraiths was perfectly hunky-dory, though?
Actually, (since I’m in a link to IMDB.com mood), according to the “goofs” section for the movie (here) that is commonly regarded as a goof, but isn’t:
Naw. I’ve heard people complain about this before, but looking closely at the scene, it works just fine. The chains are nice, long, and slack. He puts his chained wrists together, tosses the slack chain over the rope, grabs the middle of the doubled chain with his still-chained hands and slides down.
Actually, I was more concerned with this little mistake:
Jack fires through Barbarossa
Barbarossa says he can’t be killed, but Jack points behind him.
Orlando Bloom smiles and drops the coins into the chest.
Barbarossa become mortal with a bullet hole in him.
The problem? When the bullet passed through him (#1), Barbarossa was immortal, so he shouldn’t have been hurt. He did not become mortal again until the coins were dropped into the chest (#3). Otherwise, all the pirates would have instantly died due to wounds inflicted on them before they were mortal again.
Barbosa (not Barbarossa) couldn’t die from the wound while immortal, but he still had a hole through his chest. Self-healing for them was quick but not immediate. He became mortal with the hole still there.
PotC2 comes out in 2005, according to imdb.com, which also lists Depp, Bloom, and Knightley as already signed. Perhaps the zombie monkey’s role will become clear then.
