This is too surreal! I had this dream that we were having the same argument surrounded by little plastic women just a few nights ago.
I don’t think POTC4 can be good because they already wrapped up the story in POTC3. I see a lot of hate for the last two movies, but it seems to just boil down to them not recycling the first movie, and not a lot about them on their own merits. The only thing I didn’t like was that they dragged out the Davy Jones plotline through both movies. I would have preferred he was defeated at the end of 2, Jack was still killed, and 3 combined the search for Jack with the rise of some new kind of supernatural pirate menace.
My disdain for the two movies comes primarily from the ridiculously overcomplicated plot, which mostly served to make the second movie a trailer for the third one, the ever-expanding supernatural elements that mishmashed some Norse mythology, traditional sea lore, a lot of crap they just made up on the spot, the 50 Foot Woman, and Dr. Zoidberg, and perhaps most absurd of all, the whole pirate United Nations thing.
No, I take it back - I can’t single out any of these elements for being more ridiculous than the others. For some reason, all that crap did feel much less realistic than a simple ghost story about cursed Aztec gold. It’s just one of those things. A ghost story, I guess I can buy. Once you start mixing in gods and goddesses as if piracy was a religion of its own, that seems significantly more ludicrous.
Such as the need for an epic quest to bring Jack back to life after Tia Bella showed she could bring Barbossa back to life with ease. Such characters going back and forth between acting like restoring Jack was so important they were willing to sacrifice their own lives for it and acting like they planned on killing Jack themselves. Such as the needless cycle of betrayals between Jack, Elizabeth, and Will that served no purpose except to give the actors a chance to act out a betrayal scene because twenty minutes later everyone would have forgiven and forgotten the betrayal. Such as the script’s inability to figure out if Davy Jones wanted to live or die, if he wanted to kill Calypso or not, and if he wanted to be human again or not. Such as the fact that Norrington appeared to serve no purpose in the movie except he had been in the first one so they had to bring him back for the next two but couldn’t figure out what to do with him. Such as why Sao Fang decided to hand over all of his power to Elizabeth and why anyone went along with it. Such as the whole idea about the nine pirate council and what their purpose was when they apparently never did anything. Such as why Barbossa was Jack’s second-in-command when they supposeldy are both Pirate Lords.
I’m not saying there weren’t occasional attempts to explain some of these gaping plot holes. But the explanations were the equivalent of saying “a wizard did it” - the explanations made no more sense than the original plot holes did. The writers would invent whatever character motivations and obstacles they needed to justify what was about to happen on screen, they’d shoot the scene, and then they’d abandon the motivations and obstacles they had just invented so they could invent a new set that would fit the next scene. (This was literally true; the script writers were brought in at the last minute and given a list of scenes that the director wanted in the movie and told to write a story that would include all thse scenes.)
Well I don’t remember every detail, but I’ll respond to some of your complaints:
This was specifically addressed as being related to Jack’s debt to Davy.
It seems he was acting out of rage at having been spurned, and if he couldn’t make her love him again then he would destroy her, and abuse his powers as ferryman.
Heh. I was actually torn on this. On the one hand, I didn’t think he was the most interesting character in the first movie and didn’t see why they wanted to bring him back. On the other hand, they did expand his character a lot compared to the first movie, and he was much better served - in the first he was a caricature, in the last two he has an arc, and growth. Also, I was similarly surprised at how they felt the need to include every other minor character from the first movie, for better or for worse.
He was tricked into thinking Elizabeth was Calypso.
I was under the impression that they had come together specifically for the purpose of capturing Calypso and taming the seas - each represented one of the seas. Each carried a piece of eight as a symbol of their position and also as a part of the spell keeping Calypso bound. The pieces could be inherited or stolen. Jack got his before he had the Black Pearl, and Barbossa got his sometime after he mutinied and took over the Black Pearl, presumably by using his immortality as an advantage in stealing in from one of the other Pirate Lords.
Not saying the movies were perfect, I have my own issues with them, but for the most part I enjoyed them, and found them to be ambitious and mostly successful. I was especially impressed with the resolution, which was not overly disnified.
I do agree that they were different in tone from the first one, although I can’t pinpoint exactly why, and for me it was more than the additional supernatural elements. This didn’t bother me, I enjoyed them on their own merits, but there was some feeling of them being not exactly in the same spirit as the first one.
As previously mentioned, I would have preferred they wrapped up most of the Davy plotline in the second, and introduce some new form of supernatural pirate crew in the third. I thought skeleton pirates followed by sea creature pirates was a cool idea, and would have liked to have seen what else they could come up with.
I didn’t really get the whole “ten years at sea, one day on land” thing. I was under the impression that this was a never ending cycle - after the ten years, you get one day, and then you start another ten years. And nothing in the movies really contradicted this. But I’ve read that the writers intended it to be on day on land, ten years at sea, and then free. Which would be a happier ending for Will and Liz, but screws up the whole Davy plotline - he worked the first ten years as per his contract, so he should have been free at the end of it. He only started abusing his powers after Calypso spurned him at the end of his first ten years. Did he choose to stay on to spite her, shirking his duties in the process?
Also, the thing with the heart - it seemed to be indicated that Davy put his heart in the chest because of his failed love affair (and also to be immortal). Killing him was all that should have been needed for Will to take over as ferry man. Will had no need to cut out his own heart, unless it was merely to be invulnerable.
Also, if Will is free after ten years without someone killing him - how will the mantle of ferry man continue? Who will take over and by what method?
And another thing - what was up with the kraken? I thought that was the main reason the EITC went after Davy Jones. Granted, with the Kraken out of the way Davy wasn’t much of a threat to them anymore, but at first they are using the Kraken to bolster their own power. Then for some reason in the third movie the Kraken has been killed. So then when Will gains control of the Flying Dutchman, it ends the conflict between EITC and the pirates - why? Granted the Flying Dutchman is still fairly badass, but without the Kraken, it doesn’t seem like much of a threat against the vast armada facing the pirates.
Looking back at the ferryman deal, I guess the reason Davy wasn’t free was because Calypso didn’t love him. Jack is freed because after the ten years, Liz is still faithful and that breaks his contract. But it still doesn’t explain who will continue on as ferryman.
The whole ‘ten years at sea, one day on land’ thing only gets you off free if your SO is completely faithful. Elizabeth was, and so Will gets to come home; Calypso wasn’t, and so Davy Jones was cursed to go through the cycle over and over again.
(Or not, and both of them are screwed. The producers can’t seem to keep this straight anywhere.)
Well, he was already nine-tenths dead by that point, so his own heart wasn’t doing him any favours, and I think it’s part of the legend–you have to cut out your own heart in order to captain the ferry. I could be wrong.
Maybe the first mate steps up. Or the curse of the Flying Dutchman is finally and forever broken.
Didn’t the crew cut out Will’s heart? I seem to recall that he didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. I think in a previous PotC thread it was decided that the crew thought it was part of the legend and so took it upon themselves to ‘fix’ Will.
These are examples of “a wizard did it” explanations I mentioned before. The writers realized they had a gaping plot hole they couldn’t provide any sensible explanation for, so they invented an explanation that made no sense.
When there’s a major revelation in the story, the viewer’s response should be “ahhh…that explains what happened” not “where the hell did that come from?”
