Questions about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Cafe Society
141

Of all the many things I disliked about this movie, this was probably the one that bothered me the most. Of the two I can understand Barbossa being a pirate lord more than Sparrow as the latter’s a boob- he hadn’t even had a ship for many years. I can only assume he got his from his dad (or stepdad or whatever Keith Richards was supposed to be- I’m going with stepdad as I understand the Young Jack Sparrow books give him different parentage).

Plus he and Sparrow have both died. Wouldn’t that negate their lordship automatically? Piracy is a pretty high-risk occupation, plus if a pirate ship goes down then chances are his second goes down as well, so you’d think there’d be some sort of automatic succession.

I generally disliked 80% of this movie and don’t understand its high ratings (7.5 last time I checked) on imdb. It was a huge mess that asked a lot more questions than it answered.

  1. Why didn’t the Pirate Lords force Calypso to promise to aid them and not take revenge as a part of her release? This would seem a pretty obvious thing to me.

  2. The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman blast the hell out of Beckett’s flagship, ending the battle. Uh, dudes— Beckett’s gotta have a second in command out there, and there’s DOZENS if not HUNDREDS of warships still there.

  3. How did Calypso raise Barbossa from the dead? For that matter why did she, because presumably she knew the eye was his piece of Eight.

  4. If this was the first meeting of the pirate lords in anyone’s lifetime, then how did so many of the pieces of 8 happen to have personal significance to the holder (the Japanese woman’s eyeglasses, the eye, etc.) as you’d think whatever the original pirate lords had used would have been their property.

  5. Is will released after 10 years or not? Why didn’t his dad or another member of the crew stab the heart (Bootstrap already signed on for eternity, might as well be captain as opposed to just crew).

  6. Jones didn’t seem very concerned about killing British troops did he? You’d think he’d fear reprisal from Beckett for that.

  7. I don’t think the standing in water thing would really let him be on land- I call foul. Now standing in the tide, maybe.

  8. Beckett obviously killed Swann, but did you understand how or when? It at first implied Swann had stabbed the heart (Swann’s words), but obviously not.

  9. I’ve never been in the military, but I would think that if a commander freezes then his highest subordinate would come to the fro immediately, just as if the commander was killed.

  10. Wouldn’t Dutchman and Pearl blast hell out of each other in that driveby? There’s no way of controlling how far the cannonball’s going to go after all.

Jack being rescued from the dead had to have some consequences- plus why couldn’t they rescue Swann since they had rescued Jack anyway? And as with the center of the Galaxy in STAR TREK V, the journey to the other side was time consuming but not as horrendous as you’d think. (Other than seeing his doppelgangers, did death affect Jack much? And is he now less vulnerable to pain?)
Anyway, I thought it was a monumental mess and a way to go “Look what we can do!” with special effects at the expense of plot. It’s a do-over- this can’t have been what they were going for. I’d give it a D+.

142

My theory on why Barbossa and Jack are both pirate lords: I’m thinking Jack negotiated for it somehow as part of his whole deal with Davy Jones 13 years ago. As to why Barbossa would be the first mate of another pirate lord, I was under the impression that before the mutiny, they were friends, but Barbossa scrapped that friendship when he betrayed Jack as he perceived him (a bit rightfully so) to be a rubbish pirate.

I wouldn’t trust a single promise made by anyone in these movies, would you? Also, I thought she kinda did as part of her deal with Barbossa (see below).

Yeah, it is kinda silly that the five BILLION other ships out there just give up. Mr. Bunny and I call these “Indiana Jones moments”.

I don’t know the exact mechanics of how she did it, but dude, she’s Calypso! She probably just waved her hands around and said “Make it so” or something. And she did it because he agreed to release her from her human form.

I didn’t get this. Did we actually see Mrs. Ching wearing the glasses? And about the eye, we don’t know how Ragetti lost his…perhaps Barbossa plucked it out just to make him a handy receptacle for that particular piece of 8?

No. There was supposed to be such a scene that suggested so, but it was cut, so it is not canon. And Bootstrap as well as the rest of the crew didn’t even seem to know of the existance of the key before Will mentioned it in Dead Man’s Chest, and even if they did, there was nothing to suggest the connection between Davy Jones’ miserable eternal brutality and the fact that he had been betrayed by Calypso and had not performed his duties ferrying souls to the afterlife…at least all of them, except Bootstrap, had the thought that in a century they might be free to die.

I think he knew that Beckett needed him and there was a large amount of bloodshed he could get away with as a result of it.

I thought that was dirty pool as well, although I can’t believe I never thought of it myself, so there you go.

I don’t understand why everyone is getting the impression that Governor Swann stabbed the heart! He never said so; he was asking too many questions about the heart and what advantage it was giving Beckett, and his “usefulness had outlived its purpose” or whatever Beckett said. They didn’t need him around, and he was a liability. I don’t know in exactly what manner they killed him, but I’m betting it wasn’t pleasant.

Indiana Jones moment. :smiley:

You’re thinking too much! Look at the Endeavour explode!

One of the only parts of the movie that pissed me off was the assertion that Jack was not merely dead, but sent to a place of punishment. Swann I’m thinking was merely dead, and yeah Calypso probably could have saved him if she’d been so inclined, but what’s in it for her? It bothers me that Jack was sent to an afterlife of punishment and Barbossa was not - Jack is a good man, dammit! What did he ever do to deserve that? And yes, death affected Jack - he now appears to be rather batshit crazy and hellbent on living forever, which is sort of what got him into this mess in the first place. His character arc has come full circle and he’s not really grown or learned anything at all (I don’t agree with that, actually, but it’s how you could interpret Jack’s ultimate “punishment”).

143

…did you see the second movie? Jacks an asshole. He actively tries to get the other characters killed.

144

How so? The only time he could be considered actively trying to kill anyone is during the three way sword fight, and then I argue he is more defending himself/trying to make off with the key than trying to injure anyone.

He’s selfish to be sure, but he tries as hard as possible to keep his associates out of harm’s way unless it’s inevitable. He’s certainly not prone to violent crimes like murder or rape, which seems to be a lot more than can be said for other pirates like Barbossa and Sao Feng, yet it’s driven home in AWE that Jack is the one being punished in the afterlife. That irks me.

145

Calypso has already proven what her promise is worth. They were much better off begging for leniency once she had her godhood back, as they did in the movie.

How? She’s a goddess, and even in human form she seemed quite conversant with the supernatural. Why? Not because she needed his Piece, but because she needed him to retrieve Jack and his Piece.

For the same reason that Jack didn’t stab the heart: Will was mortally wounded, and the only way he could not die was to be the one to stab the heart.

Davy Jones? Fear? He doesn’t have much of that. And he’s too much in the habit of wanton destruction.

Probably hanged, maybe stabbed in his sleep. He could probably have trumped up some charge to “legitimize” it, but since Norrington didn’t know, I’ll guess the latter possibility.

In any of the movies, do we ever see a cannonball go in one side of a ship and clear through out the other side?

146

I beleive Jack was sent to the place of punishment because he still owed Davy Jones some years of servitude, and since Davy Joes is in control of the afterlife of pirates, he controls where Jack goes.

147

Okay, I’ll buy that.

Carry on. :slight_smile:

148

All in all, just way too busy of a movie with way too many unanswered questions. It’s as if they were setting up another series with Turner III and Calypso, et al, more than wrapping up a trilogy.

BTW, any idea why Tia Dalma’s teeth were black?

149

I’ve heard it suggested that she chews a certain kind of root that could account for the black teeth.

150

I just wanted to say thank you to all the Dopers in this thread. I liked the movie well enough, would probably give it a 6.5 out of 10, but there were lots of unanswered questions and a good percentage of them have been answered here to my satisfaction.

Thanks, all!

And while Orlando Bloom is very cute I still like Jack best…but I’ll confess I thought Norrington was something in the second movie, dirty, filthy, bad for you - and pretty smoking.

The rest of it I’ll wait for it to come out on DVD. What Calypso says will be in the subtitles. But there were too many plot twists and betrayals…it was a little confusing.

151

…except when Beckett threatened Jones’ heart. YOu could tell Davy was afraid of what would happen.

152

Speaking of Calypso becoming a giantess, I found it interesting (read: diasappointing) that her clothing became enlarged, too.

153

She must have the same tailor as The Incredible Hulk.

154

Yes, if there’s ANY chance whatsoever that you may suddenly become several times larger, best to go with the super-expanding Spandex.

155

Sorry to bump, but we just saw this last night. I think what they should have done was have Elizabeth and Will stab the heart at the same time. Then they could be together, forever.

:frowning:

156

Even though the sea is a very huge place, has it ever occurred to anyone that the characters never cross paths with Davy Jones in the first movie or Black Beard in the third movie? They never seem to meet them until the story so permits it to happen. If Davy jones has to "take care " of the dead and dying at sea should the original crew of the black pearl at least be visited by thoughts or made a small appearance by davy jones and his crew. The undead are his area of expertise.

Then you have Black Beard who has been tormenting people all over the seven seas and original set of characters don’t meet him or at least have a passing? It doesn’t fit into the story plot they kind of have going but it just seems a bit odd that the people sailors fear the most are never seen until or really talked about until later. And even then they took out Will and Elisabeth. They just dropped the story like it meant nothing. Will is now in the place of Davy Jones and along trail to the fountain Black beard leaves a trail of bodies and Will is never shown?

One more thing, Calypso is now free and yet they never run into her again after the third movie. With as much time they spend at sea, she must be there right?

157

If Xena the Warrior Princess was around at the time of King David of Israel, how is she also around at the time of Julius Caesar?

i.e.: you’re over-analyzing things. The people who made the original movies didn’t know about the characters that would be introduced in the later movies.

(How come Gandalf didn’t just put Frodo on an Eagle and have them fly straight to Mt. Doom?)

158

Zombie Pirates!

You probably could have made a new thread for those questions instead of bumping a 6 year old one, but anyway…yeah, they didn’t know about those characters in advance so no one ran into them.

That, and Davy Jones came back to get Jack’s soul, which wasn’t due until the second movie.

159

It’s simplest to just ignore the fourth movie, which was far inferior to any of the first three anyway.

160

Hey, I’m in America and so are you. Why don’t we keep running into each other?