Curse of the Black Pearl Holds Up Pirates of the Caribbean

 

          Hello, I thought I’d post something different. I mean this blog is pretty much just things I’ve talked about with my friends more than once and just wanted a place to keep tabs on so I don’t have to repeat myself anymore. What I want to talk about mostly is how all the sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl take plot points from the first movie. I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice and maybe it was intentional or maybe it’s just lazy, I don’t know. If this isn’t too long I’ll complain about other things at the end.

            I don’t think Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End suffer from this as much as the later two movies. They use the character Davy Jones; it’s a typical pirate thing, Davy Jones’ locker, so not a big deal. In the first movie when Elizabeth Swann falls into the ocean while Jack Sparrow talks to two British soldiers and he says “and then they made me their chief.” I don’t really think the sequels were being planned when CotBP so the writers could’ve just taken that line and had a little fun with it. At World’s End we see Jack’s father who seems to be keeper of the “Pirate Code.” So they’re tying things together even though they don’t really need to. I don’t really like it when things are explained. Sometimes leaving things a mystery or up to interpretation is nice. Like Durarara was really good then they started explaining the behind the scenes things happening and it lost its charm for me. Anyways, moving on.

            I feel like the next points I’m going to bring up I think are more deliberate then in the direct sequels. It’s like the writers started combing through the first movie and picking out anything they could use. In CotBP towards the end a sailor says to Elizabeth “A little mermaid flopped up on deck and told him the whole story.” And wouldn’t you know it mermaids are a big part of On Stranger Tides. Later in the movie Gibbs is going back to the beach or something and Jack gives him his compass telling Gibbs, in a code of sorts, that it will lead him to “freedom.” Jack later meets back up with Gibbs and he has the bottle that has the Black Pearl in it. In the first movie, after Jack and Elizabeth are stranded on an island by Barbossa and Jack tells Elizabeth “what a ship is; what the Black Pearl really is, is freedom.” I thought that was kind of clever and I’ve always liked that line.

            The last movie as of writing this is called Dead Men Tell No Tales. Another common saying associated with pirates. At one point in CotBP Mr. Cotton’s parrot says this line. Again, it’s a common pirate phrase. When Jack is jailed in the first movie, when the Black Pearl attacks Port Royal one of the other prisoners says he’s heard stories and that the Pearl leaves no survivors. Jack then says “No survivors? Then where do the stories come from I wonder?” That line is echoed in Dead Men Tell No Tales with Captain Salazar. Salazar always leaves one person alive to spread the word of his attacks or when he needs to have a word with Jack Sparrow.

            Those are just some of the things I’ve noticed after watching Curse of the Black Pearl too many times, I’m sure there’s more. Another thing I’ve talked about with my friends before is like, looking at plot points early in movies that if the characters let something happen the movie could’ve ended a lot sooner. Curse of the Black Pearl for instance; Elizabeth Swann is brought on board the Black Pearl, shows the crew the gold coin she has and threatens to drop it in the sea. The crew reacts like they don’t want it lost to the sea but since they’re undead and are shown to walk on the ocean floor they could’ve just let her drop it and one of them could’ve gone overboard to grab it. Sure they’d still need the blood of a Turner and technically once they had Elizabeth on board they had the coin but.

            Another thing that bothers me is predictable movie plots or over used clichés. Kind of like I said in my post about Hard Mode I feel like writers just aren’t trying, or need to try because we still go and see the movies. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is one example that comes to mind. The beginning is great. It’s very ridiculous, very comic book, very good. At one point Peter tells Gamora that he “never played catch with his dad” and I was like “are you fucking kidding me?” Like we’re really going to use that cliché? We’re not past that yet? @NEETproxy and I just saw Godzilla VS Kong and it was alright but predictable. I wish movies like Godzilla and Transformers would deal less with the human factor and more with what’s in the god damn title. Transformers: The Last Knight for instance; they try to shoehorn in a romance with Mark Wahlberg’s character and Laura Haddock and it’s just like, why? Why are you stopping the story to get these two characters together when it does nothing for movie? People don’t get together this quickly.

            So those are my beefs. Are there any other things from Curse of the Black Pearl that have made their ways into the following movies that I missed? Let me know in the comments. Might be back soon with some Monster Hunter Rise opinions.

                            @AztecSauce                                        @TheGetGudScurbs