Top Posts Tagged with #potc analysis

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales; Why It Shouldn’t Exist

Or how I invested time and energy into an analysis of a relatively dead franchise instead of doing it for my actual media analysis university course.

An essay by: a bitter and obsessed PotC fan since they were 7, with a lot of free time.

Lads, this is going to be long. You have been warned.

#potc #pirates of the caribbean #potc analysis #dead men tell no tales #analysis #media analysis #pirates #jack sparrow #hector barbossa #carina smyth #henry turner #elizabeth swann #will turner #calypso #davy jones #salazar

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i find myself in a foreign country right now, I’ll be here for a few more months, but like every time I’m in a situation that takes me out of my comfort zone, I tend to seek that comfort in things that have made me happy in the past, this time it was the Pirates of the Caribbean fandom, specially Sparrabeth fanfiction and fanart, and I got to thinking the next;

it’s the first time I’ve looked back on that childhood ship, I remember it made me sad at the time Elizabeth and Jack’s ending, but as a teenager, I could never quite put my finger on the thing that was bothering me so much. Many years later, I can analyze every aspect of it;

not only did Jack and Lizzy not end up together ‘cause of Disney’s traditional and conservative family values, but also because in movies, as in life, we’re used to dichotomize everything; black or white, good or bad; PotC needed the good boy (William), the noble boy, the savior boy with no ulterior motives that weren’t entirely pure, innocent and perhaps even naïve (flattening the character, in my opinion, but that’s another story), and we love Will Turner for that. But Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann… such complex characters. Peas in a pod. Reflection of one another.

The reason I find for the deletes scenes not being in the actual movies, is two things they have in common (aside from the deleted scenes that didn’t contribute to the plot): first, they show from the start Captain Jack Sparrow is a GOOD MAN, and that doesn’t play well in a dichotomic mind, ‘cause what do you mean the bad boy is neither the bad boy nor the good boy? What do you mean he’s only human? Even if at the end, we get to grasp at the surface that Captain Sparrow is, indeed, a good man (and also a bad man, and also a liar, and a savior, and a lover, and a hero, and and and), we don’t get the full context, and we can’t totally understand what goes on behind Jack’s mind. The famous deleted scene from CotBP, with Jack and Elizabeth on the beach, where he lets her know he wasn’t planning on telling Barbossa about Will, he wasn’t planning on trading him for a ship, and Elizabeth goes “oh”, would’ve given everything away. Jack being a good man, being protective and caring but also using things to his advantage (haven’t we all been there?).

And the second thing these deleted scenes have in common, is that they show how much Jack and Elizabeth love each other. How complex these both characters and their dynamic is. It made no sense for Elizabeth to end up with Will, and (maybe this will be a controversial opinion), it also made no sense to end up with Jack, at least in the traditional way.

I’m very much a fan of romantic love, it inhabits and penetrates my body in so many ways in my everyday life, but I also know how poisonous it is and it’s been since it was constructed. I love Sparrabeth, I love the typical story, the alternate universe where they sail away together towards the horizon, where they find each other in the end and live happily ever after (I don’t read angst for a reason), but the ending for Elizabeth that makes more sense to me, romantic love aside, is to end up “alone”. Not a princess, not a damsel, but a King.

Of course, year 2007, if Disney wasn’t going to have the princess marrying the “bad boy”, it was even more unthinkable to have her end up alone, that would’ve been a tragedy. I’m not even gonna start on the historic PotC context, I know it would’ve also been a tragedy and a disappointment and a dishonor for a woman to end up alone in the 17 hundreds, but come on. If we can dream of a Pirate King and sailor woman, a governor’s daughter “gone rogue”, we can dream of that same Pirate King ending up, not alone, but on her own.

This is a fun fact I heard on one of my cinema classes, which I did not check if it was true but I’m gonna say it either way: when Disney first began, and the characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse appeared, the main concern from the parents who wrote letters to Disney was to know if the two mouses were MARRIED. ‘Cause of course the 20th century could not have two unmarried fictional mouses. With this fun fact in mind, how would have US public reacted to Elizabeth Swann ending up alone?

Even myself, now, I recognize even if that ending seems the most fitting for me, it would still make me sad, and I would still deep down, like to see Elizabeth and Jack together in that traditional, happily ever after way.

What makes these two characters, if I may, perfect in their own way, is their imperfect ways. Neither of them being in their nature to settle down. Always looking for trouble, always looking for adventure. Elizabeth’s freedom doesn’t look like waiting 10 years for 1 day with her childhood sweetheart, who does get to sail away towards the horizon and live his own life and adventure while reconnecting with his father (I’m not blaming Will for this, this isn’t an attack towards him, I still love William Turner), and raising their child on her own, but neither does it look like a mere crew member of the Black Pearl, arm in arm with Captain Jack Sparrow, spectating as he commands his own ship.

I try to imagine this most fitting ending, the ending Elizabeth deserved: her freedom. What does freedom look like for Elizabeth Swann? It goes beyond the corsets, and the dresses, but also, I think it goes beyond men. Beyond having to worry, or mother, or save or help any of them. I imagine her sailing away towards the horizon, on her own, commanding her own ship, as the Pirate King. A legend, going to find her own path in life, her own discovered land.

I do imagine her in some sort of relationship with Jack but not at all as how we Sparrabeth shippers usually imagine. I imagine it would look something much more like a friendship (what it always was), running occasionally into each other and getting to talk for hours, reminisce, laugh, drink. Drink up me hearties yo-ho. In adventures which sometimes may be shared between them, and sometimes on their own. With the slight difference of not having to hold back anything, leaving the door open for love and passion, even if not spoken out loud, and only through body and action.

Anyways, that’s my take on the matter and I had to get it off my chest:) thanks for reading

#sparrabeth #willabeth #elizabeth swann #potc #pirates of the caribbean analysis #pirates of the caribbean character analysis #potc analysis #potc character analysis #jack sparrow #important post #perhaps a feminist take on elizabeth and potc

Norrington's Lost Potential in POTC

(A Character Analysis and Rewrite Concept)

Obsessing over POTC again because of a specific someone *GLARES AT @sunflowerrosy*

I haven't watched the movies in a bit and my memory is a little spotty, But Here's how I would have done it!

#james norrington #commodore norrington #potc #potc fic idea #not actually gonna write this #Potc analysis

Arc Purgatory: The one (and only) major flaw of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies

-oh, hiii, just a note, this post is super uncleaned and kinda messy, you can see points where my ADHD patience wore off. sorry bout that, ill come up and clean later, for now, i gotta recharge-

I think I speak for most PotC enthusiasts when I say that the PotC trilogy (franchise? Wym theres more than three movies?) is one of the best written trilogies I’ve ever seen. Amazing choreography (they just don’t make swashbucklers like this anymore!!), amazing set and design, amazing writing, the comedy is peak, the world building is great shit, but by far, the best and most hooking part of the series is its characters!! You have the elusive trickster captain Jack Sparrow, you have the naive but headstrong and well-meaning Will Turner, the cunning and crafty Elizabeth Swann, and an array of amazing villains to boot! Barbossa and his excellent character arc, Davy Jones and his excellent character arc, the excellent dynamic between Commodore Norrington and Cutler Beckett and who being a villain when and why, the whole shtick. With how well the villains are written, it’s no surprise that a lot of them hold a spot in many fans’ top favorite characters - I’m no exception, Barbossa has always been a favorite of mine and upon a rewatch later on in life, Davy Jones is up there too. And while all of the characters are iconic, memorable and loveable (most times), Ive noticed a sort of… pattern in who places at the top of people’s favorite characters. Namely, I’ve seen the villains and Jack Sparrow. I’ve never seen Will or Elizabeth be explicitly placed high up, or higher than the villains/Jack Sparrow. And even when I see Jack Sparrow be high up, I always see him be high up because he’s “iconic”, while I’ve seen the villains be high up because they’re “compelling”. That discrepancy really meant nothing to me when I rewatched the first two movies; they were, after all, an incomplete story. The third movie would bring it all together and cement these characters as excellent. Right? … Well… wrong. Now, before I go on, what I said before still stands. The trilogy is still impeccable in all the ways I’ve listed above. Great characters, plot, world building, choreography, score, cinematography… but there is only one area it falls short on: character development. But the peculiar thing is that it falls short only sometimes. So I wanna examine where it doesn’t fall short, where it does, and why I think so.

As previously stated, the character development falls short only sometimes. Where it absolutely doesn’t fall short is with the villains. For at least the first three movies (cuz i have not and refuse to rewatch 4 and 5), the villains have excellent, fully rounded character arcs, with memorable story beats. Barbossa going from bloodthristy merciless captain of the black pearl to hesitant co-captain of the black pearl, leaving behind his lonesome ways and instead choosing to make alliances if not for his own benefit. Davy Jones going from a terrifying force of power to blah blah blah, we've watched the movies, we remember what happens, we all get the gist. The villains have complete character arcs, they develop from one thing to another, either by way of actually becoming a decently better person and improving in some of their qualities, or by digging in their heels and dying as a consequence (or in Norrington’s case, becoming a better person but dying anyway because his narrative foil is cutler beckett and hell hath no fury like an 18th century british twink in a position of power). Even the side characters which are related to them have fully fleshed out character arcs of their own to complement them, namely Tia Dalma, who develops from a mysterious bogwitch to a lovestruck goddess. From this section, I want you readers to remember that the people who insofar have complete character arcs are the villains, who mostly switch up every movie. Now let’s talk about the lame ducks, shall we?

A few characters dont get any character development; namely, the side characters whose name you don’t really remember, or cannon fodder (i am counting Sao Feng as cannon fodder, I take no further questions at this time). However, there’s three other characters in the series that don’t get compelling character development and that’s the three protagonists. I’m gonna start with Will and Elizabeth; both of them do develop in a sense! They become more mature and more tolerant of piracy as they learn about the fallacies of the state. They are forced to mature rapidly thanks to their turbulent circumstances, namely as only-dubiously-pirates and only-dubiously-free and legally pronounced enemies of state unless cutler beckett decides otherwise. Thats a lot of Circumstance. No matter who you are as a person, that forces you to grow in one way or another. But let’s not forget that becoming pirate king and abandoning high society/abandoning citizenship and becoming an undead pirate are only half of Elizabeth and Will’s character arcs. Why do they get into this entire mess in the first place? Well, love! They love each other so much that they’d literally uproot their safety to be together, and the only thing keeping them apart is Circumstances™ . Naturally, this then means that their character arc would involve them triumphantly overcoming the circumstances and finally being together, either by abandoning pirate life or pilfering together as captains! Or alternatively, they discover it was never meant to be either by way of death or by departing tearfully. Yeah, neither happens. Instead they leave off movie 3 right back at square one; pining and yearning from a distance. But instead of the distance being lord vs peasant dynamics, it’s a time gap of 10 years. How is this any different from what the problem was 2 movies ago? This is their wrap up? Same circumstance with a different name and an outfit change? At best, this is incomplete. I can’t even count it as full circle if I wanted to; normally, here would be the beginning of a spin off or something, because this development is something penultimate. A darkest hour at best. Not a climax, and definitely not a conclusion; again, it is incomplete. And, sadly, the same can be said about Jack Sparrow. The movie goes out of its way to point out where Jack is flawed: he fears death so much that he refuses to see the pain and drawbacks of immortality, which leads him to do all his tomfoolery. Which is great character motivation! But it never changes. He is constantly afraid of his own mortality, so he will constantly hold himself back from going guns blasing, and it will always lead to him chasing the promise of immortality. Even when he sees what that does to Barbossa and Davy Jones, he digs his heels in and goes “la la la”. even when the plot of one of the movies was that he died. He died and came back to life. At this point, he has gone face to face with his greatest fear and come back a victor. But by the end of the movie, whatever happens, happens because he is still mortally afraid of death. Even after he comes back to life, people point out that all he wants is to be immortal, and he affirms that. So like… did the death… not happen? Because even if this is happening because Jack refuses to process it, then that gives us new motivation. And that’s not the only way for Jack to continue his adventures; one alternative could be that Jack, after conquering death, instead turns to life to see how he can maximize his limited fun, and starts pilfering and pirating to the nth degree, purely because of zero inhibitions. But instead like with Will and Elizabeth, with him, we are right back to square one.

So… why is this happening? Why are we having these fake character arcs for the protagonists? In most media and most cases, the answer is “because the writers suck” in one variety or another. Time constraints, budget constraints, bad writers, the works. But I firmly believe this is happening not because of the writers, but because of one mouse that keeps ruining everyone's fun.

(if i could add sound bytes, i would, but please imagine the intro song jingle thing of disney playing here)

Obviously we all know Disney; they want to milk their cash cows until the bitter end, which means that in order for that to happen, they need to keep an avenue open for Will and Elizabeth’s story in case they need to milk that for an extra buck, and obviously, Jack needs more motivation to keep doing his silliness. Now, as stated above, there are multiple ways for that to happen without keeping the same motivations that kept us going for 3 movies, but it has been proven time and time again that Disney will take the easy way out instead of the interesting (and potentially more costly) way out. Now, I refuse to watch star wars, so I cannot validate this point by myself, but according to a friend (thank you for your service @greetings-humans), when “somehow palpatine returned”, the franchise was owned by disney. Star wars fans, and even people with a brain, recognize how much of a cop out this is, and having seen the above cop outs happen in PotC, i am now firmly of the belief that the protags of PotC dont have character arcs because Disney believes this is the cheapest way of keeping the franchise going. This, btw, delightfully, ended up making disney shoot themselves in the foot; not only were movies 4 and 5 poorly received, but because of the way they were written, it wouldn’t make sense for any of the protagonists to suddenly have a change of motives and resume character development, which would be especially detrimental since we are talking about the PotC franchise; famously adored for its writing. They could mask the cash cow before, but now they cannot. So it’s no surprise that instead of continuing a story that is continuously shooting itself in the foot thanks to Disney’s executive decision to take the easy way out of creating a continuous cash cow, the 6th movie is rumored to be a remake of the first one.

But yeah, this is pretty much my analysis. I dont have much more to say. The key take away here is: write your own fanfics of the ending, or engage with the series however you like. I think if the series had different producers and was just left at a trilogy, then it would’ve been perfect. I don’t really have much more to say here;; this is pretty much it. I’m just glad that PotC’s one major flaw wasn’t due to incompetence and was due to the mouse being the mouse.

#PotC #PotC analysis #Jack Sparrow analysis #PotC critique #yarr and all #posts to be fixed