#potc dmtnt

Let's get the elephant out of the room, the triangle, Salazar's ghost form, the curse, it's all messed up! None of it makes sense or is consistent and it feels lazy. Personally I'm not a big fan of his ghost form, it felt like wasted potential. Like as if Disney wanted to do a more of a horror film but chickened out to make the film more "family friendly". Which brings me to my first point.

1. Salazar is not that well written compared to the original trilogy villains.

When reviews for Potc5 came out, people mainly said about Salazar that he's a step up from Blackbeard, but nowhere near as great as the other three villains. Not bad writing, but not great either, more like decent enough. It's like there's a hint of complexity in him, but the writers decided to just make him some spooky ghost with an obsessed on killing one dude.

Compared to Barbossa or Beckett, where they had their goals fleshed out and didn't center around Jack. Sure, Jack might have been a part of their goals at some point, but he was never the end goal. For Salazar, they wanted a revenge story, which is fine, but the execution was poor. So his goal is to kill Jack, then what? Just continue killing more pirates? Find a way to break his curse? We aren't given anything.

There's no social or political commentary about Salazar and the Spanish, despite the fact that at this time, the Spanish and the British were still on tense terms and occasionally fought each other. Which is a pity because pre-ghost Salazar just had that potential to bring in those kinds of topics. He was prideful and arrogant. He could have had some nationalism in him, and yes, he had some revenge in him. Though that "revenge" could have been a more of a "more holier than thou" complex since he made it his mission to clean the seas from pirates, but at the time Spain was very Catholic dominated so it wouldn't be a suprise if Salazar was Catholic and had some sense of religious superiority in him. Too bad, none of that is explored.

In a sense, Salazar is lacking deep motive. I get the writers were trying to go for some revenge type story, but honestly, if you wanted Javier Bardem to play a role about a guy focused on getting back at those who wronged him, then just go watch 2012 Skyfall.

Okay, no more talk about revenge. I'm tired of saying that word now.

2. The ghost logic ain't ghosting properly

So, sense everything that could have been interesting about this character was thrown out the window in favor of a spooky ghost. The problem is that they somehow mess everything up about this! The potential was right there!

Mysterious triangle that could have been explored or add to the world building? Gone, they leave that place. Wondering why the curse even cursed Salazar and his crew in the first place? Never really explained. How to escape the triangle? Just hope someone gives up a compass (which is so stupid in many many ways). The ghosts themselves unable to step on land?! Davy Jones 2.0.

I will admit there are so cool things about the ghost form. The visuals are cool, the ship able to bend itself is cool as well, the figurehead able to move too is a neat idea too, walking on water is a nice too, I sorta like the idea about them using sharks and birds, but that one would be hard to execute because where the heck did they get the sharks?

Even though I prefer pre-ghost Salazar, I could see the potential with ghost Salazar, but it didn't work out. The writers thought of ghosts, went with it thinking it would be cool, but then realized how overpowered they are and had to give some lame excuse to nerf them. Think about it, without the whole Trident muguffin plot going on, there's no established way on how to kill Salazar's and his crew. For Davy Jones and Barbossa it was the Davy's heart and the Aztec gold, both stories involved a race to the mugufinn. Potc 5 tried to do that, but it felt shoehorn in. Sure Henry might have known about it being able to undo his father's curse (even though that would completely destroy the entire logic of the curse in the first place), but Salazar didn't know this object would free him? He just wanted it because power, no goal of wanting to be free or to keep his undead immortality, just power to kill the others. But if hardly any of the characters knew that this dumb trident could undo curses then they wouldn't have know how to defeat Salazar.

3. Nitpick territory. This is where I'm petty.

They censored Javier Bardem face! This man is so good at acting, especially with facial expressions, but under all that ghost make up and cool floating hair, it's hard to even see what he's trying to convey because of the lightning and the visual effects. This is a reason why I prefer pre ghost Salazar because at least I can see what emotions he's conveying through facial expressions.

Honestly, I don't care if Salazar's uniform is "historically inaccurate", it's cool. I like how it's white with streaks of black stripes, and that when in ghost form it's all dark (Though the ghost form kinda makes it hard to see the details anymore). Basic color theory stuff but it's nice.

Lack of fleshed out character or characterization. I'm not saying we have to know everything about him, but it would be nice if we knew more about. What kind of captain he is, how he runs his crew, how he views himself, or even small minor details that would have had headcanon enthusiasts eating for weeks. Salazar's backstory is in the novelization of Potc 5, it goes over what happened to his father and mother and why he's hunting pirates in the first place. Extra details that would have been nice.

Salazar eating a green apple. Nope. Just no. I ranted about this before, but the green apple is Barbossa's thing. Not Salazar's. Go find a different fruit to snack on!

His death was so lazy and Disneyfied. Let's see, Barbossa died from a gunshot to his chest, Davy died by having his literal heart stabbed, Beckett died from being ganged up on in naval combat and got obliterated by explosions. For Salazar? You know how most animated Disney villains died from a high fall? Yeah, let's just give that one to Salazar and sacrifice Barbossa for it as well! You know what would have been a better idea? Let's hypothetically say that the whole trident thing wasn't completely bad, Salazar has control over it, but he dies by the trident. Either someone else taking it and stabbing him or have it be an Indiana Jones thing where touching it kills you. But since I hate the trident, that would not be an option at all.