Pirates 3 *spoilers inside*

Other Fiction
1

I saw PotC 3 last Saturday with a friend.

Honestly? I thought it was the best movie of the trilogy. From the beginning to the end it was full of wonderful cinematography and lines. The way they managed to make you even feel pathos for Davy Jones and Lord Becket was absolutely brilliant.

The music is some really noteworthy stuff by Hans Zimmer, which isn’t really a surprise since the man can do no wrong and I found myself actively seeking out “Hoist the Colors” on youtube when I got home. That was really one of the most powerful openings I have seen in a while.

It really didn’t let up. Elizabeth and Jack were snarky and wonderful and Calypso - whilst her identity wasn’t a surprise, the way she was portrayed had me and my buddy fangirling her like crazy. Her accent - oh, t’was wonderful.

And the script? The script was top quality. Myself and my friend may have been the only people really laughing in the cinema but we thought it was hilarious.

The scene at the brethren council was my favourite. It served to highlight one of the underlying messages of the film - the fact that no one person in the film is truly evil. Instead they are all voting for themselves; like the pirates at the brethren council. Jack voting for Elizabeth also portrayed a message. Working together for survival, which is what both sides did.

I think the fact that I’m an English Lit student and my friend is a Media student really enhanced our enjoyment of the film. She could lean across to me and talk me through what they meant by using a specific close up or camera angle, and I could identify themes and analyse the script for her so that we could guess at what would happen next.

What did the rest of you think?

2

Good luck with that. Make sure you read some Blake. >:)

As for the third and final part of this trilogy, at least good old Jack didn’t fail in lifting peoples’ spirits with his ever adventuress wit.

3

I love Blake!

Do prefer me some Yeats though.

4

[quote=“Daz”]
I think the fact that I’m an English Lit student and my friend is a Media student really enhanced our enjoyment of the film. She could lean across to me and talk me through what they meant by using a specific close up or camera angle, and I could identify themes and analyse the script for her so that we could guess at what would happen next.

What did the rest of you think?[/quote]

Ironically for me studying literature and story writing ruined 2 for me. XD I knew what they were aiming for, but the execution failed oh so horribly, oh so horribly that I can’t even bring myself to see PotC3. (Feel free to spoil, I read the whole story on Wikipedia, and it jumps around even worse than 2 did apparently. XD “Okayyyy… and today this character jumps to that faction… and this guy shows up… and dies… but comes back to life”)

Not to mention that they seemed to have forgotten just what exactly it was that made the original fun, so they just think of stuff as they go along.

5

I saw this movie last week.

Overall I thought it was a decent conclusion to the trilogy; much better than the second movie. However, the first film is still by far my favorite in the series.

Pirates 2 and 3 suffer from the Matrix syndrome - that is, they essentially split one story into two movies, and unfortunately many of the jokes from the first film were rehashed in the second film (and to a lesser extent in the third film). Thankfully, there’s enough new moments to keep this film more interesting than the second movie, but I can’t help but feel that it would have been more focused if they’ve made each of the three movies separately, or just made two movies.

Like Daz said, the brethren council scene was well done, and I liked the way this movie portrayed most of the pirates. Unfortunately, while some of the ?baddies? from the first film have teamed up with the heroes, they’ve been replaced by a new set of villains. It would have been more interesting if we were given reasons to sympathize with both sides of the battlefield. In the end, it still felt like there were two “sides”, heroes and villains.

I cringed when I watched Norrington’s death scene. It would have been much more interesting if he had switched sides more than five seconds before his (predictable) death.

I liked the ending - it wasn’t predictively happy. Although I think it would have preferred not to have seen the epilogue the epilogue that came after the ending - it would have been better to leave that part to imagination.

I recommend this movie, and if you enjoyed the other movies in the series, it’s more of the same style, and wraps up most of the loose ends in the second film. But in saying that, I’m glad they haven’t set it up for a sequel. Even Jack Sparrow got a little tiresome in this movie, and after seeing it, I’m convinced that the series has run its course.

At the end of the day, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, like the first two movies, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and because of this, it works quite well. It would have failed if it had tried to take itself more seriously. It is what it is - a fun movie, nothing more, even if it tries to be “The Return of the King” of this series.

One last thing, At World’s End has the best soundtrack in the series. Definitely worth listening to if you like powerful theme music in films. Check out this YouTube video for an example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySPrhAKAbdw) - between 2:21 - 4:10. Note, the pictures in the video aren’t from Pirates 3, just the music.