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I thought all three of the Pirate movies were excessively long, but somehow At World's End felt less bloated even though it really wasn't. The movie was forever hurling us along on the adventure, never providing enough time to really digest the plot. In some ways that was to the movie's advantage, but in the end At World's End was still a revelation of flaws and failures.
Although in the first two movies we dealt with undead-zombie-ghosts and tentacled deep sea myths, At World's End seemed to require something special to really get us into the theme, hence we find ourselves "at the end of the world" in Shanghai. To make it really sooper special, the opening sequence is set in that place most representative of all things Asian and criminal, a bath house. The crew of the Black Pearl are in Shanghai to retrieve an ancient map that shows the way to the gate between world's. It makes me wonder if TPTB on this movie have ever heard of Orientalism because they do a marvelous job ofalienating exoticizing/othering the Asian community depicted here. The bathhouse is full of the odd and grotesque. Elizabeth is forced to remove her trousers before she's allowed entry. The purpose of that I still don't quite get. I understand that she's loaded down with weapons, but except to highlight what we're supposed to perceive as the differences in gender relationships between the East and the West, I don't get the point of it and I definitely didn't find it entertaining. Then as if to really punch it home that we're in no man's land, that place that Barbossa previously extolled as the spot on the map where "there be dragons", Shanghai of the mysteriously clichéd "Orient" is conveniently close to that place where the map runs out and the Earth is rumored to be flat.
Ha ha ha!! I see what you did there. How World's End is literally the place where the world ends. Too bad that by this age of sea faring, sailors were more concerned with starving to death on an extended voyage than they were of sailing off the edge of the Earth. The Pearl's return voyage included some suitably perplexing clues that had nothing to do with trying to haul the ship back up that waterfall, so I don't know why they couldn't have done something equally as clever for the voyage to Davey Jones's Locker.
It only gets worse once Sao Feng dies and appoints Elizabeth captain of his ship, Empress, and the Pirate Lord of the South China Seas. Now, keep in mind that Elizabeth is on the Empress in the first place after having bartered herself for Sao Feng's aid. He wants her because he believes that she is the goddess Calypso, bound into human form by the first Brethren Council so that men could rule the seas. (I thought it was Tia Dalma all along, which it was, but you can see how Elizabeth being the only WHITE female in the cast with a speaking part everyone else might think it's her).
They've been working hard across the three films to turn Elizabeth into a pirate, so I definitely cheered for that (She was always more of a pirate than Will), but I did have some issues with her being Pirate Lord of the South China Seas. White female who has never been into an Asian country before and does absolutely NOTHING to earn the honor besides be a female and white which I guess for Sao Feng is exotic enough to make her the goddess of the sea. Which I guess, if we look at the franchise as a whole, really isn't that far fetched. Elizabeth is the location for all male desire outside of the Black Pearl.
Much was made of Davy Jones’s Locker and Calypso, but in the end it was all sound and fury. Calypso is revealed to be Tia Dalma, she's released from her bondage (after a twenty some odd minute scene in which there is much debating, fighting, Elizabeth becomes King of the Pirates and declares war on the East India Company and Jack's father shows up to school everyone on the pirate code) and wreaks a minimum amount of havoc with a storm. Even one of the pirate's expressed his disappointment after she turns herself into a cascade of cuttlefish that disappear over the side of the ship. Davy Jones is killed after stabbing Will and falls off The Flying Dutchmen into a whirlpool representative of Calypso's loving and tempestuous arms.
It was all sadly anti-climatic.
The switch, between Calypso and Davy Jones for Elizabeth and Will was a pleasant and surprising ending despite rendering the Tia Dalma/Calypso and Davy Jones love affair/tragedy a mere plot device. But heaven forbid that any female other than Elizabeth Swann get serious mileage out of the series. I'm still baffled as to what happened to the fiercesome Anamaria.
I was surprised that this wasn't your stereotypical Disney ending and that it was rather bittersweet. It didn't make up for what was a convoluted movie (I couldn't keep track of who was betraying whom at any given moment let alone extricate the actual plot from all of the filler) but it did satisfy me on some level. There was plenty of action, Tia Dalma and an underused Bill Nighy as Davy Jones. I will always adore Jack Sparrow and Geoffrey Rush is a gem as Barbossa, I am SO glad that they brought him back from the dead. I can see how they're trying to set us up for a fourth movie, although one hopefully without Elizabeth and Will, since their story feels very much done.
At World's End suffers very much from having been written and produced while Dead Man's Chest was still being filmed. The new thing in Hollywood is to shoot sequels simultaneously, but that really ONLY works if you've got the scripts already worked out and complete. You have to know where each movie is going and how they're going to work together and I know from watching extras and bits that the end of Dead Man's Chest and the bulk of At World's End were written and filmed at the same time. As a result At World's End really is all over the place and a bit of a mess.
Although in the first two movies we dealt with undead-zombie-ghosts and tentacled deep sea myths, At World's End seemed to require something special to really get us into the theme, hence we find ourselves "at the end of the world" in Shanghai. To make it really sooper special, the opening sequence is set in that place most representative of all things Asian and criminal, a bath house. The crew of the Black Pearl are in Shanghai to retrieve an ancient map that shows the way to the gate between world's. It makes me wonder if TPTB on this movie have ever heard of Orientalism because they do a marvelous job of
Ha ha ha!! I see what you did there. How World's End is literally the place where the world ends. Too bad that by this age of sea faring, sailors were more concerned with starving to death on an extended voyage than they were of sailing off the edge of the Earth. The Pearl's return voyage included some suitably perplexing clues that had nothing to do with trying to haul the ship back up that waterfall, so I don't know why they couldn't have done something equally as clever for the voyage to Davey Jones's Locker.
It only gets worse once Sao Feng dies and appoints Elizabeth captain of his ship, Empress, and the Pirate Lord of the South China Seas. Now, keep in mind that Elizabeth is on the Empress in the first place after having bartered herself for Sao Feng's aid. He wants her because he believes that she is the goddess Calypso, bound into human form by the first Brethren Council so that men could rule the seas. (I thought it was Tia Dalma all along, which it was, but you can see how Elizabeth being the only WHITE female in the cast with a speaking part everyone else might think it's her).
They've been working hard across the three films to turn Elizabeth into a pirate, so I definitely cheered for that (She was always more of a pirate than Will), but I did have some issues with her being Pirate Lord of the South China Seas. White female who has never been into an Asian country before and does absolutely NOTHING to earn the honor besides be a female and white which I guess for Sao Feng is exotic enough to make her the goddess of the sea. Which I guess, if we look at the franchise as a whole, really isn't that far fetched. Elizabeth is the location for all male desire outside of the Black Pearl.
Much was made of Davy Jones’s Locker and Calypso, but in the end it was all sound and fury. Calypso is revealed to be Tia Dalma, she's released from her bondage (after a twenty some odd minute scene in which there is much debating, fighting, Elizabeth becomes King of the Pirates and declares war on the East India Company and Jack's father shows up to school everyone on the pirate code) and wreaks a minimum amount of havoc with a storm. Even one of the pirate's expressed his disappointment after she turns herself into a cascade of cuttlefish that disappear over the side of the ship. Davy Jones is killed after stabbing Will and falls off The Flying Dutchmen into a whirlpool representative of Calypso's loving and tempestuous arms.
It was all sadly anti-climatic.
The switch, between Calypso and Davy Jones for Elizabeth and Will was a pleasant and surprising ending despite rendering the Tia Dalma/Calypso and Davy Jones love affair/tragedy a mere plot device. But heaven forbid that any female other than Elizabeth Swann get serious mileage out of the series. I'm still baffled as to what happened to the fiercesome Anamaria.
I was surprised that this wasn't your stereotypical Disney ending and that it was rather bittersweet. It didn't make up for what was a convoluted movie (I couldn't keep track of who was betraying whom at any given moment let alone extricate the actual plot from all of the filler) but it did satisfy me on some level. There was plenty of action, Tia Dalma and an underused Bill Nighy as Davy Jones. I will always adore Jack Sparrow and Geoffrey Rush is a gem as Barbossa, I am SO glad that they brought him back from the dead. I can see how they're trying to set us up for a fourth movie, although one hopefully without Elizabeth and Will, since their story feels very much done.
At World's End suffers very much from having been written and produced while Dead Man's Chest was still being filmed. The new thing in Hollywood is to shoot sequels simultaneously, but that really ONLY works if you've got the scripts already worked out and complete. You have to know where each movie is going and how they're going to work together and I know from watching extras and bits that the end of Dead Man's Chest and the bulk of At World's End were written and filmed at the same time. As a result At World's End really is all over the place and a bit of a mess.
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Date: 2008-09-17 03:44 pm (UTC)From:But I really think my "preference" is probably all about what mood I was in when I watched them. All of them are needlessly convoluted and, at the same time, entirely simplistic and ridiculous. And bother me on so many levels, sociopolitically *and* filmmaking-wise, that I can't say what is most egregious. I can't even really tell you what each of them is about.
Though I'm all for Naomie Harris working as much as possible. I'm afraid she's fixed in my memory as Selena from 28 Days Later, due to her sheer awesomeness.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-21 08:38 pm (UTC)From:For me the first movie was the most successful although too long. The first time I watched it I fell asleep on that ending sequence at Isla de Muerta. Bill Nighy was the big reedeming feature of Dead Man's Chest, much under used in the final film, to my dismay. Although I liked Elizabeth's arc across the three movies, in general there was just something I didn't care for in the second movie that I couldn't put my finger on. Will Turner has always the "least" interesting character in the entire franchise. I think maybe the complete LACK of female presence in the movies bugs me. Elizabeth never really grabbed me like that. Tia Dalma did but she was never anything more than a plot device.
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Date: 2008-09-21 09:02 pm (UTC)From: