For those of you who haven’t read Draca’s spoilery review yet, I strongly suggest you do so. I know it’s a lot of reading to make it through all three parts of hers AND my ridiculously long ramblings, but if you’ve only got time for one, definitely go with hers. It makes far more sense (I didn’t even try to make this one coherent or well-written, so if you thought the last one was bad...)

Draca’s PotC: Dead Man's Chest Spoiler-y Review -- Part One
Draca’s PotC: Dead Man’s Chest Spoiler-y Review – Part Two
Draca’s PotC: Dead Man’s Chest Spoiler-y Review – Part Three

Now, on to the long-winded nonsense that is my second review thingummie...

Re: Draca’s response to my first review

> Still, you have inspired me to stay away from all but one PotC website until the third film is released.

Just say ‘No’ to spoilers. Really. Not knowing things the first time was so incredibly satisfying... It was mentally trying just to keep up with all that was going on in the main plot alone, so I got to feel very clever when I was able to stay one step ahead of the characters in some places. I figured out the thing about the compass pointing to what you want a scene or two before they explicitly said it, and my days of voice chasing paid off when it was Norrington’s voice that announced his re-entrance. It really was a huge boost to the old, much abused self-confidence to see the movie like that, and I think the continual mental acrobatics I had to do to keep myself in the proper frame of mind to do so are really what made me enjoy it as much as I did. While I was a little concerned during the first few minutes whether I was going to respond as positively to this one as I did the last, there was not a single moment after Jack showed back up that I wasn’t utterly thrilled to be in that theater seat. Everyone around me was squirming, but I literally sat there with my eyes and mouth wide open and just loved every dark, confusing, manic second of it. It didn’t take Jack’s death to convince me that I was having a good time, because I had been partying it up for two hours by then.

> Jack’s my hero, not my heart-throb, and it GAULS me that people miss this so often.

I have never really analyzed my feelings for Jack because I’ve never had to. There are very few people that I talk to enough for the subject to come up, and even fewer have had an opportunity to see my room, so really it’s only complete strangers from the apartment complex or friends of my roommate who ever see my poster. Invariably, they make some comment about how Johnny Depp is a “hottie,” and I just nod and go back to my work because, like you said, it’s really not worth trying to explain. Somehow I think it’s better that I don’t analyze my feelings and just let them be what they are. That’s the more Jack Sparrow thing to do, no? I love him in a non-crush way, and that’s all that matters.

The poster was actually purchased in a campaign against my first roommate*, who had an Orlando Bloom poster on her wall. Her poster was on a wall that faced our window, and I have a habit of leaving the blinds open long after the sun goes down, so I would occasionally look over at my second-story window and see what looked like Orlando Bloom standing outside, looking all wistful and “dreamy.” To counter this, I got a Sparrow poster and an autographed picture of Jason Marsden (::squee!::) and put them on my side of the room. At first, I had Jack right across from the bathroom door, but I moved him to over my bed later that night after I came out of the shower and he scared the bejesus out of me.

ANYway, enough of this nonsense. Back to the movie.

I have this horrible problem with character names in books (I know it doesn’t sound like it yet, but I really am getting back to the movie). It comes from reading as quickly as I do – I recognize words instead of actually reading them, so I learn over the course of a novel to recognize the relevant proper nouns by their first letter and approximate length. It took two readings of the entire Hitchhiker Trilogy AND a once-through of the first two phases of the radio show before I could remember if the main character’s name was Arthur, Albert, or Alfred. I still want to call Edward Ferrars “Edgar.” And reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream was seven different kinds of hellacious, what with Helena and Hermia trouncing around the forest. My not remembering a literary character’s name is not necessarily a measure of my interest in him. My failing to remember the name of a movie character, though, generally is a pretty good indication that I don’t really care about him at all.

When Angela asked me why I gasped and giggled while Gibbs was signing up souls for Jack, I couldn’t remember if his name was “Norring” or “Norrington.” I was deeply embarrassed when it happened because I had already started to pity him in a big way and I tend to equate the maternal instinct to coddle with the desire to cuddle**. I was starting to fall for a character whose name I couldn’t even remember... By the end of the scene, however, I was well aware of what his name was***.

I know it’s hopelessly clichéd to fall for him at this point in the game, and I am very much embarrassed about it...but the more I think about it, the more I realize that he pushed all of my buttons. I am torn between being attracted to sweet, put-upon characters whose main purpose is to be kicked around mentally, emotionally, and physically (Thomas, M’Man Wellard, Billy Keikeya, George O’Malley) and self-serving, sarcastic jerkfaces who have to come to some realization about their relationships with others (Tulio, Major Edrington, Will Grimm, the Smallville Lex Luthor up until about season 3). Norrington is both of these. I also have a Thing for stoic, stuffy, and serious (Owen Burnett, Mr. Darcy, The Magus [sort of], Major Edrington again). And I am a sucker for a gorgeous voice****. So I really should have noticed him in CotBP. I should have, but I didn’t. I think it’s because I wasn’t looking for another harem***** member in that movie. I don’t know why – I have one from virtually every one of my favourite movies, and both Pirates movies are very firmly among my favourites. There’s just something very platonic about the movie, and I don’t know what it is.

I also think I identified with Elizabeth just a little too much there at the beginning when Norrington proposed for me to like him. He seemed so much older than her (even though Davenport is a full DECADE younger than Depp...), and she obviously didn’t love him, so the idea of her having to marry him just creeped me the hell out. That’s not so much of a problem anymore. I certainly agree with you in that I wouldn’t want to marry him in the desperate pirate state that he is in now, but my harem is not exactly populated with potential husbands or anything. I tend to develop minor attractions to the damaged ones, and that’s what I seem to have done here. I’ve gone from not even remembering his name to having the beginnings of a mild crush, and I’m not sure what I think about that yet.

I still don’t know yet if I’m actually going to wind up adding him. It’s likely, but I think I’ll wait for the third movie to pass final judgment. And just to clarify it for everyone, I do NOT suddenly think he is “Hott” because his is a pirate; I have simply realized that he is a sympathetic character. Much of my (possible) attraction to him is because he spent a majority of the movie throwing up******. Yes, I am a twisted little crueler. Let’s move on.

> I don't think we really were _supposed_ to feel for Davy Jones, actually. Not the way we were supposed to with Barbossa, anyways -- Davy Jones is kind of the devil incarnate, really, and while it's neat that he has a reason for being the way he is, I honestly don't think it's supposed to make us like him the way we liked Barbossa.

I still feel like I should have been able to sympathize with Davy Jones at least a bit, but I understand that I wasn’t really supposed to. I can also see where Elliot and Rossio probably didn’t mean for me to sympathize with Barbossa quite as much as I did, either (he is a nasty sort of guy, and there’s really only one time in the whole film where he’s anything but nasty). The reason I am so dissatisfied with Jones isn’t that I feel pity for him, it’s that I didn’t feel anything for him. At the very least, I should have been afraid of him – the devil incarnate should scare me, but he just didn’t somehow. I don’t know that this was necessarily a failing of DMC; I sort of suspect it was a disconnect between me and the movie. I was just so wrapped up in everything that was happening that I didn’t really have an opportunity to form opinions about the new characters. But at the same time, as I pointed out in my page for CotBP, villains have never really been Elliot and Rossio’s forte. They have fantastic anti-heroes, and their heroines are always complex (if somewhat scarce), but Tzekle-Khan and Farquaad seem much more like plot contrivances to make the story move along than actual characters. That’s kind of how I feel about Jones: he’s necessary to spur on the action, but that’s all. There is potential – there’s almost an overabundance of potential – but potential doesn’t earn you any points if you never realize any of it. So, as with Norrington, I’m reserving my final judgment on Jones until the third movie (I WANT that backstory! And I want it from HIM!)

> [Gibbs is] often underrated, and the audience NEEDS him so. ;^D

Oh, Gibbs... I know I hinted at it in my page for the movie, but I don’t think I’ve ever admitted out loud that Gibbs was the reason I stopped worrying about whether or not CotBP was going to meet my expectations. I knew from your insistence that I see the movie that it was a good one, and I knew that, if Elliot and Rossio were involved, I would enjoy it, and I knew from the beginning of the movie that I adored the creepy atmosphere. But still, I was starting to wonder if I was actually watching the same movie everyone had been talking about so much...until Gibbs did his little mock noose thing. From then on, I was able to stop worrying and just enjoy it.

I am also hugely interested in point of view these days, and having Gibbs tell us a large amount of what we think we know about several of the characters gives me plenty to think about in that regard. I know it was my ninth grade English teacher who first called my attention to the implications of getting background from characters, but I think it was Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles that really made me fascinated with the topic. One of these days I’m going to stop writing feminist criticism for every one of my term papers and write about point of view...

Anyway, yes, I love Gibbs.

> But PotC has somehow, somehow inexplicably set itself up to be the kind of story where it would be cheating not to bring them back.

You are absolutely right, and I love the way you put it, I really do. I don’t know how else to respond, because you seem to have said it all.

>Oh, and if anybody says, "Ah, but maybe Jack didn't _really_ die!" ... punch them in the head. Dude -- the guy was EATEN BY A GIANT SQUID. He's DEAD, okay?!

I enjoyed this bit (of your response, that is) quite a lot, too. It is rather hard to survive a death like that, yeah.

The death scene didn’t really affect me all that much the first time. Maybe it was because I was so wrapped up in keeping up with the plot and trying to figure out what Jack was going to do this time... It just sort of flew by me. Most of the movie did, really. I wasn’t emotionally involved the first time; I was intellectually involved. I have always been more interested in characters than plot, but it wasn’t until the second viewing that I started to really think about how the characters affected the plot or how they reacted and changed over the course of the film. It’s a new sensation for me to do it this backward sort of way, and I liked it! I don’t think it will change the way I watch movies or anything, but it worked for me in this case.

It wasn’t until the very end of the first viewing as they were all mourning in Tia Dalma’s front room that I was able to look at it emotionally. My left hemisphere realized that the movie was almost over and it wasn’t needed anymore, so it went off to take a nap after a hard day’s work. This left my right hemisphere unsupervised, so it ran screaming through the streets cackling excitedly when Barbossa’s boots started coming down the stairs. The only other time it was allowed to speak up at all during the first viewing was when it got word of Norrington’s predicament, so those were the two things I reacted most strongly too.

The only thing I remember thinking during the first viewing of Jack’s death scene was that it strongly reminded me of a scene in the Red Dwarf episode “Future Echoes.” Dave Lister, a crude, slobbish drifter with a tough attitude that belies a romantic soul, has just come to terms with the fact that he is about to die:

[Lister pulls out his hat and replaces it on his head, then yanks a hefty length of piping off the wall.]
LISTER: You said yourself: I can't stop it. Let's get it over with.
RIMMER: (Pointing at the pipe) Uh, Lister, what's that for?
LISTER: I'm going out like I came in -- screaming and kicking.
RIMMER: You can't whack death on the head!
LISTER: If he comes near me I'm gonna rip his nipples off!

Even before I started coming up with contextual reasons why it was okay that Jack had died, I was already comforted by the Red Dwarf comparison: Lister was the main character of the series for a further 46 episodes after he bravely sallied forth to his doom, and Jack will be back with us soon, as well.

By the second viewing, I of course knew what was going to happen, so it didn’t really get to me then, either. It’s sad, it’s upsetting, and I’m sure that flinging yourself into hundreds of big, sharp, pointy teeth is not the most comfortable way to go, but I’m not really feeling it...because he’s going to be back, and that’s all there is to it. And besides, Barbossa’s back! ::titters::

I think the logical, analytical, plot-centric way I watched it the first time was why, instead of being speechless at the end, I had entirely too much to say and knew exactly what all of it was. My problem was I couldn’t get my mind to line any of it up and send it out in an orderly fashion, so I wound up babbling mostly about how I would address things “in just a minute” and would say “more on that later” without ever actually saying anything of substance for about half an hour after the movie was over.

> ...there are parts of “The Princess Bride” that deeply bug me.

I have a few problems with Princess Bride, myself, and I would be very interested to hear your comments... I’d also like to know what you thought of Secondhand Lions, if you happened to see that. Some other time, though. We’re here for pirates right now ^_^

> The darkness IS shocking if you're not expecting it (it's another reason I think the spoilers for this particular movie may not have been a bad thing, for me personally)

Rather than being shocked by the darkness in DMC, I was actually very pleasantly surprised. There is a bitter cynic that dwells in my mind and pitches a fit any time I watch Disney movies or listen to Keith Urban. She loves Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Wagner and thinks Equilibrium would have been better if the resistance had failed. But at the same time, I also have a little bitty, flighty dingdong of a romantic who likes to read Jane Austen for the inevitable marriage at the end, wear pretty pastels, and spin around in circles while listening to “A Whole New World” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Most of the time, the cynic keeps the romantic tied up in the corner a la Megavolt’s little hero*******.

It’s rare that both of these extremes agree on anything, but Elliot and Rossio always manage to pull it off somehow. That’s really what I love about their movies, I think – they have just the right blend of cynicism and romance for me. Of course, I like to err on the cynical side, so I knew almost from the first shot of Will and Elizabeth’s rainy, doomed wedding that it was just the right sort of movie for me, even if I wasn’t sure it was going to be as entertaining as CotBP. There’s a difference between liking a movie and being entertained by it (see The Machinist for a very excellent example of a movie I like but do not find entertaining). Luckily, both Pirates movies are more than adequately entertaining while also having a wealth of deeper, darker elements to make me truly love them.

The only day Maggie and I could go see the movie for her first and my second viewing turned out to be my sister’s birthday, so I bought her a ticket as well. This was partly because my parents would have been upset if I had missed her birthday dinner so I made it necessary to postpone the dinner, but it was mostly because I firmly believed that she would like it more if she were to see it again.

She still thinks the first movie was better, and she made it a point to announce to me every time during the movie when one of the characters should have been severely or fatally injured. But if anyone still isn’t convinced that a second viewing is crucial for this movie, Kelly, who was pretty dead-set against seeing it again, says she liked it better the second time. There’s just entirely too much going on in it to fully appreciate it the first time, and she has admitted that.

Okay, all trifling nonsense about viewing techniques and personal reactions aside for the moment... Let’s talk Jack and Elizabeth.

>The only point I really disagreed with you about was Elizabeth not being fully committed to Will.

I did an incredibly poor job of explaining my position on this in my review, mostly because I wasn’t quite sure exactly what my position was. I’m still not ready to claim I know what’s going on, but I do at least have a better idea of what I think is happening.

There are a few things that I know:
1) Will is completely, utterly, without doubt In Love With Elizabeth, has been for ages, and will always and forever be.
2) Elizabeth loves Will.
3) Jack. Does. Not. Love. Elizabeth. Jack does not love anyone In That Way.

Those are the only things concerning this little “triangle” that I am in no doubt about. Beyond that, all is speculation. But I’m more than willing to speculate, so here we go.

Elizabeth is highly susceptible to romance. I’m not talking about the modern definition with the candlelight and soft music and all that, nor do I mean the word in the sense of romantic love versus platonic. Dictionary.com says it perfectly: “A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful: ‘These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to them’ (Richard Jeffries).” As much Elizabeth Bennett as there is in Elizabeth Swann, there’s plenty of Catherine Moreland, as well. She reads about pirate customs and lore, she falls prey to Disney Heroine Who Dreams of More Syndrome (Alan Menken would have written a wide, sweeping song with lots of vibrato for her, I have no doubt), and she develops a crush on Will because she finds him orphaned (for all intents and purposes) and floating alone in the middle of the sea.

Will is a very romantic character. From his background to his swarthy (in the incorrect, non-dark-complexioned usage of the word) good looks, to his “touch of destiny” ********, he oozes romance. Luckily for Elizabeth, he’s also an extraordinarily good catch if you like your men sweet, unquestioningly heroic, and a little clueless, so her crush was able to become love in time. Even by the end of CotBP, I don’t think they truly loved each other – they hadn’t had time to get to know each other yet, and what they felt for each other was simply the result of a ten-year-long crush on an idealized version of one another. So perhaps I need to amend my first Truth: “Will is completely, utterly, without doubt In Love With Elizabeth, believes he has been for ages, and will always and forever be.

The love didn’t come about until the months separating CotBP and DMC when they were finally able to reconcile romance with reality. Unlike many film/literary couples, however, they really are perfect compliments to one another, and it works...and will continue to work long after the Happily Ever After that seemed to have happened at the end of CotBP. Through death sentences, seeming infidelity, and whatever trials and tribulations will no doubt befall them in the third installment, they love each other.

So how does this fit with what we saw happen at the end of DMC*********?

Jack is a very romantic character. The only things even his own crew know about his past are tall tales, so he’s got the mysterious thing down pat. I don’t think there are many who would argue that he’s not adventurous. And while Jack might be grimy and smelly and just overall gross, he’s still Johnny Depp, and Johnny Depp is “strangely beautiful”...and closer to the true definition of “swarthy” than Orlando Bloom.

Elizabeth is highly susceptible to romance. She developed a crush on Will because he is a romantic figure, and she likewise developed a crush on Jack. Unlike with Will, though, her Jack-crush (which I believe originated from their time alone together on the island) will never develop beyond a crush for two very simple reasons:

1) Jack and Elizabeth are too much alike.
2) Jack repulses Elizabeth.

You can see it in the way she looks at him: he’s filthy, he’s rude, he doesn’t have the first clue how to treat a lady (even if she IS a lady who wants to be treated like one of the boys), and he does exactly what she would do if she could get away with it. Elizabeth is more upset than anyone else when Jack acts like the pirate he is not because she’s the moral compass of the films or because she’s a female and females are more interested in goodness, but because she IS Jack, deep down. She’s had to repress her Jack-like instincts because she never had the option to express them, and whether it’s because she is bitter about that or because her society has convinced her that it truly is wrong (or, more likely, some combination of the two), she has decided that Jack needs to be saved from himself and from his lifestyle...like she was.

Her repulsion, her admiration, and her desire to save him have combined to produce a very confused, very misguided crush, and that is why she spends so much of the movie looking so distressed (well, that and the whole thing with Will being in mortal peril, of course). Why the compass pointed to him is debatable, though I tend to lean toward the theory that, deep down, she wants to be allowed to be who she is instead of what society wants her to be, which is of course Jack’s modus operandi (and, like I said before, she would be very similar to Jack if she were left to her own devices). She doesn’t tell Will about kissing Jack not because she doesn’t want Will to discover that she likes Jack, but because she doesn’t want Will to discover that she is like Jack. And in the last scene at Tia Dalma’s, she is not mourning Jack so much as her innocence.

As for Jack, we never have any indication at all that he has romantic interest in Elizabeth. If I’m not mistaken, we never see the compass point to her when he uses it, and she comes on to him both times. As far as Jack is concerned, Elizabeth is just another girl; to Jack, all girls are just another girl. He seems to have no qualms with engaging in a little hanky-panky with any reasonably attractive female who will agree to it (in fact, Elizabeth and her handmaid from CotBP are the only women with speaking lines [in English, at least] in either movie that don’t have some history with him...and while it’s not necessarily a safe assumption that all of the other women have a sexual history with him, it is probably safe to be suspicious), but that’s all it ever is, at least for him.

When Jack flirts with Elizabeth and she responds positively, he continues. When she flirts with him, he likewise responds positively. I don’t think he ever expected it to go any further than flirting, though. He wouldn’t stop it if it did, but in his mind, it’s not worth complicating things unnecessarily over some girl.

But then she tries to seduce him to prove a point. She started it. She didn’t start it because she loved him or even because she had a crush on him, but she started it. And he reacted accordingly (or would have had the black spot not made its fortuitous reappearance). It’s in his nature to do so, and Elizabeth is aware of this, hence the eventual kiss. There seem to be three surefire ways to effectively distract Captain Jack Sparrow, who, despite appearances, is usually pretty well aware of what is going on: 1) knock him senseless (which Will does in CotBP), 2) play into his arrogance (seen in multiple instances in both movies), and 3) scare the hell out of him (as with the Kraken). By kissing him, Elizabeth accomplished both 2) and 3), if not 1) as well, in a mental/emotional sort of way.

So, why is it he didn’t know what he wanted? I don’t know, I really don’t, but I have finally arrived at an idea. Jack knew Davy Jones was going to come looking for him soon, and he knew that he needed to be well away from the sea when that time came. What he wants most is to be free, and up until his 13 years are up, the best way to accomplish that is to find the key and the chest, so that’s where the compass is going to point. As soon as his time is up, though, he needs to be on land, so the compass should point to land. BUT, at the beginning of the film when he doesn’t know whether Jones is after him yet or not (and when we see him having trouble with his compass) he doesn’t know which is the best option. Later, Tia Dalma says, “Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants...or do you know but are loathe to claim it as your own?” By this point, he knows that he needs to be on land...but he doesn’t want to. His “first and only love is the sea,” and what he “wants” is essentially a life sentence of being land-locked.

I have only recently started developing this theory, and I need to see the movie again to make sure it matches up with what actually happens with the compass, but it’s all I’ve been able to come up with so far. Well, it’s the only thing I’ve been able to come up with that I am able to stomach. My only other lead refutes everything I’ve ever believed about Jack: at the beginning, Gibbs says “Setting sail without knowing his own heading? Something's got Jack vexed”...and then several scenes later, Jack very confidently answers “A woman,” when Will asks “What vexes all men?” ********** It’s just a word, and Jack did know the story, so he knew the answer before the question was asked, but there’s still a traitorous part of me that thinks it may be a clue.

ANYway...

Let’s move along to young Mr. Turner.

> I appear to like Will more than you do, which is okay.

Here’s another place where my words did not say what I meant for them to say. Well, I did mean to call Will a dingdong, and I did mean to say that he is rather stupid at times. But text fails utterly when it comes to inflection: I’m laughing while I call him a dingdong, and I’m grinning when I say that some of the things he does are stupid. I most certainly didn’t mean for it to sound like I don’t like him. I’m quite sure that you do like him more than I do, but I very much appreciate the character. If the other characters weren’t all so gosh-darned fantabulous, Will would probably be my favourite, actually. He’s sweet, he’s naïve, he’s adorably clueless in an intelligent sort of way, and you can see him getting smarter as the movies progress. We’ve gone over this part: I LOVE those qualities. But next to Jack, Barbossa, Elizabeth, and now Norrington, he comes out looking rather boring. He’s just got a little too much of the Hero in him to compete with the others for my attention. The only thing he does that isn’t “lawful” is when he rescues Jack at the end of CotBP, and the only things he does that aren’t noble are when he knocks Jack out with the oar, and then when he stands aside to let Norrington do what he wished to Jack. Maggie’s right – being boring isn’t reason enough to have your heart stomped on...but I’m sure glad it happened. Why?

Will is pissed. He’s pissed at Jack, he’s pissed at Elizabeth, and he’s probably pissed at himself for allowing what he thinks happened to happen. Will is a very rash young man. He’s gotten better, but he’s still very reckless. Now he’s going to stew over the kiss thing until he reaches the breaking point. If Jack were still alive, I have no doubt Will would confront him about it suddenly, with out any warning, and most likely in a relatively violent manner (actually, I can’t decide whether he would just lash out, or if he would instead challenge him to a duel. It’s pretty much a toss up at this point, I think). But since Jack’s not around, we’re in for a spectacularly rough scene between Will and Elizabeth when it finally happens. I sincerely doubt it will be as bad as the Claudio/Hero confrontation in Much Ado About Nothing, but it will reveal a lot about both characters, and I personally cannot wait to see how Will is going to deal with it...not because I’m a big fan of angst, but because Will needs some character development, and the heart-stomping should spur it.

So in the end, I like Will, and I like him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt about becoming more interesting later...and to try to analyze him long enough to find something interesting about him now. And, yes, I did enjoy the bit about settling Sparrow’s debt (but why didn’t he stop talking when he realized it wasn’t in his best interest to say it? “You know that little voice that people have that tells them to quite while they’re ahead? YOU DON’T HAVE ONE!”), and the dice ploy was pretty clever. So, Will can have a couple of points for those things, too, even though it kind of frustrates me that he IS so bloody clever, but he lets his naïve, brainless hero side get the better of him so often.

What it comes right down to it, though, is predictability:

BARBOSSA: I must admit, Jack, I thought I had ye figured. But it turns out that you're a hard man to predict.
JACK: Me? I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly...stupid.

While a highly entertaining exchange, this is a bald-faced lie, and Jack knows it. He knows he can trust Will to understand what is going on...which probably 75% of the audience was unable to do the first time...and that he will react in a way so as to help Jack. While you may never be sure exactly what Will is going to do or how he is going to do it, you do know that it will be heroic...and that’s WAY more than we know for certain about Jack, or even Elizabeth now. THAT is why Will isn’t among my favourite characters (of the movie, at least... All of the main characters of CotBP have spots on my Favourite Characters EVER list). He’s just not challenging enough. Yet.

> It might scare you that you said he's a Lawful Good, but it scares the BUGGER-ALL out of me that I knew what it MEANT. ;-D

I have never in my life played D&D, much less any other RPG (at least no structured RPGs...), so it really says something about me that I know what the term “Lawful Good” means, and even more so that I actually used it. And then the dorkiness factor went up tenfold when I sat down the other day and determined the alignments of the four characters that I find more interesting than Will. And THEN I ran them through one of those personality test thingummies to see if my conclusions matched up. Only one of them didn’t, so I found another test and retried, and it matched up that time. Of course, even the test results are biased since I answered the questions based on my understanding of the characters, but I still find it interesting enough to list the results here:

Will: Lawful Good
Elizabeth: Neutral Good
Norrington: Lawful Neutral
Barbossa: Neutral Evil
Jack: Chaotic Neutral (this is the one I had the disagreement with the first test about... It was bound and determined that Jack is Chaotic Evil. It just wasn’t asking the right questions, is all)

Oh, before I forget, I have got to say that Will’s outfit is gorgeous...up until it gets ripped off of him for the whipping scene, of course (where did he get a new shirt, anyway?)

And while we’re on the subject of the whipping scene... I actually wasn’t all that disconcerted by it. I mean, I felt bad for both Turners, of course, but it didn’t seem out of place or too dark or anything. Wellard was caned until he passed out, for goodness sake. By a father figure he had actually had a chance to bond with! And for a much lesser offense! Not that I would want to take five lashes (abso-friggen-lutely NOT), but as far as maritime punishment goes, Will did get off easy considering he could have destroyed the ship.

I am very interested in Davy Jones’ reaction to the whipping, though. I don’t have any theories about it yet (I’ve been too busy contemplating everything else to give it much thought), but I am interested. They showed an extended shot of him making strange faces that seemed like they could be remorse just as easily as satisfaction (my cephalopod expression interpreting skills are rather limited), and I know enough to be suspicious of extra-long shots.

>> Kelly seems to think it would have be neat if they took a page out of Princess Bride's book [or Batman Begins', though she would never admit to liking anything about that movie] and have Bootstrap turn out to be Davy Jones.

> I can't quite figure out what she means. How could Bootstrap possibly turn out to be Davy Jones??

She was referring to the way Westley “inherits” the title “Dread Pirate Roberts.” So basically it would turn out that Bootstrap was the brains behind the Flying Dutchman operation and “Davy Jones” was just a figurehead. It’s a very silly suggestion, and I can only hope that she wasn’t being serious when she suggested it.

Re: Brittany’s stuff

> On the Curse of Monkey Islandness of the whole movie: :DDDDDDDD So freaking happy. Watching the Game Makers on Tim Schaffer now. Shut up.

I’ve got Kelly playing it now, so I’m reminding myself once again how fantastic the game is. I am truly in heart with Guybrush Threepwood, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

> On The Jack/Elizabeth Sexual Tension: I called it in the first movie but I still didn't like to see it played out, due in large part to the fact that it just seemed trite and unnecessary... but after reading Robin's review I understand, or at least grudgingly accept, the reasoning behind it a little more.

I really hope my further ramblings on this subject helped a bit, too. I really have been trying entirely too hard to rationalize all of this...

> On "overacting:" Yeah. The first movie did it too. It's a real life cartoon based on a automatron ride at Disney World. Get over it.

Haha... Yeah. Just...yeah.

> On it being "two hours of filler:" Yeah. It was. That kind of upset me, but it was damn fun filler.

I don’t think it was filler, necessarily... I mean, yes, it was long, and they didn’t even pretend that the second and third movies weren’t basically just one over-long one, but there’s SO MUCH going on, and absolutely none of it was pointless. Even the cannibal stuff.

>On Elizabeth in her darker, more feminist role: Yessss.

This is one of my favourite things about this movie, I think. I always did like Elizabeth, but I had forgotten how much until I saw the second one. I guess it’s because I never like the female characters, I was still upset about how much the female characters in Batman Begins and Fantastic Four sucked, and I had residual bad taste in my mouth from hearing that Kiera Knightley played Lizzie Bennett (I still haven’t seen that movie, and I’m still pretty sure I don’t want to), but I didn’t remember Elizabeth being a truly enjoyable character instead of just an interchangeable “spunky heroine.” Shame on me.

I keep seeing her glibly referred to as a “spitfire” or “fiesty” or any one of a number of one-word descriptions that are just as demeaning as “damsel” or “demure.” There is so much more to this character than her attitude. She does have a very liberated personality, but she is also cautious, clever (I love her trick with the dress, I really do), romantic, and spoiled, all in differing amounts. Most of the people I have talked to have applauded her for her feminism***********, but Maggie actually has a different view of her; during the “guard the chest” scene, she said “Why did they make the girl an idiot?!”

This is perhaps my favourite scene in the whole movie, not because of the three-way sword fight (though I absolutely adore that too), but because of Elizabeth. I identified with her more in those short moments on the beach than I have in any other scene in either movie, save perhaps when she was on the beach in CotBP exasperatedly explaining to Jack why his precious rum was expendable. If I had traipsed across the Caribbean for the SECOND time, proven myself an able sailor and swordsman, AND just relocated my fiancée for the first time in probably a month or more, and THEN was told to stand by and “guard the chest” while said fiancée runs off with two men who are willing to kill him if need be, I would be VERY upset. I would sputter, I would yell, I would sulk, and I would above all refuse to guard the damned chest. I don’t care how important the freaking thing is, you do NOT brush me aside like that. Elizabeth’s little hissy fit reminded me of Tinkerbell, to an extent, but it didn’t anoy me as much as Tink does because it was a fully justified hissy fit, in my opinion************, and it was just the once instead of the whole movie.

And this is where the subtle difference between a “feminist character” and a believeable female character comes in: both Maggie and I consider ourselves feminists, but we were able to form two completely opposite opinions from the same set of information. With a “feminist character,” you almost feel obligated to approve of the character, which of course usually turns me off. But with a believeable female character, you are allowed to like or dislike her on her own terms.

I also really appreciate the fact that her fiancée, her ex-fiancée, and the man she will kiss before the end of the film get into a three-way sword fight...but instead of competing for HER heart, they are seeking to win Davy Jones’. Colbert was right: there are homosexual overtones in this movie ;^P

> If [Jack] was more testosterone driven he wouldn't be nearly as delightful a coward.

::chuckle:: Any fans of Jack who haven’t read Peter David’s Apropos of Nothing series (which I have a feeling is all of you who will read this...) must. Especially if you are also a Rincewind fan. They are rather bawdy in places, and a working knowledge of post-Tolkien fantasy conventions is essential to properly enjoying them, but definitely give them a go. The first book is Sir Apropos of Nothing.

> On The Kiss: All I could think about was that A) He probably hasn't brushed his teeth since he was a fetus and B) Keira Knightly is MY AGE and making out with JOHNNY FREAKING DEPP. >:O The world is unfair. I will console myself with chocolates and thoughts of bad pirate breath and metal teeth.

Oh, Brittany... You humour me greatly. I’m very intrigued by our differing reactions to said kiss: I didn’t really have any reaction at all, and Maggie yelled, “What?! This is stupid!”

> On Will: I hate that he just forgives Jack so easily, also that in this movie he's pretty much just an underdeveloped pansy throughout. I hope there's a fight later. BecauseIlikeOrlandoBloom. There. I said it. :P Shut up.

I shalt not ridicule. I’m the one who watched The Wedding Date because Angela lured me over to her house with promises of Jack Davenport (I’m still undecided about Norrington, but Davenport’s voice has my full support). I really don’t think he has forgiven Jack for anything, he’s just being The Hero again. Anyway, I said my piece about Will already. Let’s move along.

> I don't really feel like slogging through all that walking and slow motion battles, whereas I'm going to watch Pirates I tonight.

Ah, Lord of the Rings... Really, if the trilogy were two hours shorter, I would probably love it. But I don’t, and this is not an extensive response to those movies. So, we shall now move on to the first professional review of the film that I ran across:

> “’Pirates of the Caribbean: DMC’ - yo-ho-hum”

Oh, aren’t we witty. I would let this slide if the article’s main complaint weren’t that there is too much going on. Your title should give your audience some idea of your thesis, and I for one took this title to mean the reviewer found the movie boring...which is almost impossible.

> The movie offers an hour of hilarious slapstick and fog-in-the-riggings chills, followed by a hour of tedium and suffering, with the duration trying to figure it all out on fingers, toes and scorecards.

This was much the same problem most reviewers seemed to have with TRtED – the first half is very funny, but then it actually gets to the plot and apparently no one cares about that. And if DMC hadn’t been so complicated, everyone would be whining that it was too predictable... You can’t have it both ways, people: you can either be challenged by new material or comforted by rehashing of old.

Speaking of rehashing old material, I kind of felt they overdid the rum and eunuch jokes this time. I very much enjoyed Jack’s somewhat panicked “Hide the rum!” and his comment about Will being a “terrific soprano” *************, but I think they should have left it at that. I mean, obviously there has to be rum, but I feel like there was too much**************.

> ...the movie is nothing, nothing at all, when [Jack]'s not front and center...

Um...I disagree. He’s fantastic, and he’s clearly my favourite character – clearly THE favourite character – but he’s NOT the be-all, end-all of the movies, and it would take an extremely shallow viewing to come to that conclusion, I think. I know I’m coming across as an elitist fangirl, and that tone is only going to get worse. I really do believe that most of the people who hold the Jack’s-the-Only-Good-Part opinion aren’t paying the movie(s) enough attention, either because they don’t think it deserves their attention or because they just aren’t able to keep up with the plot.

> Meanwhile, Capt. Jack himself, plowing the seas (for his stolen ship "The Black Pearl"?),

Hold the phone! He’s ON the phrackin’ Pearl! No wonder this woman didn’t follow the rest of the movie! How can you possibly understand anything else that happens if you don’t even know where the Pearl is?

> is nimbly attempting to stiff a blood-debt to the phantom Davy Jones (Bill Nighy).

So she caught that there was a debt, but she missed the whole thing about what Jack was looking for? ::sigh:: For someone who only seems to enjoy Jack’s mincing about, she certainly doesn’t listen to what he says...

> This latter, having inexplicably leapt from one legend into another, must be astonished to find himself captain of the "Flying Dutchman"

Okay, point taken...

> and master of Kraken, a seamonster from Scandanavia, who is doubtless equally surprised to find itself in the balmy Caribbean.

I strongly suspect this woman knows absolutely nothing about mythology or cryptozoology. That is perfectly alright, as they are somewhat esoteric subjects, and I had to do a little research myself before I felt comfortable taking my complaints about this particular comment public. But that’s the thing: before you publish something like this, you really should look into it a little so you don’t sound like a jackass for complaining about something being a factual error when it really isn’t.

The Kraken is not a solely Scandinavian sea monster, it is simply the Scandinavian variation on a theme reported around the world, from Scandinavia to New Zealand to Japan to, coincidentally, “the balmy Caribbean,” where there is a monster known as the lusca. All of these mythical creatures are somewhat different (reports of the lusca resemble an octopus more than a squid, for example), but most of them are assumed to have been either giant or colossal squids, hence the monster in the film.

The kraken was not exclusively referred to as the kraken, in fact: Bootstrap calls it the leviathan, which is the Hebrew take on the beastie. Why do they call it a kraken most of the film, though? Why not “lusca”? The most practical reason is that more of the audience has probably heard of the kraken than have heard of the lusca, including myself up until a few hours ago when I looked it up. The contextual reason I believe has to do with the nature of piracy. These guys are not exactly book smart (though I find Ragetti’s sudden intelligence very humourous and interesting...and I suspect his explanation of the kraken was the only source of information the reviewer had for the origins of the myth), but they do socialize with people from all over the world. Who actually says “kraken” in the movie? Gibbs, who is well-versed in superstition and folklore; Davy Jones, who controls it and can therefore call it whatever he bloody-well likes; a random sailor on one of the ships that goes down; Pintel, who says he has heard it said “kray-ken”; Ragetti, who obviously has researched it a bit; and Will, who heard Gibbs say it in a previous scene. All of these characters are of European ancestry – we never hear a Caribbean native refer to the creature at all, and Jack, who seems most likely to have picked up a non-European name for it just calls it “beastie.”

My point here, because I’m sure everyone has lost it by now (I know I have), is that “kraken” is just a European (specifically Scandinavian) name for a sea monster...and there was a Caribbean sea monster. And it makes sense for the characters to not be too terribly concerned about the accuracy of mixing mythologies by calling a Caribbean monster by a Scandinavian name because they are not scholars. Plus, they’re about to be eaten by a big-ass squid. You try remembering details like names and the number of tentacles it’s supposed to have at a time like that.

>A pair of unexplained fellows

What, you mean the fellows who were featured somewhat heavily in the first movie? Is it really too much to ask that the audience of a sequel have a working knowledge of the characters from the first film? No one was asking that you remember their names, or even any details about their personalities, really. I don’t think it’s that difficult to ask that whoever reviews the sequel be someone who has seen the first movie at least once since it first came out.

> a snarky ex-fiancée

Heh... I just love that word, and it’s so appropriate... I love the way he refers to Will as Elizabeth’s “latest fiancée.” Really I love his whole reaction to that particular Elizabeth/Jack encounter...

> If you are with me so far, you're cheating somehow.

Or perhaps we just understood what was going on... It really is not an impossible feat to figure out the basic plot the first time you watch the movie. All it takes is a little bit of familiarity with the characters, the ability to listen to what’s being said (several of the characters help you out along the way if you pay attention, Gibbs and Ragetti being the most obvious examples), and enough interest to pay attention.

> The production aims at extravagance and over-stimulation, on sights not ordinarily seen and perils not often imagined outside of Indiana Jones. Close students of perfectly realized absurdity will be helpless in the face of pirates escaping inside a giant wicker ball;

That’s a rather benign view of what that actually was...

> a three-way duel atop a runaway mill wheel; the episode of the king and the coconuts

I think this is probably the most important part of this whole review. She finally admits that it will appeal to some people, and tells us who those people are likely to be. She does it in a snide way, but she does it. And that’s really what a professional review should do: let the readers know if they will like it or not. It’s not about the reviewer and her own feelings about the movie when you’re dealing with a little-read local paper, because her readers don’t care about her as a person.
I, on the other hand, am very important and well-loved by everyone, which is why you should all read everything I have to say on the subject and agree with me without reservation ;^P

> just when you thought all possible changes had been rung on food fights.

Is she condemning it? For originality? Really?

> Think: Vaudeville's King Kong road show version in a banana skirt.

If you’re trying to dissuade me from seeing the movie, that was not the way to do it. I’m part of That One Superhero Team, and the above smells of Pythonite (Sorry... There I go again, referencing something that maybe a half-dozen people in the entire world have any idea about. Kudos to anyone who figured it out, though.)

> Then the funny lights go out. Scenes aboard the "Flying Dutchman" with its phantom crew dissolving into sea-forms, are some of the more eerie and arresting cinematics to date.

This really sounds a lot like praise... Didn’t she say before that only the bits with Jack acting loopy were any good?

> The grotesque, octopus-headed

I’d just like to point out that octopi only have eight tentacles, and Davy Jones’ head has several more than that. But never mind my carping (haha...aren’t I witty?). Back to the review.

> Davy (his smallest tentacles helpfully hold his hat on) is funny-once, horrible-twice, and thereafter enough to suggest heave-ho's of an entirely non-piratical sort.

Hmm... I don’t think it was ever intended to be funny, and I don’t personally think it was grotesque, either. Then again, I watch House.

> For all its lovely bits, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" is not the kind of giddy escapism that can be faced twice without a goodly tot of that trade gin, or without a finger on fast-forward.

It goes without saying that I disagree with this statement. In fact, I would like to suggest that Ms Green probably should have watched the movie at least one more before she published an article that suggested Jack was looking for the Pearl at the beginning of the movie.

> The movie is a squeaky-clean horror and a merry pillage and so, I suspect, the worthy offspring of pirates and thrill rides.

Judging by how unfocused and contradictory this review was, it is clear that this woman was confused out of her poor little mind by the movie, but she had to turn in a review anyway. But that’s just my opinion on the matter.

I did find one rather good review on MTV.com, of all places. I won’t respond to the whole thing, other than to say that I agree with almost all of it, but I do want to repost the last paragraph, because I really like it:

“So what's wrong with this picture? Not much, if you ask me. It is rather long, at two and a half hours; but then that's only about eight minutes longer than the first film. Still, the bountifully talented director, Gore Verbinski, might have trimmed it a bit, I suppose. (The cannibal-island scenes, and some of the shipboard free-for-alls, would be possible candidates for compression.) I imagine there are people who'll complain that the movie lacks the first-time freshness, the delirious tang, of its predecessor; but how could it not? The filmmakers have done a wonderful thing here. They've expanded the story in vastly entertaining ways, conjuring up sights we've never seen onscreen before, and they've clearly had a lot of fun doing so. Surely effusive gratitude, not sourpuss quibbling, is in order.”

Here here! You can read the whole review at ’Pirates 2’: Must Sea, by Kurt Loder.

Alrighty then. I think I’ll just list the rest of the stuff I wanted to say instead of trying to beat it all into something bordering on paragraph-form. I’ve been working on this thing for nearly two weeks now, and I have Sculpey to get back to after all.

~ The audience was much more responsive the second time. A lot of that has to do with the fact that my first trip was to the bargain matinee, whereas the second was a night showing so the audience was rather older. I think it also has to do with my second viewing being more than two weeks after the movie opened. By then, most of the people who were there had probably either already seen it or were being dragged along by people who had. Instead of being in a theater full of kids who didn’t understand, parents who could care less, and teenagers who were there because that’s where pop culture dictates they were supposed to be, I was there with a group of my peers, most of whom already knew they liked it. While my first viewing was not at all affected by anyone around me, the second was made more enjoyable simply because other people were enjoying it, too. Kevin Murphy makes a big deal about atmosphere and how it affects the viewing process in A Year at the Movies. Usually I agree with him, but this one I was able to enjoy as though I were home by myself with no one to look at me funny because I was snickering and giggling and squeaking and just generally losing myself in the movie. All that stuff I said last time about how much fun I had? That was all between me and the movie.

~ The second viewing was all about character interaction and reactions and whatnot. I already mentioned Jones’ reaction to the whipping and Norrington’s reaction to the one conversation between Elizabeth and Jack, but I think my absolute favourite was Jack’s reaction to Elizabeth’s saying “I'm so ready to be married.” The way he turns up his nose (and I believe whole heartedly that he was reacting to the idea of marriage in general and NOT the idea of Elizabeth marrying Will) was fantastic.

~ I also spent a good deal of the second viewing pondering over Beckett. I knew the first time I saw the movie that there was plenty of interesting stuff going on with him, I just chose to ignore it. The second time, however, I went right ahead and pondered. Why does he spit out the word “freedom” like he does? What is his deal with loyalty? He has maybe two or three dozen lines in the whole film, and he says, “loyalty is no longer the currency of the realm,” then later bargains for Governor Swann’s loyalty to the East India Trading Co. What mark did Jack leave on him? How does he know so much about the compass, the Isla de Muerta, the Aztec treasure, and the curse? How does Governor Swann know him? Is it at all significant that he has recently been given a title? And what title does he have (I believe Baron, Viscount, Earl, and Marquis are all referred to as Lord Whatever, so it could be any one of those)?

~ During the (really very short) search for the 99 souls, I kept thinking of Rincewind in Missing, Presumed...? (the second Discworld video game). I wanted to tell him the trick about the ants...though I doubt it would have pleased Jones to try that one out.

~ “Dividing him from her and her from him would only be half as cruel as actually allowing them to be joined in holy matrimony.” Eh? Jack seems to be trying to convince Jones that his (Jack’s) debt would be repaid if Will were allowed to marry Elizabeth. Or am I misreading that? If so, that does wonders for the theory that Jack always intended to get Will back***************.

~ One of the biggest things I missed the first time was the reasons for each of the Kraken attacks. In all the excitement, I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t followed those bits until the second time, and by then I had figured it all out.

~ Did anyone else notice Cotton’s weird two-finger thing? I believe it first happened during the scene where Jack first meets back up with the Pearl and the crew is grilling him about the picture of the key. Cotton is off to the side in the group, and we get a shot of them all when Gibbs is responding to something Jack has said. I happened to notice that Cotton held his right hand up like he had something to add (which is, of course, a bit of a silly assumption given his handicap) – he had his index and middle fingers up. I thought that was a bit weird, but didn’t think too much more of it until the crew was hanging in the “giant wicker ball”s and Cotton bit Gibbs to illustrate what was going to happen to Jack. If I’m not mistaken, he bit the index and middle fingers of Gibbs’ right hand. I doubt it means anything, I just thought it was weird.

~ After this viewing, the conversation was considerably more intellectual, and a lot more positive. I think the best part of the ride home was when Kelly, Maggie, and I had a rather interesting discussion of motive and relative nobility. I’m not sure what the general consensus was, or even if there was a general consensus, but I personally came to the conclusion that Jack, Norrington, and Will were all being selfish during the fight over the chest. Norrington of course was being most selfish, as his only interest in getting it was to get his life back. And Jack has chosen to save his own skin, which is typical Jack Sparrow behaviour. But Will was being selfish, too; as I said before, I don’t believe he bonded with his father (the way he says “I will not abandon you,” is enough proof for me). He’s not trying to get the heart because he really cares about his dad so much as he is trying to show his father how much better he is than him. That’s the heart of the Will Turner Hero Complex, I think: he has to prove to the world that he isn’t the terrible, murderous pirate that his father is. He has to be the hero. So where it may look at first like he is the only one who deserves the heart, I believe Jack would have been able to do more good with it...and would have, given the opportunity. As Draca said, he would have used it to barter for whatever he wanted, which could have easily been expanded to include Bill.

~ One of Kelly’s friends mentioned after my first viewing that you can see Barbossa’s boots the first time they’re all at Tia Dalma’s, and I noticed the second time I saw it that she’s talking to someone – whether it’s Jack the monkey, Barbossa, or herself – when she goes to the back room. I couldn’t tell what she was saying at all, but she was definitely talking.

~ Because of Draca’s review, I knew to look for the lockets the second time around. I knew the first time that there was something on Tia Dalma’s table that I should be seeing other than the ring, but I didn’t figure it out on my own. I’m really hoping that she found or bought or bartered for the locket somewhere, because I don’t feel like the likely revelation that she was the woman Jones was in love with is original enough for this story. I suppose it would put a nice spin on things considering how nonchalantly she discusses Jones’ curse, and I guess it would sort of make her even more unconventional as a female who doesn’t feel romantic attachment AND doesn’t come off as a total slut... But I still want there to be another explanation.

~ I ran across an interesting essay about Tia Dalma that posits that the locket is not Tia Dalama’s, but Barbossa’s (and not in a slashy way, since they did specify it was a woman who broke Jones’ heart). The author suggests that the lockets aren’t symbols of romantic attachment, but instead the means by which characters achieve their immortality. I was all ready to consider this theory as a viable alternative to the Tia Dalma/Davy Jones explanation and was even trying to figure out if the music it played had any power (Davy sleeps right through the key-stealing scene...is this because of the music box?), but then I remembered that the heart symbol is the lock on the chest, which makes it pretty much guaranteed that the lockets have to do with Jones’ love story. What I don’t understand is why he would keep the locket if he couldn’t even bear to keep his heart. And what good is a memento if you are incapable of feeling love? It doesn’t seem to induce negative emotions in him, so I doubt it fuels his anger or anything...

~ Another rather interesting thing the Tia Dalma essay pointed out was that she “is the first woman we’ve seen with whom Jack was formerly acquainted who hasn’t slapped him upon reintroduction.” This isn’t strictly true, as Elizabeth still hasn’t actually slapped him (though what she did do to him was considerably worse... But still, not a slap, and not immediately upon meeting back up with him.

~ I am officially joining the Tia Dalma is Uber-Nifty bandwagon, by the way. I can’t help but feel that the key to the movie (not the key in the movie, but the key to the movie) is in her shack somewhere and I just haven’t found it yet. There’s so much that goes on in there in such a short amount of time that you can’t even begin to catch it all with just two viewings. It’s frustrating and exciting at the same time. This is going to be a long year...

~ Draca pointed out how portentous Jack’s entrance is. I’d like to point out for the one or two people out there who are reading this and have only seen the movie once that he also falls into an open grave during the water wheel scene (have any of you seen the water wheel playset thing they’re selling now? Oh, the fun that could be had with that if I were seven...).

~ I really love this exchange:

BOOTSTRAP: They strapped me to a cannon, I ended up on the bottom of the ocean, the weight of the water crushing down on me. Unable to move, unable to die, Jack, and I thought that even the tiniest hope of escaping this fate, I would take it. I would trade anything for it.
JACK: It's funny what a man will do to forestall his final judgment.
BOOSTRAP: Jack... Won't be able to talk yourself out of this.

I’m especially fond of it because he doesn’t wind up backing down in the end.

~ Back in early June, I had a mini-obsession with the music video for Panic! at the Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” (it’s available on Yahoo! Launch, if you enjoy, as Blender put it, “histrionic white boys”). A few of the characters in the video have a set of eyes painted on their eyelids, so I was reminded of the video during the Pelegosto scenes. Surprisingly, the association almost kind of worked. The tone was just about right – dark, but in a chaotic, absurdly comical way.

~ I rather miss Jack’s “interesting”s. Wonder why that didn’t come back? Everything and everyone else did...

~ Is there a reason why he said “leverage” with a short “e” the first time? (“whoever possesses that chest possesses the lehvrage to command Jones to do whatever it is he or she wants.”)

~ I see Jack inherited Willy Wonka’s tongue thing... Actually, it’s been a while since I saw the first movie, so it’s entirely possible that he did weird things with his tongue in that one too and I just don’t remember it.

~ Why did the natives think Jack was a god? I don’t really mind that they didn’t explain this because the whole thing with the Pelegostos was really only there to add some levity and to give Will a chance to catch up to the Pearl, but I’m still not entirely comfortable with the way it plays into the stereotype of the naïve native.

~ Jack spent thirteen years as captain? How old is he?! I guess Norrington was somehow a commodore by his early-thirties, but it seems like pirates, who have no formal rank or promotion system or anything, would have an even more difficult time earning the respect to become captain. I guess if a super-natural anthropomorphic cephalopod who also happens to be the devil incarnate makes you captain, no one can argue too much... But let’s assume that Jack is Johnny Depp’s age, which would make him 43 now. Ignoring the fact that it would be virtually impossible for any man in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries (come to think of it, when are these movies set?), much less a pirate, to be so incredibly well-preserved as Jack is by the time he was forty****************, that would make him only thirty when he became captain. What does a thirty-year-old have to go to impress Davy Jones enough get to strike a deal like that with him? And what is so special about Jack’s soul that it is worth 100 Wills? I mean, Jack’s a special sort of guy, but 100 is a lot.

~ As much fun as it is to speculate on this, and as much as I love Jack, I DO NOT want any back-story on him in the third film. I will be very upset if we don’t hear about Barbossa, Davy Jones, and Tia Dalma’s pasts, but dear gods DON’T tell us Jack’s Story. Not only would it be wildly out of character for him to tell anyone anything truthful about his past (except the thing about how he got off the island in CotBP, but that was a need-to-know situation), but it would also spoil all the fun of the character. Jack is like Sasquatch, Nessie, and the Chupathingie***************** – until we find out for sure what they are, they are very interesting...but if we ever actually discover one and study it, it will just be another animal. Kind of like the kraken.

~ So Jones raised the Pearl from the bottom of the sea... How did it get there in the first place? And will this information come in handy later, considering “Davy Jones’ locker” is the bottom of the sea?

~ How important is the fact that Jones can come on land every ten years going to be?

~ I really do love Davy Jones’ theme. It’s very stylish and pompous and dark and just fantastic. I’ll be back at school soon and have a permanent address again, and I know what the rest of my birthday gift certificate is going toward.

~ I spent a lot of time trying to determine where the CGI ended on Jones’ crew. Computer animation really has come an extraordinarily long way in the not-quite-eleven years since Toy Story (yeah...it’s really been that long), and I think the fact that I was really trying and couldn’t figure out how much of Davy Jones’ face was CG instead of prosthesis (apparently all) really drives that home. I’ve heard some grumbling about how much CGI there was in the movie, but these people apparently don’t remember what animatronics actually look like. It’s perfectly acceptable to be nostalgic about the days of Harryhausen, and there is perhaps something to be said for the argument that the craftsmanship and artistry of really well-done pre-CG effects outweighs the benefits of the sleek stuff of today (though I would counter that there’s a craft to CG animation, too...), but it just wouldn’t have worked without the CGI. Imagine if you will a kraken puppet...

~ As far as character design goes, my favourite of Jones’ crew is the hammerhead guy; I especially love his eyes (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see the movie again and look for his eyes).

~ The Flying Dutchman’s triple guns are very neat. I’m not usually a weapon groupie or anything, but my jaw dropped when they rolled those out, and I’m not sure if I actually said it, but I was definitely thinking, “Whoa...!”

~ Did anyone else think of Rincewind and Twoflower at the Drum in Colour of Magic during the Tortuga bar brawl?

~ There are a lot of Jack quotes that I seriously need as soundbites (I could make my computer really obnoxious really easily if not properly restrained ;^P), but I think “I know what I want, I know what I want, IknowwhatIwant, I Know. What. I WANT,” is my very favourite.

~ I haven’t said this yet in this review, so I’m gonna go ahead and get it out of the way: I LOVE Barbossa. He’s so clever and witty and deliciously dastardly... I strongly suspect he would have known better than to show Will where he kept the key, I really do.

~ Maggie is apparently also at least somewhat fond of him – when he came back, she started giggling and said “He’s got an apple!” Oh, Maggimus... You’re so fun.

~ Maggie’s other big contribution to my second viewing was to tell Elizabeth to “Shoot the barrels, stupid!”, which put me strongly in mind of what I was yelling at Lt. Bush in “Horatio Hornblower: Duty.”

~ I couldn’t help myself. When the captain of the ship Elizabeth stowed away on said “Now this appears to be as no more than we have a stowaway on board. A young woman, by the look of it. I want you to search the ship and find her,” I muttered, “Or you could look for a size-zero cabin boy.” I did really like her cabin boy outfit, though... Traipsing around the Caribbean in a wedding dress would seriously suck. I really like how accepting all of the characters were of the fact that she was cross-dressing the entire movie. I wouldn’t expect any less from Jack, of course, but I thought at least Norrington or Will would have been a little weirded out.

~ While Jack and Norrington went straight for the chest, Elizabeth paid a little bit of attention to the other things in the trunk, even reading a bit of one of the letters. Forgiving her invasion of privacy (though it could easily be argued that reading a letter is less an invasion of privacy than plundering a heart with intent to destroy it), I think it says a lot about all three characters. And I really want to know what she read.

~ Did the trunk ever get closed or reburied or anything, or are all of the letters blowing out into the sea?

~ The progression of the Will/Jack relationship fascinates me. When they first meet, Will says, “I practice three hours a day so that when I meet a pirate, I can kill it!” While I’m positive that statement was prompted more by bravado than reality, it is still very obvious that Will passionately despises pirates. A relatively short time later, after Jack has verbally and physically abused Will, earned his trust, lost it again, and finally gained some of it back, and after Will has (knowing full well the entire time that Jack planned to use him) met Jack on his own level, knocked him out, and learned that they work really well together, Will risks his home, his love, and his life in order to save the pirate.
Then six months later, Will has had time to forget many of Jack’s positive traits and, though he still respects him, he very snarkily calls him “More ‘acquaintance’ than ‘friend’.” The evolution of the relationship throughout CotBP, and then the evolution through DMC are both very natural on their own, but it seems somewhat odd to go from rescuing someone from the gallows to drawing your sword on the same man when you next meet. Granted, Will does have a Hero Complex, six months is a while, Jack did have Will imprisoned (though he did the best he could to explain why), and Will knew that Jack wouldn’t just cheerfully HAND him the compass. I understand why the relationship soured like it did, but I still find it very intriguing and more than a bit strange how volatile this friendship (or is it an acquaintance?) is.

~ Will’s smart-arse response to Beckett (“Lord Beckett, in the category of questions not answered—”) earned him some points in Robin’s Book O’ Cooella Characters, too, just in case anyone is keeping score.

~ The first time we went, Kelly and her buddies decided we weren’t going to stay through the credits, so Kelly came out all upset about the dog getting eaten. Of course, we know what nearly happened to the last person who sat on that throne, so I guess the dog isn’t in the clear just yet.

~ There are an immense amount of credits for this movie...

~ After my first viewing, I came away feeling very satisfied, which apparently is exactly the opposite of all but a handful of other people in the world. I wasn’t able to put a finger on why I was so pleased with how it all worked out myself, but Draca really nailed it with her discussion of the hope at the end. There was also a bit of smugness and mental fatigue on my part, and that probably contributed to my inane grinning, but mostly it was the tone of the last scene. The second time, I didn’t feel the satisfaction nearly as much, but the excitement factor went way up. Who knows what emotions a third viewing will leave me with...or when I will be able to pull off a third trip (if anyone in the area has any interest, I’m probably free when you are).

And I think that’s all I had to say this time around. I’m not entirely sure I didn’t miss anything because my hamster (who, incidentally, was very nearly named Jack because of his multi-coloured fur and the dark rings around his eyes) got a hold of my notes one night and decided they looked like good bedding material, so they are now shredded and smell funny... But I’ve definitely said enough for now.

For those of you who still aren’t tired of reading, I very much approve of the following resources/time-wasters:

Curse of the Black Pearl Script
Dead Man’s Chest Script
This review probably would have only been half as long if not for these. You have to do battle with a rather annoying pop-under every time you load the pages, but otherwise they’re quite good (especially considering they were done by ear).

The Kraken
The Lusca
The Leviathan
Giant Squid
Scandinavian Folklore
Wikipedia pages with plenty of info on the topics.

The Editing Room: Dead Man’s Chest
The Editing Room’s treatment of Dead Man’s Chest. It’s very derisive, rather infuriating at times, and rather vulgar (why of all the characters is it Will who keeps dropping f-bombs?), but there are a couple of The Editing Room’s treatment of Dead Man’s Chest. It’s very derisive, rather infuriating at times, and rather vulgar (why of all the characters is it Will who keeps dropping f-bombs?), but there are a couple of things that are quite funny (Will’s line about the starfish made me laugh muchly).

Pirates’ Dice
A great way to waste massive amounts of time. I’m sure playing against actual people would be more challenging, but are you really going to object to playing with Turner and Sparrow? I love how their “strategies” actually fit their personalities (play it long enough, and I think you’ll see what I mean).

Red Dwarf Scripts
The scene I quoted from is from series I episode 2, “Future Echoes.”

Begun 7/26/06, posted 8/8/06.

DMC Fit the First
AWE Fit the First