Thanks to the gift that keeps on giving called the San Diego Comic Con, the masses have been gifted with an introduction trailer to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (above), led by Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) himself. But this bone Disney has thrown at us leads us to question: is another Pirates necessary, especially after the confusing, crazy ending to the last one? Some might view this question as unnecessary for two different reasons. I’m here to analyze both sides:
Why this question is unnecessary #1
Quite a few people would say that another Pirates movie is necessary because this film is just what the sagging movie era needs to spice it up. While there have been a few commerical and critical show-stoppers such as Toy Story 3, Inception, and the Nolan Batman films, there hasn’t been a steady stream of awesome movies. Also, with the Harry Potter series wrapping up next year, movie series fans might feel like they need something to fill the void. Pirates could do it, and it would also be a great, solid way for Disney to be able to compete with Warner Brothers when the final Harry Potter movie hits the theaters.
Also, when people go to the movies, they’re looking for escapism and a journey and Pirates of the Caribbean certainly is a roller-coaster ride of a journey. There are so many twists and turns in the storyline, and virtually everyone in the film, even the main characters, are not to be trusted. With so many battling pieces in the story, it completely throws the audience into the film, making them forget that they’re watching a movie.
And finally, who can say no to Captain Jack? He’s one of the best characters to come out of Disney, as well as being one of the best movie characters, period. It would seem like Johnny Depp’s entire eccentric career led up to this character. Depp seems to fall into that role, a role which combines many of Depp’s favorite pop icons such as the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards. As word got out after people saw the first movie, many people crowded the theaters just to see Captain Jack, and afterwards, most people didn’t even care about the plot just as long as they got to see Captain Jack do what he does best–be crazy. There are quite a few fans who are clamoring for another Jack Sparrow outing, and this movie will provide those fans with just that.
Why this question is unnecessary # 2
A lot of people might say this question as to whether or not we need another Pirates has a simple, obvious answer, “No.” Many are really done with this Pirates series, especially after the unbelievably awful ending to At World’s End. Because there were so many antagonizing characters and plot points, the film had major plot holes, unexplainable scenes, and a ton of characters and locales that didn’t have as much screen time as they should have (for example, Chow Yun-Fat’s character Captain Sao Feng should have gotten a much longer time on screen, as should have Singapore). Also, because there were so many characters, the only way they were dealt with in the script is by having most of them killed off. Many characters that were fan favorites were killed unnecessarily, lessening the impact of their role in the third film as well as their role they played in the story up until At World’s End.
Also, many storylines from the first two films were either not addressed, continued, or resolved successfully. Of course, Anamaria (Zoe Saldana) isn’t addressed, since her absence from the last two films was mainly due to off-the scenes business, but there were two major love storylines that were in the second film, only to be obliterated in the third; the mutual attraction between Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and the lust/love? relationship between Jack and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightly). Fandom aside, there was the potential for there to be some real storytelling muscle with these two stories, showing two people in a relationship (Elizabeth and Will) seeing themselves moving away from each other as they realize their true selves and how incompatible they are for one another. That storyline could have been resolved in the third film with this revelation. But instead, the film doesn’t address the Tia Dalma/Will aspect it built up from the second movie and it doesn’t cleanly resolve the relationship Jack and Elizabeth had from the second movie. Along with that, the film doesn’t completely show why Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Calypso (also Naomie Harris) are actually in this whirlwind romance.
Since Disney has decided that they need to make another Pirates trilogy, I only hope that they take their time on this set. The problems addressed about the first trilogy mainly arose from Disney rushing screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, along with their screenwriting team, to produce scripts for the movies they were concurrently filming! Hopefully, now that Disney knows they have an audience for the Pirates property, they will be mindful of having the right amount of planning time in between films.
So do we need another Pirates? If it’s good, sure. If it’s not so good, then perhaps not.
