Bad Pirates
One of the topics I would have written about a few weeks ago had I been medically (or is it mentally?) able was the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. I won't let the time lapse stop me now, but I'll be uncharacteristically brief. Hopefully I can still make sense.
I kinda sorta liked the first one of the movies. Though it was tough to overlook the liberties it took with rank and custom from the Age of Sail, I could piggyback that on the bigger suspension of belief: that pirates, rather than being bands of lawless killers, rapists and plunderers, were really likable and charismatic men who simply loved the freedom of the high seas.
The "right of parley" and the pirate's Code were complete hokum but in for a penny...
Still, though, it was mostly entertaining, the CGI not inexcusably bad, and the plot well conceived from a structural standpoint. Points introduced in the early parts of the movie foreshadowed more significant events in the later parts. So I had high hopes for the sequels, hoping against hope that if they couldn't improve, they could at least maintain.
Didn't like the second movie. Ohmigod, suddenly not only was everything transparent, the plot's became contrived to the point where it subjugated not only story but any remnants of common sense. You wouldn't take your disgraced enemy as part of your crew, would you? Oh, you did. Well, then you wouldn't hand pick him on your crucial shore missions, would you? Oh, you would. You wouldn't throw away the main character development from the first movie, that of the bonding between Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan would you, not just for the sake of a silly three way sword fight on top of a rogue water wheel? Oh never mind.
The third one took these absurdities even further. Suddenly, out of the blue, there's a pirate's council, as if such a group of outlaws would answer to any form of government. Oh, wait, the story called for this to be conjured up. Captain Jack is one of the thirteen, as a matter of fact. Hmm. Wasn't he only captain of one ship, the Black Pearl, for a year or two before it was mutinied out from under him? But wait, the story demanded that.
And that's when I realized the problem with the movies: they violate the rules of fantastic fiction. For a science fiction or fantasy story to work, the creators craft a universe with its own history, its own laws, its own internal consistencies. Not so with the Pirates universe, though. They simply made it up not just as they went along, but in disregard for everything they had done before. By definition this meant whatever happened after wasn't necessarily going to follow. Why didn't the pirate council have anything to do with the events in the second movie, for instance? Simple, they didn't exist until the plot in the third movie called for them to be conjured.
So after an encouraging start, the movies got progressively worse for the simple reason that the filmmakers were unwilling to create their own rules and then stick to them. Which, in the realm of fantasy, is an unforgivable sin. Aaaargh.
I kinda sorta liked the first one of the movies. Though it was tough to overlook the liberties it took with rank and custom from the Age of Sail, I could piggyback that on the bigger suspension of belief: that pirates, rather than being bands of lawless killers, rapists and plunderers, were really likable and charismatic men who simply loved the freedom of the high seas.
The "right of parley" and the pirate's Code were complete hokum but in for a penny...
Still, though, it was mostly entertaining, the CGI not inexcusably bad, and the plot well conceived from a structural standpoint. Points introduced in the early parts of the movie foreshadowed more significant events in the later parts. So I had high hopes for the sequels, hoping against hope that if they couldn't improve, they could at least maintain.
Didn't like the second movie. Ohmigod, suddenly not only was everything transparent, the plot's became contrived to the point where it subjugated not only story but any remnants of common sense. You wouldn't take your disgraced enemy as part of your crew, would you? Oh, you did. Well, then you wouldn't hand pick him on your crucial shore missions, would you? Oh, you would. You wouldn't throw away the main character development from the first movie, that of the bonding between Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan would you, not just for the sake of a silly three way sword fight on top of a rogue water wheel? Oh never mind.
The third one took these absurdities even further. Suddenly, out of the blue, there's a pirate's council, as if such a group of outlaws would answer to any form of government. Oh, wait, the story called for this to be conjured up. Captain Jack is one of the thirteen, as a matter of fact. Hmm. Wasn't he only captain of one ship, the Black Pearl, for a year or two before it was mutinied out from under him? But wait, the story demanded that.
And that's when I realized the problem with the movies: they violate the rules of fantastic fiction. For a science fiction or fantasy story to work, the creators craft a universe with its own history, its own laws, its own internal consistencies. Not so with the Pirates universe, though. They simply made it up not just as they went along, but in disregard for everything they had done before. By definition this meant whatever happened after wasn't necessarily going to follow. Why didn't the pirate council have anything to do with the events in the second movie, for instance? Simple, they didn't exist until the plot in the third movie called for them to be conjured.
So after an encouraging start, the movies got progressively worse for the simple reason that the filmmakers were unwilling to create their own rules and then stick to them. Which, in the realm of fantasy, is an unforgivable sin. Aaaargh.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 4:04 PM
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