{"id":2163,"date":"2006-07-17T00:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-17T00:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/07\/gods-of-the-caribbean-and-speech\/"},"modified":"2006-07-17T00:13:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-17T00:13:00","slug":"gods-of-the-caribbean-and-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/07\/gods-of-the-caribbean-and-speech.html","title":{"rendered":"Gods of the Caribbean, and speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
In case anyone\u2019s wondering, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man\u2019s Chest<\/a><\/i> the day before it opened and liked it, on balance. Not unlike the first film, the first hour takes a while to set up all the various plot threads, but the final hour is pure action-comedy gold. (I\u2019m not sure where that leaves the middle half-hour.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The special effects in particular are truly a thing to behold; while I\u2019m normally more of a skeleton man than a sea-monster man, I have to admit that the villains of this<\/i> film are much more alive, much more creaturely, than the villains of the previous entry.<\/p>\n

It must also be said that this<\/i> movie knows how to be a sequel in a way that, e.g., Superman Returns<\/a><\/i> does not; instead of merely recycling scenarios and lines of dialogue from the first film, Dead Man\u2019s Chest<\/i> puts a new spin on most of the bits that it borrows from Curse of the Black Pearl<\/i>, and it thereby keeps them fresh.<\/p>\n

All this is prelude to the real reason I\u2019m writing this post. I came across this interesting interview<\/a> with the writers of the Pirates<\/i> franchise at BoxOfficeMojo.com, and I think the following excerpt is especially interesting (oh, and possible spoiler alert):<\/p>\n

Ted Elliott:<\/b> When we were writing and making the first movie, [we had in mind] the Sergio Leone [spaghetti] Westerns like The Man With No Name [movies]. The Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef characters are essentially gods compared to all these mortals. They can shoot better, they can ride better, they\u2019re smarter, they\u2019re faster and they don\u2019t say much. To some extent, that\u2019s what we were playing in the first [Pirates<\/b>], that Jack and [Captain] Barbossa [played by Geoffrey Rush] are kind of pirate gods. They come into the lives of these two mortal characters\u2014<\/p>\n

Terry Rossio:<\/b> \u2014and we continue that into At World\u2019s End<\/b>\u2014<\/p>\n

Ted Elliott:<\/b> \u2014and, to some extent, Jack is the demi-god, the trickster. He straddles both sides. Is he on the side of the gods\u2014is he opposed to the gods?\u2014is he on the side of the mortals? He\u2019s on his own side.<\/p>\n

Terry Rossio:<\/b> You can also track the dialog in those [spaghetti Westerns]: the less words you say, the more god-like you are\u2014and, in Pirates of the Caribbean<\/b> [pictures]\u2014<\/p>\n

Ted Elliott:<\/b> \u2014pirates talk.<\/p>\n

Terry Rossio:<\/b> \u2014the less Johnny says, the more truthful he is. The more words he uses, the more you should mistrust him.<\/p>\n

Ted Elliott:<\/b> So, yes, there is some conscious thought given to the behavior of Jack Sparrow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For what that\u2019s worth. Oh, one last thought on the film: It boggles my mind that Dead Man\u2019s Chest<\/i> currently ranks a mere 54% at RottenTomatoes.com, while much bigger summertime disappointments like Superman Returns<\/i> (75%), Cars<\/a><\/i> (76%) and even X-Men: The Last Stand<\/a><\/i> (57%) have all scored higher.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case anyone\u2019s wondering, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man\u2019s Chest the day before it opened and liked it, on balance. Not unlike the first film, the first hour takes a while to set up all the various plot threads, but the final hour is pure action-comedy gold. (I\u2019m not sure where that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGods of the Caribbean, and speech<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In case anyone's wondering, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest the day before it opened and liked it, on balance. 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