Pirates of the Caribbean, The End of the World

[elfs]

So, having seen number 2 last night, tonight Omaha and I went out to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

The film proceeds where the last one left off, with Barbossa leading a team with Will and Elizabeth off to the ends of the world to find Jack Sparrow and bring him back from the dead, because only Jack Sparrow knows how to take down Davy Jones.

I'm not going to post any spoilers because doing so would be pointless: there is a plot here, but it isn't the point of the film. You go in to let masters of the genre spend a lot of money poking your pineal gland as hard as they can over and over. The trouble is that you can only poke at it so often before it runs dry, and that's effectively what happens in the end. It is no spoiler to say that there's a huge, amazing battle at the end. That's the whole bloody point, isn't it? But the battle goes on for far, far too long. By the time the most astounding part of the beautifuly costumed computer-generated, green-screen stunted, Hans Zimmer-scored spectacle is before your eyes you've run out of awe. The shock has drained. It's all pretty pictures, but the ongoingness of it has successfully detached you from any emotional investment in the lives of the characters.

You've ceased to care.

This is not to say you shouldn't see it. It is beautifully and magnificently costumed-- oh, the costumes! I love good costume work. (It never ceases to disappoint me when SF writers spend pages and pages impressing us with descriptions of architecture but don't really deliver on the clothes.) The sets are gorgeous, the CGI work quite nice. But when you've started to appreciate the film for its technical delivery, the real point of movie-going has quite failed. And that, unfortunately, is where At World's End leaves you when the credits roll.

Comments

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ewhac and I saw it last night. Afterward, we decided it was like a huge over the top dessert at Cheesecake Factory or something like that. Oh, gosh, it's got a fudgecake layer on a caramel base, with three scoops of ice cream, and oh, gosh, hot fudge, too? And whipped cream? No, really, the toffee crumb sprinkles are too much . . . and wow, a gravy boat of more caramel sauce? No, really you don't need to pour that over the . . . oh, okay. It's a flambe' dessert? Wow, gosh, yes, that's very striking but, no, really, you don't have to sing and we . . . nooo, really no to-go box necessary, really, I promise.

Like that. I felt like I needed to go watch something lighter and less epic. You know, something less substantial, like Gone with the Wind.

[lovingboth]

The basic problem with the end fight is that, for a swashbuckler, there's not much sword-fighting. Come back Basil Rathbone...

[bbw-seska.livejournal.com]

See, that's exactly it with Pirates III...
Went to see it about a week ago and everyone keeps asking me if it was any good.
I can't deny the goodness of it, it was marvellous in its own way, the acting is solid, the costume work is orgastic and the dialogue is quite funny.
I kept having the feeling that the plot was missing a tad bit though, and if it wás there it didn't feel like 1 plot, but 3 and them unable to chose which one they where going for...

Very strange, it is definately a movie worthy of seeing on a big screen, for exactly all the right reasons, but I can't tell them it's the smash hit of the century.

(now I'm even more scared on how Transformers will end up >.<)

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

Was there anything worth seeing after the credits? The group i was with was all impatient to leave.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I missed it too (and I *always* watch credits) just because I was so eager to get the hell out of there by then.

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Since two people asked about the credits, yes! There was a whole new plot twist.

The costumes, esp the hats were great!

[fallenpegasus]

There was, in fact, a scene worth seeing after the credits.

[fallenpegasus]

It may be that that's the new limit for FX, the limit of emotional juicing in the viewer.

Sort of like now we have the tech to build a jet fighter with the performance numbers and agility and responsiveness that every fighter jock has dreamed of having since the first time someone dropped a rock from a balloon, but now we face the problem that human brains can't think fast enough and human bodies can't handle the G forces.

[fallenpegasus]

Beautiful swordfighting requires a set of rules and adherance to the rules that is as strict as chess or go. More realistic swordfighting is just knifefighting with longer knives, a street brawl with edges.

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Actually, *beautiful* sword fighting requires rules, *plus* the other person knowing what you're doing, and you knowing what they are doing.

PotC3 (and 2, but not 1), for a pirate movie with swords, had a distinct lack of swordfights.

I'd be rather like a starwars movie without the lightsabers. :)

[omahas.livejournal.com]

PotC1 was just fine for me. It had the right amount of spectacle and human interaction, and one plot. And most importantly it was what was going on with the characters. In PotC2 and especially PotC3, the director/writers/producers pulled away from the characters and tried to make the movie about the special effects.

Meh, I say. Meh. I'll rewatch PotC1. I won't rewatch the others.

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

Have you forgotten the threeway swordfighting in the rolling waterwheel in #2??

Ooooh, nice analogy

[danlyke.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid my fetish was airplanes, and one day I dragged my dad to an airshow. The two acts I remember were Bob Hoover flying a Rockwell twin-engine turboprop, the sort of airplane you might imagine calling a "puddlejumper", and The Blue Angels.

I remember a big deal being made of some operation where the two F14s came down from opposite ends of the airport and passed extremely close, and I thought "Who cares? All they have to do is each follow the right edge of the runway."

But Hooover taking that ungainly puddlejumper up to a thousand feet, cutting the engines and feathering the props, and then pulling a couple of loops, making a pass back in front of the crowd where he ticked through a beautiful 16 point roll, doing some other stuff, and making a dead stick landing and stopping the airplane right where his announcer said it'd stop? That was art.

I'm back in the film business, despite trying to escape, and modern films bore me more than ever because filmmaking is at the same place: Films have gotten so cartoony that nobody pretends to realism, and spectacle has replaced caring about the characters.

So PotC or Transformers? No thanks, I'll be over here rewatching Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Screw the computers, show me what you can make with a camcorder and a few actors in a corner cafe.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I own PotC 1 on DVD. I'll rewatch that one. But I don't own 2 and won't be buying 3. They hold no interest for me now that I've seen them once.

[mauser.livejournal.com]

The problem with describing costumes in SF novels is that the vocabulary simply isn't there in most readers. When I say "Yoke", do you first think of the contrasting fabric over the shoulders of a western shirt, or something else?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Challenge me to find out. When China Mieville' writes about geography he doesn't hold back: loess, talus, rime, sere, batholith, swale, weald, corrie, chapparal, rincon. I had to look these words up to understand what the heck the Iron Council was driving through.

I don't think that authors should be ashamed of deploying knowledge and vocabulary that might not be within reach of the average reader. Most SF readers expect challenges.

[fallenpegasus]

I remember reading after Phantom Menace came out, a real swordsman posting an article picking apart the portrayed usage of lightsabers in the movies. He blew so many holes in it, that it ruined watching any more light saber duels in the movies for me. (Basically, he took the sabers and the Jedi as a given, and then proceeded to explain how a *real* sword based martial art would evolve to use them, and pointed out all the places in the movie where the actors telegraphed their rehersal of the fights, were they would hesitate to let the other person "catch up" in the choriography.)

[mauser.livejournal.com]

True, but that's just an easy example that I was able to come with off the top of my head (I knew the thing, but had to ask someone the term once, and it struck me as misleading in a way). These Geographical terms are all existing things. When you get to alien (or even future) fashions, the words don't exist yet, and eventually you might be reduced to "A thing that kinda goes like this....".

As opposed to what you get with an artist or a real physical costume, where it's there, input directly to your brain vie the eyeballs, not requiring linguistic translation.

[lovingboth]

The entire military science of the Star Wars films is dubious.

If the Empire had a few hand grenades, the rebellion would have been over midway though A New Hope...

[lovingboth]

Seeing the trailer for Transformers was the highlight of seeing PotC 3 for me - albeit because of thinking how low Steven Spielberg has fallen.

[paraventur.livejournal.com]

do you remember where you read this? I'd like to read it if you do.

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, uhh...I am a more then fair gunman. Doesn't mean that I can't appreciate Hard Boiled. Coreography is just that, it's a dance. And a coreographed swordfight in a movie? Is a dance number, usually set to music, with props. When you think of it that way, and not as an attempt to show a fight (which tend to be "subtle position change, subtle position change, advantage, death & grievious harm to the opponent." This doesn't film well. :)

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

If the Empire had a few hand grenadesaccurate firearms, the rebellion would have been over midway though A New Hope...

Your text edited to be more accurate. :)

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

But it was fun!

I was a bit disappointed to find that none of the characters, well, developed in this one though. Well, maybe Elizabeth. A little.

Sigh, and Cap'n Jack has so much potential as a character...

Re: Ooooh, nice analogy

[airlinepilot.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh. Bob Hoover. Now THERE's a Pilot. :)
I got to see his airshow twice.