So, what of the politics of PotC3?

[elfs]

So, how many people thought that the opening scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was a dig at current administration in office? I was stunned listening to the cryer at the hangings that open the film listing off rights that had been suspended: habeas corpus, trial of one's peers, peaceful assembly. Stunned mostly because the idea that a Disney flick might actually criticize a sitting president was almost beyond the pale.

I'm sure that some would argue, "But that's what the villian would have done!" Yes, but why put it into the film that way? I'm quite sure there are any number of scripts that could have been played aloud at that moment. One that makes the villian seem to mirror our current government's obsessions is pushing the issue, don't you think?

Comments

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

I noticed it - and liked it since I kind of get a gleeful feeling anytime someone rakes Dubya and his gang over the coals.

[tagryn]

These days, *any* anti-Establishment scene seems to get taken as a dig at Bush. Which, with him being the head of the Establishment today, is to be expected...but there are much less subtle ways to do it, if that's the intent (i.e. "If you're not with me, you're against me," "Only a Sith deals in absolutes", Wag The Dog, etc).

When Disney decides to distribute something like Loose Change, then we can talk about the company going anti-Establishment. This ain't it.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Interesting choice. Loose Change is completely debunked shameless 9/11 Truther porn.

suspension of Habeas corpus and the other things portrayed in PotC:DMC are actually historically accurate. They really did that in response to a piracy crisis. They simply didn't shy away from any parallels to current events.

Or as someone else put it...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

PotC3 shows what happens when you don't reign in Jerry Bruckheimer (or any other BiggerBetterLouder producer) on the third movie in a series they've done, and let em' go hog-wild to tell the story how they want to.

Sure, the budget skyrockets, but if you're lucky you end up with a movie woven nice and dense with details and with the universe-crunch layed on thick, but not spread across the camera lens so much as to blind it to the story.

PotC3 seemed to tread the line between 'too many background details' and 'keep the story moving' without slipping too far to either side, IMHO.

And I still love the opening "Hoist the Colors" song, and found it amusing it got hijacked for the Strikethrough2k7 stuff here on LJ recently.

Re: Or as someone else put it...

[tagryn]

Hm, interesting. We thought the movie desperately, *desperately* needed editing, and lots of it.

Re: Or as someone else put it...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

I thought so to at first... but after seeing it a second time I wasn't able to find anything that could actually be cut, since it all told part of the story. At it is, compared to pre-screening versions many scenes were chopped down (the opening scene's song was nearly twice as long, with the boy singing between EACH chorus, for example) from what I've found.

Most of the 'rabble' speech turns out to actually have content that ties up plot-lines elsewhere, or links into stuff that happens latter.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

I also think it can be read in part as an allegory more generally about anti-DRM folks -- "pirates" in the modern software sense. The lined up convicts waiting to be executed reminded me in some ways of the RIAA prosecution hit lists, with people of all ages being treated like criminals based on the vaguest pretext.

[lovingboth]

Particularly as it's completely unnecessary for the film.

[donnafair.livejournal.com]

With the opening scene, I thought two things: why is what is ostensibly a children's movie showing graphic, if not gory, deaths? and also: if they kill all these people off, who is going to be doing the grunt work in the port towns? Also, if people actually kept their teeth that dirty, they wouldn't have any teeth left.

What offended me the most about the movie is how butt-numbingly boring it turned out to be.