How did you spend the Dragon Boat Festival? I guess you've already seen Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead No Proof:)
Pirates 5, like the first four in the series, is particularly "Disney". It's like a family feast for the Spring Festival — magnificent ocean wonders, pirates, unimaginable behemoths, action, adventure, complex special effects, Johnny Depp, and a total disregard for the laws of physics.
The film has been dubbed "Captain Jack Sparrow's Last Adventure" by the creators, but assistant director Joachim Rønning adds that Pirates 5 is only "the beginning of the final adventure" and that the entire Pirates Final Chapter is estimated to have another 10 more films to finish...
▲ Ronnie at the world premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean 5"
As the beginning of this long ending, Pirates 5: Dead And Done, I have to complain that it seems to have nothing to do with the previous story.
Forgive me for my meanness – for fans who have been chasing "Pirates of the Caribbean" since middle school and have longed for pirate life after watching the first "Curse of the Black Pearl", "Dead No Proof" ignores past stories, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
If this "incoherence" is meant to give later creators more room to develop new scenes, new stories, and new characters, then why do the basic elements of the "pirate universe," the compass, and the Black Pearl keep popping up? These classic objects fluctuate with the plot, and the sense of symbolism and ritualism becomes more and more blurred.
Cough, the creators don't care about plot loopholes, what else are fans struggling with?
No, or decided to tangle it up.
And let me re-comb through the evolution of the "Pirate Universe" (you may have forgotten it), all the plot holes in "Pirates of the Caribbean 5" that I am most dissatisfied with.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the entire Pirates movie series, including Pirates 5: Dead
The production plan of "No Score" led to the lack of systematic stories in the entire series
The first Pirates of the Caribbean was born in 2003 and is an original story inspired by the Disney theme park pirate rides.
▲ Disneyland's most popular pirate ride
Pirates of the Caribbean 1: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a completely independent adventure film that tells a single, coherent story with a fairly complete ending.
▲ The best memories, everyone's appearance peak
After a huge box office success, Disney quickly set out to work on two sequels – "The Coffin" and "The End of the World". The two films were written and filmed at about the same time, and they formed a trilogy with Black Pearl. Although the pace of "Pirates of the Caribbean" 2 and 3 is slightly slower, and the story is more and more absurd, these three films can still justify themselves and are logically complete.
Just when everyone felt that the "Pirate" series should be over, the box office success of "World's End" in the first week made Disney determined to develop the fourth part of the series, "Strange Waves".
Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides is considered by many agencies to be the most expensive film in the history of Hollywood production.
Neither Orlando Bloom nor Keira Knightley wanted to continue starring in the Pirates series, so Disney began curating Captain Jack's indie story.
Because there are many accidents and uncertainties in the implementation of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" project, the framework of this series of stories is not strong enough, including many "tiger tail" settings: such as the big villain Davy Jones in "The Coffin" and "World's End", his ins and outs are not clear.
▲ "Flying Dutchman" captain David Jones
Another example is the villain Blackbeard in the fourth book" "Strange Waves", who also appeared for no reason and was inexplicably killed.
▲ Blackbeard (Can you remember?) ）
Several key plot settings for vulnerabilities
In this "Pirate 5" movie, there are several key clues that promote the plot, which are really not connected with the previous ones.
First, let's talk about the "compass".
Jack's compass is the pirate's most iconic item, and what makes it special is that it can't be used to point in direction, but to point to what the holder craves most. Dead No Proof tells us that if you betray the compass, it unleashes your greatest fear — apparently Jack's biggest fear is Javier Bardem's ghost captain Salazar.
Salazar and his crew, after sailing into the Devil's Triangle, were cursed to turn into ghosts, why? For no reason, Salazar decided that Captain Jack's compass would free him and his crew.
Flashbacks in the film show that Captain Jack got the compass from the dying former captain.
So the paradox comes, Pirates 2: The Coffin of The Souls tells us that Jack got the compass from the hands of Calypso, the goddess of the sea in human form.
Moreover, the entire plot of Pirates 5 revolves around Captain Jack "selling" the compass in exchange for a bottle of wine. In the first four films, Jack gave up or lost this compass at least five times and didn't see him activate any curses?
In The Coffin of Souls, Jack gives Elizabeth a compass so she can find David Jones' heart and save Will;
When caught by the East India Trading Company, Jack bets the compass to Lord Cutler beckett, which Jack takes back to Will Turner;
▲ Lord Cutler Beckett
In Stranger Tides, Blackbeard gets a compass from Jack and gives it to his daughter Angelica, who retrieves it and gives it back to his companion Joshamee Gibbs, who returns it to Jack at the end of the film.
Another slot in Pirates 5 is Will's setting.
At the beginning of the film, Will's son Henry Turner wants to save his father from the curse of the "flying dutchman" and reunite the family. This motivation is good, but unfortunately it does not fit into the previous story.
In Pirates 3: The End of the World, the "Flying Dutchman" is used to ferry the undead of sailors lost in the sea to the world. Calypso, the goddess of the sea, entrusted it to David Jones and promised to give him eternal life in return, and that he could spend a day on the ground every 10 years.
▲ "The Flying Dutchman", and Calypso, the goddess of the sea
Who knew that David Jones was in love with the goddess, and after discovering that Calypso had transferred his affection, he dug out his heart and put it in a box; he and his crew had all turned into terrifying sea monsters and turned their backs on their mission.
Will is mortally stabbed in The End of the World, and Jack saves Will and kills David Jones; Will must take over Jones' duties, saving the Crew of the Flying Dutchman, restoring them to their normal appearance, and taking on the responsibility of ferrying the undead.
But in Pirates 5, Will appears, his whole body entangled in rotten objects and terrifying rattan... Is it because it looks dirty and dirty?
His son Henry wanted to break the "curse", but the curse was an important job, and It was Will himself, and if he gave up, wouldn't he be killed in an instant by the knife wound at that time?
Let's talk about the Trident.
Pirates 5 says that Poseidon's trident brings together all the curses in the sea, and breaking it will break all the curses.
This led to a discussion of the gods of the "Pirates of the Caribbean Universe". We know that Calypso, the goddess of the sea, rules the sea; in The Curse of the Black Pearl there is the treasure of the curse of the god Aztec... Poseidon must have existed in some form, and his trident had commanded the entire ocean, and the trident had been found in his grave, and if Poseidon had died, would the other gods still be alive?
Allow me to spit on the chaotic timeline.
Pirates 5 says that when Captain Jack was young, Salazar destroyed dozens of pirate ships in an attempt to wipe them out of the ocean once and for all. According to Salazar, he managed to eliminate almost all the pirates—except Jack and his crew, of course.
▲ The terrifying ghost Salazar was originally a handsome officer who was jealous and hateful
But in Pirates 3: The End of the World, there's an institution called the Brethren Court (and particularly bureaucratic, remember?). It governs all the pirates in the world. It was the pirates who gathered to protect themselves when the East India Trading Company threatened to wipe out all the pirates.
▲ The magical "Pirate Guild", in which the pirate played by Chow Yun-fat has a place; in addition, the cameo of the rolling stones guitarist Keith Richards has become a classic in the history of cinema
In The End of the World, the Pirate Guild claims to have seen Jack for the first time, and didn't Salazar's massacre allow them to meet each other?
Captain Jack is supposed to have been commanding the Wicked Wench, the predecessor of the Black Pearl, as a teenager. Prior to Pirates 1, the Black Pearl sank; as part of the deal, David Jones returned it to Jack, who then gave him 13 years as captain.
During the first two years of the 13-year deal, Barbossa was the first mate of an expedition led by Jack, and together they searched for the cortez treasure. Barbosa later mutinied, causing Jack to spend 10 years taking revenge.
Suppose Jack was almost 30 years old during the "Curse of the Black Pearl", and he was nearly 50 years old when the pirate 5 story took place; by then Henry Turner had been born and grown to 20 when he met Jack... It can only be said that Jack has done a lot in a very short period of time.
How old is Captain Jack? Uncle Depp himself is 53 years old, and although he still looks energetic, the story is set in the 18th century, when the average human life expectancy was between 30 and 40.
▲ "I'm a Gemini and I'll never grow up, hehe~"
Finally, about the slot point of the "sequel".
There's an Easter egg at the end of the film: an ominous shadow strikes Will as he sleeps, and crab claws and David Jones's familiar tentacles flash to the head of the bed... Will wakes up to realize that it was just a nightmare. Moving the camera down, you'll see the water floating, perhaps hinting at the possibility of David Jones appearing in the next episode.
However, Jones is already hanging up in "The End of the World", and even if he is resurrected, why is he still like an octopus? Isn't the curse broken? I don't know if anyone pays attention to these details.
▲ "Honey, I'm not so spicy"
Lack of originality
The biggest regret of "Pirates 5" is that it does not have an original plot, and the content and character settings are basically a patchwork and repetition of the past few stories.
Uninhabited islands that no one can find? - "The Curse of the Black Pearl"
An undead pirate undead who wants to kill Captain Jack for personal vendetta, who can walk through walls but can't set foot on land? - See the first three installments of this series
Jack and Barbosa compete for captain of the Black Pearl? - The Curse of the Black Pearl and The End of the World
Stereotypical, small-minded British officers who want to use supernatural power to eliminate pirates and command the oceans? - "The Coffin of the Souls" and "The End of the World"
As for the young lovers Henry and Karina, he is a pirate who has lost her father, and she is a pioneer girl who yearns for freedom – does it look familiar? Isn't this a replica of Will and Elizabeth!
Pirates of the Caribbean is the most lucrative series in the history of cinema, and when it comes to this, even the real pirates are probably jealous. Therefore, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is not impossible to speculate that 10 more will be made.
This means more gods, more curses, more miracles to break the curses, more little couples like Orlando Bloom and Kayla Knightley... But from the fifth part, in fact, we are already a little aesthetically tired, and even tired of watching.
Despite the general reputation, the first weekend of the film's domestic release was 464 million yuan, accounting for 58.66%; the north American first week box office was 62.18 million US dollars, which was the north American weekly box office champion. This side proves that the so-called IP, that is, it is "a thing, have to see", whether it is good or not, like it or not, there is a "crowd cloud", there is a market.
Whether it's "brand awareness" or "overdraft", business outcomes are always determined by complex factors.
But as movie lovers, we just hope that the next time the creator at the helm can at least look at the first few films and tell the story round; or from the sixth part, simply change a new story, and maybe have better results.