#the compass is there mostly to make the pocket watch navigation thing more obvious + because i like the staging of loop presenting 2 items

[lucabyte]

siffrin starts the game with oddly empty pockets for a rogue who has a habit of stashing away every little trinket that isn't nailed down

and a hardy pocketwatch is an indispensable tool for oceanic navigation

[jtam]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Finally got around to seeing this one. Three movies in a week? What's the world coming to?

I gotta say, the longer these movies go on, the further and further removed from reality they get. Yeah, granted, they're fantasy movies, but they still pretend to be taking place on Earth, right? Our Earth? Ish? I mean, the first three movies featured ships that were either real, actual tall ships, or CG ships that were at least plausible. The Queen Anne's Revenge in Stranger Ties departed from this, but this movie? Every ship a castle at sea, fanciful, grandiose, and profoundly impractical.

Ugh, I don't want to give the wrong impression here. I did kinda like this movie, it's one I would probably watch again (though I wouldn't pay ten bucks per ticket for the privilege), and it's at least better-written than the last one. However, it decidedly does not hold up to the original trilogy, so mostly I'm going to complain about that.

First? Nobody cares anymore about character integrity and it's obvious. Barbossa, Gibbs, and the undead villain du jour spend the movie competing to see who can eat the most scenery. There's no craft on display, everyone's just being as LARGE A HAM as possible. And Johnny Depp ... I don't know how you phone in a character like Jack Sparrow but somehow he managed it. As for the newcomers -- the no-names they got to play Third Turner and Hot "Scientist" did pretty good, but Tom Hardy was wasted in his role as Generic British Bad Guy #794.

It was nice to see Monty, Scrum, and Abbott and Costello again. I don't actually care about any of those characters but I like the callbacks. Pity Cotton's Parrot couldn't make it -- and where were Pintel and Ragetti?

Anyway, the point is, maybe it's the director's fault, but none of the people the audience is there to see were actually there.

So let's talk about plot, which revolves around the Trident of ... I don't remember if it was Poseidon or Neptune, so we'll call it the Trident of Nepseidon. Third Turner wants to find it to free Will from the Flying Dutchman. I have a problem with this but I'll get to that later. Hot Scientist wants to find it because "her father believed in her" or something. Daddy issues. Ok sure. Barbossa and Lieutenant Bad Guy both want to find it so they can "control the sea" or whatever -- though in Barbossa's case, he's doing just fine until undead villain du jour shows up, so I guess mostly he wants it to ... whatever. He's there because Geoffrey Rush needed a paycheck I guess.

The plot isn't stellar, is what I'm saying.

Another thing that annoys me is the movie's lack of respect for its own continuity. Okay. We find out that Jack Sparrow is called Jack Sparrow because he reminded undead villian du jour of a "bird" in the crow's nest, and so Jack took that as his name. How Jack learned about this when the villain and he never interacted is left unanswered. We see also that Jack gets the compass, his hat, his beads, his bandanna, and his other "effects" as "tribute" from his pirate crew. But wait! Didn't he get the compass from Tia Dalma? And all of this was when Jack became a pirate -- but At World's End establishes that Jack became a pirate when he refused a cargo of slaves (or something).

And how bout the Flying Dutchman? "The Dutchman must have a captain." The early movie shows Will Turner slowly becoming barnacle-encrusted -- but didn't that happen to Davy Jones because he "didn't do the job?" Why is Will "cursed," if he's been faithfully discharging the Dutchman's duty these past years?

(And what was up wit that necklace? Seems to have been invented for this movie so that Will would have something to give his kid. Couldn't give him the key? Or ... I dunno, maybe the dagger his father gave him?)

The "hang the witch" plot line involving Hot Scientist feels a bit stretched. Like, cliche Middle Ages nonsense. I mean. First of all, the accusations of "witchcraft" in Enlightenment-era England? Seems ... implausible, especially since there's another astronomer in town meaning people aren't going to be totally and completely ignorant of scholarly types who look at the stars. I don't know, I shouldn't speak too much about this because I don't know precisely how bad things were for women during that time period, but it felt like a bit much. Certainly the pirate crew, all of whom have sailed with not only women but an actual, literal witch before, shouldn't have been treating her the way they did.

In particular, the bit where she's teaching them about navigation. This isn't fucking sorcery to these guys -- yes, chronometers were new in the mid-18th century, but having seasoned sailors treating basic navigation like it's some kind of magic? Bullshit. Sailors have been reckoning by the stars for centuries. (Also? Marine chronometers in the 18th century were significantly larger than pocket watches.)

The entire "witch" arc was forced, is what I'm saying, and it wasn't even forced for a good reason! There was no payoff! She finds the island and all is forgotten!

Now let's talk about the segue in the middle of the movie, where Jack manages to make it to dry land and escape Salazar and his crew. This island features characters we've never met before, have never even heard of, forcing Jack to get married to a conventionally-unattractive and unhealthy woman for ... why, exactly? Because he owed the guy something? And then Barbossa shows up and saves them and releases the Black Pearl and they escape. Point. Less.

Oh, and the Black Pearl being the "fastest ship on the seas." Okay, sure -- except this enormous British man-o-war managed to catch up to her, and Salazar's ship managed to catch up to it, so now the Pearl is only the third-fastest ship apparently. (And if Barbossa had Blackbeard's sword the entire time, why did he never once use the rope trick to defend his ship or his men?)

How did Hot Scientist know that the "map" could only be read during a blood moon? Not really a plot hole, I guess, maybe it was in Galileo's book, or a deleted scene. Just an unanswered question. Sure is lucky that everything in the Caribbean is less than a day's sail from everything else, though.

Anyway. It was nice to see Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley again, even if it's a bit hard to match up the timeline correctly (again, this movie doesn't care even a bit about continuity). And yay, setting up Davy Jones to be the villain at some point in a future Pirates film, because God knows Johnny Depp doesn't care what's going on as long as he gets paid. Never mind that Davy Jones is fucking dead and his curse should have been broken as well ...

"Didn't we know someone named Smith?" Yes, you fucking sausage, you probably knew a million women named Smith, it's the most common surname in the fucking English language. And ... Barbossa has had a weird arc, from total and complete villain in the first film to slightly-more-palatable villain in the next ones to ineffectual-villain-turned-doting-father here? Storytelling, motherfucker, do you speak it?

I dunno. I guess we aren't supposed to think too hard about these popcorn thrillers. It's just frustrating how lazy and inconsistent they are. But they keep making money so what are you gonna do?

Maybe they'll spring for Gore Verbinski for the next one.