It is not true, it seems, that desires fade when fulfilled. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest again last night with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gaudior and rushthatspeaks, and I still have the barroom brawl hornpipes and several sea chanteys stuck in my head. On the bright side, I continue to like the film immensely. I maintain that the entire cannibal island sequence could be excised and the tone would not suffer, but that's a small complaint against the increased complications of character and all of the sea-myth, which had no less of an effect on me this time around for all that I knew what to expect. Damn, but someone knows their folklore.
I'm likewise fascinated by the ways in which this film plays off its predecessor. With as few spoilers as possible . . . Dead Man's Chest takes place in territory I tend to associate with Into the Woods, The Fantasticks, and lately Princess Tutu: the practical consequences of the happy ending. What happens after. Curse of the Black Pearl ends with a traditional swashbuckling finale. Jack is about to be hanged for his crimes, Elizabeth is about to marry a man she doesn't love, and Will is about to return to his nonentity life as a blacksmith's apprentice—and so he effects a dashing rescue, as a result of which the Governor of Port Royal and Commodore Norrington are moved to act on their better instincts, what's right rather than what's lawful; the Governor gives his blessing to Will and Elizabeth's marriage and Norrington gives the Black Pearl a day's head start. It's every fledgling pirate's dream. And from minute one of the sequel, it's all coming apart at the seams. There were loopholes; there were oversights; there are costs. In real life, happiness demands a little more forethought, and all the protagonists are paying for its lack.
Their moon was cardboard; fragile; it was very apt to fray. And what was, last night, scenic might be cynic by today. The play's not done—oh, no, not quite, for life never ends in the moonlit night. And despite what pretty poets say, the night is only half the day. So let us truly finish what was foolishly begun, for the story's never over and the play is never done until we've all been burned a bit and burnished—by the sun!
I don't feel that I have much to add to the internet-wide discussion of Pirates of the Caribbean, because in truth there are people out there who have put much more thought into the subject than I, but I will keep on like this if anyone's curious. These movies have become fruitful for speculation in a way that I only hope the third film can live up to; after such weird and skilled storytelling, it would be a criminal shame if someone fumbled the mythology in the finale. In the meantime, I point you towardgaudior's excellent thoughts on tropes, subverted, successfully and un-, and a genuinely brilliant post to which rushthatspeaks introduced me, about liar's dice and characterization. Don't miss the comments in the latter; the one about the significance of names made the sparkplugs of my brain go bzzzzzzpffft.
There are worse noises for a brain to make.
gaudior and rushthatspeaks, and I still have the barroom brawl hornpipes and several sea chanteys stuck in my head. On the bright side, I continue to like the film immensely. I maintain that the entire cannibal island sequence could be excised and the tone would not suffer, but that's a small complaint against the increased complications of character and all of the sea-myth, which had no less of an effect on me this time around for all that I knew what to expect. Damn, but someone knows their folklore.I'm likewise fascinated by the ways in which this film plays off its predecessor. With as few spoilers as possible . . . Dead Man's Chest takes place in territory I tend to associate with Into the Woods, The Fantasticks, and lately Princess Tutu: the practical consequences of the happy ending. What happens after. Curse of the Black Pearl ends with a traditional swashbuckling finale. Jack is about to be hanged for his crimes, Elizabeth is about to marry a man she doesn't love, and Will is about to return to his nonentity life as a blacksmith's apprentice—and so he effects a dashing rescue, as a result of which the Governor of Port Royal and Commodore Norrington are moved to act on their better instincts, what's right rather than what's lawful; the Governor gives his blessing to Will and Elizabeth's marriage and Norrington gives the Black Pearl a day's head start. It's every fledgling pirate's dream. And from minute one of the sequel, it's all coming apart at the seams. There were loopholes; there were oversights; there are costs. In real life, happiness demands a little more forethought, and all the protagonists are paying for its lack.
Their moon was cardboard; fragile; it was very apt to fray. And what was, last night, scenic might be cynic by today. The play's not done—oh, no, not quite, for life never ends in the moonlit night. And despite what pretty poets say, the night is only half the day. So let us truly finish what was foolishly begun, for the story's never over and the play is never done until we've all been burned a bit and burnished—by the sun!
I don't feel that I have much to add to the internet-wide discussion of Pirates of the Caribbean, because in truth there are people out there who have put much more thought into the subject than I, but I will keep on like this if anyone's curious. These movies have become fruitful for speculation in a way that I only hope the third film can live up to; after such weird and skilled storytelling, it would be a criminal shame if someone fumbled the mythology in the finale. In the meantime, I point you toward
gaudior's excellent thoughts on tropes, subverted, successfully and un-, and a genuinely brilliant post to which rushthatspeaks introduced me, about liar's dice and characterization. Don't miss the comments in the latter; the one about the significance of names made the sparkplugs of my brain go bzzzzzzpffft. There are worse noises for a brain to make.
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