Thoughts on Pirates of the Caribbean; At World’s End trailer
I finally watched the new trailer for the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean 3; At World’s End. I simply could not torture myself with two hours of Dancing with the Stars in order to see it, thus the delay. (My apologies to fans of the show, it’s just not for me, I guess.) While most people have been blown away by it, my take can be best described as “cautiously optimistic”. It looks good, but there is cause for some concern.
Let me begin by admitting that I loved the previous two films, but Dead Man’s Chest did not stack up to Curse of the Black Pearl for me. It was a good and entertaining film to be sure, but it lost the element of the first film that made it so special. Curse of the Black Pearl had a whimsical quality and offbeat humor to it that reminded me of Walt Disney’s version of Pirates of the Caribbean in the theme park attraction. It took the characters seriously, but played on the humor of the situation and even touched on the superstitious nature that made the pirates so entertaining.
Curse of the Black Pearl was about pirates, through and through. Sure some of those pirates turned into skeletons, but they were scallywags nonetheless. Also, that sort of “ghostly” superstition goes hand and hand with a good pirate tale. Dead Man’s Chest was more like a science fiction monster movie. Gone were the dastardly buccaneers sacking towns, stealing gold, and chasing women. Instead, we had a ship full of bizarre looking creatures that fell somewhere between Jar-Jar Binks and the Night of the Living Dead. Then there was a giant sea serpent that seemed somewhat arbitrary to the story. They were all fun, but not it was at all a great yarn about pirates.
When Captain Barbossa made his dramatic appearance at the end of Dead Man’s Chest, my hopes for Part 3 skyrocketed. This is what was lacking from the second film; a snarling, dirty, rampaging pirate. But the new trailer makes me wonder if we are getting a sea story, or another sci-fi fantasy film. There are some new, none computer generated, human characters that just from their appearance have great potential. It also appears as though we are getting a knockdown-dragout for a finale, so the potential is there for serious fun. But the potential also exists for the film to go way over the top.
It took an amazingly long time to produce a trailer, and from most reports it’s due to the fact that the effects are literally being crammed together like a college senior studying for a chemistry final. Can it all come together into a cohesive and entertaining end to the story?