Tonight is the Morris premiere of that fabulous documentary on exotic marine invertebrates and nautical history, Pirates of the Caribbean. I will be there. I will be leaving early so I can get a good seat, front and center. I shall be singing sea shanties as I walk downtown to the theater. I will be rooting for the handsome fellow with the tentacular beard. I’m certain I will have a good time.
I’ll probably also gripe heartily about the movie afterwards. We curmudgeons just aren’t truly happy unless we’ve got things to grumble about.
All I can say is that Davey Jones doesn’t pull a lot of chicks, but considering the ones he does pull, no wonder he…
…well, that would be givin’ it away, wouldn’t it? Arrrrrrrr!
There’s very little to gripe about, I quite enjoyed it.
Don’t know if you’ve heard, but there is a very short scene that come at the very end of the closing credits. It’s very funny and worth waiting for.
The movie plot is a little complex, it makes the most sense if you remember the secondary characters from the first movie.
It took this long to get out there? Is that how it works for all movies, or were they just holding out on you with this one out of spite?
My daughters have both seen it and loved it. They especially loved Davy Jones and his crew.
It kind of dragged on a bit, but MAN, Davy Jones and the crew of the Flying Dutchman make the price of admission worthwhile. I might even see it again.
It ends on a cliffhanger, so don’t go expecting a complete story. A lot of stuff is left for the sequel to resolve…
The complaints I’ve heard was that it was too long. There were scenes, particularly sword fights, which didn’t bear thinking about, which were nevertheless a lot of fun to watch. Also some nitpicking about cephalapod anatomy.
I enjoyed every minute of it.
I haven’t seen it and don’t plan to. Real pirate communities were homosexual–not by necessity but by choice. But I’m sure the movie won’t go there at all.
*grins* is it wrong that some of my biggest ‘squee!’ moments were over nicely-rendered zombie goose-barnacles?
you’ll love it. I went to see it with my family and they all thought it was great, despite the length.
Of course, you’ll be quite beside yourself at the Davy Jones and crew characters. Even my 8 year old daughter thought they were great, and she’s quite a nitpicker when it comes to movie portrayals of marine animals ;-).
One thing, though: as I understand, they filmed part III at the same time, and it shows; it’s kind of half a movie, with the next half to appear next year, and is necessarily rather anticlimactic.
Also, one little trivia test: without looking it up on imdb.com, see if you recognize the actor who plays Jack’s father…
Also some nitpicking about cephalapod anatomy.
Yes, P.Z. You must answer the burning question of the hour: is the Kraaken squid (my vote) octopus (my friend’s vote) or other….
seriously, I couldn’t tell, but given the fuzzy underwater glimpses, the shots of mouth and sucker-loaded legs, surely a squid-obsessed biologist should have the answer.
I say squid, giant, mutant. I have a pitcher of beer, a giant plate of wings and my pride riding on your answer. :)
…
…
How much does it cost a pirate to get his ears pierced?
Yarr, matey, it be a buck-an-ear.
…
How does a pirate stop smoking?
He be usin’ the patch, lad.
…
…
Real pirate communities were homosexual–not by necessity but by choice. But I’m sure the movie won’t go there at all.
Well… by subtext and fleeting implication only, I’d say.
I found the “cannibal tribe” sequence kind of embarrassing in its rehash of old racist stereotypes (as well as mostly extraneous to the plot), but otherwise, the movie was good silly fun, definitely not to be taken seriously.
Did you know that PZ is the accepted abbreviation for Penzance (as in “Pirates of”)?
Also, it’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day next month.
What a clever chap that Diogenes was.
“Real pirate communities were homosexual–not by necessity but by choice. But I’m sure the movie won’t go there at all.”
Check out the way Johnny Depp walks throughout the movie.
My girlfriend and I were disappointed with the movie. It was long (what is it with these action movies going long? King Kong, Superman Returns and Pirates). Many scenes could be cut down in length without missing anything. Some of it seemed very forced (like the pseudo-love triangle). The main secondary character who returned, I couldn’t for the life of me remember from the first. The set-up for the next movie was very cool. This was a filler movie to bridge the first with the last making it like Back to the Future II. Hopefully the Pirates series will also end with a fun lst flick.
What’s a pirate’s favorite pizza topping?
Pepparrrrroni.
Where does a pirate vacation?
Arrrrruba.
Pirate’s best subject in school?
Arrrrithmatic.
My child’s contribution:
What happens when a pirate dies?
He turns into a skeleton! Hahahahahahahahaha.
You don’t get it, kid.
Plus there’s everyone’s favourite, pirate riddles for sophisticates.
Q: What’s a pirate’s favorite aspect of computational linguistics?
A: PARRRsing sentences.
You know you’ve been reading too much Pharyngula when you go to see PotC2 and find yourself wondering, as you watch, what PZ would think of the movie.
And yes, that was me, when I saw it a month ago :)
What’s wrong with parts of the plot seeming forced, extraneous, or silly? Some movies aren’t about believability. They’re about the answers to questions like these:
Wouldn’t it be fun to watch a giant squid suck down a ship in one gulp? Yes.
Wouldn’t it be fun to watch three guys swordfight on a hamster wheel? Yes.
Wouldn’t it be fun to see a half-man half-squid play the organ with his tentacles? Yes.
Wouldn’t it be fun to see (insert everything else in the movie here)? Yes.
That’s what it’s all about. They’re not trying to tell a story, so it’s okay to bend the storyline toward the “contrived” end of the spectrum to squeeze in more fun action. That kind of stuff annoys me when there’s an awesome story to be told (like the teetering rock column in Khazad-dun in Fellowship of the Ring) but in a movie like Pirates it’s perfectly appropriate.
“Plus there’s everyone’s favourite, pirate riddles for sophisticates.”
Ooo, I like those.
Pirate’s favorite existentialist?
Kierkegaard, of course.
(Beats the others because the drawn-out sound is already there)
:)
what is a pirate´s favorite aminoacid?
arrrginine!
What’s a pirate’s favorite fossil?
Arrrrchaeopteris!
Pirates love plants, me hearties.
Pirates love Ditch Day at Caltech.
I love how the movie theatre in Morris has only 1 screen and gets movies like 3 months after they come out.
Did you hear about the new pirate movie? It’s rated Arrrr.
Sorry to spoil the fun, but the amateur historian in me has to ask: where on earth did this “arrrrrr!” thing get associated with pirates anyway?
I know the answer to that one: Robert Newton, the actor who played Long John Silver, Blackbeard, and other rogues in several popular films and TV series in the 1950s, established his peculiar dialect as the canonical Voice of Piracy.