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Afterthought movies: A redemption tale

Henry Atkins
Apr 18, 2018
4 min read

And so we return to this topic after more Pokemon than I can handle!

Part of me feels that the reason I took that Hiatus was not just because of my personal life but because I was so sick of writing posts. More specifically on Pokemon.

However within this time I watched a movie I missed in cinemas.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

May, 2011

The forth movie in Disney's Pirate adventure. At this point alot of people are aware of the kind of character Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp) is.

He's drunk, a risk taker, likes his women, pretty much a pedigree pirate if it wasn't for how often he wise cracks a joke and bungles things up. All of which leads to some amazing action sequences and, if I lack a better word, Japes.

Unfortunately this seems to be the entirety of this movie.

More of the same.

But as it is tradition for Pirates of the Caribbean, we have some new seafairing legends! These including:

Mermaids!

Black Beard!

And the Fountain of Youth!

With that said they're slightly generic although interesting concepts to explore. Unfortunately they don't explore them very well outside of just stepping stones to the ending.

Here are some reasons why each of these weren't as effective as they should've been.

The Mermaids came across less like an enemy and more like just eye candy and the necessary female attraction character that one of the main cast falls in love with. Because you could have that kind of character with legs (which mermaids apparently have in this), Mermaids just don't come across as unique.
Black Beard is a dime a dozen in this world of other threatening pirate captains with powerful abilities (Black beard's being his ability to control his ship super naturally). Also who really cares about another pirate whose trying to upstage Jack Sparrow anyway? It seems a bit betraying to be shown Johnny Depp being anything less than amazing.
The fountain of youth. Could you expect anything more interesting than this damp, stone ring.

With the new stuff coming across as boring despite what they're based off of, how is the original cast treated?

This is captain Barbossa now.

A pampered up Captain for the British navy. Although all the other characters are somewhat just the same as usual somehow they ruined Barbossa. I agree that it has been 8 years since the first movie (2003-2011 in the case of this movie) so having a "Where are they now?" story makes alot of sense but not if you're going to twist a knife into a beloved character and make them not just become an ally, which makes sense from a story point of view, but also change their entire occupation to exactly the opposite.

Frankly I feel like this was what made the movie flop the way it did (excluding the poor story).

Something I hear alot about making characters work and believable in videos is making sure you're true to the character and making sure they're not static. Make sure they develop as a character. A particular example I was shown of this not happening is with Superman in 'Man of Steel'. There's no development or evolving. At the beginning of the movie Superman is heroically saving a bus of children and then there's the end of the movie when Superman is heroically saving people in the city. Here's the original video before I move on to the amazing successor!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men tell no Tales

2017

I'd say this movie has the same redemption story as the Pokemon movie series. Much like 'Pokemon the Movie: I choose you!', Dead men tell no tales has Character development!

This movie revolves around the infamous compass of Jack Sparrow. The one that never points right but always to adventure!

The story is that the compass is cursed but bound to Jack. The movie starts with the introduction of Salazar. A famous captain tricked by young Jack. Yes. Young Jack!

Yes! After so long there's now a backstory to the poster boy himself! It tells of how he became a captain by earning the title. Since then he's been expecting everything to be given to him as tribute and everyone to respect him which appropriately brings us to where he is now. Washed up without a crew, without a ship and without any gold. Unfortunately he's also left without anything to wash his worries down with a side of scotch. To get himself that such thing that is alcohol he trades his compass. However that cursed compass reacts to this sudden change in ownership and releases the cursed ghost ship of Salazar. The famous Spanish captain tricked and killed by Young Jack!

Salazar (Played by Javier Bardem) of course wants revenge after being imprisoned on his ship where he died for decades. Although the ghost pirate enemy was already explored in the first movie it still works well on the account of its actual contribution towards the fleshing out of Jack's character.

At the same time we are introduced to William Turners son, Henry Turner (Played by Brenton Thwaites) who wants to break the curse that binds his father to be the captain of the Flying Dutchman.

The objective of the main cast because of these two story arcs is to break the curse to save Will and kill Salazar. They come across yet another character with an intriguing story arc.

Carina Smyth (Played by Kaya Scodelario) is a scientist who doesn't believe in the super natural (how misguided she is) who is searching for her father who orphaned her.

SPOILER ALERT!

Barbossa is her Father!

What a turn of events! I didn't expect Jack to have a developed backstory, let alone Barbossa!

One more thing to tie together the character building legacy that this movie has left on its franchise.

Ever watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2? Yup. Barbossa pulls a Yondu and sacrifices himself while also being the Father figure in the movie!

I loved this movie and it's a perfect example of ending the movie franchise with a bang. With families reunited (kinda), deep origins revealed and characters becoming better people and in no way could they ruin thi-