The following polemic contains spoilers about both The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End currently boats a pathetic 47% on rottentomatoes.com – a full 25 points lower than the first film in the trilogy. Critics have regularly attacked it for being too long, too confusing, stale, redundant and illogical. Planting myself firmly at the shallow end of the cinephile’s table, I have to say that I dig the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. If anything, Pirates’ deep-reaching mythology, epic battles and sprawling cast are certainly no more confusing or illogical than The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The greatest difference being that Pirates comes with no literature that can be studied beforehand. Instead, it was born out of a desperate attempt to cash in on the name value of a forty-year-old dark ride. It certainly requires more from an audience than they might have expected to give such an endeavor. Anyone who expected another movie like The Country Bears or The Haunted Mansion must have been overwhelmed. The team that wrote it made the radical decision to craft a complicated opus with wild characters, mysterious pasts and a genuinely surprising plot, rather than the usual one-off, streamlined stories that come from such cash-ins. And I think that helps Pirates. While there is never any doubt as to how The Lord of the Rings will turn out, Pirates boasts a shitload of surprises and twists. (For all the gravitas given to Frodo’s impalement by Shelob, it doesn’t come close to the “holy shit” moment when Davy Jones stabs Will Turner in the heart.) To even further mar my credibility, I’m going to say that I actually prefer Pirates to Rings.
Whah? Chip, are you smoking something?
Yes, I am. Regardless, I find the Pirates movies way more endearing and entertaining as the black sheep cousin of The Lord of the Rings. While Lord of the Rings is always impressive and exciting, Pirates just has so much more personality. Where Rings remains respectable, proper and sentimental, Pirates goes subversive and tough – like a nautical film noir soaked in horror.
Here be a few comparisons and contrasts between the two trilogies.
The Dichotomy of Good and Evil
The Lord of the Rings is absolute in its depictions of good guys and bad guys. The good guys are the ones with clear skin and sunny towns. The bad guys are the nasty-looking crud that crawl out of the ooze and live in perpetual darkness. There is never any question that what the good guys do, they do for the good of all Middle Earth.
Pirates of the Caribbean is the opposite. It celebrates those who plunder, murder and betray. Their teeth are rotten and their clothes are filthy. The bad guys are the fancy-pants status quo. And in the end, the pirates are only fighting to survive – in order that they may continue to pillage the world unabated.
Giant Monsters
I have to say that any movie that makes a giant spider attack feel legitimately scary holds a special place in my heart. (For a spectacularly fumbled giant spider attack, see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.) And while Pirates has no giant spider, it does have a KRAKEN. Yet, the giant spider only maims the main character, allowing him to escape (lame!). The Kraken actually eats and kills the main character (AWESOME!).
Orlando Bloom
Dreamy Orlando Bloom is not the most expressive of actors. He is one of the few working today who is utterly incapable of being contemporary. While it may be true that he has loosened up a bit more in the Pirates movies, he still has only two modes: stoic and squinty. So really it’s up to your particular taste:
Dark haired, slightly soiled Orlando with daddy issues - or Aryan, porcelain-skinned Orlando who says things like, “A red sun rises. Blood has been spilled this night.”?
Feminism
Liv Tyler spends three movies lounging on a couch and fretting over her man. In the end, she does nothing more than play peek-a-boo with Viggo Mortenson.
Kiera Knightley becomes King of the Pirates. And then she makes some speech about something.
Though, to be fair, both pale in comparison to “I am no man!”
Songs
At two points in Return of the King do characters break out in song. Both are slow, classy ballads. The one Aragorn sings is in some language I don’t know. I’ll assume it’s about peace or something equally non-threatening.
At World’s End opens with a song. A dark brooding song that pirates sing just before getting their asses hanged and their boots tossed in a big ass pile. The pirate song is a battle call about rebellion and death. If I were forced to sing one or the other, I’d go pirate.
Characters come back from dead.
In Fellowship of the Ring, Gandolf the Gray bites the big one when he falls down a chasm with a Balrog. Then he reappears in The Two Towers as Gandolf the White. I don’t understand why or how this happened. Perhaps the book is clearer. Are there any consequences to his return? Nah, he’s even more powerful than before.
In Curse of the Black Pearl, Barbosa bites the big one only moments after getting an undead curse lifted. In Dead Man’s Chest, Sparrow gets dragged down to Davy Jones’ locker by the Kraken. They are both brought back as part of Calypso’s plan to release herself from her human bonds. Are there consequences? Aside from the numerous pirates who die rescuing Jack, yes. Calyspo gets released and goes batshit.
Vague homosexuality
Apparently, the relationship between Frodo and Samwise is rife with gay connotations. I was unaware of this until someone told me. Still baffled by this, I can offer no specific scenes to reference.
Anyone who watches just a few minutes of Johnny Depp’s performance as Jack Sparrow can’t help but notice his rather swishy walk and heavy mascara. And while he has spurred many a lady’s wrath, he still refuses that second kiss from Elizabeth.
But what’s really gay is his relationship with Lord Beckett. In Dead Man’s Chest, Beckett mysteriously states that Jack has left his mark on him. When he finally catches up with Jack in the third movie, their meeting is like that between old lovers. Beckett whispers his demands to Jack and when Beckett, holding the magic compass, asks what it is he wants, Jack replies, “Me . . . er, dead.” Later, when Will turns the compass over to Beckett, he very knowingly asks, “And what is it you want?” Will knows damn well what Beckett will think of and where it will lead them. I have no doubt that Beckett’s entire war on Pirates is the result of a love gone bad. (“It’s nothing personal, Jack.”)
Sword Envy
In Return of the King, Hugo Weaving pulls out a newly mended sword. He does it all in slow motion with a swelling score. Viggo Mortenson takes it and caresses it. It’s very touching.
In At World’s End, some dude picks up a sword. He caresses it. As he is admiring it, Davy Jones walks by, shoves the sword into dude’s torso and walks away with it. It’s very violent.
Dead people in the water scenes
In The Two Towers, Frodo sees creepy dead bodies in the marshes. Naturally, he then becomes super-duper clumsy and falls in. He is rescued by Gollum who gives some dubious exposition about the dead bodies. Eh.
In At World’s End, Pintel and Ragetti notice dead people floating under the water in the land of the dead. They ponder what might happen if someone dropped a cannon ball on them. Woo-hoo. Unfortunately, they are stopped by a glare from Tia Dalma who then gives some dubious exposition about the dead bodies.
Deal-making
In Return of the King, Aragorn makes a deal with the Army of the Dead. When the army fulfills their end of the agreement, Aragorn admirably releases them – despite the fact that they could have helped them win the war with minimal casualties. As a leader, he prefers to honor his poorly thought-out agreement rather than do what’s best for his troops. After all, this is a fantasy.
In At World’s End, nearly everyone makes a deal with someone else and then totally backs out and tries to kill whomever they made the deal with. After all, these are pirates!
The endings
Return of the King gets a lot of crap for its parade of endings. While I don’t have a problem with Rings’ prolonged winding down, I can’t say I’m a fan of any of the individual endings. Upon dropping the ring into Mount Doom, Frodo wakes up to find himself surrounded by slow motion hugs and group laughter. Then Aragorn is crowned king and everything is right with the world. Oh, wait. Now Aragorn makes a speech about sharing and peace and sings a song while every claps and bows in slow motion. Now everything is right. Oh wait, now he gets to kiss Liv Tyler while everyone claps - again. Now everyone has to bow to the hobbits. Never mind that two of them didn’t do anything more than any number of humans. Never mind all the people who actually died in the fight. Let’s take this moment to pander to the audience. Now we go home. Now everything is right with – oh, wait. Now Samwise has to get married. Something he just brought up for the first time ten minutes ago. Now Frodo finishes a book full of ponderous questions and hackneyed clichés about shit going on in his heart. “The last pages are for you, Sam.” More hugs. Now some tears. He gets on a boat that is presumably sailing off to death. He claims it’s his time – which is similar to what Michael Clarke Duncan said at the end of The Green Mile when Frank Darabont realized he ran out of story. Then there is an absurd number of children. And then Samwise says, “I’m back” – which is apparently more significant than I give it credit for. He’s been home for quite a few years it seems. Or is he home from the market? The pub? I think everything is right now, though. Phew.
The wedding in At World’s End is the most awesome ever in movie-dom. It takes place in the midst of battle and boasts a body count of over a dozen people. After the battle is won, Will Turner fucks Kiera Knightley on a beach, hands her his heart – literally, a severed organ in a box – then sails off to serve supernatural duty. Barbosa steals Jack’s boat, but Jack gets drunk, fails to pick up some chicks, and then sails off in a dingy to find his next treasure – having stolen Barbosa’s map. Annie Lennox does not sing at this point.
Pirates of the Caribbean has a playfully dark tone that reminds me of the most awesome children’s literature – the kind that scars a kid and haunts him forever. Pirates’ in-jokes, post-modern references, and Wile E. Coyote-par stunts balance well with the hangings, skeletons, dismemberments, bloodletting, sword play, cannibalism, drownings, curses and other assorted mishaps. The Lord of the Rings makes precious few stabs at humor, and only induces cringing each time (I’m talking to you, Gimli!). The Lord of the Rings never allows itself to question its own absurdity. Pirates fucking revels in it.
Despite my whining, Rings is a milestone in fantasy filmmaking and could beat me up in a fight. Pirates of the Caribbean is the intricately designed anomaly in a desperately calculated mining of name recognition. Give me Geoffrey Rush’s swarthy pirate jargon over Elijah Woods’ vaguely British accent any day.
Take what you can. Give nothing back!
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