Dead Man's Chest: A Patchy Pirate Fight 

Yes! I'm glad some other people understand. A lot of people disagree because they like Jack, but he really shouldn't be the main character, he's much better as a supporting character

There are some great video essays about the Pirates series that nail this point home, the first movie was so great because Will and Elizabeth were the protagonists while Jack was a supporting character. While he was a fantastic character, he just doesn't work as a protagonist. That's where every film after it fell off, they knew people loved jack and tried to push more of him but they did it in the wrong way.

Between Jack, Will, and Norrington, only one is really a Pirate of the Caribbean, and thus should be the focus of the movie.

@@brianl8481 Just because it's about pirates doesn't necessarily mean the protagonist has to be a pirate. The movie does focus on pirates and their fight to lift the curse, just not Jack all the time. Look at Alien, the movie is about the alien but told to us through the perspective of the crew members. The subject of the movie does not necessarily mean that is what has to be the protagonist.

Yup, Jack is the supporting character. Will was the main character in the first film, Jack was important but his motivations don't drive the story. He has his own vendetta, but it's not a revenge story, it's a love story. Will has to rescue his love and grow a big enough pair of balls to finally tell her how he feels. Elizabeth needs to break out of the expectations that society has for her and be honest with herself. THAT'S the story of Pirates of the Carribean.

I think I’ve heard it said the problem is main characters need motivations to drive the plot forward and grow. Jack was never written as a character with a motivation beyond hedonism, mischief, and freedom, things he already has on and off. Every time they try to give him a past or some protracted inner life it falls flat because he can’t be the character he is and function like other characters.

yeah, exactly right. Jack Sparrow is a trickster character type, which is something that shows up all over the world in stories (look it up!). probably the most obvious other example is Loki in the MCU. the first Pirates movie was successful largely because Depp's character stole a lot of the scenes with his insane acting and Jack's shenanigans, and brought unpredictability to a story that was really about Emily and Will. that's something they fucked up in the other films in the series by making him a protagonist: you can't steal a scene if you're the focus of it. and it's really difficult to insert unpredictability into your own story, as it just makes the plot a random mess or a predictable slog, see PotC: At World's End and every subsequent PotC film. the only example I can think of off the top of my head where it's done well is Ragnar Lothbroek from the show Vikings, though he doesn't fit that well into the trickster archetype because he's quite ambitious, not silly at all, etc

I'm actually working on a swashbuckling pirate drama romance novel thing and... I hadn't thought about it that way before but you've definitely given me food for thought, thank you.

Jesus that would have been great. Would it be better to have those pivotal moments in Jacks escape play out in the background during longer cut closeups/character moments of Will and Norrington? Or during longer takes on action-packed exchanges? Either way it’s asking the audience to pay attention to two things at once and there must be some general rule to how you simultaneously develop and distract the drama...

now THIS, i would love to see

It would have made the fall in the grave much funnier as well!

@@AnkhAnanku The screenwriters would never have given up the chance to have that really hamfisted foreshadowing moment of Jack landing in a grave. "He's gonna die, you see, and he knows it, so when he falls into a suspiciously fresh grave at the site of a long abandoned mission, we have to have an understated reaction from him. 'oh.'"

Norrington Deserved Better: in this essay I will...😁

@@JillBearup I would watch the heck out of that video essay!

@@JillBearup Yes please

Jill Bearup His death in the third movie felt very forced. Honestly if he joined Jones’s crew would have been cool. Since he could have figured that when Jones dies because it was inevitable he could be freed and could stay as maybe quartermaster of the pearl since he sides with the pirates at the end.

I mean he stole the heart from jack’s jar just for selfish reasons and was responsible for the conflict of the third movie but go off

Very good point, but I see it from the other direction. It's not why doesn't Will help Jack out, but why Jack doesn't help Will out. Will won't support Jack because Jack is, well, who he is. Completely untrustworthy. However, Jack knows Will to be an honorable person, and if Will agreed to help Jack then Jack should expect Will to uphold his end without question. And in a sense, that scheme is totally fitting in with Jack's character - why fight two opponents when you can gang up on one and also misdirection.

That's so interesting, in the version we got Norrington is really smug and unlikeable.

Well from Will's point of view Jack sent him to slavery on the Flying Dutchman, so why would he want to work with him?

Erik Carlson I don’t know if it’s possible to blackmail Jones into freeing a member of the crew. Bill told Elizabeth in the third movie the only way he could be saved from the curse is if Jones were killed. Granted, I don’t know if that had been decided by the filmmakers before World’s End came out .

@@hairflames Yeah I think it's definitely just that Will can't risk trusting Jack with something as important as his father's freedom Which makes their cooperation in the next film all the more satisfying

I was actually going to comment that every character slowly becoming Jack Lite over time is one of the series' most annoying tendencies. I mean, it makes story sense for Will, the whole character arcs for Will and Jack from the first movie was that they needed to learn from each other (which actually enda up making it *more* annoying, because Jack doesn't adopt ANY of Will's tendencies, and, in fact, becomes *more* ridiculous over time, but I digress). But then the series also does it to Elizabeth. And Norrington. And literally everyone else.

@@kabobawsome I don't think that the character arc for Jack in the first movie was to learn from Will, I would say his arc is Han Solo's in New Hope, bringing out the rogue's heart of gold. Ending up doing the right thing was character development for Jack, but he didn't necessarily learn that from Will, at most he was inspired. After all Jack is already a fully developed adult with years of experience behind his back, whether you find the conclusions at which he arrived right or not, and Will's the skilled albeit still young lass who's entering a whole new world where he knows nothing. Jack's *kinda* the mentor figure in their relationship. *Kinda.* So I really think that Will developing some of the mannerisms is pretty cute and well made. At no point is it outright pointed out that he's like Jack, he just sometimes moves or thinks a little bit like him, and in my opinion it's great. I do agree with Jack getting more ridiculous over time tho, I would say it still works with the second and third movies, since he's literally going insane through all the second and the first half of the third. The beginning of the second goes to show how deranged Jack is becoming that even his crew notices and all throughout the movie he gets increasingly more desperate with Davy Jones after his ass and in the third movie he begins literally stranded alone in a no man's place trying (and failing) to cope with it, so I'm personally ok with that. When push comes to shove he still gets serious after all, look at the ending of the third. After the third... Well... As for Elizabeth and Norrington, I may be wrong but I honestly don't remember it. Sorry. I can concede that Elizabeth does act like Jack in certain moments. But the emphasis is in the acting. It doesn't really go further from there. She acts like him to get herself out of some situations but when she's being herself she doesn't really have any of Jack's strange movements, like Will does without thinking. At least that I recall. And as for Norrington? He's just fucking wasted in the second movie. I don't think being drunk is a characteristic specific to only Jack, is it? Besides that, even though I would have loved to have more time for him in the movies, which is a shame, from what I remember he is Norrington from the beginning until his eventual sacrifice. Which I have to say I personally love. What a great guy. And as for the rest, maybe you could give a couple more names? :S Gibbs comes to mind, he does indeed turn from Jack's sidekick into a cheap copycat in the fourth movie. Which is incredibly jarring coming from the place he comes in the previous ones. But nothing else comes to head. Specially in regards to the first three... The problem that I find is that they created an incredibly charismatic character and after the first movie, instead of recognising that he worked partly because he wasn't constantly in the spotlight, they couldn't escape his shadow and made him the main piece of the story. Which didn't really go well with either... It's not so much everybody is tuning into Jack as much as Jack is literally bloody everywhere, nobody can fucking escape him. I still think the second and third movies are solid pieces but after that it gets so goddamn ridiculous that there's really no defense...

Anger and rage does not necessarily makes sense. In fact, that's when people makes their dumbest decisions :P

I agree wholeheartedly. When I saw that scene in the theater for the first time, I remember feeling it was contrived. Killing Will would absolutely destroy Elizabeth, something Norrington would never do, as shown by how gallantly he accepted her rejection of him at the end of the first movie. Show us Norrington's anger some other way, but not by having him let the thing he wants most in the entire world slip from his grasp. The thing he is LITERALLY WILLING TO BETRAY ELIZABETH FOR. I like your version of the scene much better.

Ah, but then Jack wouldn't have been the focus of the scene! And we couldn't have _that_ now, could we? /Sarcasm.

THEY KILL THEIR BIRDS?!?!?

@@whittlyarts like same

Wait, wouldn't it be easier (not to mention cheaper) to swap in a fake dove for the "killing" & then bring back the real one at the end?

@@CaptHayfever Think 1800s - no one cared about the animals then, just use bread to bribe them to you. Now a days that shit is illegal

Norrington has the most interesting character arc in the series.

Aye! I found it...generally enjoyable but too long for my taste. (Don't ask what I thought about the third one XD)

@@JillBearup I'm sure we'll all find out soon enough what you thought. :)

Aye riddle man throw me a riddle

@@tf2junky476 What's black, white and rank all over?

@@noizetv4240 well shit idk

I agree. I think the fight on the beach is deliberately sloppy, because at this point Jack, Will and Norrington are having a stupid playground fight driven by testosterone (which is why Elizabeth is yelling at them).

I agree. I like that fight. It shows the three of them being forced into work together and trust each other. Which is such a massive change from the first movie. I also think it ties into that scene where she’s just standing and yelling at the three guys who are fighting each other. Like you know they are being the main characters who are doing their own thing while she’s being ignored. Again. So then she ends up going on the own damn adventure. Which I actually find kind of cathartic after the first movie where she plays damsel in distress throughout.

YES

Also the skeleton pirates in the first movie definitely gave me nightmares lol.

Monique Ocampo - I’ve see several fight fans argue that editing can make or break a fight.

I hadn’t noticed that till you mentioned it, but the script does seem to keep her away from all the other main characters for large chunks of time. Huh.

All three of them are on their own journeys (but do still have scenes together) and in next film they are a lot more together and these films were shot back to back. So I doubt it had anything to do with Keira.

No she loves them she sounds very genuine in the audio comments of the first movie! :D

@@sarasamaletdin4574 I agree. If one understood how screen writing works (and my novel writing partner IS a screen writer so I've learned a lot from her) one would know a writer isn't thinking about an actor's preferences. They're writing a story. And a second movie in what was at the time a 3 movie arc, would require the love interest to back off in the middle, to create tension for the third movie.

@@peglamphier4745 Screenwriters can think ( and write) whatever they want; If big box offices stars don't want to work together, they won't share many scenes, and that's that. That said, in this particular case there really isn't any evidence that any of these 3 were avoiding each other, so keeping them apart in "Dead Man's Chest" really was just about creating tension.

This is legitimately something I would describe myself as SALTY about, if only because of the nautical pun :D

@@JillBearup I'd say it's a pretty fair thing. Considering how they big up his role in film two only to have him in a couple of scenes in 3 before being unceremoniously offed.

I console myself in the subtext. Sorry for the meaty text and rambling, I promise it gets less basic by the end. I just like the guy :( He spent his life climbing the ranks, living life by a strict moral code (of the time) and views the only way to do this as through the military. His disdain for pirates comes from how seemingly opposite they are to him. They have no morals, taking and doing as they please. What the navy takes and does, it does for order and social good. After losing his crew to the hurricane, he realises how driven by pettiness and spite he is being and so leaves his position. He is then split in two. His desire to pursue good via the navy and exact revenge upon Jack should oppose each other. He discovers that they do not. The heart of Davy Jones: taking it will cause Jack's past actions to catch up with him, and will further solidify the British control of the seas by overcoming a powerful threat. So he does it. He gets exactly what he thinks he wants. Jack is dead and he has his position. Then he realises something about the new chain of command. Beckett has no morals, taking and doing as he pleases out of selfishness and spite. To Norrington, this man has the power to do so much good and instead his overwhelmingly self-centred. Norrington has spent his life climbing the ranks under the premise that he can do more good with more influence. Beckett is everything he hates in a position he admires so much. The man has the power to put the Governor in chains, to command the plague ship, and does nothing that could be considered moral. Even the Lord's disdain for pirates - one of the few traits they share - is out of a personal vendetta against Jack. When Norrington is gifted his old sword, you can see how disillusioned he is with the system by his delivery of "you summoned me." He's starting to think more deeply about his priorities. Then he meets Elisabeth again. The girl who sailed over from England with him at the start of his career is now on the complete opposite side, captain of a pirate ship from a foreign power. Her rejection of him tips him over. She has highlighted the immorality of his end through her father's death and demonstrated good will by staying with her crew. He knows that Beckett is everything he despises, but now gets shown that those he thought were so different from him were not so at all. Pirates have the freedom to do what they want. That doesn't mean they always do and want bad things. The first time he met Jack was after he saved Elisabeth. As Jill pointed out with the blacksmith fight, Jack forfeits advantages at times in favour of doing the right thing. He knows that dying for Beckett does nothing for his principles. Ultimately, Norrington dies a free man. Love sure helped him find his path but his righteousness let him walk down it. Ironically, he performs the same act that got Jack branded a prisoner for: freeing prisoners (sidenote: I am MAD that the "people aren't cargo" scene was removed). What compels me most of all to take this headcanon is his relationship with Will. In the first film, Will manages to save someone by acting outside the law and siding with a pirate. This is the first nudge that the law is not always the way. It is shown that Norrington understands this on some level by how he addresses Will at the end of the film. In the second, he is shown to hate Will. Will has ruined him by freeing Jack which led to the hurricane incident and Norrington's internal divide following it. As Jack points out, he even 'takes' Elisabeth. In the final film, he can see Elisabeth's values as stated earlier. She chose Will of her own accord because he is 'good' and fights for his principles. Perhaps Norrington realised this too, and his final act of self-sacrifice is the one shown instance where he act out of neither spite or legal obligation. And when he does it, Elisabeth cries out for him by name :(

@@puphafishprime well stated

@@puphafishprime beautiful. I've always felt James decided not to join the pirates because he had tasted that life during the second movie and knew he couldn't live like that again. He knew that once the pirates were done fighting Beckett, they would pillage and plunder as much as ever. If he had lived, he would have fought Beckett, but not with the pirates. I think he would have taken a third side, perhaps attempted to return to the Royal Navy (Becket's navy belonged to the East India Company). But I think first he would have tried to get to the heart of Davy Jones and stab it, just as Governor Swann tried to do in that deleted scene.

You know, after reading your first paragraph, I was going to link to Every Frame a Painting's video on Jackie Chan, and then you yourself mentioned it in your second paragraph.

“Jangling Keys” .... omg! Yes! That’s the exact feeling! I’ve never heard it put that way before and it fits exactly. Thank you!

I always thought that jack wasnt interested in her romanticly, but more interested in getting her to find the chest. Hence why he jokes about with her to get her frustrated and more determined to find what shes looking for

FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE HEARD TOO! been scrolling through to find out. there's even an original kh2 midi he's a pirate cameo which had me both absolutely hysterical and very happy

Because hes Norrington and he wouldnt do that - even with nothing to lose to the man who ruined his life

:D

I just discovered this channel today and don't know if Jill ever talks about archery, but if so I'd love to hear her analysis of some Legolas scenes in Lord of the Rings.

I agree, in the first movie Jack worked great because he was the best supporting character

Come back next week 😁

@@JillBearup yeah! i love avatar!