f13.net

A new Pirates movie is coming together.  Thought the first one was a great action flick,  the second grew on me, and the third was....  massively inconsistent, with some great scenes (the opening scene with the hangings was amazing) and some horribly muddled bits.

The new movie ditches Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley, and brings in Ian COCKSUCKER Mcshane as Blackbeard.  Oh, and they've optioned Tim Powers (very well regarded speculative fiction author) On Stranger Tides for the story and plot.

Seeing Geoffrey Rush, Johnny Depp, and Ian Mcshane chew up scenery while trying to doublecross each other in search of the Fountain of Youth?  Yes please.

This movie may be shit but there is no one that could play blackbeard better.

Yes. While I support a Pirates of the Carribean movie about PIRATES, and while I believe McShane would play one as capably (and as uniquely) as Depp and Rush did, these movies have been pointed downhill  since before the first one ended and the fundamental plot threads have worn very, very thin.

Yes.  But that's why optioning the Powers book to rejuvenate the story elements seems like a big step in the right direction.

As muddled as the plot became in the movies, I still enjoyed the Rush/Depp characters.  Adding McShane to the mix and it could be syfy level bad and I'd still watch it.

Cocksucker!

I'd say that this is going to be one of those movie people see just because it has Pirates of the Caribbean and Johnny Depp tied into it. It could be a steaming pile but it will still be a blockbuster site-unseen. I mean how else can you explain Transformers 2 doing well?  :why_so_serious:

That said, I will see it and either: be pleasantly surprised at a fun movie or think they should not have overextended the series this far and be mildly annoyed.

The first one was borderline great.  The second one was not good.  The third one was eyeball stabbingly terrible.  This is a trend.  They will not be able to buck this trend.

It's been over a year since I got the 3rd one on DVD and I still haven't finished watching it. My wife and I gave up on it about an hour in, and haven't been back to it since.

Of course, the addition of McShane as Blackbeard does change the equation.

New story, Legolas and what's-her-face out, Deadwood guy in. I dunno, it could be good. I really like the idea of just ditching the two lame-ass lovebirds and sending Jack Sparrow off to have other adventures.

^ This.  Keira is cute and all, but I thought she and Orlando really weighed the last movie down.

The second movie never should have had anything to do with the first and likewise the third.  Pirates need not be some epic story...it is about pirates, fighting shit, some supernatural shit and then more pirates.  I'm not sure anyone saw the first movie and said "you know what, i wonder what happens to will turner" no, because no one fave a fuck, even the fangirls were in depps camp not blooms.

Barbosa, check.
Sparrow, check.
Fountain of youth, check.
Blackbeard, check.

The only way this movie can go south is if they try and shoehorn a main character like bloom into it, there is absolutely no reason sparrow can't be the protagonist.

Perfect from the waist up. Heh. One of the things that surprised me about Blackbeard (having only discovered this recently) was that he was apparently 6'4" or something. In that day and age, that's huge... I'm sure it contributed to his reputation.

Tim Powers is an excellent author and On Stranger Tides is one of his better books IMO. When the first Pirates of the Carribean came out it made me wish that somebody would make a film of On Stranger Tides, though I didn't think it would be done quite like this.... They're going to have to tone it way way down though, the book is dark, bloody and full of non family friendly themes like voodoo and human sacrifice. Blackbeard in the book is a great villain though, will be interesting to see how LoveJoy Ian McShane handles it.

But I can't recommend Tim Powers enough, check out The Anubis Gates or The Stress of Her Regard for other alternate history/ fantasy badassary.

The fact that he would go into combat with a brace of a dozen or two pistols, tucked burning fuses under his hat to emanate a cloud a smoke, and had for his personal banner the image of Satan spearing hearts might also have had something to do with it.

And in his beard.  :drill:

This.

Powers is a heavyweight speculative fiction author, who has won the World Fantasy Award twice, though not particularly well selling.  My best description would be like Gaiman with less whimsy and a darker tone...  or a less mindfucky Wolfe.

I haven't read On Stranger Tides, but I don't think any of the racier stuff is a problem if they keep the tone light/humorous.  After all, the original Pirates movies had cannibalism, a couple of attempted rapes, voodoo, etc.  The third movie starts off with a mass hanging.

I really need to pick up some more Powers.  :oh_i_see:

Well that's two positives right there

Yes, that too  :grin: But being a giant mofo with those qualities is all the more intimidating.

Well... I think most of the pirates were intimidating, period.. even at a distance. But that guy must have been something else.

He would also make his crew play cards with him, and then if he lost a hand depending on his mood at that particular minute would either congratulate winners or shoot them in the gut. He apparently had pretty wild mood swings.

Maybe he needed some of these.

(http://a3.vox.com/6a00b8ea0728391bc000c225271bd38fdb-500pi)

please let that be real

That is awesome.  :drill:

See...this is why I still come here.

If I understand correctly, it's by the same person who drew the "LOL WUT" pear, who my friend is apparently LiveJournal buddies with or something. They're apparently a tomboy who resented the marketing pitch of most such products.

I looked at her gallery. There's some cool stuff in there. The Blackbeard Brand ad reminds me of this:

(http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff26/stuabrtow/bagFullDMRorg.jpg)

Trailer up on Yahoo (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/pirates-caribbean-on-stranger-tides.html?showVideo=1#belowNav).

Surprised they didn't just go with a quick teaser at this point.

This seems like a step in the right direction.

Saw some movie posters up for this at the local theater. These movies are fun, as this one will be.

The last movie was a belabored bore.

I actually liked the last movie...well, parts of it. The Legolas Keira thing was ok, but it was handled too harlequinney. Loved the surreal Malkovich crab-rocks thing at the beginning, just because it was some weird shit. The ending was lame.

I can't imagine a need for a fourth movie though. The third just kinda ended it with a fizzle, and this just reminds me of it.

The last two films had some good moments but stunk of films rushed into production. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have already said that they were basically pulled in onto the set to finish the script there and then and do revisions as they went along so it was basically, write a page, shoot it with little to no chance to do any script revisions or editing. Verbinski reputedly storyboarded sequences based on ideas and not the actual script (which still wasn't finished a month before shooting started) and I think it showed.  It wasn't the same disastrous mess as the Matrix sequels but it was overlong and in need of a lot of editorial tweaking at the script level.

As this seems to be little to do with the story from the previous films, bar carrying some of the characters over, it may just work.

Egads, Penélope Cruz looks more awful than usual in that trailer. 

(http://i55.tinypic.com/a4ne48.png) (http://i55.tinypic.com/vrzgxx.jpg) (http://i55.tinypic.com/2a9z8tk.jpg)

Wow, your still alive!

Jack Sparrow searches for Fountain of Youth, finds that having a kid and raising them is the Fountain of Youth, hence serious romantic interest in Penelope Cruz and Keith Richard's presence.

you're [/grammernazi]

Will be curious to see the early word on this one. The novel really is very good--if they stuck to it, this could be pretty great.

Heard a review on the radio today at work. Basically they said its actually got lots of action sequences but is pretty mindless and dull overall. The guy that saw it claimed that the friends he took to see it fell asleep.

Oh and "arr" is what every sailor says apparently.

Well, if it's anything like the last movie, I certainly won't try to see it in the theaters. I watched the first hour of #3 and stopped from boredom and haven't made it back since.

#3 was indeed the weakest of the 3, but I blame the Will-Elizabeth romance for most of that.  The Pirate Court on was decent (the Calypso part was a little  :uhrr:), just fast forward to there and give it a go.

You guys over think things to much.

I'm probably going to go see this in the theater, against my better judgement.  There's still a dim possibility that the suck will have left with Will and Elizabeth and we'll get a movie that's even a fraction as fun as the first one.

There are some pretty bad reviews floating around, which is too bad.  I really had some new hope in the franchise both with picking up Ian McShane and licensing the Powers' book to raid for new ideas.

Both those gentlemen deserve a whiff of mainstream  success.


The book is quite good, though it's more of a straight historical fiction with supernatural elements.  Not up to the other Powers books I've read (Anubis Gate, Last Call, Three Days to Never), but I thought those were excellent.  Also more straight-forward than his books tend to be.

Nah.  I didn't say I didn't have fun or it was a bad movie, just that it was the weakest.  It lacked a lot of the fun action parts after Singapore until the Pirate Court and the end battle.  The middle bit was far too somber and angsty for me with all the who's-betraying-who drama.


This one is garnering a 36% at RT right now.
ED:  then again, some of the bad reviews say this:


Which I could be ok with. We'll see as I'll see it at the $6 Saturday morning matinee anyway.

Just got back from the movie... saw it in IMAX 3d.  Cinematography flat out wasnt good enough to take advantage of the tech., so dont waste your time unless close-ups of Cruz and Depp are your thing.

Basically, it's the 3rd best movie of the 4.  So yah, rental.  And yah, I almost fell asleep also.

The common theme in reviews is that's tedious, boring, ho-hum. That's enough for me to stay away.

Part of the problem to me was the serious lack of grandiosity to the whole film.  It just didnt feel epic at all.  Like I said, a LOT of facial closeups of the actors (especially Cruz). 
So if you're expecting some piratey "Master and Commander" you'll be seriously disappointed.  Not a lot of ship combat scenes to begin with either.

I like Sparrow as much as the next heterosexual guy  :awesome_for_real:, but a movie just about him seems like it would get old fast. Jack seems like he's best when he's fucking with other people's adventures.

So yeah, I saw this with my sister. It's bad. Really bad. Basically all the criticism is spot on. The movies has no point, stuff just happens, seemingly at random. Jack really, really needs a Commodore Norrington or Will Turner to play foil to. It's what made him stand out in the first movies. He just blends in here, leaving nothing memorable.

You can expect more. The movie is doing merely okay (by "big movie" standards) domestically with a little over $200 million, but is closing in on an additional $700 million overseas. Depp fucking loves playing the character, too. They're going to be making these for-goddamned-ever.

And it just cracked the billion mark, having done over three-quarters of that internationally. Currently at #7 of all time worldwide.

Unfortunately in a moment of weakness I contributed to the financial success of this lemon...  :ye_gods:

'Tis the fault of my S.O. who foolishly left me unattended for an entire afternoon at the mall. I regret my mistake.

A bit late but just piping up to say it's a shame that all they used from the book was the title.
I'd also like to plug Tim Powers. Excellent, whacky SF author. He likes to find alternate, plausable,
explanations for historical events then run with them.

I love Powers' work. Such a shame they didn't buy the book for its actual quality.

I didn't know that Johnny Depp was capable of a trilogy, let alone a quadrilogy.

The last one was pretty tacky as it is.

Tim Powers is excellent, though I was kind of meh about On Stranger Tides.  I just (finally) read Declare and The Stress of Her Regard, and both of those are amazing.  Charles Stross owes Powers big-time, considering how much of his Laundry books are taken from Declare.

Try the anubis gates as well. It's amazing.

I read most of Powers stuff years ago, I just hadn't gotten around to Stress, Tides, and Declare.

My major complaint with Tides is the plot feels way too derivative of his other books, and the characters, character relationships, and mythology/secret history were weaker.  Powers has a definite formula, I just didn't feel that it was as well executed as some of his other books.  Or it might just be a case that so much of Tides has worked it's way into popular culture it lost much of its uniqueness to modern readers.

I really loved Declare.

I think Tides is one of his earliest novels. Can't agree on the whole history thing though. I enjoyed the underpinnings of voodoo, especially the explanation for why Blackbeard had burning wick's woven into his beard. 

No argument on declare though. Would love to see that done as a non-disney movie.