Thread: Pirates of the Caribbean:On Stranger Tides

Originally Posted by darby

So, if you set out to make ANY movie about the Bible, including one created as a vehicle for the guys who push insane buttons with such edgy films as "Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny" and "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," you have a responsibility to push the envelope, but when it comes to making a movie about pirates with the sole intention of making s***wads of money while riffing on the same 5 gags in a 4th iteration, s'all cool just because "you likes what you likes?"

I mean, I'm all cool with that second part, but am a bit perplexed by the vehemence by which you stood by the first.

Look. you seem to have issues with my opinions. That's fine. But yes a comedy based on tweaking Bible stories as opposed to the 4th iteration of a series based on Pirates(which was chastised for being tooooo complicated in the 3rd episode) I expect more. I expect nothing but fun from the Pirates franchise while I expect a Bible based comedy to tweak a few noses. I can't simplify it more than that. When you bought your Pirates ticket...did it deliver what you EXPECTED? Sounds like it did. It did for me. But Year One, which presented itself as a Mel Brooks-ish Bible comedy(and it did) disappointed miserably. Not so much.

See, I never expected Year One to be Mel Brooks. I expected it to be bland, homogenized comedy, which is exactly what it was.

Originally Posted by darby

See, I never expected Year One to be Mel Brooks. I expected it to be bland, homogenized comedy, which is exactly what it was.

Yet you defend it. Why? You expected it to be bland and you watched it/defend it???? Why, for the love of God man why????

3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/bu...anda.html?_r=2

Interesting indeed.

LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" sold just 47 percent of its North American tickets in 3-D. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results.

One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount.

Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars.

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Yet you defend it. Why? You expected it to be bland and you watched it/defend it???? Why, for the love of God man why????

When someone walks in and says Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from the box is the worst food ever and that people need to never eat it or even look at it again because it doesn't taste like filet mignon, I just have to ask, "Dude. Who said it had to taste like filet mignon?"

All I'm saying is - it was a turd from concept all the way through executon and that's all it ever was. Just a harmless turd. At what point did anyone expect more?
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Originally Posted by darby

When someone walks in and says Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from the box is the worst food ever and that people need to never eat it or even look at it again because it doesn't taste like filet mignon, I just have to ask, "Dude. Who said it had to taste like filet mignon?"

All I'm saying is - it was a turd from concept all the way through executon and that's all it ever was. Just a harmless turd. At what point did anyone expect more?
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Don't know about you, but where I come from there ain't no such thing as a 'harmless turd'. I guess I expected a comedy to be funny...shame on me.

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Yup. But drivel this ain't. It's one thing to present a irreverent comedy about bible stories and be as sharp as wet newspaper...but this, the fourth in a series of movies about PIRATES...is everything you would expect. I do not need cutting edge satire from a Disney movie about pirates. I just need an enjoyable re-use of characters that I love very much. I knew this would be simple entertainment...and that's exactly what it was. I don't need every movie to push envelopes, but if you are going to go into an area where envelopes NEED BE PUSHED, don't funk the puck out. Guess what...I do not expect Cowboys vs Aliens to be anything BUT a summer popcorn flick. But it's a fine line. You can't go all Transformers and just make a **** movie that's all noise and indescriminate cgi-banging-into-more-cgi. At least Pirates has human characters that you can tell the difference between and they never try to overwelm you with noise as entertainment. I likes what I likes and every movie is on a case by case basis. I will be the first to admit that sometimes my opinions about stuff can seem contradictory. What can I tell ya? I don't always stick to my mission statements.

I agree with you somewhat, but I'll have to say that the last 3 PoC movies have been Transformers-ed to hell.

There hasn't really been one supernatural element that has worked, 'cept maybe the Kraken's first brief appearance. The most compelling and tense conflict of all 4 movies came from the British vs Sparrow movie-long chase in The Curse of the Black Pearl, which in all honesty was every bit as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark IMO.

Davey Jones was never a threat, never menacing, and never all that compelling. Pure "lets throw some cool looking crap at the screen, story be damned". There were a whole lot of those elements to this movie as well. The memaids could have, and frankly, should have been a lot more captivating and then threatening, but they never got past that "look, cool stuff" stage because the story was so thin. That's right out of Bruckheimer 101.

I'd say they took the easy way out with this one.

The Pirates porno has a sequel...

Originally Posted by Mondo Blando

I agree with you somewhat, but I'll have to say that the last 3 PoC movies have been Transformers-ed to hell.

There hasn't really been one supernatural element that has worked, 'cept maybe the Kraken's first brief appearance. The most compelling and tense conflict of all 4 movies came from the British vs Sparrow movie-long chase in The Curse of the Black Pearl, which in all honesty was every bit as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark IMO.

Davey Jones was never a threat, never menacing, and never all that compelling. Pure "lets throw some cool looking crap at the screen, story be damned". There were a whole lot of those elements to this movie as well. The memaids could have, and frankly, should have been a lot more captivating and then threatening, but they never got past that "look, cool stuff" stage because the story was so thin. That's right out of Bruckheimer 101.

I'd say they took the easy way out with this one.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Davey Jones will continue to be the perfect combination of real fx/cgi and an actor forcing his personality through all of it. I found his story very compelling and almost hauntingly heartbreaking and Nighy's performance showed tremendous humanity despite all of the fx. I do not see that in the Transformers movies. The characters are all over-modulated voices and mechanical effects that really, once all the sturm and drang starts, are barely distinguishable from each other...

And then there's the robots...ba-dump-bump.

As far as the mermaids in 4 I thought they were very effective and that sequence was fairly intense. But the main draw to the Pirates franchise will always be Sparrow/Barbossa and that alone makes it ridiculous to compare franchises. Transformers is a slow child banging his action figures into each other while **** blows up.The Pirates movies may not be Ivory Merchant but I think they are a little bit more sophisticated than that.