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YMMV / The Bounty

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  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • While Lieutenant (not Captain) Bligh can seem rather acid-tongued to his men, his bark is generally worse than his bite. He has some deserters flogged, while standard naval procedure at the time called for the death penalty. He proves his worth as a seaman by navigating the open launch from Tonga to Timor with one brief stop.
    • This movie went a long way to restore some of Bligh's reputation, which had been tainted by the earlier movies that painted him as a complete monster. Especially by focusing on that incredible voyage to a safe port in an open skiff with only one man lost.
  • Awesome Music: Once again, Vangelis manages to make a modern-day electronic score work in a period film. The end credits theme is especially memorable with its melancholy piano melody and ethnic-sounding percussion effects.
  • Awesome Moments: Bligh successfully navigating all the way to Timor (the green line), then nonchalantly reporting the mutiny the moment he arrives in port.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Twenty years after the Bounty incident, Bligh would once again find himself on the receiving end of a mutiny in the form of the Rum Rebellion.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: During the film's production, Anthony Hopkins, himself a reformed alcoholic, expressed worry about Mel Gibson's heavy drinking, stating that he was "in danger of blowing it unless he [took] hold of himself." Considering how Gibson's life later deteriorated, culminating in his infamous anti-Semitic tirade and arrest for Domestic Abuse, it would seem Hopkins' warnings went unheeded.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Unlike previous films that potrayed Bligh as a cruel, sadistic monster, this film more accurately shows him to be an overbearing man with an unlikable personality who simply does things by the book. In spite of this and the fact that Bligh was legally in the right, audience sympathies are often on the side of Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Vangelis's opening theme, which, taken out of context, could very well be the most beautiful slasher theme ever composed.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • Wangst: How much Bligh was a tyrant and how much Christian was a whiny emo-boy is open to debate.

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