Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Well, it's pretty much a given that Disney is going to keep making Pirates Of The Caribbean films until they're no longer profitable, and as I just saw On Stranger Tides again last night (not my favorite of the series, but I definitely enjoyed it more than DMC and parts of AWE), I got to thinking about where the best place for the series to go next would be. My thoughts:

Pirates of the Caribbean V Ideas

Plots from On Stranger Tides that Need Follow-up

1. Angelica wants revenge on Jack (and probably Barbossa too) for killing her father and she’s got the voodoo doll of Jack.

2. Barbossa is now captain of the Queen Anne’s Revenge and has Blackbeard’s sword, along with at least some of his powers.

3. Jack and Gibbs are trying to get the Black Pearl and the other trapped ships out of the cursed bottles.

Sequel Hooks That Don’t Need Follow-up, But Could Be Used Anyway

1. The Spanish, and particularly their leader. They just really impressed me during their appearances in 4, particularly the final battle, and their nationality and role as religiously motivated Anti-villains made them distinctive. Bringing them back for an encore would be nice.

2. Where did Syrena take Phillip, and did he survive? This one doesn’t really need elaboration if they want to keep their ending in 4 ambiguous, but could easily be revisited, particularly if the writers/director want to use the mermaids again.

3. The source of Blackbeard’s magic. I got the impression that it was more the “learn it out of a spellbook” kind of magic rather than the innately gifted/offered kind, but there might well be a story there and Barbossa in particular could easily get caught up in it. And there is the matter of the sword being the “Sword of Triton”- I saw a post on the WMG page about how he might easily want that back…

4. The treasure chest Angelica mentioned to Jack that can “control the wind and tide”. Now, Jack knew full well that she mentioned it just to try and convince him not to maroon her, but was she lying, or was she referencing a legend she’d actually heard? Don’t think this one’s particularly likely (my money is on her just making it up) but it could be used if they wanted to.

More General Thoughts

1. Jack needs a new straight man. Will was never my favorite character (to be honest, he was always my least favorite of the main cast in the first three movies), but he did fill a pretty important role. In 4, with him gone, you’re left with Gibbs (who’s too jaded to Jack’s weirdness) and Phillip (who didn’t have much direct interaction with him).

2. The new villain needs to be distinctive. One of the draws of the Pirates series IMO has always been the colorful, hammy bad guys, but we’ve already had three ghostly/mystical pirate captains and I’d rather they do something different rather than add a fourth (and I don’t see much hope in doing another aristocrat villain- depending on personality, he’d almost certainly come off as either a Norrington or Beckett retreat). Fortunately, I’d think that sailor’s lore and legends would provide enough concepts to mine on this front.

3. Jack needs to be more closely tied to the main plot. One of the most common complaints about 4 is that everyone else was much more personally invested in the quest for the Fountain, with Jack along for the ride. Fortunately, with Jack needing to free his ship (giving him a definite goal that could end up getting him into a lot of trouble, depending on what actually needs to be done to undo Blackbeard’s magic) this doesn’t seem like it would be that hard.

Anyone else have thoughts or speculation?

edited 26th Sep '11 9:26:02 AM by MasterGhandalf

From what I've heard, POTC 5 will be a stand-alone movie that's completely separate from the other installments in the series. Personally I'd like that, seeing as how the main series has turned into such a Mind Screw.

edited 26th Sep '11 12:38:30 PM by Mort08

I imagine it'll be about as standalone as 4 was, which really had little to do with the previous movies other than the characters of Jack, Barbossa, and Gibbs. And I didn't think 4 was all that Mind Screw-y at all, though parts of 3 definitely were.

I'd love to see Jack be in command of a fleet of pirate ships, fresh from the bottles Gibbs took from the Queen Anne's Revenge. Each of the minor characters from previous movies could have their own ship, and we could see what each would do when in command. Then we could have Jack insisting on being called Admiral Jack Sparrow, and everyone else using Captain Jack Sparrow just to annoy him.

Also, I want to see more of the Spanish. 4 clearly intended them to be a future antagonist, being mentioned in the beginning, spotted in the middle, then showing up at the climax to destroy the fountain and walk away. I want more than that dammit.

Is it just me or would it have been nice if more of the people introduced in this one had stuck around? Jack+Gibbs+Philip+Syrena+Angelica would have made for an AWESOME five man band going into 5. Sure Philip/Syrena would have just been a Will/Elizabeth redux, but at least these two are a bit more interesting.

Oh well.

I like the pirte fleet idea but maybe he could try take over some land and he soon discovers the improbabilities of a land composed of pirates and gives up everything when he discovers how his navy has turned to 'stamp out' piracy other then his, realizing he has become just like the English.

Also: Let Barbossa go, for the very first time he has his own ship like he has been trying to get in all the previous adventures.

In light of recent news, here is my proposal:

Pirates of the Caribbean 5: The Secret Of Monkey Island

Beat you to it by a few weeks.◊

Also, God please no.

I'm interested about the nature of the next patch of villains. We've had zombie ghost pirates, Fish People ghost pirates, and voodoo zombie pirates; how are they going to top those?

The best thing about the Pirates Of The Caribbean saga was our heroes venturing to (or thrust into) new situations and finding amazing new (and usually mythological) locations and creatures to do battle with - that's what kept Stranger Tides interesting to me: it brought us into a brand new quest for something totally different than what we've already seen, with mermaids, magic and all that jazz, and Po TC is the kind of series conducive to that kind of "brand new adventure" approach (what made the East India Company so effective as antagonists was how they branched into and started to control all that was adventurous, effectively and seemingly unstoppably subjugating the world into normalcy). Other fun things were folklore and literary references littered around the series.

So in a new movie I'd like to see a new kind of folkloric creature or adventure to run across - something seafaring related of course. They're probably starting to run the book of stereotypical sailing myths dry, though. Maybe something from Sindbad?

No, I believe a Sinbad film is already in the works anyway.

How about the secret of... well... Monkey Island?

'*Gets killed to death*'

edited 24th Nov '12 1:19:30 PM by GaryCXJk

^ By Disney? Also, a lot of the mythology within Sindbad occurs commonly outside of the folklore of Sindbad himself, if not some of it entering seafaring folklore as a whole, so I doubt a Sindbad movie coming out would stop Disney from using a roc (or a roc like creature) or an island that turns out to be a living creature.

Most of this stuff isn't limited to Sindbad, and the series shows a lot of Sindbad reference in its storytelling. They even already kind of directly referenced Fourth Voyage in Dead Man's Chest.

Seems like beating a dead horse. Pirates have their charm, I am all for more pirates movies, but do they all have to be coming from this one series? On stranger tides was probably my least favorite film admittedly but I felt it had given the Jack Sparrow and Barbosa characters great closure. Sure his adventures are not over, but his personal conflict and dilemmas have been addressed. He has found contentment in life and he has regain his beloved ship.

If there is a five I would not mind Anamaria coming back, though one would assume her plot line was resolved off screen. If Jack has for whatever reason not gotten her a boat yet then this would be the opportunity to do so.

The Tia Dalma/Calypso issue may have also been solved off screen but she did swear revenge on the brethren court so her return would not be too surprising. Maybe that only means trouble for Barbosa, which could make enough of a plot but Jack could be included, being a pirate lord. If Angelica is practicing hoodoo magic though, two vindictive scorned wizard women might be too many.

More of these would not surprise me, I can even guess at a few plots, but I would rather see a new and unrelated pirate picture.

the first movie was awesome I've lost more and more interest in each of the new movies trying to keep the story going and adding more and more mythical dilemmas and character drama to the POC world

edited 26th Nov '12 7:34:42 PM by nitelyechos

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Rum's End

Time to get some more at the store!

Heh heh heh heh heh

Personally I'd have like seeing Jolly Roger from the POTC MMO make a comeback. Besides the fact the MMO's plot (Jolly Roger's quest to take over the Caribbean) never really got resolved and come on, it's a sorcerous zombie cyborg pirate trying to take over the entirety of the Caribbean via a Voodoo Zombie Apocalypse while fighting entire islands single-handedly.

There was an MMO?

There was. It was decent for its time (early 2000s) but it suffered from the fact Disney practically left it to rot and it had no revamps or expansions whatsoever until 2011, when they half-assedly added the Queen Anne's Revenge as a optional boss with the release of On Stranger Tides.

But shortly thereafter, they killed the MMO and the plotline was Left Hanging.

I think it'd be cool to see Jack finally getting immortality and then being quite saddened that iron ships are fast replacing wooden ones and to struggle to keep piracy relevant in a modern age.

That

Could

Work!

Except it may run into the problem, like the last movie did, of relying too much on Jack

edited 16th Jul '15 7:33:27 PM by Xopher001

So long as he moves to Hollywood and becomes an actor named Johnny Depp in the epilogue, I support Jack acquiring immortality.

Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow Adam Westing as Johnny Depp...

Then he lives long enough to for space piracy to take off and it comes full circle where he is a legend again.

He wouldn't then happen to change his name to Ridley, would he?

edited 17th Jul '15 3:53:21 PM by TheAirman