YMMV / Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

• Alternate Character Interpretation
  • Did Jack really mean it when he offers Davy Jones Will Turner in exchange for himself to serve him, or was it just an attempt to get Jones off his back so he can go back to looking for the Dead Man's Chest and use it as leverage to force Jones to free both of them? Likewise, was he actually trying to get 100 souls to trade to Jones to free himself, or was he just recruiting a new crew and kept track of how many he had as a back-up? Considering this is Jack we're talking about though, none of these options are mutually exclusive.
  • When Jack returned to help the others after fleeing the Black Pearl to escape the Kraken, why did he do it? Was it because he really had found his shred of nobility and decency and couldn't abandon them to their fate? Because he wanted to save a specific person (Will, Elizabeth, Gibbs)? To save the Black Pearl herself? Or did he simply decide to stop running and Face Death with Dignity? He checks his compass before heading back, but the viewer never sees where it points, so any influence it could have played on Jack's decision is up to speculation: perhaps it pointed to land to show he really did want to survive, but he decided to ignore it. And on that note, Tia Dalma insinuates that the compass can give false directions if the holder knows what they want, but are adverse to the idea of actually claiming it.
  • Did the jar of dirt really give Jack any form of protection against Davy Jones, and if so, what kind and how? Or was it no help at all and Tia Dalma was just screwing with him?
• Base-Breaking Character: The Pelegostos Tribe. Some like their culture and find it a really fun part of the movie, while others think they're too goofy to be taken seriously, they take up too much time (20 minutes to be exact) and are at the end superfluous to the main plot and wish their part was shorter; and some like the Pelegostos but feel like they belong to a completely different movie.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The movie gets a lot of flak for the scenes with the island natives being this, even though the writers wrote it with the intention of showing that Jack wasn't safe anywhere he went, be that on land or water. It's also the resolution to a Brick Joke Johnny Depp ad-libbed in the first film.
• Broken Base:
  • The Cerebus Syndrome and the close continuity with the previous movie, including the Happy Ending Override of the movie are divisive. Some fans thought that getting rid of the happy conclusions of the original movie to put the characters in the middle of a complex Myth Arc made the previous movie All for Nothing and think they should have gone for a different set of characters instead of bringing back the whole cast of the previous movie back, other fans thought the story justified and find it a natural expansion on the characters' arcs and themes of the previous movie. Some thought the characters should have come back and the darker tone were a good choice but still aren't fond of the Happy Ending Override.
  • The Pelogostos subplot. Fun even if unnecessary, or a complete waste of time?
  • The Jack/Elizabeth teasing, while shippers of the two love it and some fans feel it expanded on Elizabeth arc of becoming more of a pirate throught the movie, many fans found it forced given Elizabeth had already declared Will as his One True Love and feel it only exist to create forced tension and Pandering to the Base.
  • Elizabeth sacrificing Jack to the Kraken. Some fans see it as a betrayal on Elizabeth's character and find it to be pointless drama just for the sake of setting up the Cliffhanger of the following movie. Other fans think Elizabeth had very justified reasons to do it and see it as a crucial and natural progression for the character to become The Pirate King at the end of the trilogy. Meanwhile other fans think Jack fans are being hypocritical given he has spent the whole movie betraying other characters so he had it coming even if he returned at the end.
• Complete Monster: Lord Cutler Beckett, also in the next film, is the Chairman of the East India Trading Company. Upon his arrival at Port Royale, Beckett assumes control and has the governor's messenger to the king murdered. Beckett later enslaves Davy Jones, forcing him to kill his pet Kraken and making Jones his personal attack dog of the seas. Governor Swann himself is later murdered when Beckett decides he's of no further use. It is made abundantly clear that Beckett's prime motivation is power and control, and as piracy is a threat to that, Beckett initiates a purge of anyone even vaguely associated with piracy, with all legal proceedings suspended. The result is a massive line of people, many of whom aren't even pirates, taken to the gallows to be hanged. Not even children are safe, as a little boy is shown being hanged as Beckett looks on without remorse or emotion.
• Contested Sequel: Several consider this film to be a major step down from the first film due to the switch from Low Fantasy to High Fantasy, having Jack being way too much of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad, the Happy Ending Override, some finding the plot too thin and see it as nothing more that a build up for the next movie. Others however consider it an Even Better Sequel due to the expanse in action and drama, the introduction of Davey Jones, Cutler Beckett, and the Kraken, while expanding the series' mythology and providing natural character arcs to the cast. There's also a third group that finds the film weaker than the first but still a worthy follow-up. Regardless of one's stance, it's often agreed to be one of the stronger movies in the series.
• Continuity Lockout: Minor example with Jack the Monkey. Anyone who did not stay through the End Credits of Curse of the Black Pearl and saw The Stinger will understandably be confused about why Jack is still cursed despite Will breaking it.
• Draco in Leather Pants: This is a movie in which Jack deliberately sells his friend Will Turner into a century of servitude to Davy Jones and feels no remorse for so doing, yet a great many people act as if he were a heroic character who was hard done by with the only one they damn for betrayal being Elizabeth Swann.
• Genius Bonus:
  • During Will's search for Jack, a sailor mentions that he sometimes goes to the cannibal island to trade for "delicious long pork". Long pork is an old euphemism for human flesh.
  • The game of Liar's Dice between Will, Bootstrap Bill, and Davey Jones follows the actual rules of game, and shows you their dice rolls fairly early on and keeps them consistent throughout the entire scene, which makes all their betting decisions make sense in context. Bootstrap Bill basically telegraphs his rolls from the start because he's deliberately trying to throw the game so Will doesn't lose. Davey Jones makes an insanely risky bluff by lying about how many fours are on the table, showing just how confident he is in his victory, but proves he's no slouch by trapping Will later in the game by betting on seven fives. At his point, everybody knows Davey Jones is telling the truth, so all Will can do is try to bluff. Then Bootstrap Bill intervenes and raises the bet to twelve fives^note This is a suicidally risky bluff because the chance of rolling 12 fives out of 15 dice are around 8,000,000 to 1., leaving Davey Jones no choice but call him out and end the game. In addition, the film's version of Liar's Dice appears to also have the house rule that a player can only call a lie on the player that went before them, so just the sheer fact that Bootstrap Bill joined the game meant he was figuratively and literally putting himself between Will and Davey Jones, making it impossible for Will to lose.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The wreck of the Edinburgh Trader at the hands of Davy Jones and the Kraken. Six years later, the HMS Bounty, the ship that played Trader, itself ended up in Davy Jones' locker after being wrecked during Hurricane Sandy, killing Captain Robin Walbridge and Claudene Christian.
  • Jack nibbles on a severed toe out of boredom and curiosity when he's held captive by the Pelegostos. In 2015, Johnny Depp visited a children's hospital in character as Jack Sparrow, where a girl noticed that Depp had his finger bandaged; Depp, still in character, joked that he ate his fingertip. It was later proven by his medical records that he had severed his fingertip during a drug fueled rampage while filming the fifth movie in Australia. ^note  The doctors who stitched him up initially found the wound to be consistent with a crushing motion, not a cutting one as he would later claim it was cut off by a thrown Vodka bottle.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Davy Jones' catchphrase is "Do you fear death?" Fifteen years later, his actor would meet Death himself and be rightfully terrified of him.
• Inferred Holocaust: It's strongly implied this happened to most of the Pearl's crewmen, when Will Turner finds Cotton's parrot, and it squawks "Don't eat me!" Gibbs's line about the cages^note Implying they're made from the bones of the deceased crew all but confirms it.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Killing Jack for real. It turned out to be a mere Our Hero Is Dead and he gets better after being rescued in the following movie.
• Magnificent Bitch: Tia Dalma, once known as Calypso, Goddess of the Sea bound in human form by the Brethren Court, eventually took up being a sea witch. That happened after developing feelings for Davy Jones, Captain of the Flying Dutchman and charged him with transporting the dead to the afterlife, but after neglecting their one night together, it led to Jones abandoning his duties and cursing himself and his crew. When Jack is targeted by Jones for his debt, Tia advises Jack in how to fend off and how to potentially control Jones with his heart. After Jack is trapped in Davy Jones' Locker and the East India Trading Company begin their genocide of pirates, Tia sees this as an opportunity to finally be unbound from human form by uniting the Brethren Court once more. Resurrecting Barbossa to serve as a guide, they succeed in bringing Jack back to the living world. Intending to turn on the pirates and seducing Jones once more, Tia learns of Jones' betrayal, enraging her so much that shortly after she's released, she summons a giant maelstrom on both the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, only relenting once Jones finally meets his demise.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Davy Jones gets soooooo many moments that stand out. He kills dozens of innocent people in attempting to track down Will and Jack, the innocent Turkish fishermen who merely chance upon Jack's hat and the trading crew with the stern captain for starters. Then there is also him ordering the defiant crewman who spurned his offer of crewmanship killed immediately and, in a rage, having the survivors of the aforementioned trading ship slaughtered wholesale without even offering them the chance to take his wretched bargain by saying that there were no survivors. Some fans also believe that he really crossed it when he keeps William Turner prisoner, sets him to be brutally tortured by his own father and then threatens to kill him to spite Bootstrap.
  • Ian Mercer gets his personal moment when he murders Captain Hawkins in cold blood under the orders of Beckett and calmly quips about it afterwards.
• Narm Charm:
  • The three-way fight on the mill wheel as it rolls through the jungle and those aboard keep swinging their swords at each other while also trying to keep their footing. It's silly and absurd, even by the franchise's standards, but it's still fun and memorable.
  • Tia Dalma's accent and mannerisms are a bit silly, but Naomie Harris makes it work.
• Never Live It Down: Many found Elizabeth much less sympathetic once she chains Jack to the Pearl so the Kraken can kill him. This is ignoring the fact that the Kraken was chasing after them because of him, and handing Jack over is the only way to ensure their safety at all, not to mention the fact that she's visibly conflicted over this and becomes The Atoner in the next film.
• One-Scene Wonder: Barbossa. Appears one time at the end of the movie to completely steal it. The way he appears has a lot to do with it.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The Pelegostos being portrayed as cannibals caused a publicity stir back in 2006 and led to some considerable attempts to boycott the film, but that did not stop the film from being a box office success.
• Padding: The part of the film where Will and the crew have to help Jack escape an island controlled by a tribe of cannibals can come off as this. It's a particularly long sequence that goes on for nearly 20 minutes, and while it's exciting and provides a few laughs, it serves no purpose to the overall film except to reunite Will with Jack and have Pintel and Ragetti join the crew.
• Special Effects Failure: Most of the CGI, particularly Davy Jones and his crew, look absolutely fantastic. The kraken, however, has not aged nearly as well and often looks like it was ripped out of a contemporary video game.
• Strangled by the Red String: A source of drama in the second half of the film is a budding attraction between Elizabeth and Jack, which hits its peak when she kisses him to distract him and Will sees. The whole affair is laughable because Elizabeth has never shown any previous interest in Jack, and while it's not unreasonable Jack might have some sexual attraction to Elizabeth, he's never shown any serious interest in her, either. Yet suddenly Elizabeth is seducing Jack and he's staring in rapture as she talks about the idea of him wanting a "taste" of what its like to be "the hero". At one point Jack pulls a "Not So Different" Remark on her, and it falls remarkably flat.
• Strawman Has a Point: Jack is framed as selfish and cowardly for refusing to help Will at first, but it's not hard to see why he would. Will never makes any mention of Beckett's offer to pardon Jack and make him a privateer, he only mentions that he needs the compass to save himself and Elizabeth from the death sentence, so there's no incentive for Jack to consider Will's request. Jack dismisses him with the remark "there comes a time when one must accept responsibility for one's actions", which is the exact same thing Will said to Elizabeth at the end of the first film when Jack fled and he prepared to face Norrington. And in the same scene Will said right in front of Jack that he was willing to be hung alongside him, and Elizabeth joined in as well. As far as Jack can tell, Will showed up a year later having changed his mind and now angry at Jack for the consequences of his own actions, and demands one of Jack's most valued possessions with no leverage to bargain with.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Given that they were former crewmates, more could have been done with the interactions between Jack and Bootstrap Bill. They get one scene together early on where Bill had snuck onto the Black Pearl to warn Jack about Davy Jones coming after him, which it's clear that they're still on good terms despite Bill now being a crewman of the Flying Dutchman. After this scene however, there's no further exploration of their friendship as Jack and Bill end up never interacting again.
  • The Liar's Dice sequence is a fairly tense scene...if you understand the game, sadly a lot of people who watched the movie didn't understand it so they were a bit confused around who was losing or winning. Some fans feel if the movie bothered to add a small explanation around how does the game works, the scene would have worked so much better.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Everything looks photorealistic, as per the norm for this series, but Davy Jones in particular is one of the absolute best motion capture performances and effects of all time. Of particular note:
  • Davy Jones's eyes are so realistic-looking that some viewers were convinced that Bill Nighy's real eyes were merged with the CGI face utterly seamlessly. In reality, it was all CGI.
  • Each tentacle moves with its own muscle, meaning that his “beard” does not move like hair, but instead moves and feels like actual tentacles.
  • Many motion capture characters wear tight fitting or little clothing so the artists can better follow and replicate the actor’s movements. Davy Jones wears a massive long coat and layers upon layers of clothing, all of it constantly dripping and covered in sea life.
  • One of his first shots, of him leaning down face to face with a shivering captive pirate, is practically challenging the audience to try to find the difference. The lighting from the moon and Jones’s pipe match on both faces perfectly.

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