(no subject)

[thebitterguy]

You know what? AWE was two and a half hours of interminable double crosses (which lose their effect when the characters lack any visible motivations) and an abbreviated sea battle, but the high point of the film was definitely the zombie monkey getting shot out of a cannon. That's so awesome you couldn't fit any more awesome into the cannon with the zombie monkey. In fact, I'd watch it over again just for the zombie monkey getting shot out the cannon(1).



1. Not really.

Comments

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

I think someone else once put it this way: A double cross is only as interesting as the person doing it. If the double-crosser is clearly only operating at the service of the plot, then his actions have no context and therefore no depth.

I see this in a lot of badly-written movies, where someone's motives will apparently do a 180 in the 11th hour. "Apparently" because their motives never really existed in the first place -- they were only defined as a convenience of the story and not existing as something on their own. So for them to have a change of heart that's out of character is really not that big a stretch, because there was no characterto begin with.

What's most frustrating is that PotC3 was written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who for years inveigled against precisely this sort of thing in all of their seminars about screenwriting. I've since discovered there is no rule of screenwriting that cannot be broken by sufficient applications of cash.

[thebitterguy]

That pretty much nails it. Going through I constantly had no idea why anyone was doing any particular thing, and this was a nearly constant confusion on my part.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I was pretty upset we didn't see the entire British Navy handed its ass. Come on. They kill kids. The pirates are the underdogs. It's practically the "gun rule" right there.

[thebitterguy]

Which gun rule? Chekov "show in first, fire in third"?

I was glad to see the Royal Navy get a decent treatment in the first film, at least.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Well, along those lines; if you introduce a gun into a story, at some point it must be fired.

[thebitterguy]

Ayep. The "they've got it coming to them" rule must correspond to that.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

The trouble with the world today is not enough zombie monkeys being shot out of cannons.

[thebitterguy]

A greater truth has probably been spoken once or twice, but that's pretty much it. I love the two syphilitic pirate lunatics who did it, too. Those guys are the best. Them and the RN sailors who switch sides.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

The wooden eyed one is in the UK Office.

[thebitterguy]

I swear, I stared at the commment for about 5 minutes tryint to figure out "The UK Office of WHAT?"

That's the Old World version of the Steve Carrell show, right?

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I was going to say the 'real' Office, but I figured I'd tick people off.

That's the one with Rick Gervais, yes.