Dead Men Tell No Tales

[Blackhawk748]

Didn't see a thread so i figured i'd make one.

I just saw it tonight and i gotta say i rather enjoyed the ride. I found it better than 4, but then again thats not saying much.

[Green Elf]

I just saw the trailer. I think it might be as disappointing as everything past #1. What did you think?

[Craig78]

I think that the second installment was also very good and entertaining (the ending was bad, though). However, the last two movies were boring and predictable, I did not like them. As for the Dead Men Tell No Tales - the trailers were pretty good and maybe the main villain will be interesting. We'll see, but I am not expecting anything.

[Blackhawk748]

I just saw the trailer. I think it might be as disappointing as everything past #1. What did you think?

Like i said, i thought it was a solid movie. The action was good, Jack was funny, and the villain was monstrous.


I think that the second installment was also very good and entertaining (the ending was bad, though). However, the last two movies were boring and predictable, I did not like them. As for the Dead Men Tell No Tales - the trailers were pretty good and maybe the main villain will be interesting. We'll see, but I am not expecting anything.

Salazar (the main villain) is rather interesting, his ship is a bit weird though.

I think the reason i liked it it is that, unlike the last 2, i couldnt tell what the plot was from looking at it for 5 seconds, it actually took a bit to see how it was all going to shape up.

[Edgeoftheabbys]

Seen it only one thing to say zombie sharks!

[Mikemical]

Seen it only one thing to say zombie sharks!

Admittedly, watching this one with our Forever DM made us actually want to play a high seas D&D adventure with a Lich/Vampire Davy Jones(because while a pirate mind flayer would be hilariously awesome, the whole "I can offer you to escape death" thing is kind of what defines his legend).

It's much better than 4(which I feel added nothing to the world of PotC besides taking away the Black Pearl from Jack), so I'd say it goes like this for me:

1 > 2 > 3 = 5 >>>>>>>>>> 4

[Vogie]

I actually really liked it. I would say, it was probably the second best of the series, after the first. Although, to be fair, I haven't seen the 4th - just the original trilogy and the 5th.

[Rodin]

From what I've heard, DMTNT is basically the equivalent to The Force Awakens - copying shamelessly from the plot of the first movie in the franchise to win back the audience. One review even did the joke where they list off all the plot points and ask you to guess whether he's talking about DMTNT or Curse of the Black Pearl.

[TheManicMonocle]

I liked it, but I felt that Jack's performance was weak; it was like Jack was reduced​ to a stock character.

[AdmiralCheez]

I thought it was very much in the Pirates template. It had Jack Sparrow doing drunk antics, over-the-top ridiculous fight scenes, and a race to find a supernatural artifact before the army of the dead do. If I hadn't already seen this movie before in the prior installments, I probably would have loved it. But since it didn't really do anything new, I just thought it was okay.

[Talakeal]

I thought it was pretty good. But then again I think all of them are pretty good. I actually like #4 best, which I think is the opposite of how most people view them.

It was nice that they actually finally show Jack Sparrow drinking rather than just having him acting goofy and leaving his drunkenness as subtext and allusion.

It was also nice seeing Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightely back. Man, the difference in Elizabeth's look was surprisingly striking since she stopped letting them give her a CGI touchup.

[Green Elf]

Okay, I actually watched the movie.

Better than 2+
Worse than 1

Astronomer girl was kind of annoying to me. "Please apologize" "NO, YOU APOLOGIZE! I NEVER MAKE MISTAKES!" That's pretty much how it went (someone is going to get technical with me) and then she's like, "turns out I can do everything, especially if the plot needs it." So, yeah.

So you kind of didn't need to watch 2+ I guess, but maybe 2.

Go zombie sharks and boats that would definitely sink!

[Blackhawk748]

Okay, I actually watched the movie.

Better than 2+
Worse than 1

Astronomer girl was kind of annoying to me. "Please apologize" "NO, YOU APOLOGIZE! I NEVER MAKE MISTAKES!" That's pretty much how it went (someone is going to get technical with me) and then she's like, "turns out I can do everything, especially if the plot needs it." So, yeah.

So you kind of didn't need to watch 2+ I guess, but maybe 2.

Go zombie sharks and boats that would definitely sink!

Ya, she had moments where i went "....really guys? You couldnt write this scene better than this?"


Mostly it was the fact that she kept getting accused of Witchcraft for knowing astronomy. Oooh a woman who knows astronomy! Quick, everyone be threatened!!

Seriously, could have done much better there.


+1 on the Z-Sharks. The boat was.....weird. But really creepy so it worked.

[Green Elf]

Ya, she had moments where i went "....really guys? You couldnt write this scene better than this?"


Mostly it was the fact that she kept getting accused of Witchcraft for knowing astronomy. Oooh a woman who knows astronomy! Quick, everyone be threatened!!

Seriously, could have done much better there.


+1 on the Z-Sharks. The boat was.....weird. But really creepy so it worked.


The setting is loosely around 1720-1750. Astronomy was widespread by that time. Why was it so hard to know astronomy for everyone, especially for sailors!?

[The Troubadour]

The setting is loosely around 1720-1750. Astronomy was widespread by that time. Why was it so hard to know astronomy for everyone, especially for sailors!?


Because the writers, the producers or both lacked creativity, passion or both when writing this movie.

[Quiver]

Honestly, I found this one to be a sub-par remake of Dead Man's Chest. It hits basically the same overall plot, what with the Undead Crew led by a Captain Out For Jack aboard an Unusual Ship With Unusual Powers. The Compass is important in vague ways, and the ultimate goal is the seizure of a Magical Artifact that will allow the protagonists to Break A Curse.

It's.. yeah. It's basically the same movie, right down to "Javier Bardem and his crew can't walk on dry land, and also, they have supernatural beasties that heed their commands".

...Of course, I quite like Dead Man's Chest, so maybe the comparison just stood out a lot more for me.

One scene I really liked though:
During the flashback, you can see a young Barbossa standing behind Jack; he's wearing the same broad-brimmed hat that Barbossa wears.

Kind of applied some cool fridge brilliance for me. He already knew what Salazar would hate Jack; Barbossa was just getting him to indulge in his backstory to buy himself a few more minutes to catch up to Jack and company.

[Winter_Wolf]

We saw the film a few days ago, and it was passable. I mean, it's not the strongest of the series by any stretch, but I liked it better than At World's End. I will say that I rather hope that they let the series end with this one and don't try to bring it out of retirement in a few years. Much as I like Jack Sparrow, he's getting a bit long in the tooth and well if you've seen the film you know about Barbossa.

I'm not a great fan of Will and Elizabeth Turner, which probably knocked my enjoyment of the film down a little. Yes I'm aware of how little actual screen time they get, but they're still a big influence on the story in their way.

Overall not a bad film and a decent enough way to spend a couple hours, but I don't see myself spending money on it again. I did like the backstory with Salazar.

[Draconi Redfir]

I found it neat how between the Black Pearl, the Flying Dutchman, the Dead-Ship, and i beleive Blackbeard's ship, the number of magical boats out on the ocean seems to be getting scarily large :P


i liked the villains though, Salazar was well written and well plaid, and i actually felt a LOT of sympathy for him and his crew near the end where the main McGuffin had just been used for it's purpose. you know the scene if you've seen it.

[Vogie]

I found it neat how between the Black Pearl, the Flying Dutchman, the Dead-Ship, and i beleive Blackbeard's ship, the number of magical boats out on the ocean seems to be getting scarily large :P

To be fair, The Black Pearl wasn't inherently magic, but had many magic things happen to it. As soon as the curse was lifted in Pirates 1, It didn't actually have any special abilities.

Then again, Blackbeard had a bunch of ships in bottles after he defeated them... so maybe there are a bunch of magic boats out there.

[Kantaki]

To be fair, The Black Pearl wasn't inherently magic, but had many magic things happen to it. As soon as the curse was lifted in Pirates 1, It didn't actually have any special abilities.

Then again, Blackbeard had a bunch of ships in bottles after he defeated them... so maybe there are a bunch of magic boats out there.

Err, wasn't the Pearl's whole thing that she was the fastest ship on the seas?
Or at least as long as she sailed with the wind.
Or something.
Wasn't that the whole point of Jack making a deal with Jones to get her?
To have a ship that could outsail everyone?

[Quiver]

Err, wasn't the Pearl's whole thing that she was the fastest ship on the seas?
Or at least as long as she sailed with the wind.
Or something.
Wasn't that the whole point of Jack making a deal with Jones to get her?
To have a ship that could outsail everyone?

There seems to be some magic invovled with the Pearl. I mean, back when she was cursed with the crew, she was still able to sail despite her sails being tatters.

I'm not quite sure what the magic about the Pearl is. Jone's deal involved him raising the Pearl from the ocean floor, so frankly, if he threw in +5 speed, that was him being uncharacteristically generous.

(Though, maybe he needed to do it to stop Jack going to another dealership just stealing a different, not-sunk boat)

The films certainly state and treat the Pearl as being the fastest ship on the sea, when conditions favor her though, so... it's vague, I guess.

Though, I think Blackbeards ship was normal; the magic seems to have stemmed from his sword, and him being a necromancer among other things. The only flat out "unnatural" ships thus far have been the Flying Dutchman and the Silent Mary.

(And, ambiguously, the Black Pearl)

[Blackhawk748]

Err, wasn't the Pearl's whole thing that she was the fastest ship on the seas?
Or at least as long as she sailed with the wind.
Or something.
Wasn't that the whole point of Jack making a deal with Jones to get her?
To have a ship that could outsail everyone?

The Pearl's thing is that she is the only ship to be able to outrun the Dutchmen, if she sails with the wind. So basically shes the fastest thing on the seas and im fairly certain its not actually magic, the Pearl's secret is that shes a unique ship. Specifically a hybrid between an East Indiaman and a Galleon.

[Swordarm]

One scene I really liked though:
During the flashback, you can see a young Barbossa standing behind Jack; he's wearing the same broad-brimmed hat that Barbossa wears.

Kind of applied some cool fridge brilliance for me. He already knew what Salazar would hate Jack; Barbossa was just getting him to indulge in his backstory to buy himself a few more minutes to catch up to Jack and company.
Not to ruin it for you, but
I'd put money on that just being them forgetting the series of events in their own movie. For instance, Salazar also says how he's the one who gave Jack the name "Sparrow" after he saw them in the crow's nest of the ship, even though we later found out that shortly after calling him a sparrow, Salazar's ship disappeared never to be seen again until this movie.

I really disliked this movie, and thought there were a ton of problems with it. In no particular order
- The biggest problem I had was with Jack being nothing but a drunken idiot and skating buy on pure luck. In the previous movies, he always SEEMED like a drunken idiot, but almost everything he did wrong ended up being part of some clever plan, and when he DID end up getting lucky there was typically some degree of cunning involved from him. In this movie it was just him being a drunken buffoon the entire time and everything just still working out somehow.

- Carina's character was terrible. Her entire character seemed to exist solely so to deliver the message that oh no, it's so hard to be a woman, but look how strong and cool and grlpower she is! She's always right, and every scene she's in every man thinks she's wrong and is also an idiot, but none of the problems that she ends up having because she's a woman make sense in any way. She's a witch because she knows astronomy, but immediately after escaping prison for being a witch she ends up in an agronomists observatory. She's mocked for saying "the map is in the stars" when characters admit that they sail by the stars. People are outraged that Barbosa would let a woman sail a ship in a setting where one of the pirate kings is a woman. It's all made even more ridiculous when you consider that this is a franchise that's already had a competent female protagonist without beating people over the head with it, and where the patron god of the see is a goddess and there are females in the top ranks of pirates.

- Will's "curse" doesn't make any sense. It was already established that Davy Jones only ended up the way he did because he refused to do his duty of guiding souls to the afterlife, so why would it happen to Will? Also, he's perfectly content to spend the rest of his life moping and being emo about his curse, and shows no interest at all in the thing that could possibly break said curse.

- Will never shows up to help his son throughout the entire movie. He would obviously find out about everything that's happening, and you would think that he'd get involved at some point, but nope. He just turns up at the end all surprised that the "curse" is broken. Even if he hadn't heard about the struggle with Salazar, Henry already found him and specifically told him that he was going to break the curse and how to do it. I would think that he'd at least have kept an eye out for any of that activity, but nope. (Also, what's with the Davy Jones stinger at the end? Did his curse not count?)

- The trident of Poseidon, god of the sea, holds ALL of the curses of the sea. This apparently includes the curse of Calypso, GODDESS of the sea, despite her coming from a different pantheon of gods entirely. It seems incredibly contrived for that to be the case. It also begs the question of what will happen in the inevitable 6th movie and what's going to hold all of the future curses of the setting.

- Salazar being cursed in the first place. How did that even happen? Were there already stories of people disappearing in that same place? If so, why weren't they cursed as well? Why weren't the men from Henry's ship cursed either? In the past, they've at least made an attempt to explain how and what these curses are, but in this one it just seems to be something that they pulled out of their ass without putting any thought into it.

- It's not an actual flaw with the story, but I can't see why Salazar is so pissed at Jack, or why his crew would support him in his quest for vengeance. Jack literally did nothing to him but turn faster than he could. Salazar drove his own ship into a bunch of rocks and died. That's not really something that justifies coming back from beyond the grave as a vengeful ghost.

There are probably more, but since those are the ones I'm able to come up with they must be the ones that bothered me the most.

[The Troubadour]

There are probably more, but since those are the ones I'm able to come up with they must be the ones that bothered me the most.

Agreed. I'd say this movie an the fourth were easily the weakest of an already weak franchise.

[Rogar Demonblud]

To be pedantic, Poseidon and Calypso are both from Greek Mythology, not different ones.

[Mikemical]

The Pearl's thing is that she is the only ship to be able to outrun the Dutchmen, if she sails with the wind. So basically shes the fastest thing on the seas and im fairly certain its not actually magic, the Pearl's secret is that shes a unique ship. Specifically a hybrid between an East Indiaman and a Galleon.

I think it was that the Pearl was fast, regardless of wether the wind was in or against her favor. Outrunning the Dutchman was likely so Jack could outrun Davy Jones when he came to collect his debt(he didn't account for the kraken). And the ship seems to be able to repair itself over time, or maybe that's just that the crew has some really damn good carpenters on board.

Also, the Silent Mary was scarier than the Dutchman. The Dutchman had revolving triple cannons on the front. The Silent Mary could eat your damn ship.

[Swordarm]

To be pedantic, Poseidon and Calypso are both from Greek Mythology, not different ones.
Fair enough. I know they've been taking liberties with different mythologies throughout the series, but had assumed that Calypso was at least the goddess of the sea in some pantheon or other.

[Rogar Demonblud]

No, she's a sea nymph. So, lesser deity (roughly on a par with a senior angel, or maybe even an archangel).

[Draconi Redfir]

To be fair, The Black Pearl wasn't inherently magic, but had many magic things happen to it. As soon as the curse was lifted in Pirates 1, It didn't actually have any special abilities.

Then again, Blackbeard had a bunch of ships in bottles after he defeated them... so maybe there are a bunch of magic boats out there.

the black pearl was created by magic via the flying duchman i beleive. and is still repeatedly refference as the fastest ship in the world. i'd say those qualify as "magic" if nothing else.

i'd think it'd be more of a "passive" magic then anything, the Silent Mary is undead and eats boats, that's very active. The Pearl's magic is just a more constant passive thing, plus some magical origans via the duchman etc.

[Vogie]

the black pearl was created by magic via the flying duchman i beleive. and is still repeatedly refference as the fastest ship in the world. i'd say those qualify as "magic" if nothing else.

i'd think it'd be more of a "passive" magic then anything, the Silent Mary is undead and eats boats, that's very active. The Pearl's magic is just a more constant passive thing, plus some magical origans via the duchman etc.

The Pearl, however, was just a uniquely designed merchant ship. It was originally called the Wicked Wench, and was someone else's ship until they passed away in that fight in during the Dead Men Tell No Tales flashback, and Jack took charge. It was sunk later on by Beckett. Sparrow was able to have Davy Jones raise the ship for 13 years in exchange for 100 years of service and his soul. It was raised in the harbor of Tortuga, and Jack rebuilt it, rechristened it The Black Pearl, and got a crew.

Once the crew mutinied 2 years later and stranded jack, they picked up the cursed gold, which made the crew undead, enshrouded it in mist, and let it continue to function with holes in the hull and tattered sails. Once the curse was broken, it lost those abilities.

When the 13 years was up, the Kraken dragged both Jack and the Pearl into the Locker. Since the interior of the Locker represented a soul's worst fear, for Jack and the Pearl, it was a nearly endless desert. It was rebuilt by a crew of Jack Sparrows in that desert, then was pulled back up at the beginning of At World's End using the Mao Kun Map, then nearly destroyed again in the final battle.

The Pearl was brought to life by Blackbeard, using Triton's Sword, to attack its crew, and then trapped in a bottle. Then the Sword is used again in DMTNT to free the ship from the bottle.

So yes, it has lots of things happen to it - raised by Davy Jones, gained and lost cursed Aztec gold abilities, rebuilt again, removed from Davy Jones' Locker by a magic map, got hit by "Greater Animate Object" & "Shrink" from Triton's Sword... But the Black Pearl itself, is just a ship. It's no more magic than Captain Jack Sparrow is.


I think it was that the Pearl was fast, regardless of wether the wind was in or against her favor. Outrunning the Dutchman was likely so Jack could outrun Davy Jones when he came to collect his debt(he didn't account for the kraken). And the ship seems to be able to repair itself over time, or maybe that's just that the crew has some really damn good carpenters on board.

Not specifically - The Dutchmen had the ability to submerge, self-heal and to sail quickly against the wind. The Pearl was just a small, fast, black ship, a three-masted hybrid of a galleon and East Indiaman, which Jack wanted to keep intact - "Stop blowing holes in my ship!" is uttered more than once in the movies. The black hull and sails allow them to sneak around at night, being nearly invisible on the sea if the lamps are blown out.

[White_Hood]

This is a series that had a lot of potential to be good. The first movie was a fun adventure. I just wish they would have done a better job with the rest. The writing got very poor in the sequels and Jack Sparrow became a one note joke that quickly stopped being funny.

The newest installment was okay, but I wouldn't watch it again, and I think they should just stop at this point.