PotC: At World's End (Again)

[Valkian]

So, forget all about On Stranger Tides.

 

Pirates of The Caribbean 3 has opened worldwide and it's blowing up theaters!

 

I'm really surprised that most review kind of praise it. I can't find a review harsher than mine.

 

Here in Argentina it set a new record on it's first day, kicking in the process, movies such as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Da Vinci Code.

 

I really enjoyed the movie, but I keep feeling it could have been hugely better.

 

So, have you watched it? what do you think? found any new relations with MI? Do you hate Keith Richards? Tell us all!

[elTee]

Hate Keith Richards?! He was brilliant! An excellent turn.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it was very entertaining indeed - but it did leave me very frustrated at the same time. Between Dead Man's Chest and At World's End is one really amazing three hour movie... they just didn't know when to stop adding to it.

[Valkian]

I couldn't agree more.

 

Most reviews pick on Richards' performance, but I also think he was perfect for the role.

[HenryJonesJr.]

Richard was perfect IMO, the movie was great, amazing action sequences, the only thing i kinda hate is Kiera, in all three movies, she just cant act. But i really enjoyed it.

[Valkian]

i kinda hate is Kiera, in all three movies, she just cant act. But i really enjoyed it.

What about Orlando Bloom? He is even worse. At least Kiera is hot.

[Joshi]

I feel the same, great movie, but it could have been a lot better.

 

Things that could have been improved? Well lets see, they should have had less double/triple/quadruple crossing from just about every major character, the story should have been more linear and condensed and Sparrow didn't get much of a chance to shine as the person he was (think from the first movie, his entrance, dealing with the harbor master, talking to the two guards, all of that Bugs Bunnyness was lost from his character in this one).

 

Will Turner became much more annoying as a character and his thin likability was gone from the beginning. Elizabeth Swann was fine, but as she's come into her own as a character now one does wonder what she sees in Will. Tiadalma... I won't get into.

 

But I can't fault the rest really, action sequences were good, humour was there, the music was... okay I will have to murder Hans Zimmer for that one moment he included the Electric Guitar when they're all walking on the tiny little island to meet... I expect a helicopter to come in and Nick Cage to come jumping down.

 

Other than that though, alright movie, but I'll stick with Curse of the Black Pearl.

[elTee]

I really liked the electric guitar moment. It was hardly 'Metallica' and actually sounded more like music from a Western - which was perfect because it was the 'showdown' scene. Very 'Harmonica Man', if you know what I mean.

[Joshi]

Well, to each their own, I just always find that Hans Zimmer, whilst perfectly capable of doing unique scores for different movies, always has a default cue to fall back on when he either doesn't try hard enough, or he seems to think it sounds cool. I guess it does to some people, but it just pissd me right off as being totally different to the rest of the score of the movie and giving that particular scene a different feeling to the rest of the movie.

 

Plenty of movies in the past have delivered a pretty decent showdown scene of equal magnitude and tension without the need to change the score horribly just to add to it.

 

Again, really, the only feeling I got was a Con Air, Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2 feeling, whereas the music for the rest of the movie was perfect.

[Valkian]

Again, really, the only feeling I got was a Con Air, Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2 feeling, whereas the music for the rest of the movie was perfect.

I couldn't have said it better myself. That part of it was just... Jerry Bruckheimer musicalized. They were about to take their 9 mms rather than swords.

 

I want BANJOS! WHERE ARE THE BANJOS??

[scabb]

Elizabeth Swann was just a fucking annoyance. It seems to be standard practice to give "strong females" or "Keira Knightley" an unnecessary emphasis. Will Turner was fine, though - you can't really complain as he barely did anything. Depp was alright, Richards was a highlight, blah blah blah blah.

 

Pirates #3 was good, not great. Took ages to start, too many stupid little unnecessary bits to the plot, very drawn out - but it ended brilliantly.

[Udvarnoky]

I really liked the electric guitar moment. It was hardly 'Metallica' and actually sounded more like music from a Western - which was perfect because it was the 'showdown' scene. Very 'Harmonica Man', if you know what I mean.

 

Yeah I loved the Spaghetti Western parlay bit. Gore Verbinski pretty much always talks about how influenced he is by Leone so I wouldn't be surprised if it was just as much his idea as Zimmer's.

[I say, I say]

Yeah I loved the Spaghetti Western parlay bit. Gore Verbinski pretty much always talks about how influenced he is by Leone so I wouldn't be surprised if it was just as much his idea as Zimmer's.

 

I certainly noticed a Leone reference with the lockets used by the voodoo woman and Davy Jones, especially in the third film where hers had stopped playing and his started just as it had finished- probably direct reference to 'For A Few Dollars More'

 

At World's End was a good film, much better than Dead Man's Chest but like DMC lacked something that made The Curse of the Black Pearl great.

[Valkian]

For me At World's End was the less good of all three. I liked it, with it's packed with incoherence:

 

Now I'd realized what happened with this movie. The other day was talking about it with a friend, and I told him "you know what? it feels like they had an obsene amount of money and had a hard time figuring out what to do with it".

That's how I see it. Like if they had finished the script and pre-production and someone said "Well, this is more or less going to cost us 100 million dollars" and Jerry (the producer) said "Hey, but still have a lot more millions to spend on budget. Am I supoused to give it back to the studio?"

So, they brought in the writers again, and told about this "problem". They sitted down to write and fixed it in 20 minutes. Including some lines as "Here goes 30 min ship battle. Swords and canons everywhere."

 

A while later, just out of curiosity I searched to see how big the budget really was.

It turns out to be I wasn't that wrong, given that it was roughly 300 million dollars.

[Joshi]

Which just goes to prove how much of a success the movie was considering it made more than that back in its opening weekend.

 

I'm not too sure about whether they thought they had too much money or not though, whilst the studio would have been falling over themselves to give it money more often that not big action summer movies tend to have budget problems due to the studio wanting to make as much money as possible by making a really good movie for as least money as possible (there's some sort of logic there, I'm not quite sure what it is, apparently you need to be a big studio boss to get it).

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the budget started off being something lower than $300 million and then after an over ambitious plot, they had to go ask for more.

[Udvarnoky]

I wouldn't be surprised if the budget started off being something lower than $300 million and then after an over ambitious plot, they had to go ask for more.

 

Yeah, it definitely wasn't always that much. I also think a lot of the budget's inflation had to do with the film's post-production, which from what I read was completely insane because of the release date. I'm sure Disney signed a few extra checks to get those effects done by May 25th.

 

As far as my opinion of the movie, I've gotta say it's not really in line with most of you guys. I liked it. The flaws are made up for by the fact that the movie is still a lot of fun, and you never get the sense that it's trying to be anything more than that. So, okay, it maybe isn't the movie most deserving of billion dollar revenues and it has Jerry Bruckheimer's name on it. But I'll take this trilogy over the Star Wars prequels any day of the week.

[Valkian]

Well, it turns out to be that the budget was actually 150 millions. And no movie ever had a budget of 300, so my first sources were just mad.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/allbudgets.php

 

So forget my theory...

[Joshi]

But I'll take this trilogy over the Star Wars prequels any day of the week.

 

Hell, I'll take Catwoman over the Starwars Prequels any day of the week.

 

No, that's harsh, they weren't actually as bad as people make out, George is just a lousy dialogue writer and the movies suffered a lot from a "look what we can do with computers" problem.

 

And yes, At Worlds End was a lot of fun, hence why I know I'll be buying the DVD (the action sequences alone, whilst a little long were enough to keep me entertained and most of the jokes hit quite well). But over anticipation to the movie coupled with way too much story let it down slightly (even a good movie can leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth when it doesn't become everything you wanted it to be, this being the final in the series coupled with the marketting made this kind of inevitable).

 

Well, it turns out to be that the budget was actually 150 millions. And no movie ever had a budget of 300, so my first sources were just mad.

They did seem a little odd to be honest, $300 million is the kind of money one expects a big budget movie to take in on it's opening weekend, not the amount to be spent. $150 million sounds about right.

[Udvarnoky]

Valkian, the 300 million dollar figure is real.

[Valkian]

Meaning?

[Joshi]

Meh, I guess this need settling. $300 million sounds a bit much to me, but this site seems to think it's true, whilst this site seems to think it's half that.

 

IMDb on the other hand gives it a number somewhere in the middle ($200 million).

 

Frankly I'm not sure how accurate each site could be, but it's something to think on.

[Valkian]

Perhaps the ones that say 300 are including the money they spent on the marketing campaign (which was huge)

[Joshi]

Possibly. Those are all (allegedly) production budgets, which wouldn't include marketting, but sometimes they could be confused.

[Udvarnoky]

Meaning?

 

That it cost 300 million.

 

Check out this old article for an idea of how much the Pirates sequels cost. You can find more recent pieces where it's admitted (by people who are in a position to do the admitting) that the bill for Pirates 3 is closer to $300 million than any of the other numbers floating around. That doesn't mean it's the most expensive movie ever made or anything (though I'm sure it's up there), it's just that there's often a difference from how much a movie actually costs and how much the studio says it did. I'm sure you can add to a lot of the budgets on that list you linked to.

 

EDIT: Yes, it would certainly include the marketing costs...that is after all part of the expense of releasing a movie, in some cases comparable to the cost of making it.

[Joshi]

Most people tend to think of production costs as being the costs necessary for pre-production, production and post-production. I suppose marketting could be included in post-production, but it depends on your perspective.

[Valkian]

Marketing is the money they invest promoting it, not making it.

If it includes that as part of the production budget then It could be 300. Otherwise it WOULD be the most expensive movie ever made (not adjusted for inflation). But it isn't.