The International House of Mojo

I like the first PotC, but Dead Man's Chest is my favorite.
On Stranger Tides is a great book, if you're a Monkey Island fan you really should read it. Tim Powers is an amazing author as well, check out his other books, especially The Anubis Gates which is about time travelling in 18th century London.

He didn't like the first POTC film but thought the second one was great? Huh?

I have to admit I feel much the same way... I wouldn't say Dead Man's Chest was "great", but I enjoyed it quite a bit and didn't really care for the other two (beyond the fact that they were about pirates and pirates are awesome.)

I think the character dynamics were a bit more unique than those of Curse of the Black Pearl, and MAN do I love Bill Nighy. Not that he could save the third one, though...

My favourite is possibly the third one, actually. I just like it...

I enjoyed them all, and honestly don't see much variance in the quality of the writing between any of the installments.

I loved the first and second, but the third just seemed to lose a lot of the fun value and got way too complicated.

It's a convoluted mess. The whole thing turned into a whirlwind of catchphrases and out-of-character moments (like Elizabeth going "Hmm!" and crossing her legs at the beach like a 3 year old). Will Turner may be the most boring main character to grace the screen pre-Transformers/Twilight/etc. That whole final battle, down to the offputtingly cheesy proposal scene as well as the laziest and cheapest movie ending ever made, just...man. I'm starting to remember the movies and I do *not* want to remember. I'll just pretend there was never a sequel to Black Pearl.

"Convoluted mess" is probably but a stone's throw from how I'd describe TMI's plotting, but I didn't mind it there any more than I minded it in POTC.

I'm not sure about TMI yet. It's convoluted and it should have taken its time explaining the plot in Pirate God (which I wouldn't have understood if it weren't for ATMachine), but it does make reasonable sense and the characters are all true to themselves and act according to their personalities, not out of necessity of plot. Pirates, however...It almost seemed like it was a "Let's cram as much Sparrow in here as we can and *fuck* the rest."

Both of the sequels gave me more of what I wanted, and I love them. I'm quite sure they're objectively bad, but so what?

Exactly :)

The second and third movies are terrible, but I will say that the actors - and especially Bill Nigh - did a good job of working with the material they had.

The writers, though. I'm always amazed at how terrible so many of Hollywood's working writers are.

In defense of Hollywood's working writers, it generally takes a really good, tight, sense-making script to get sold. Not until it's lucky enough to go into development does it get hacked to bits and reconstituted into some Frankenstinian nightmare.

As far as debating the merits of a movie franchise based on a boat ride with singing animatronic pirates, well...I think I'll abstain

What makes a ride any less valid a form of source material than a novel, movie, game, history book, dream, real-life experience, etc.? Whether or not a work is substantive enough to have its merits debated should have nothing really to do with whatever might have been the original inspirational spark for its existence.

Bill Nigh!

I was thinking the same thing...