The International House of Mojo

“On Stranger Tides” is the book Ron Gilbert sometimes admits most influenced Monkey Island. It’s a fun read. Disney only bothering to license it for the fourth movie, and then mostly on vaguely for plot but mostly for title (and you don’t need to license titles, hah), is an interesting play on their part as the previous trilogy already mined a lot of the best parts of the book leaving vaguely the macguffin (Fountain of Youth) left (and Blackbeard, but they underutilized Blackbeard, though well cast). I enjoyed the film and some of the mermaid stuff was fun (though not as much from the book) as it was daft.

I still haven’t watched the fifth one because I didn’t want to support Depp financially after the idiocy that happened. I suppose a Disney+ watch doesn’t count as support, hmm.

That idea of a Karen Gillen sixth film sounds fun.

Mojo's official stand is to not acknowledge any PotC movie not starring Deppo.

Or rather, it is elTee's stance, but we decided to follow.

From Kotaku, but from there from Disney Insider...

Pirates of the Caribbean 6
According to the DisInsider’s Skyler Shuler, Pirates of the Caribbean 6 will be a “soft reboot” potentially starring Doctor Who and Guardian of the Galaxy’s Karen Gillen as Redd, a “fierce and independent nomadic pirate” added to the theme park ride in 2018 to replace a version of herself being sold at a bridal auction in the original attraction.


I'm so on board with this.

Our college coterie sat through a midnight showing of "World's End" in various states of inebriation and--afterward--went to the local IHOP to decompress. One of the tipsier members of the group was asked if he enjoyed the movie or not, and he provided his review:

"I passed out in the first ten minutes, woke up... and there were people swinging on ropes. I passed out again, woke up, and people were swinging on ropes. I fell asleep and woke up right at the ending, and people were still swinging on ropes."

In hindsight, that really said it all. One of the reasons why I actually enjoy "Dead Men" more than the final act of the original trilogy: it's just having way too much fun with its silliness to cause offense, unlike the leaden pacing and suffocating set-piece excess of the previous two films.

Though in defense of "Stranger Tides," its plodding weirdness does pay off by making the movie into the closest adaptation of adventure game mechanics in film history: turning a palm tree into a catapult, the bit with Jack and Barbossa trying to balance the room and "PICK UP CHEST," the whole nonsense with activating the lighthouse mechanism. Dull as smoked glass to sit through as a viewer, but also makes it feel like you could squint really hard and imagine McShane as Le Chuck every time that he's on the screen, vastly improving the overall product.

I've seen those last two movies as well, but I can't really remember anything about them. I do remember them doing that creepy CGI face thing with young Jack Sparrow at one point though.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm 100% correct here, but I vaguely remember Bill Nighy talking about not being happy that they included his character in that last post-credits scene. Nobody had told him about it, he hadn't even seen the movie, and he only found out about him when some interviewer or friend asked him about it after the movie came out. I know there are countless movies out there with teasers for future installments that never get a pay-off simply because they never get around to making a sequel, but it seems weird to me to include a scene like that without even checking up with the actor if he might be interested in another sequel down the line.

Anyway, given how cynical this franchise felt to me the longer it went on, I'm not sure I want to see another one of these, especially now that they're sitting on a much more interesting Pirate franchise. Which probably wouldn't bring in nearly as much money, but I do enjoy the idea of them updating the ride in Disney World yet again to include stuff like Murray replacing the talking skull at the beginning.

Not that Monkey Island would work in live action, but make it animated or stopmotion again or something. Or a game, they could give that a try.

I went into Stranger Tides with high hopes of them using the book to fill out the new trilogy, and they smashed it all down into one movie, and added that bizarre love story with the mermaid. Ugh. While it wasn't terrible it just wasn't what I wanted, and I could feel the waste of the potential.

That probably set my hopes pretty low going into the fifth film, but like you say in the review, it was a fun movie. I did enjoy the fan service I guess and even though the end of the third films credits were supposed to allude to Will Turner being freed but this actual story to free him was nice enough. I feel like they did a really good job of tying up all the loose ends of the movies... only to strangely bring back Captain Squid in a manner that could have been just a fun nightmare, but no, the floor was wet from the late night squid-guest. So bizarre, but yes his special guest appearance was fun but undid some of the whole effort of the movie to free him.

Nothing delights me like a thirteen-year-old article abruptly getting two new pages. The pandemic has made Mixnmojo irrepressible.

Also, props on the extortionary promise of a 5-skull review if your demands are met, and twice the props to any reader who recognizes what that's a reference to.

I be placed in a bewilderment. There I were - resting - when upon a sudden, I hear an ungodly row on deck...

And it was Remi, writing these reviews, and kindly understating my view count of these films. I agree with Remi - more Deppo please!