I think I just did the same thing two days in a row. I went to see Pirates of the Carribbean 3 on Tuesday and then went to a parade on Wednesday. Both were too long. Both had too many characters to follow. Both had a little something cool.
What would it take for a parade to not be so commercial? What would be wrong with having a float that was just creative? No sponsor. No pioneers. No community involvement. No direct purpose other than to be really neat looking. That is the kind of float I want to have. I really want to create a float. I think it would be so much fun. It would be expensive, but wouldn't it be nice to have people come away thinking: Wow! That was really creative.
And it might confuse people. Like, why was that float in that parade? It did not honour any war veteran. It did not shuttle the city council. It did not have pretty girls on top waving to everybody. What would this float be? Would it reflect history or the future? Or a great movie? It certainly would not reflect Pirates 3.
So what was wrong with Pirates 3? I had fun. It is definitely silly and Keira Knightley is the most annoying actress on the planet. It goes on forever in 12 different plots which take forever. Why are we rescuing Jack? Why is Barbosa in this movie? For the life of me, why did they bring back Barbosa? It was like having this gigantic Garfield balloon at the parade. Well, we have this extra Garfield sitting there that we never use, so let's pull it out even though it has no connection to anything and is extremely outdated. Garfield had his day as did Barbosa.
We definitely escaped into the pirate world. The pirate lord concept was interesting albeit powerless and pointless. What did they do other than look like pirates? Adding another dimension to the movie helps it because now we see that there is something greater than just a bunch of thieving, raping, and pillaging people. And that is what is lost in these movies. Road Warrior was a good pirate movie. Waterworld had at least something we could follow. Pirates 3 was just creating nonsense for nonsense sake. And that is okay in movies like Blazing Saddles, because at least you are laughing.
The whole finale scene in Pirates 3 is so long and loud and confusing. Let's just twirl around and have everybody fighting and while we are at it, let's get married. Oh, and let's have a bunch of insignificant characters die with swords and have no one else get hurt or have their legs blown off...
If someone has millions and millions of dollars in their budget and all they have to do is make it back, then what do they do? They go and repeat everything from the last one (or the first one), have all kinds of action scenes and intrigue and bring back as many characters as we can. I see movies which totally flop and I think: I respect this movie for going in its own direction. Sure, Pirates 3 had mass appeal, but it had no soul.
The only thing it had was going to look for Jack and what they had to do to overcome that. That was creative. That was fun. It was new, but then they went back to the real world and it became boring because we knew what was going to happen. As we do with the parade every year. Old people in old cars. The same thing year after year. Do what the people expect and nothing more. Get them to come. Don't challenge them. Just honk your horn as if you are in traffic as you go by in your giant suv and wave and it will all be okay.
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