For the benefit of the dense seats

[andrewducker]

One of the things that's annoyed me most about people's reaction to POTC 3 is that it was confusing and they couldn't work out who was doing what to who, where and why. I was left baffled, because although the plot is more convoluted than your average action movie it does all tie together, and I was delighted to be watching a movie where people's motivations made sense and the plot points of the movie were based on them. The problem seems to be that there were six characters all with conflicting motives, and this caused a fair amount of conflict between them. But frankly if you can cope with, say, a book, or a roleplaying game then you should be absolutely fine with this kind of thing.

So, for those people who either thought the plot made no sense, or were left confused by all the back-stabbing, here's the plot explained, along with everyone's motives

At the start of the movie, the motives are as follows:
Calypso/Tia Dalma - be free
Barbarossa - free Calypso and earn his freedom from her.
Will - free his father
Elizabeth - free Jack and cease being guilty about killing him. Wants to be a pirate very, very badly, ever since the opening scene of the first film. Is completely oblivious to the fact that they're murderous scum.
Jack - not be dead
Beckett - kill everyone

Barbarossa calls the pirate brethren together in order to get the various pieces of eight so he can free Calypso. He needs Jack because Jack has one of the pieces. He therefore needs the maps and the ship from Sao Feng, so he can get Jack back, as well as needing Sao Feng at the court himself. Sao Feng probably isn't working for Beckett at this point, but Will quite possibly is. Will has definitely sold everyone out to Sao Feng when he was captured - that is, if he was captured at all and didn't just turn up at Sao Feng's and offer him Barbarossa on a plate.

Barbarossa, Will and Elizabeth head off to Davy Jones' Locker and free Jack. Jack's going mad from boredom and strangeness, and the rescue is only a success because they have Calypso with them, who makes the crabs bring Jack and the ship to her. Note at this point that only Barbarossa knows that Tia Dalma is actually Calypso. On their way back to the mortal world they bump into Elizabeth's father, who tells them that whoever kills Davy Jones will replace him as immortal commander of The Flying Dutchman. Two people instantly latch onto this fact - Will because he'll do anything to free his father and Jack because having been dead he'll now do anything to not die again. Jack was reactive for the entirety of the second movie because he had no idea what he wanted - shown by his compass constantly spinning.

Arriving back in the mortal world they bump into Sao Feng, who has sold them out to the East India Company. Jack does a deal with Beckett to get the pirates out of Shipwreck Cove in exchange for his freedom. Barbarossa persuades Sao Feng that the pirates have a chance against Beckett because of Calypso- but misleads him into thinking that the body Calypso is bound in is Elizabeth's, not Tia Dama's. Will and Elizabeth don't hear this and are therefore surprised when Sao Feng makes Elizabeth part of his deal to double-cross Beckett.

Elizabeth heads off with Sao Feng. Barbarossa, Will and Jack head off in the Black Pearl. Sao Feng is then about to rape Elizabeth, thinking she's a goddess (which doesn't sound at all wise to me) when he's killed by The Flying Dutchman's attack. Elizabeth is made Captain by Sao Feng as his last act. Norrington captures them all and sticks them in the brig of the Dutchman, after she berates him for siding with evil people like Beckett. As she's siding with pirates who happily rape and kill for profit this seems a tad unfair...

Meanwhile, Will is leaving a trail for Beckett to follow. Jack wants this plan to succeed, but he clearly doesn't think it's going to work, so he makes it easier for Will by throwing him overboard along with the compass, so that Beckett will be able to track him down.

Elizabeth meets Will's father, which gives her more insight into his behaviour, and then Norrington frees her so that she can run away. She then turns up at Shipwreck Cove shortly after everyone else.

Jack and Barbarossa then argue back and forth over what course of action to take. Jack wants to lead them out so Beckett can kill them and he can earn his freedom by fulfilling his side of the bargain. Barbarossa wants them to free Calypso so that she will free him for fulfilling his side of the bargain. Elizabeth wants to fight because she's romanticised pirates to the point of insanity. Jack uses this to his advantage, and makes her king. This nicely finishes off her arc from small girl obsessed with pirates to king of them all. Oh, and Keith Richards glowers fantastically at people. So it's off to war they go.

Barbarossa frees Calypso. This doesn't accomplish anything obviously or immediately useful so Elizabeth gets to give a speech about how they should all fight because they're pirates and should stand up for what they believe. This works, because she clearly exerts a reality distortion field on a par with Steve Jobs, and is capable of persuading murderous ruffians that they want to do the right thing... Then there's a quick parlay, which exists solely to get Will back onto the pirate ship and Jack onto The Dutchman, which is fine as that's where both Will and Jack want Jack to be, so he can stab the heart, become immortal and free Will's dad.

Both sides think they have the wind behind them, which was a nice touch, as they're actually sailing into a maelstrom with the wind coming in from both directions. Then we go into a great big battle, ending with Jack dithering over whether being immortal is actually worth having a job for, during which time Jones stabs Will. With the sword Will made for Norrington back in the first movie. Oh, the irony.

Jack's occasional urge to do the right thing means that he gets Will to stab the heart instead of doing it himself. Jones dies, Will becomes captain. Between The Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman they obliterate Beckett's ship. The armada, which (a) hasn't actually done any fighting so far as they've left it all up to The Dutchman, and (b) has just seen The Dutchman destroyed and then pop back up and wipe out their command ship ten seconds later, turns tail and runs away. Everyone throws someone's hat in the air.

Situation at the end of the movie:
Calypso/Tia Dalma - Free
Barbarossa - Has freed Calypso and earnt his freedom from her and his ship back.
Will - freed his father
Elizabeth - freed Jack, become king of the pirates, shagged Will, retired to an island to raise a child to be equally obsessive about pirates and presumably also ignore the fact that they're murderous scum.
Jack - not dead. Has a map for the fountain of youth.
Beckett - dead

So, everyone bar Beckett achieves their objectives, people's motives actually made sense all the way throughout, and it all tied together nicely. And since I managed to sum it up in a thousand words there's no excuse for whining about it.

Note to self: do one of these for Akira. Which has an even simpler plot, but people still complain about it.

Comments

[anjylle.livejournal.com]

In the beginning Beckett says "Finally" upon hearing that the doomed pirates are singing (i.e. that the call has gone out), despite not finding out about the meeting of the bretheren until a third of the way through the movie.

I was assuming he knew the song being sung would mean the pirates had to arrange to meet, rather than that the meeting was already arranged.

Yes, it was great fun ^_^ Must see again!