So, this weekend I saw "Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest"...twice. I really liked it. The first time I saw it with my family at the employee showing where my sister works. Woo hoo for perks.
The second time, my blogmate and i saw it together, kabitzing throughout. This entry is a result of those discussions and a blog Amanda posted 2 days ago.
To say it bluntly, Amanda and I are movie nerds. Well, nerds and general, but film is our specialty. We are huge fans of the Star Wars trilogy as well, and in our viewing of "Pirates" (she has seen it twice as well), we noticed some distinct parallels between "Pirates" and "Star Wars", especially with 'Dead Man's Chest' and 'Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back'. If you have not seen both films, stop reading now and go to the movies, or to Blockbuster (although, if you haven't seen the 'Star Wars' trilogy at this point, you probably should just be beaten repeatedly with a copy of the VHS trilogy until you do).
Character Parallels:
William Turner (Orlando Bloom) = Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)
Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) = Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher)
Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) = Han Solo (Harrison Ford)
"Bootstrap" Bill Turner ( Stellen Starsgard) = Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker (James Earl Jones / David Prose / Hayden Christensen)
Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) = Emporer Palpatine (Clive Revill)
Pintel (Lee Arenburg) = R2-D2 (Kenny Baker)
Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook) = C-3po (Anthony Daniels) (please...his eye keeps falling out and c-3po is falling apart throughout the entire film.)
The following comparisons are stretches, but are worth noting just the same: Mr. Gibbs is equivalent to Chewy, and Tia Dorma is somewhat equivalent to Lando. These come mainly from their association to Captain Jack Sparrow and the other characters association to Han.
More Similarities: Well, there's the obvious similarity that Will is trying to save his father, Bootstrap, in the same manner that Luke was trying to save his father in "Episode 6: The Return of the Jedi". Both fathers are good men at heart, who simply made some poor choices that they have become physically and mentally disfigured by. Another similarity is the ships / spacecraft. Captain Jack's Black Pearl is extremely important to him, as Han's Millienium Falcon is to him (he looks like he's going to vomit in 'Episode 6' when he lets Lando, who was the original owner, fly it to destroy the new Death Star). Also, both ships were gained through somewhat scandelous means. The Flying Dutchman is equivalent to the Death Star, in ways I need not explain. Classic epic of good versus evil where the good guys are kinda bad and bad guys are very bad, blah, blah, blah. Finally to end out both films, the fates of Jack and Han are unknown when the credit's roll. Han is frozen in carbonite to be sent to Jabba the Hutt as a piece of home decor, and Jack may or may not be in the belly of the Craken (Kraken?). the Craken also looks strangely like the Sarlac from "The Return of the Jedi".
All we need for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" are some cute and cuddily creatures and a fat worm.
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