Friday

On Wednesday I suggested that the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy owes something to Star Wars. I'm imagining someone else has already said this, but I thought I'd write out my ideas before looking at theirs. Although the concept of a trilogy can be traced back to ancient Greek tragedy, the three-film structure of Pirates undoubtedly draw its inspiration from Star Wars, rather than Aeschylus, Euripides or Sophocles. There are a lot more parallels, however: a young, innocent man in love with a girl, and an experienced worldly man; a lost father; two inferior characters (either the two pirates or the two English soldiers) through whom the audience can see the plot; the loss of a major character at the end of the second film and the search for him at the beginning of the third; an Empire; the illegal, beyond-the-law town and bar where the characters go to find help (Tortuga inn or the Tatooine cantina); and of course ships themselves. One might even go so far as to compare the Force with the Pirates' code, but that's a little tendentious. Of course, there are probably as many differences to match every similarity, but don't you feel the weight of these parallels merits some attention?