Tuesday

There are, indeed, many other people who have seen the similarities between the Pirates of the Caribbean films and Star Wars. The comparison on the moviefone site is the most user-friendly and entertaining. It picks up on a few things I didn't, such as 'ugly antagonists', 'wise weirdos' 'vile vessels', and 'not-so-smart natives', but some of its links are a bit tenuous. The article at slashfilm is a bit more intellectual, although it only focuses on Dead Man's Chest and Empire Strikes Back. The MTV comparison lies somewhere between these two. As the slashfilm article points out, however, there may just be a limited amount of storylines to go around, so that it's very likely there will be some similarities. Or, perhaps there is only one storyline of the 'hero', thus making it inevitable that the films will be the same. In terms of pacing, certainly, there are very few variations, but I think the parallels between these movies are so similar, and many of them avoidable, that something has gone wrong here. We're a generation still suffering from the success of Star Wars and the box office blockbuster.