Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotes
Overview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditstv schedule
Awards & Reviews
user commentsexternal reviewsnewsgroup reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guiderecommendationsmessage board
Plot & Quotes
plot summarysynopsisplot keywordsAmazon.com summarymemorable quotes
Fun Stuff
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQ
Other Info
merchandising linksbox office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specslaserdisc detailsDVD detailsliterature listingsNewsDesk
Promotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo gallery
External Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clips
The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.
Visit our FAQ Help to learn more

FAQ Contents


A Note Regarding Spoilers

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End can be found here.

No. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is based on a screenplay by writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who based their screenplay on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at the Disneyland theme park. It is the third movie in a series of three (so far) Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the first being Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and the second being Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006).

Yes. Keith Richards does appear in At World's End as Captain Teague, the "Keeper of the Pirate Law." Captain Teague is quite likely Jack's father. He calls Jack "Jackie," while Jack avoids Teague's eyes as much as possible. Several other scenes hint at this father-son relationship. The first hint occurs when Jack walks up to him after a meeting and asks "How's mum?" Teague replies by grunting and showing Jack a shrunken head. (It is also hinted that Jack's pleasure-seeking personality comes largely from his mother. Teague says to Jack, "The key is not living forever but living with yourself forever." The line may be a warning to Jack that he'll come to the same end as she if he does not change his ways.) Captain Teague's appearance resembles that of Jack Sparrow: both have a wide bandanna and jumble of small items braided in their hair and beards. The facial features are also very alike. Jack and Teague share the same basic features, including the high, and highly-defined, cheek bones.

One scene that was cut explained that if Calypso had greeted Davy Jones after his ten years of ferrying dead souls, he would have been freed of his duty. This is in direct conflict with the repeated assertion that the Flying Dutchman must always have a captain, which is probably why the scene was scrapped. Though it isn't out of the realm of possibilities that a new Captain would assume command, perhaps another crew member willing to take on the responsibility until their 10 years is up. Unless it is required that your true love be waiting for you.

They may be hallucinations, which seem to appear whenever Jack is faced with a decision, as though he is consulting different aspects of his psyche. (Think: devil and angel on either shoulder.) The multiple Jacks only appear when Jack is alone, with no one else around to see that he is hallucinating. As for the scene in Davy Jones's locker, the writers and Johnny Depp have stated [source needed] that such hallucinations are one of the curses of the locker. It splits a captain's different quirks and personalities into separate persons, and all of them must become members of the captain's crew.

Beckett probably had the coins to remind him of the mystery surrounding the "pieces of eight" possessed by the pirate lords. He, like others, thought the term referred to actual coins. It turns out the real pieces of eight were just odd bits of stuff. The filmmakers started shooting the movie before there was a finished script; it's possible this created an ambiguity related to the coins. Rather than clarify the matter, the filmmakers left it open to interpretation.

Beckett made Jones kill the Kraken. He describes his order as having had Jones kill his "pet." You can see its corpse later on the beach.

In a previous encounter (that is referred to, but never shown), Jack had been left with a brand: the "P" that has been burned onto his arm. In the first film, Norrington discovers the brand and remarks on "a run-in with the East India Trading company." In the online game, it's revealed that Jack was once hired by the EIC to transport slaves from Africa to the Caribbean. He opts to release them instead, and the EIC officially declares him a pirate for his actions (hence the "P"), and sinks his ship. The ship, originally called the Wicked Wench, is later raised by Davy Jones, and renamed the Black Pearl.

Every move Beckett made was the result of his being able to control or manipulate people. Once stripped of this power, he was not able to make a decision. It can also be assumed that he was paralyzed with disbelief over what was happening, including the fact that The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman joined forces to destroy the HMS Endeavour.

No. Unless he stops transporting the dead to the afterlife, as Davy Jones did, Will will remain as he is--that is, "unfishy."

Calypso is a goddess associated with crabs and the sea (at least in the movie's mythology). It's a grand exit showing off her power, just like the crabs brought Jack and the Pearl to Tia Dalma on the shore in the Locker.

Gigantism is a common symbol for greatness in mythology. Calypso's immense growth before exploding into crabs is a feature of her greatness as a sea goddess. You can't expect someone like Calypso to make anything but a grand exit.

Yes, and it is highly recommended that you stay through the credits to see it. Unlike the amusing but unnecessary bonus scenes at the end of the last two films, this one is relevant to the plot and presents possible directions future sequels could take.

What have critics said?

PRO:

[Erupts] into a grand and glorious adventure at the final hour. After lying dead in the water during much of its three-part odyssey, Pirates of the Caribbean has saved the best for last. The third time is the charmed. -- Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News

Worth seeing for the jaw-dropping action, the doses of irreverent humor and of course the star power of Depp, Knightley, Rush, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat and a host of other talented actors who utter their lines with Shakespearean gusto. -- Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

A thrill-a-minute extravaganza. -- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The third Pirates has tender moments and smashing ones, and if you fix on Depp, you'll manage fine. -- Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle

Funner, biggerer, brighterer, bolderer, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is not only okay, it may even be close to good. -- Stephen Hunter Washington Post

CON:

Advice to Johnny Depp fans: enjoy a seafood dinner, skip the beginning, and roll up after half an hour. You won't have missed a thing. -- Anthony Lane, New Yorker

One longs for more scenes featuring Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and less of everything else in this bloated, overwrought and convoluted three-hour misfire. -- Claudia Puig, USA Today

The entire franchise seems on the verge of collapse, propelled to construct ever more grandiose flights of fancy. Without those sequences, there would be nothing there -- but a movie cannot exist on rollick alone. -- Tom Charity, CNN.com

Relentlessly dense and unfathomable; Depp, the heart and soul of the series, doesn't even show up till several reels in. -- Rob Salem, Toronto Star

The plot is not only hard to follow, there seems to be nothing real at stake. Half the characters are already dead, and half the movie seems to involve swordfights with dead people who cant be killed with swords. -- David Ansen, Newsweek

Not so much thought out as strung together -- colorful incident upon colorful incident, but without logic, gathering suspense or any attempt to establish emotional connections between audience and actors. -- Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

In terms of pure adventure, there's less of it here than in Pirates 2 -- the action doesn't really start until about two hours in, and even then it's hard to understand the shifting allegiances or make sense of why the different sides are fighting.

Depp descends into the shallows of self-parody, and the plot, keen to tie up every narrative loose end, manages to be simultaneously expansive and incomprehensible. -- Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

Ultimately the voyage is so choppy and long that into the third hour I found myself yawning, 'Yo-ho-hum and a very sore bum.' -- Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

Unconscionably long at 2 hours and 48 minutes, saddled with a plot that badly needed streamlining and running a bit low on humor, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End may not sink, but it certainly sometimes founders. -- Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

Even longer and less coherent [than Dead Man's Chest]. Consider it a companion piece to the similarly indulgent Spider-Man 3. -- Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger

A glazed, inhuman, cluttered piece of work, a storytelling mishmash that buries the considerable charms of its actors under heavy drifts of silt. -- Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Running nearly three hours in length, it continues the pointless excesses of the second film while again entirely missing the romantic charm of the first. -- Tom Long, Detroit News

A ponderous pirate saga, 168 minutes long, with more doldrums than 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.'-- Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

I like my action movies complicated, but At World's End is less a complexity than it is a high seas bazaar with everyone and everything vying for attention. You end up going home with nothing to show for your adventure. -- Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

Sources include Rotten Tomatoes.

As of September 24, 2008, Johnny Depp has signed on to play Jack Sparrow in the fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean series. However, Gore Verbinski has announced that he will not be directing this film. No other information is available at this time.

These refer to the previous movies. In The Curse of the Black Pearl, Hector Barbossa abandoned Jack on an island and took over the Black Pearl. Also in that movie, Will Turner claimed that he made swords and trained with them two hours a day so that when he meets a pirate, he would kill him. Will tried to do just that when Jack invaded the blacksmith's shop. In Dead Man's Chest, Elizabeth cuffed Jack to a post and let him on the ship to die with the Kraken. Also in Dead Man's Chest, Calypso is briefly mentioned, but the method is unknown.

Two possible interperetations:

1. Beckett realized that he couldn't really control the Kraken and had Jones kill it as a result. He couldn't risk the Kraken being loose and uncontrolled in the ocean and decided that it needed to be destroyed. Another possibility to this interpretation, is that Jones clearly had contempt for Beckett due to his hold over him and wanted to be free of his control; if the Kraken were still alive, Jones could very well command it to go after Beckett and use it against his ships.

2. Beckett did it, not out of consideration for the Kraken's powers, but to spite Jones and show the power he holds over him. His confrontation with Jones on the Dutchman indicates a contempt for Jones and his supernatural powers, and killing the Kraken serves primarily to put Jones in his place, as Beckett's slave. cf.:

Beckett: "The Captain [Jones] is to sail [the Dutchman] as commanded! I'd have thought you learned that when I ordered you to kill your pet. This is no longer your world, Jones."

Calypso shouts an incantation which in the script reads: "Malfaiteur en Tombeau, Crochir l'Esplanade, Dans l'Fond d'l'eau!". This roughly means "Across all the waters, find the path to he who wrongfully entombed me", evidently referring to Davy Jones.

Page last updated by abs_is_back, 2 months ago
Top 5 Contributors: Warbreed, J. Spurlin, lmm83, bj_kuehl, wolfofthepride

r73731

Report a problem

Related Links

Plot summary Plot synopsis Parents Guide
Trivia Quotes Goofs
Soundtrack listing Crazy credits Movie connections
User comments Main details