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**Disclaimer! This isn’t a review for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. I encourage each of you to GO SEE IT and form your own opinion**

The first Pirates film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, was almost universally beloved when it was released. How people approach the sequels is another story, however it is also almost universally agreed that they aren’t as good as the original. As one reviewer of the new film stated “for every bit of good in this film, there is something negative to match it.” I think this is the perfect allegory for the series as a whole.

Let’s get the bad out of the way. I think the Pirates franchise suffers from two main issues. Their interpretation of Jack Sparrow was lost in translation along the way and the films are suffering from serious franchise fatigue.

Part of what made the original film so memorable was Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow. He was a seemingly bumbling drunk who managed to get himself in and out of many ridiculous situations with his wit, charm, and guile. As a result of this, you could never fully tell what he was going to do next, but you knew at least it would be outrageously entertaining to follow. There’s a quote in the third film that sums up the character perfectly in my mind: “Do you think he plans it all out or just makes it up as he goes along?” The best part about this question is that we as an audience have no idea and are meant to have our own interpretation. However, with each successive film in the series, the question is answered for us. He is continuously shown to have no idea what he’s doing, just happens to get into major situations, and mostly improvises. This seriously drains the fun out of the character and makes him boring to watch unless you really love slapstick humor.

As for franchise fatigue, I think Pirates is special in the sense that it hit this feeling pretty early on for most. Dead Man’s Chest garnered a lot of excitement, but At World’s End came out just a year later. Not only did this not allow for much breathing room for movie goers, it felt like beating a dead horse. The formula remained almost identical with each film in the series. This caused the films to become highly predictable and made what intriguing and mysterious elements the series still had (for example Jack Sparrow) less interesting. It was the equivalent of a magician doing the same act in front of an audience so often that they caught on to the various tricks that went into it and got bored. There was a bit of a break before On Stranger Tides came out but even then, it was still a major issue since they still followed the same formula. Even after six years without a Pirates movie, people are still franchise fatigued. The most reoccurring question I heard about the first trailer for Dead Men Tell No Tales was “They’re doing another one? Seriously?”

Beyond all of that, Pirates is still very unique which is part of why they each make as much money as they do and thus encourage Disney to make more. There aren’t that many pirate movies being made in the modern day for starters so they more or less corner the market there. The biggest aspect of the series’ success is something I feel has to do with the subject matter. Not just pirates per se but the myths, curses, and what-not of that era in history. Historical fantasy isn’t a new genre (in fact it’s done very often in films) but the fantastical elements of this specific time period are not often explored. How many other series can you point to where Aztec, Greek, and Voodoo myths lead to stories about cursed zombies, sea goddesses, and Lovecraftian fish-people respectively? Probably not that many. It all makes for insanely interesting lore and I know I personally see these films for the mystical and fantastical elements like Davy Jones and the new villain, Captain Salazar.

Overall, Pirates of the Caribbean is a unique and highly different series that struggles with keeping that uniqueness interesting. For every good, there is something bad about it. Regardless of what I think, I highly encourage you to check out the new movie and form your own opinions.

Trailer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsJ58L3u8qw

I spend most of my days working towards my Writing and Rhetoric degree at the University of Central Florida, but I spend a lot of my down time keeping up to date on the best TV, movies, and video games the industry has to offer. Here I put all of that extended time to use discussing each of them in-depth.

Geek Culture

We now have a teaser trailer for The Last of Us Season 2

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HBO released the first official look at The Last of Us’s second season. It looks like it will adapt a part of The Last of Us: Part II, which is only available on PS5. The memorable dancing scene in Jackson, the Seraphites, Dina, Joel, Ellie, and maybe a very, very short clip of Abby can all be seen in just 24 seconds of footage that first showed up in a video about what HBO Max has to offer between now and 2025. Take a look below:

At some point in 2025, the second season of the TV show will come out. This is the end of an HBO video that showed what new TV shows will be available in the future. Other shows shown included Dune: Prophecy, It: Welcome to Derry, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and more.

A second season of the TV show is planned, but it’s not clear how much of the second game’s story will be used. The season will have seven episodes and end at a “natural breaking point.” Due to the wealth of new information and plot that the first season added to the story, the endpoint might not even be an event from the PS5 or PS4 version.

What do you think of this first look? Tell us what you thought at first in the comments.

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Gaming

Amazon’s great Fallout TV show is nominated for 16 Emmys

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Critics and fans alike went crazy for Amazon’s take on the famous role-playing game series Fallout. There were a lot of nominations for 16 Emmy awards, including Best Actor and Outstanding Drama Series. The show was able to reach audiences outside of gamers and got a lot of attention from the industry.

Eurogamer has been keeping track, and now that all the votes are in, Fallout is tied for fifth place with 23 nominations for the 76th Emmy Awards, which are put on by the US Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. With 25, The Bear has the most nominations, followed by True Detective: Night Country with 23, and Shogun with 19.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Walton Goggins is up for Best Actor for his performance as The Ghoul. Although games will always be our first choice, it’s great that adaptations of games don’t have to be awful, and we can’t wait for the next season of the shows.

Are you surprised by how well Amazon’s version of Fallout has done in the mainstream? Is the curse of movies based on video games finally over? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

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Geek Culture

The trailer for Gladiator II looks great, but is any of it true? What Did The Experts Say?

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The trailer for Gladiator II by Ridley Scott is now out, and it looks like it will be the best movie ever. If you liked the first movie, you’ll probably love the new one, which has a lot of big names in it and shows epic duels, scary Colosseum battles, and hints of political intrigue. But, as with all Hollywood historical epics, you might wonder how much of what is shown is based on real events and how much is just made up for fun.

When we had questions, we asked the Bad Ancient team what they thought about the fun, the fantasy, and the facts.

What’s the movie about?
The new Gladiator movie picks up 25 years after the first one. Paul Mescal plays Lucius Verus II, the boy from the original story and Lucilla’s son. The trailer starts with him talking about the deadly duel between Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and Maximus Decimus Meridius, a gladiator and fallen general.

It looks like Lucius is living in exile in Numidia, which is in northwest Africa. A few years after this incident, the Roman army captures him and forces him to compete as a gladiator. Lucius wants to overthrow the Roman government and end all forms of slavery, of course.

Later, Lucius fights the made-up General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), who also seems to have doubts about the Roman Empire’s needless killing. In the trailer, we learn more about characters like Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a power broker who likes gladiators, and Geta and Caracalla, two brother emperors who look cruel and spoiled and are played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger, respectively.

There are hints of exciting scenes in the trailer, like a gladiator riding a rhino and a fake naval battle in a flooded Colosseum with boats and sharks that eat people. There are also hints of politics and mystery.

A lot of it. It’s fun, but is it really true?

First, what did you think of the trailer?
Dr. Jo Ball (JB), an archaeologist who studies Roman war and conflict: I was really looking forward to seeing the trailer for the new Gladiator II movie, and it did not let me down. It looked like it would be a great visual feast, with hopefully some good history thrown in. I’m especially interested in seeing how Pedro Pascal’s character, Marcus Acacius, fits into the story. From the trailer, he seems to be coming to protest the endless conquests of Rome and the lives it took, and he seems to be getting in trouble for his views. I think this could be an interesting way to connect this to the main gladiator theme.

 

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Alex Sills (AS), a graduate student at the University of Leicester: The sheer spectacle of it looks like it will be even better than the first movie. I can’t wait to see what 24 years of CGI progress can do for a Roman arena. Also, I’m interested to see how the movie handles the fact that the Republic hasn’t been brought back. Maximus gave up his life for that reason in the first movie. Will Lucius finish the job? We know that emperors ruled for hundreds of years, so it’s not likely. However, it will be interesting to see if the political aspect is kept up or dropped in favor of a story about revenge between two people.

This is Dr. Owen Rees (OR), founder and chief editor of Bad Ancient: I love the first Gladiator movie so much that my first thought was, “Why?!?” Why is there a second part? But when I saw the cityscape of Rome on the screen, that reaction went away, and I became interested in what I was seeing. The glory of Rome, the desire for a quiet life away from the center of power, and the idea of “the Republic” are all themes that were introduced in the first movie. I can’t wait to see how they connect these to the second one.

Did anything stand out right away as being right or wrong or not making sense?
JB: Paul Mescal’s Lucius seems to have become a gladiator after being captured during a violent conquest of Numidia in northwest Africa. However, this area had been a part of the Roman world for hundreds of years by the time the movie takes place, and it’s hard to imagine scenes like the ones in the trailer happening during the time of the movie’s setting, when Severus reorganized the region’s government.

Some parts of the dress don’t seem right, like the wristbands that everyone with a sword seems to have to wear! The accents are an interesting mix, but I actually quite like this, as it is a useful reminder that the “Romans” were not a homogenous population but came from an empire that stretched from Britain across Europe, the Near East, and northern Africa—why people would be expected to have the same accents is beyond me (and even if they did, a modern American accent is no less accurate a representation than a classic British one!).

AS: No one is without a top! They didn’t wear anything to protect their torsos because that would have been too easy of a fight. Also, Pedro and Paul should have shields with them, since that’s what gladiators did instead of chest armor. It’s cool that the shield could be used offensively, almost like a second weapon. Having both arms in the fight makes it more interesting. Of course, movie stars shouldn’t have to wear helmets that cover their faces, but these guys should be able to show a lot of chest. I’m sure a lot of people in the theater would also not mind…

Is there something wrong with how the two emperors are portrayed?
Basically, Caracalla and Geta are portrayed in a rather odd way. They seem to fit the stereotypes of Nero and Caligula more than they do the real Severans. Also, they stand out because they are so pale. Both brothers were born in Syria and Libya.

In Roman times, there were a lot of people of color. It’s not fair to make emperors with darker skin look lighter. I’m happy to see Denzel Washington in the cast, though, because his character sounds really interesting.

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OR: They look like a cliché of many “bad emperors” rolled into one. It’s interesting that they chose to cast actors who are so pale these days. But we’ll see how their characters are developed when the movie comes out. You can’t judge it based on a few seconds in an ad!

When it was full of water, did the Colosseum ever host battles on the water?
JB: Yes, naumachiae were popular and spectacular shows put on to entertain the people of Rome on special occasions. They were very expensive and hard to set up. Early Roman emperors put on Naumachiae, but until Nero’s time, they didn’t happen in amphitheaters. Instead, they happened on lakes or in specially built basins. The Colosseum was a special place for naumachiae, and one was even held at its opening in 80 AD, during the reign of Titus the Great. But we don’t know how they filled the arena with water for the battle; it was probably done to the lowest level possible so the ships could float!

But Paul Mescal’s character wouldn’t have fought in Naumachiae. The Romans didn’t use trained (read: expensive) gladiators. Instead, they used prisoners of war and criminals who had been sentenced to death. This suggests that very few, if any, were expected to survive. It’s also important to note that the naumachia of Claudius on the Fucine Lake was the only time that people were heard saying, “We who are about to die salute you.” The gladiators didn’t need to say this.

What if gladiators had fought rhinos or sharks instead?
JB: Roman audiences liked new things in their beast shows, and there weren’t many animals that they wouldn’t put in the arena. In fact, it was a big business to get animals for these kinds of shows, and the more exotic the animals, the better. The animals didn’t even have to be very dangerous; as long as they were different, they were included. Giraffes were shown with “classic” wild animals like lions and bears.

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: Gladiators always fought other gladiators. On the other hand, there were people in the arena who fought animals or hunted them. These people were called devas and bestiarii.

Rhinos were shown off in Rome—that much we know. I think Pompey Magnus was the first person to bring one in. One was brought in so that the emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix in the first movie) could kill it himself in the Colosseum. He did this by shooting it with arrows from a platform, so he was never in any danger.

When it comes to sharks, we’re getting into fantasy land. The Romans got very good at catching and moving all kinds of wild animals, especially from Africa. But they couldn’t catch sharks, bring them to Rome, or put them somewhere safe before the Games. But if they had been able to, they would have thought it would have been awesome, so maybe this is dead guys’ movie wish fulfillment.

OR: There were animals in the arena, but the gladiators who fought were not the same ones. We use the word “gladiator” to describe too few of the people the Romans had in the arena.

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