Cinematic Showdown!: Lord Of The Rings vs Pirates Of The Caribbean - Part One

Welcome to Cinematic Showdown, in which two films arbitrarily duke it out for supremacy.  Sometimes there's a connection between the two;  but often there's none at all.

This time, I'm comparing and contrasting two different blockbuster trilogies from the early aughts;  Pirates Of The Caribbean, and The Lord Of The Rings.  This will be in three parts, comparing the respective first, second and third films of each series against each other.

THE BREAKDOWN

That either of these films were made at all is it's own little miracle.  Before making the Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson was primarily known for his low-budget, extremely tasteless horror films.  He did earn some critical praise from his film Heavenly Creatures (including an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay), but followed that up with the disastrous bomb The Frighteners (1996).  Having shopped the project around to several studios (which is actually a fascinating story, which I won't elucidate too much on here), the "three films shot simultaneously" enterprise was finally picked up by New Line, aka "The House That Freddy Built".  Known mostly for their slasher series, they'd made one previous attempt at producing a "blockbuster"; the underperforming, and critically panned, Lost In Space (1998).  Fantasy, at this point, was a decidedly unproven genre of film.

Another unproven genre from that time period was the pirate film.  The last major attempt at one, Renny Harlin's Cutthroat Island, bombed hard enough that it dragged it's producer, Carolco, down to Davy Jone's locker with it.  Even before Cutthroat, it'd been a LONG time since anyone had made a successful pirate film.  Despite the backing of Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer, the film was seen as a huge risk.  On top of which, it was an adaptation of a ride at Disneyland!  How could it possibly be any good?!

Both films, despite their lack of marquee stars (Johnny Depp was beloved, but hardly a box-office draw at the time), became massive hits, and earned very strong critical acclaim to boot.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

VS

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

. . .  FIGHT!

Both directors eschewed the typical "high-key"lighting most associated with their respective genres, instead caking their actors, sets, and skies with mud.  This aesthetic of gritty realism contrasted nicely with the high adventure of the narratives, and highlighted the creepiness of both the Nazgul, and the Ghost Pirates.  Both films, despite their length, move forward at a good clip, especially considering The Fellowship Of The Ring being burdened with a fairly lengthy and dense source material.

One area that they differ greatly in is tone; while both films vacillate between moments of light and dark, Pirates is generally the more lighthearted, where Rings tends to be more dour.  Pirates is self-aware, and just this side of meta; while Rings is entrenched in it's own tangled mythology, as if recreating passages from a revered historical text.  Both styles work fine for their respective stories (especially considering the rabid fanbase that Rings has to appease), but in the consistency department, Pirates is the clear winner.  The Fellowship has several scenes that jump startlingly from deadpan seriousness to outright goofiness; Take, for example, the wizards breakdance fight, or the "No one tosses a Dwarf" line.  Pirates jumps from comedy to horror, but does so in a much smoother fashion.

By playing itself so straight-faced, Rings makes itself a target of unintentional laughter.  Pirates has the opposite effect;  by being so lighthearted for most of it's running time, you never expect a cartoon character like Jack Sparrow to have any pathos - but Depp actually gives his character some depth, which peeks out from behind his bluster on a few well-timed occasions.

FX wise, both of these films are top notch.  For being around a decade old each, neither film has anything to be embarrassed about in the visual department.

Scriptwise, again, Pirates has the edge.  Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's script is full of clever wordplay, interesting plot twists, and complex character motivations.  Fellowship has it's complex characters, to be sure, but several elements of the screenplay seem to be in there simply to service a complete adaptation of the novels.  "Why the fuck are Merry and Pippin in this?"  "Because they're in the book." "Oh. . .  Thanks!"

The performances, and casting, of both films is excellent.  Depp and Geoffrey Rush play a game of "Who can be a more ridiculous pirate?", with Depp barely winning, and it works so well because of how great both of those actors are.  The supporting cast, including the underused and soon-to-vanish Zoe Saldana, is a good mix of straight men and cartoon-like scallywags, effectively holding up this larger-than-life conflict.  And will it be possible now to read The Lord Of The Rings without seeing Ian McKellen as Gandalf?  Or the out-of-left-field casting choice of Viggo as Strider?

There isn't a slouch between the two, and the only thing that's really changed in my opinion is a slightly raised respect for Pirates, and a slight dimming of my love for Fellowship.  It's possible, sad as it is to say, that I've "grown out" of my former unconditional love for all things Peter Jackson.  Watching his 2001 classic with modern eyes, I found myself getting tired of the over-seriousness, and endless dialogue scenes that go something like, "Why are you doing this?!" "Because I have to!" "But you cant!". . .  etc.  Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it;  who knows?  Either way, The Black Pearl wins round one.

FREDERICK OPINES:

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING - GREAT

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL - MASTERPIECE