Why Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Teague Was A Mistake

Why Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Teague Was A Mistake

Keith Richards was great as Jack Sparrow’s dad Captain Teague, but his backstory raises a lot of questions about Pirates of the Caribbean’s antihero.

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Why Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Teague Was A Mistake

Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Teague was a fun cameo for Rolling Stones member/Jack Sparrow inspiration Keith Richards, but the character’s presence in At World’s End is nonetheless a mistake in terms of story. Before it proved a huge hit, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise seemed like a risky proposition to many movie industry insiders. Swashbuckling action had proven unpopular only a few years earlier with the historic flop Cutthroat Island, while star Johnny Depp’s decision to play antihero Jack Sparrow as a charming charlatan made many executives nervous with his campy comedy potentially straying far from a mainstream appeal.

However, the series soon proved a huge hit, as evidenced by Disney’s recent attempts to recreate the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise’s success with Jungle Cruise. This meant that star Depp and director Gore Verbinski were given more creative freedom when it came to the sequels, a decision that proved both a blessing and a curse. While the remainder of the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy allowed Verbinski to tell a surprisingly tragic, complex story, the movies did also begin to rely on Depp’s Sparrow in a manner that would eventually spell the critical doom of the franchise.

That said, there was still a lot for fans to love in these early Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones guitarist who inspired Depp’s Jack Sparrow, gives a stellar performance as Jack’s dad Captain Teague in the third movie of the series, and the cameo is a cute addition to the otherwise grim and dark – not to mention plot-hole ridden – At World’s End. However, the fact that Jack’s dad is alive, survives the movie and is a Pirate Lord mean Jack’s antics until this point looks a lot less impressive. While Richards is a delight, the presence of his character ends up sabotaging up the internal logic of the franchise.

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If Teague died during the action of At World’s End, it might have made the plot of the sequel more impactful, but as is, it seems as if the stakes weren’t all that high after all. Despite Will Turner being doomed to spend ten years as the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, an elderly Pirate Lord leaves the finale’s battle unscathed, making the heroes of the series seem ill-prepared in comparison. The fact that his son Jack almost died at the end of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and did die at the end of the second, thus needing to be resurrected, makes him look comparatively incompetent when his Pirate Lord father has weathered decades of adventures without a scratch.

Much of Jack Sparrow’s appeal as an unstoppable antihero comes from the fact that the quick-thinking character seemingly can’t be kept down, and can engineer every situation to his favor. This seemed impressive when viewers assumed he was a vagabond who made his own luck, but the news that he is the son of one of the world’s most respected pirates makes his acumen as a swashbuckler less impressive and more inherited. The fact that Captain Jack needs to sacrifice many of his crew and friends to win a battle that his father seems more than prepared for further distances his character from his original appeal, making his abilities less impressive by comparison and making the inclusion of Captain Teague a mistake in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/pirates-caribbean-captain-teague-keith-richards-bad-character-reason-explained/

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