Who is your favorite Pirates of the Caribbean villain? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 51% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike
I actually think the movies could have done more with Norrington as an antagonist à la "scorned good guy turned entitled Nice Guy™ " but there wasn't really room for that in the story. And yeah it doesn't really translate well into a campaign setting, either.
When you went straight from Davy Jones to Blackbeard, I actually said out loud "Mike, you did NOT just skip over Cutler Beckett!!!" Thank you for proving me wrong 🙏🏻
I love the idea of a dracolich’s soul infesting its horde, only to be split up. I think a good campaign idea would be something like Sly Cooper 2, where your players and the enemy pirates are sailing across the world to collect scattered pieces of soul treasure, like a scavenger hunt. If the pieces are assembled, the dracolich resurrects, but anyone who holds a piece both gains part of the dracolich’s power and is possessed by the urge to bring all the treasure pieces together. There could even be an interesting player arc of being slowly cursed to bring together all these pieces, like Grog with feeding Craven Edge
Curse of the Black Pearl is one of the greatest pieces of media of all time. Absolute masterpiece in storytelling. Looking forward to watching the vid :)
Dead Man's Chest was, in my opinion, one of the few sequels that got me just as excited in not moreso than the original. You got a desperate situation that has the various protagonists at each others throats as often as working together, a seemingly killable threat just barely restrained by hasty bargaining, backstabbery and skullduggery from desperate characters who once prided themselves on their forthrightness, and a seemingly downer ending that hints at an expanded lore and a chance to set things upright again. Seriously, when Barbossa walked down those stairs, I could not wait for At Worlds End.
Oooh, the idea of a dracolich having it's spirit split among the crew due to interrupted reformation is a really neat idea. It could also mean that the "curse" manifests more potently among the crew, and captain, by how much gold they got from the cursed chest; the more gold they took for themselves, the more of the dragons essence went into them from the distribution. If you keep the moonlight reveal, it could also make an interesting twist that also reveals the truth of the nature if their skeletal forms under moonlight do not fully represent their flesh and blood bodies, but all have some level of draconic appearance, the visage of the dracolich showing through.
Also you could have it that each pirate who is truly defeated sends their soul and their share of the dragon's soul back to the hoard, so once the players think they've ended the pirate threat, they have to face off against a revived, empowered Dracolich, clad in gold and suffused with stolen souls.
The amount of gold influencing how much of the dracolich comes through is a great idea. Historically higher "ranked" pirates got more shares of the loot, so you could do a gradual build-up to the captain with the mini-bosses getting more & more powerful
In regards to what you said about Jones controlling the Kraken, while it's true that it doesn't connect to his original job of ferrying the souls of the dead, it does help to highlight how far that he has fallen. Jones' purpose was not to kill people, but to bring those who died at sea to the other side. Yet now, he controls a sea beast and regularly sicks it on ships to kill the crew and allow him to recruit the survivors. While we only see the Kraken attack three ships in Dead Man's Chest, it actually attacked four: the wrecked ship Will goes on to find Jones was attacked by the Kraken and left only five men alive for Jones to try and recruit. That's a great way to show how Jones as corrupted his purpose: he's sticking a giant squid on innocent sailors for no other reason than he can and because he wants the rest of the world to suffer as much as he has.
An excellent point! Even if it may not logically make sense that he now controls this beast (and even then, that’s only because we don’t know how it happened, it’s not even a plot hole), you’re 100% right that it works thematically (better than I realized)!
I have a different read on Davey Jones' Locker and I think it was the intended one. At the end of Pirates 3, when they're releasing Calypso's bindings, she transforms into a swarm of those tiny rock crabs from the Locker. This is a direct through line to the beginning. This shows me that the locker is just saturated with Calypso's essence, or at least shares powers with Calypso. There's also a lot of talk about how Jack isn't just dead but he is specially damned because of who he is (probably in pissing off Davey Jones). I don't think that the Locker is appropriately described as only "a desert of weird rock crabs". We also see desolate beaches, and mountains in the distance, and endless calm oceans. It seems to be a place to construct environmental tortures curated for individual people. It is a curated hell. Also recall that the Up is Down scene ultimately involves them inverting the ship in order to return to the material plane, emerging from the water in precisely the manner that the Flying Dutchman uses! I argue that this is the method Davey Jones has been using this whole time, he just has an ability to transport between the Locker and the material plane at will. Perhaps the Locker is an inverse or a mirror to the material plane.. In summary, I read the Locker to be a private hell, a whole plane under the control of Calypso, the final destination to which Calypso tasked Jones to deliver souls. Because Jones wasn't the one meant to judge souls. Calypso was. And so the powers and themes of the Locker are reflections of Calypso's earthly power.
Captain Gray is weirdly a sort of “best case scenario” for one of my characters. Born an unlucky shadow sorceror, he grew up superstitious, and a fortune teller told him he would die on land. So, he made immediately for the sea, where he made a deal with a kraken-type beastie to make him stronger. He’s terrified while on land and rarely goes there, but at sea he’s a charismatic and ruthless pirate. Love a future for him where he becomes captain and a magical terror.
I like the idea that someone might have a couple coins left, but with the majority gone, the magic is dormant, and they try and use a ritual to bring back the crew, but with a specific purpose. Makes getting those coins back extra necessary.
...Wow, this version of Blackbeard really works better as a D&D villain than in a movie, huh. I used to watch the first two Pirates films over and over as a kid so I knew most of these clips by heart, but there's something about traditional pirate villains that maps well to D&D games. And some of these immortality methods mean they won't suffer from the "your cool villain died in the first encounter with the players because you over-estimated their stat block" issue.
I'm actually gonna run my first ever Pathfinder game which happens to be a High Seas game on Wednesday. So the Kraken Week event came at the perfect time for me :D
Totally willing to be wrong as I cant even remember when I saw the 4th film...probably shortly after it was released. But I think his zombie crew are meant to more closely resemble Caribbean Voodoo zombies. As far as I can recall they are not necessarily dead, but they ARE completely enthralled by the voodoo practitioner and work for them.
That was my assumption, but then we do still get the fact that their skin is grey and one of them gets stabbed… so it almost feels like the filmmakers couldn’t decide? Very strange
I have been running a campaign for like 3 years now and now that I need to start preparing for our pirate themed campaign, a full playlist of sea based DnD videos start coming out. This is such a delightful boon.
Dude this video and Kraken Week came just at the right time, because I told my friends I was going to DM a Pirates of the Caribbean inspired campaign so thank you so much, I love and appreciate you and the rest of the D&D community.
first, this theme week reminded me of the "one marvelous scene" some film videoessayist did a couple years ago. second, i thought the final villain would be disney and i feel it was pretty much the same but with different tone. great video, mike!
Your content is so consistently good i realized i actually get really excited when i see one of your thumbnails on my subscription page. So i've finally hit the bell!
Thank you so much for the shout out! We agree that the Pirates franchise has numerous great villains, and we go into using people like Barbossa and Beckett as Darklords in our full episode. Adapting Villains into Darklords usualy works pretty well because the Darklord, like the Disney Villain is the center of the story and has a lot of thematic connections to the overall story. We both loved your version of Davy Jones's origin story, and speaking of Calypso, I actually have a theory that the original plan for Pirates 5 and 6 was to film them together and have Calypso as the main villain of a second trilogy (and give the Jack Sparrow voodoo doll more payoff). I could go into more detail if you like. Thanks again, and enjoy the full episode.
Thanks Mike. You just saved me so much work (I'm currently running a homebrew campaign based loosely on pokemon emerald) I won't say who cuz my players watch tour vids, but you just helped me solidify my concept for "Archie". Happy Kraken Week everyone!
Take any space story, Alien, Interstellar, Apollo 13, The Martian, Ad Astra, Leviathan Wakes, Killjoys, Firefly, even 2001, and put them on the ocean. For example, Alien is basically The Last Voyage of the Demeter. An unseen creature is stalking the members of a ship's crew, and no one who encounters it survives. Just do that.
I love DIE. I've been cooking a Pathfinder campaign centered on a magical woodland threatened by Shining Kingdoms Lumber Liquidators, because these dumb jokes are my favorite.
Genuinely THANK YOU so much for this. My players just finished a 1.5 year Curse of Strahd campaign that I have prepped for years and next we are making a pirate Saltmarsh campaign. I am struggling to make a story comparable to CoS and having an especially difficult time making the villains engaging and enjoyable without just being direct rip offs or CoS re-skins. This video has helped so much! It's really got the creative thoughts running. Thanks again!
So glad to see this- I already had a Davy Jones-like anti-villain planned for later in our campaign. Except instead of being sea-creature themed, Tytos Torneach, the Roving Tempest, is a Hollow One Air/Lightning Genasi, whose hair and beard are constantly swirling and crackling with electricity even in still air, and he's after the Key that can save his beloved sea goddess from her prison. Which also happens to be what the players are after, and the "sea goddess" is actually the main god villain of the campaign tricking Tytos into freeing him. It'll be a tough sell to convince him hes being tricked, but he can be convinced and turned into an ally. But hes definitely gonna be introduced in a scene similar to Davy Jones. Super excited for this one
And ANOTHER couple of Disney villain inspirations to use for your Spelljammer campaigns would be Captain Long John Silver and Captain Flint from Treasure Planet!
Absolutely loved this - so many great ideas! Even though my own homebrew setting is pretty alien to historical earth history and culture, I might well adapt some of these (with an Orbis facelift) for one of my own campaigns... it is a very maritime-friendly setting!
An idea for the Salazar enemy that combines the ghost possession and the ship attacking other ships: The spirit of the ship is the possessing ghost. A ruined ship is seen. Distant at first, but relentlessly closing. It comes directly at them like it is going to ram the ship before it vanishes. As day breaks they think themselves safe. Though odd occurrences and figures seen out of the corner of the eye continue throughout the day. And as night returns the crew find the ship changing until they realise their ship has become the ruined ship they thought they avoided. Now, in addition to the ghost crew and captain, the ship they're sailing on is their enemy too.
Bit late watching this video, but just wanted to say I hope you're doing well with your break and your family time, and I hope your family is also doing well! I know the validation of a single weirdo on the internet might not seem like much, but I have really enjoyed your videos ever since I came across you with your Critical Role episodes, so thank you for helping to make me a better Dungeon Master and a better D&D player. You're amazing at what you do in videos like this, and you're immensely appreciated (by me, at least).
I've actually got a workup for using The Flying Dutchman as a magic item/ancient artifact. It's got some fun rules that I think would work really well and I can share it with you if you want! I'm actually very proud of the work I've done on it, it even includes a ritual to become the captain!
Not sure if you've seen/heard of the Oxventure, but one of the PCs (Corazón de León) basically stole huge parts of the Pirate movies for his backstory, and it's so good. Just a really good example of taking pointers from a story the table are aware of but also putting a unique spin on it.
Also, "You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one" goes so unbelievably hard. An absolute banger of a line delivered by someone having the time of their life doing so. Peak cinema.
I'm totally "not stealing" these. No notes. Incredible. I also think Jack could be an incredible intro antagonist who later could become an ally, should the story go that way.
So, one idea I was thinking was that the undead pirates who are "destroyed" then regenerate 7-days later in the hold of the pirate ship or the cave that the gold was stolen from, whichever works better for your story or how much work you want it to be to get back to society where the adventure is.
When you finished with Davey Jones, I thought you would move to Beckett, and I love the idea of his character. A man with a nefarious past who has accrued enough power to believe he can control these supernatural beings to accomplish his own ends is just a lot of fun. Also, if they return all those coins, they deal with the pirates, but what about the dracolich? Sounds like they are dealing with one problem to bring about the return of a far bigger problem. Edit: awesome, you had him at the end. My bad.
For the davy jones analogue, i might skip the aboleth bit and instead have the deal come from the kraken he first made the bet with, sort of a reversal of their situation but the first deal is still in effect. If you’re gonna have a kraken with supernatural powers then i might have it act as a god of the sea at that point.
Honestly, I liked all the pirate movies up to 5. 5 broke me because: 1. Jack wasn't Jack 2. They outright contradicted the lore of the other moves 3. It wasn't the last movie as advertised.
It's kind of wild to think that the British Empire invented the megacorporation centuries before the cyberpunk genre became a thing Putting the flippant way of stating it aside, the British East India Company was, at least for some parts of India, the de facto governing body and by being so far from Britain they could wield power pretty freely in the unlikely event that the Empire would ever actually have objections to their behavior All and all, even if I don't make my next game a seafaring one, I actually really like the idea of a trading company representing an imperial power being an antagonistic faction
I get why Faustian Davy Jones, but i file film-davy (and calypso) as Fey-related, because of how naturalistic their powers and motivations are flavored. Particularly calypso's line "it is my nature" [speaking of being changeable as the sea]
That moment where the description of Blackbeard works waaaay too well with the character I'm working on for my next Pathfinder 2e campaign for he is a Magus AKA a Class of fighter who can cast spells he learns like a wizard through his sword.
Among the many problems that pirates 4 had, it was in introducing Blackbeard as a character. The original Black Peal behind the scenes talks about how Barbossa (his look, his mannerisms, his reputation, even his name) is inspired by the real life Blackbeard. It's one of the reasons why he feels like such a rich and compelling character. Then... They actually just add Blackbeard into the universe, with all the same trappings of a character. Which is why Barbossa's character is effectively neutered in that movie into a mockery of its former self. It really shows, proves even, that the creative team on movies four and five had no idea what the creative teams for the first three were doing. And so trod all the same ground and ruined the work..
First, old Hobb, that is funny since I'm reading the entire TMNT IDW run and there's the leader of the mutanimals and can't stop thinking now of a big furry cat with an eyepatch as a captain villain. When I have the chance I'll download the characters and see if I can flesh out some art of some of them. The description of some of them in the video are dope. And last, it is really sad to have such great actors as Ian McShane and Javier Bardem in such dull movies (still, I like a lot more Salazar as a character, but the movie....).
I really wish that Blackbeard was a Sky Pirate instead, that his command over the winds could catch the sails of his ship and have it fly like Peter Pan. He could swoop down from the skies out of nowhere and make for amazing visuals of his ship sailing through seas of purple clouds lit by gorgeous sunsets during downtime. Plus, it would make his sword still effective in combat while not on-board his ship, wind powers and all.
its still amazing that there is undead pirates and a literal demon fish man, yet the worst villain in the franchise is the bloody east india trading company
I think I'll use DIE in one of my campaigns with the added lore that it's all that remains of the Dorean Empire, the collapse of which the company knows nothing about nor has any involvement in. Trust me.
love your videos but i had to count how many time you only said jack without captain (its at least 10 btw ( i forgot to count caues the video was to good))
@@Heritage367 It felt like the POTC aspects of DMTNT were forced into the plot in order to make it part of the franchise. You can have a young adventurer getting tied up with pirates, and the cursed spainards looking for them without Jack Sparrow there. (Also it felt like they mischaracterized Jack, they made him a sloppy drunk instead of a functional one) I loved the zombie sharks too. Like it's just a good movie, and it would be an amazing pirate movie, if it was standalone.
Interesting! I can see that argument - a lot of the more frustrating parts are how the film either fails to measure up to the earlier films, or directly contradicts them while also trying to use their connections for nostalgia points.
@@Heritage367You mean _other_ than directly contradicting information given in earlier films? Like, for example, Jack buying his magic compass directly from Calypso?
When you jumped to Blackbeard I was so disappointed I wouldn't see you discuss Beckett. He is my favourite to hate (Barbossa just being my favourite, full stop). Colonialism and capitalism being the true evil is always the correct take to have.
The "creators" weren't part of the last two POTC movies except in vague executive producer roles that could mean anything in the production of those films. But I don't believe that they had a hand in the script or in the story with the possible exception of OST. Disney was interested in keeping the franchise going and the creators weren't. So, they left, and Disney got someone else to do the job. The result: the loss of their franchise after two movies that did terrible.
Depends what the undead want I suppose. They won't need water or normal provisions. Unless...well, ghouls do eat. Maybe they only visit ports with slave markets willing to trade flesh for gold.
I always thought they were referencing Jack as the one hell itself spat out, considering he escaped from Davy Jones at least once before... you don't have to be evil to escape hell, be clever and juuust annoying enough
Lot of good ideas, from some movies of which I only watched the first (possibly also streamed #2, but if so I really wasn't paying attention). Given how reputedly terrible the movies got, it reminds me of how Wolverine's Van Helsing movie - if you ONLY read a one-paragraph description of the plot and relation between the various monsters - actually sounds really cool? Spoilers: it was not.
lol it’s actually funny you mention that, I’ve ALSO made a video about stealing stuff from that movie for our D&D games 😁 ua-cam.com/video/_IRWyfMHt4M/v-deo.htmlsi=qlFj4bExPBIQDCDm
@@SupergeekMikethey chose not to, it’s not that they didn’t have the power to do it. I understand where you’re coming from but that’s an important distinction to make
Who is your favorite Pirates of the Caribbean villain?
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I actually think the movies could have done more with Norrington as an antagonist à la "scorned good guy turned entitled Nice Guy™ " but there wasn't really room for that in the story. And yeah it doesn't really translate well into a campaign setting, either.
Just an FYI number 3 was based on the book Stranger Tides. Nothing like the movie, just a few supernatural changes based on actual history
"I'm not fucking with the mouses lawyers"
Smart move my guy. The mouse is brutal.
Michael Theodore Maus: A-huh! We'll sue!
When you went straight from Davy Jones to Blackbeard, I actually said out loud "Mike, you did NOT just skip over Cutler Beckett!!!"
Thank you for proving me wrong 🙏🏻
I love the idea of a dracolich’s soul infesting its horde, only to be split up. I think a good campaign idea would be something like Sly Cooper 2, where your players and the enemy pirates are sailing across the world to collect scattered pieces of soul treasure, like a scavenger hunt. If the pieces are assembled, the dracolich resurrects, but anyone who holds a piece both gains part of the dracolich’s power and is possessed by the urge to bring all the treasure pieces together. There could even be an interesting player arc of being slowly cursed to bring together all these pieces, like Grog with feeding Craven Edge
"I could not. *glares into the distance*. i had to watch all five" This hit to hard man
Just like him I felt I had to as well :’)
"They're also apparently *really* horny, and umm.... That's a bummer."
I almost choked on my drink, I'm laughing so hard! That caught me by surprise 😂
Bard energy
Curse of the Black Pearl is one of the greatest pieces of media of all time. Absolute masterpiece in storytelling. Looking forward to watching the vid :)
Dead Man's Chest was, in my opinion, one of the few sequels that got me just as excited in not moreso than the original. You got a desperate situation that has the various protagonists at each others throats as often as working together, a seemingly killable threat just barely restrained by hasty bargaining, backstabbery and skullduggery from desperate characters who once prided themselves on their forthrightness, and a seemingly downer ending that hints at an expanded lore and a chance to set things upright again. Seriously, when Barbossa walked down those stairs, I could not wait for At Worlds End.
Oooh, the idea of a dracolich having it's spirit split among the crew due to interrupted reformation is a really neat idea. It could also mean that the "curse" manifests more potently among the crew, and captain, by how much gold they got from the cursed chest; the more gold they took for themselves, the more of the dragons essence went into them from the distribution. If you keep the moonlight reveal, it could also make an interesting twist that also reveals the truth of the nature if their skeletal forms under moonlight do not fully represent their flesh and blood bodies, but all have some level of draconic appearance, the visage of the dracolich showing through.
Also you could have it that each pirate who is truly defeated sends their soul and their share of the dragon's soul back to the hoard, so once the players think they've ended the pirate threat, they have to face off against a revived, empowered Dracolich, clad in gold and suffused with stolen souls.
The amount of gold influencing how much of the dracolich comes through is a great idea. Historically higher "ranked" pirates got more shares of the loot, so you could do a gradual build-up to the captain with the mini-bosses getting more & more powerful
In regards to what you said about Jones controlling the Kraken, while it's true that it doesn't connect to his original job of ferrying the souls of the dead, it does help to highlight how far that he has fallen. Jones' purpose was not to kill people, but to bring those who died at sea to the other side. Yet now, he controls a sea beast and regularly sicks it on ships to kill the crew and allow him to recruit the survivors. While we only see the Kraken attack three ships in Dead Man's Chest, it actually attacked four: the wrecked ship Will goes on to find Jones was attacked by the Kraken and left only five men alive for Jones to try and recruit. That's a great way to show how Jones as corrupted his purpose: he's sticking a giant squid on innocent sailors for no other reason than he can and because he wants the rest of the world to suffer as much as he has.
An excellent point! Even if it may not logically make sense that he now controls this beast (and even then, that’s only because we don’t know how it happened, it’s not even a plot hole), you’re 100% right that it works thematically (better than I realized)!
I have a different read on Davey Jones' Locker and I think it was the intended one.
At the end of Pirates 3, when they're releasing Calypso's bindings, she transforms into a swarm of those tiny rock crabs from the Locker. This is a direct through line to the beginning. This shows me that the locker is just saturated with Calypso's essence, or at least shares powers with Calypso.
There's also a lot of talk about how Jack isn't just dead but he is specially damned because of who he is (probably in pissing off Davey Jones).
I don't think that the Locker is appropriately described as only "a desert of weird rock crabs". We also see desolate beaches, and mountains in the distance, and endless calm oceans. It seems to be a place to construct environmental tortures curated for individual people. It is a curated hell.
Also recall that the Up is Down scene ultimately involves them inverting the ship in order to return to the material plane, emerging from the water in precisely the manner that the Flying Dutchman uses! I argue that this is the method Davey Jones has been using this whole time, he just has an ability to transport between the Locker and the material plane at will. Perhaps the Locker is an inverse or a mirror to the material plane..
In summary, I read the Locker to be a private hell, a whole plane under the control of Calypso, the final destination to which Calypso tasked Jones to deliver souls. Because Jones wasn't the one meant to judge souls. Calypso was. And so the powers and themes of the Locker are reflections of Calypso's earthly power.
Captain Gray is weirdly a sort of “best case scenario” for one of my characters. Born an unlucky shadow sorceror, he grew up superstitious, and a fortune teller told him he would die on land. So, he made immediately for the sea, where he made a deal with a kraken-type beastie to make him stronger. He’s terrified while on land and rarely goes there, but at sea he’s a charismatic and ruthless pirate. Love a future for him where he becomes captain and a magical terror.
Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa was an absolute treat and we should be lucky we got to experience it.
I like the idea that someone might have a couple coins left, but with the majority gone, the magic is dormant, and they try and use a ritual to bring back the crew, but with a specific purpose. Makes getting those coins back extra necessary.
...Wow, this version of Blackbeard really works better as a D&D villain than in a movie, huh. I used to watch the first two Pirates films over and over as a kid so I knew most of these clips by heart, but there's something about traditional pirate villains that maps well to D&D games. And some of these immortality methods mean they won't suffer from the "your cool villain died in the first encounter with the players because you over-estimated their stat block" issue.
I'm actually gonna run my first ever Pathfinder game which happens to be a High Seas game on Wednesday. So the Kraken Week event came at the perfect time for me :D
Seattle based hockey teams out here getting free publicity.
Pun game is on point in this episode
Totally willing to be wrong as I cant even remember when I saw the 4th film...probably shortly after it was released. But I think his zombie crew are meant to more closely resemble Caribbean Voodoo zombies. As far as I can recall they are not necessarily dead, but they ARE completely enthralled by the voodoo practitioner and work for them.
That was my assumption, but then we do still get the fact that their skin is grey and one of them gets stabbed… so it almost feels like the filmmakers couldn’t decide? Very strange
Oh I'm keeping this pirate game. I'm keeping this and going to run it because omg this is exactly what i love when it comes to cursed pirates
I have been running a campaign for like 3 years now and now that I need to start preparing for our pirate themed campaign, a full playlist of sea based DnD videos start coming out.
This is such a delightful boon.
Thanks... I had forgotten about pirates 4 and 5
Dude this video and Kraken Week came just at the right time, because I told my friends I was going to DM a Pirates of the Caribbean inspired campaign so thank you so much, I love and appreciate you and the rest of the D&D community.
Fantastic contribution to Kraken Week! Thanks for suffering through these movies for us
first, this theme week reminded me of the "one marvelous scene" some film videoessayist did a couple years ago.
second, i thought the final villain would be disney and i feel it was pretty much the same but with different tone. great video, mike!
Your content is so consistently good i realized i actually get really excited when i see one of your thumbnails on my subscription page. So i've finally hit the bell!
Thank you so much for the shout out! We agree that the Pirates franchise has numerous great villains, and we go into using people like Barbossa and Beckett as Darklords in our full episode. Adapting Villains into Darklords usualy works pretty well because the Darklord, like the Disney Villain is the center of the story and has a lot of thematic connections to the overall story. We both loved your version of Davy Jones's origin story, and speaking of Calypso, I actually have a theory that the original plan for Pirates 5 and 6 was to film them together and have Calypso as the main villain of a second trilogy (and give the Jack Sparrow voodoo doll more payoff). I could go into more detail if you like. Thanks again, and enjoy the full episode.
I thought for sure you were going to return with the “this is my job, I love my job” but after introducing Beckket. Rule of threes!
"The immaterial has become...immaterial" is a GENIUS line.
Let's go! Mike joined the Kraken week! My 3 favourite dnd UA-camrs 🎉
Thanks Mike. You just saved me so much work
(I'm currently running a homebrew campaign based loosely on pokemon emerald)
I won't say who cuz my players watch tour vids, but you just helped me solidify my concept for "Archie". Happy Kraken Week everyone!
it's so funny when Mike drops the f-bomb lmao, it's part of my daily vocab so when someone who doesn't normally swear drops one, it's great
Take any space story, Alien, Interstellar, Apollo 13, The Martian, Ad Astra, Leviathan Wakes, Killjoys, Firefly, even 2001, and put them on the ocean.
For example, Alien is basically The Last Voyage of the Demeter. An unseen creature is stalking the members of a ship's crew, and no one who encounters it survives.
Just do that.
These are pretty great. I'll be sure to steal these completely original characters from you.
Yup. Taking these as..... inspiration of course.
They're all fitting for my Sea Goddess.
Was waiting for Beckett to show up. Adore this powerful Lawful Evil man
I love DIE. I've been cooking a Pathfinder campaign centered on a magical woodland threatened by Shining Kingdoms Lumber Liquidators, because these dumb jokes are my favorite.
An excellent addition to Pirate Week and we salute your sacrifice in watching the last two movies!
3:17 The rapid tone shift caught me so off guard I was laughing my ass off
Genuinely THANK YOU so much for this. My players just finished a 1.5 year Curse of Strahd campaign that I have prepped for years and next we are making a pirate Saltmarsh campaign. I am struggling to make a story comparable to CoS and having an especially difficult time making the villains engaging and enjoyable without just being direct rip offs or CoS re-skins. This video has helped so much! It's really got the creative thoughts running.
Thanks again!
So glad to see this- I already had a Davy Jones-like anti-villain planned for later in our campaign. Except instead of being sea-creature themed, Tytos Torneach, the Roving Tempest, is a Hollow One Air/Lightning Genasi, whose hair and beard are constantly swirling and crackling with electricity even in still air, and he's after the Key that can save his beloved sea goddess from her prison. Which also happens to be what the players are after, and the "sea goddess" is actually the main god villain of the campaign tricking Tytos into freeing him. It'll be a tough sell to convince him hes being tricked, but he can be convinced and turned into an ally. But hes definitely gonna be introduced in a scene similar to Davy Jones. Super excited for this one
And ANOTHER couple of Disney villain inspirations to use for your Spelljammer campaigns would be Captain Long John Silver and Captain Flint from Treasure Planet!
Absolutely loved this - so many great ideas! Even though my own homebrew setting is pretty alien to historical earth history and culture, I might well adapt some of these (with an Orbis facelift) for one of my own campaigns... it is a very maritime-friendly setting!
An idea for the Salazar enemy that combines the ghost possession and the ship attacking other ships: The spirit of the ship is the possessing ghost. A ruined ship is seen. Distant at first, but relentlessly closing. It comes directly at them like it is going to ram the ship before it vanishes. As day breaks they think themselves safe. Though odd occurrences and figures seen out of the corner of the eye continue throughout the day. And as night returns the crew find the ship changing until they realise their ship has become the ruined ship they thought they avoided. Now, in addition to the ghost crew and captain, the ship they're sailing on is their enemy too.
Bit late watching this video, but just wanted to say I hope you're doing well with your break and your family time, and I hope your family is also doing well! I know the validation of a single weirdo on the internet might not seem like much, but I have really enjoyed your videos ever since I came across you with your Critical Role episodes, so thank you for helping to make me a better Dungeon Master and a better D&D player. You're amazing at what you do in videos like this, and you're immensely appreciated (by me, at least).
Huge fan of themed dungeon-themed weeks!
Awesome vid!
Thank you for encouraging me to rewatch these films.
I happened to catch up to CR C3E72 today which features an NPC like this.
I've actually got a workup for using The Flying Dutchman as a magic item/ancient artifact. It's got some fun rules that I think would work really well and I can share it with you if you want! I'm actually very proud of the work I've done on it, it even includes a ritual to become the captain!
Ahhhhhhh, so much good info and analysis I'm going end up watching this multiple times 😍 Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mike
Not sure if you've seen/heard of the Oxventure, but one of the PCs (Corazón de León) basically stole huge parts of the Pirate movies for his backstory, and it's so good. Just a really good example of taking pointers from a story the table are aware of but also putting a unique spin on it.
Also, "You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one" goes so unbelievably hard. An absolute banger of a line delivered by someone having the time of their life doing so. Peak cinema.
I'm totally "not stealing" these.
No notes. Incredible.
I also think Jack could be an incredible intro antagonist who later could become an ally, should the story go that way.
The Red Sky. What an ominous ship to be metaphorically CHAINED to by a curse...
Tiefling/devil barbossa is a neat idea
A gnollish pirate captain is definitely Barbossa coded.
Great video Mike, easily one of my favourites you’ve ever done. And thanks for the villains, I definitely wanna use all these guys!
Favorite Kracken Week video. 11/10
So, one idea I was thinking was that the undead pirates who are "destroyed" then regenerate 7-days later in the hold of the pirate ship or the cave that the gold was stolen from, whichever works better for your story or how much work you want it to be to get back to society where the adventure is.
I love this! I'm so glad for Kraken week, you have a new subscriber!
When you finished with Davey Jones, I thought you would move to Beckett, and I love the idea of his character. A man with a nefarious past who has accrued enough power to believe he can control these supernatural beings to accomplish his own ends is just a lot of fun.
Also, if they return all those coins, they deal with the pirates, but what about the dracolich? Sounds like they are dealing with one problem to bring about the return of a far bigger problem.
Edit: awesome, you had him at the end. My bad.
lol I had a feeling you were in for a nice surprise later in the video 😁
Absolutely top tier video! Looking forward to checking out the Sea of Curses
I'd love to see you do this with other movie villains.
If there is a movie with pirate Hugh Jackman singing smells like teen spirit, it's a movie worth watching. My interest is picked.
For the davy jones analogue, i might skip the aboleth bit and instead have the deal come from the kraken he first made the bet with, sort of a reversal of their situation but the first deal is still in effect. If you’re gonna have a kraken with supernatural powers then i might have it act as a god of the sea at that point.
That could work! I just love aboleths ☺️
Me, retroactively recognizing Blackbeard as Mr. Wednesday.
Just finished and this is definitely one of my favorite videos of yours and I haven't even really seen Pirates of the Caribbean
Thank you! That’s high praise, I’m glad to hear the video still makes sense without context 😁
I swear the "People Aren't Cargo, Mate" was in the theatrical cut.
Unfortunately not!
Love your spin on these villains. Great job
Great, ideas!
Damn, you're right. That's SO Ravenloft.
Honestly, I liked all the pirate movies up to 5. 5 broke me because:
1. Jack wasn't Jack
2. They outright contradicted the lore of the other moves
3. It wasn't the last movie as advertised.
Pirates 5 is a rough watch
@@SupergeekMike personally I feel 3 was peak
This got me inspired to have a pirate-lich inspired by Barbosa and pointy hat’s paladin and/or fighter lich 😮
We all need to collectively apologize to Depp.
It's kind of wild to think that the British Empire invented the megacorporation centuries before the cyberpunk genre became a thing
Putting the flippant way of stating it aside, the British East India Company was, at least for some parts of India, the de facto governing body and by being so far from Britain they could wield power pretty freely in the unlikely event that the Empire would ever actually have objections to their behavior
All and all, even if I don't make my next game a seafaring one, I actually really like the idea of a trading company representing an imperial power being an antagonistic faction
I get why Faustian Davy Jones, but i file film-davy (and calypso) as Fey-related, because of how naturalistic their powers and motivations are flavored. Particularly calypso's line "it is my nature" [speaking of being changeable as the sea]
Well some Archfey do rival gods when in their own domain.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
oh my god he is morphing ... he now do DAD PUNS !!!!
That moment where the description of Blackbeard works waaaay too well with the character I'm working on for my next Pathfinder 2e campaign for he is a Magus AKA a Class of fighter who can cast spells he learns like a wizard through his sword.
i just watched this as i miss pirates of the Caribbean lol
Great stuff! Thanks!
Among the many problems that pirates 4 had, it was in introducing Blackbeard as a character. The original Black Peal behind the scenes talks about how Barbossa (his look, his mannerisms, his reputation, even his name) is inspired by the real life Blackbeard. It's one of the reasons why he feels like such a rich and compelling character. Then... They actually just add Blackbeard into the universe, with all the same trappings of a character. Which is why Barbossa's character is effectively neutered in that movie into a mockery of its former self.
It really shows, proves even, that the creative team on movies four and five had no idea what the creative teams for the first three were doing. And so trod all the same ground and ruined the work..
Next kraken week please say “let’s get kraken” after the intro/ sponsor… That’s my sole critique
This is so scary I literally watched the first two pirate movies YESTERDAY… how did you know….
First, old Hobb, that is funny since I'm reading the entire TMNT IDW run and there's the leader of the mutanimals and can't stop thinking now of a big furry cat with an eyepatch as a captain villain.
When I have the chance I'll download the characters and see if I can flesh out some art of some of them. The description of some of them in the video are dope.
And last, it is really sad to have such great actors as Ian McShane and Javier Bardem in such dull movies (still, I like a lot more Salazar as a character, but the movie....).
this video is insanely cool!!!
I really wish that Blackbeard was a Sky Pirate instead, that his command over the winds could catch the sails of his ship and have it fly like Peter Pan. He could swoop down from the skies out of nowhere and make for amazing visuals of his ship sailing through seas of purple clouds lit by gorgeous sunsets during downtime. Plus, it would make his sword still effective in combat while not on-board his ship, wind powers and all.
its still amazing that there is undead pirates and a literal demon fish man, yet the worst villain in the franchise is the bloody east india trading company
I think I'll use DIE in one of my campaigns with the added lore that it's all that remains of the Dorean Empire, the collapse of which the company knows nothing about nor has any involvement in. Trust me.
love your videos but i had to count how many time you only said jack without captain (its at least 10 btw ( i forgot to count caues the video was to good))
I want "Dead Men Tell No Tales" to be a not POTC movie. It could've been great if it wasn't POTC
How so? It's easily my second favorite in the series.
@@Heritage367 It felt like the POTC aspects of DMTNT were forced into the plot in order to make it part of the franchise. You can have a young adventurer getting tied up with pirates, and the cursed spainards looking for them without Jack Sparrow there. (Also it felt like they mischaracterized Jack, they made him a sloppy drunk instead of a functional one) I loved the zombie sharks too. Like it's just a good movie, and it would be an amazing pirate movie, if it was standalone.
Interesting! I can see that argument - a lot of the more frustrating parts are how the film either fails to measure up to the earlier films, or directly contradicts them while also trying to use their connections for nostalgia points.
@@Heritage367You mean _other_ than directly contradicting information given in earlier films?
Like, for example, Jack buying his magic compass directly from Calypso?
When you jumped to Blackbeard I was so disappointed I wouldn't see you discuss Beckett. He is my favourite to hate (Barbossa just being my favourite, full stop). Colonialism and capitalism being the true evil is always the correct take to have.
The "creators" weren't part of the last two POTC movies except in vague executive producer roles that could mean anything in the production of those films. But I don't believe that they had a hand in the script or in the story with the possible exception of OST. Disney was interested in keeping the franchise going and the creators weren't. So, they left, and Disney got someone else to do the job. The result: the loss of their franchise after two movies that did terrible.
What port can you go to with a boat full of undead?
Hm that’s actually a REALLY good point lol
Depends what the undead want I suppose. They won't need water or normal provisions. Unless...well, ghouls do eat. Maybe they only visit ports with slave markets willing to trade flesh for gold.
Great video! I'm glad you correctly identified the evilest villain in the franchise.
I always thought they were referencing Jack as the one hell itself spat out, considering he escaped from Davy Jones at least once before... you don't have to be evil to escape hell, be clever and juuust annoying enough
Is it just me or does he sound like Blayne Simple?
Another comment for another watch.
I tried to get through this..but couldn't sorry.
That’s ok :)
Lot of good ideas, from some movies of which I only watched the first (possibly also streamed #2, but if so I really wasn't paying attention). Given how reputedly terrible the movies got, it reminds me of how Wolverine's Van Helsing movie - if you ONLY read a one-paragraph description of the plot and relation between the various monsters - actually sounds really cool? Spoilers: it was not.
lol it’s actually funny you mention that, I’ve ALSO made a video about stealing stuff from that movie for our D&D games 😁
ua-cam.com/video/_IRWyfMHt4M/v-deo.htmlsi=qlFj4bExPBIQDCDm
@@SupergeekMike Nice.
Pirates 4 and 5 are like... so close to being super awesome. But they just... aren't. Man. It sucks. I really do like Blackbeard and Salazar, mostly.
Ah yes, kings can famously be impeached, just like presidents after this Supreme Court case still can
Congress couldn’t even manage to impeach the last guy for trying to murder them.
@@SupergeekMike I’m sure they would if a president actually tried to murder them
@@SupergeekMikethey chose not to, it’s not that they didn’t have the power to do it. I understand where you’re coming from but that’s an important distinction to make
We’ll see. Because man oh man, I sure hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
@@SupergeekMike as do I. Keep up the great work (both being a dad and with these videos)!