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Pirate Film Music

The other day I ran across this piece of swashbuckling music written by @jamieboo:
SwashyThing11
I quite like it and thought some of you guys here might do too! :cheers

This what the composer had to say about it:
Hello folks

Here's a rough work in progress export of something I'm working on at the moment. An old-school swashbuckling adventure type thing.
A pirate adventure - in a non-Zimmer way!
Needs lots of work on dynamics and mix, and some orchestrational tweaking, but let me know what you think.
Also it's over 7 minutes long - sorry!
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I found this out today and I figured that this thread is the most suitable for it.


This bird must have spent too much time with the Jedi Pirates of the Carried Bean galaxy. :rofl (courtesy of @Grey Roger)
Grey Roger said:
Ever seen a skeleton try to drink coffee? Not a pretty sight. xD

One possible workround might be:
Code: 
DoQuestReloadToLocation("Port_Rackham", "reload", "boat", "_");
That avoids any nastiness associated with "time_for_coffee". It does mean you will need to provide your own coffee. For best results, bring raw coffee beans, then grind them when you get there. This means you'll have fresh coffee. It also means...
... you'll be a Pirate of the Carried Bean. :beer:
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Santiano have a whole range of sea-themed songs. For pirate-related:
Lyrics included so you can sing along. Translations included so you know what you're singing. :dance
 
Cerez said:
This is a long thread. I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned the Cutthroat Island score (if you haven't seen the film, I don't know what you're doing ;) ):
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MY VERY FAVOURITE!!! :love

I've literally got three releases of that music on CD.
Usually I don't like double-dipping, let alone triple.
But for THAT one, I'll make an exception!

I've also added new music to the New Horizons mod, including some tracks from PotC but also Cutthroat Island.
And since the original game had little link with the PotC film, I replaced the main menu music with...
The 'main title from Cutthroat Island' instead of 'He's a Pirate'. :rofl

Once upon a time, I really, really loved the music to the first PotC film.
Then I read seemingly most film music fans complain that it's not very good and Cutthroat Island is so much better.
Ran into the CD random. Bought it as an experiment.
Was completely and utterly blown away. :woot
 
And despite the "public opinion"... I actually like the movie too.
Supposedly it's terribly over-the-top (it is) and derivative as well. There might be some truth to that, but I don't see why that should be a negative.
In fact, I've made a point of finding ALL pirate film content I could and compared to the others indeed I can see CI takes a lot of inspiration from what came before.
But I've not seen a single movie that has every single pirate cliche properly fit within a single story.

You get a treasure map, a jungle trek, buried treasure (in a cave, no less!), an evil navy, an evil pirate, a good (female!) pirate,
a storm, a mutiny, a carriage chase, an chaotic bar brawl/sword fight, a sea battle, an epic sword duel and even more.
Virtually all other films take a couple of those elements but only Cutthroat Island covers every single imaginable base.

No wonder that there were no further 'regular' pirate films after. It pretty much said everything there was to be said.
Only way to upstage it is by adding new elements, which brings in why only PotC succeeded by successfully adding a fantasy element (combined with a slight bit of parody).
Shame that the PotC sequels went off the deep end, when the first one actually struck such a tasteful balance between fantasy and comedy while still remaining relatively believable.
 
The Nameless Pirate said:
Yes, Cutthroat Island easily has one of the best soundtracks ever. :cheers
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You forgot to mention that Morgan is a kickass pirate, and that Shaw is one of the most charming and fleshed out rogues you've ever seen! :wp

Seriously, I think this film is so underrated -- on all fronts. It's as least as good as the POTC films -- even plot-wise! (And, yes, it has a rather simple but still entertaining plot.) It's the journey that counts, not the destination -- right? ;)
 
Pieter Boelen said:
No wonder that there were no further 'regular' pirate films after. It pretty much said everything there was to be said.
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This, a hundred times!!! YES! I'm absolutely with you on this one. As far as pirate action-adventure goes, Cutthroat Island is right up there with the best. It's not Treasure Island, but as an action-adventure it does stand on its own without shame. I think the reason people dislike it is that it mixes a little bit of realism (real life depth) into the adventure rather than going the all-fantasy route. But adventure stories were like that in the old days -- for a long-long time. It is only in the recent decade or so that movies began to turn into fairy tales with the increasing use of computer imagery to create new fantastic creatures and worlds.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with fairy tales, and mixing high fantasy into stories, but they are not your classic pirate adventure -- which has more to do with people, their actions and their beliefs, and less with fantastic creatures from who-knows-where.

(And CI really does excel with its characters.)
 
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And if we're talking about good pirate adventure films, and we're not afraid to go old-school -- how can we not mention The Sea Hawk (1940) with Errol Flynn?

 
Cerez said:
You forgot to mention that Morgan is a kickass pirate
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Well... I did say "good". And yes... she IS kickass.

Cerez said:
Shaw is one of the most charming and fleshed out rogues you've ever seen! :wp
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You really think so? To be fair, I do like his character.
Never thought of him as particularly fleshed out, but he's not exactly shallow either and has some nice character development.

Cerez said:
Seriously, I think this film is so underrated -- on all fronts. It's as least as good as the POTC films -- even plot-wise! (And, yes, it has a rather simple but still entertaining plot.) It's the journey that counts, not the destination -- right? ;)
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:onya :onya :onya

Cerez said:
This, a hundred times!!! YES! I'm absolutely with you on this one. As far as pirate action-adventure goes, Cutthroat Island is right up there with the best. It's not Treasure Island, but as an action-adventure it does stand on its own without shame. I think the reason people dislike it is that it mixes a little bit of realism (real life depth) into the adventure rather than going the all-fantasy route. But adventure stories were like that in the old days -- for a long-long time. It is only in the recent decade or so that movies began to turn into fairy tales with the increasing use of computer imagery to create new fantastic creatures and worlds.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with fairy tales, and mixing high fantasy into stories, but they are not your classic pirate adventure -- which has more to do with people, their actions and their beliefs, and less with fantastic creatures from who-knows-where.

(And CI really does excel with its characters.)
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Well said!

For me, actually Treasure Island is a bit too kiddie and low on action for me to enjoy as much as I like Cutthroat Island.

As far as I understand it, the main reason why Cutthroat Island flopped is similar to why, for example, Waterworld did.
Perfectly decent, fun movies with exciting action and some level of intelligence hiding below a superficial surface. What's not to like?
But they cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money to make. And went wildly over budget.
So by the time they were released, there was already so much bad press that they didn't stand a chance anymore.

Cerez said:
And if we're talking about good pirate adventure films, and we're not afraid to go old-school -- how can we not mention The Sea Hawk (1940) with Errol Flynn?
Click to expand...
I have zero fear of old-school movies. Many of them I like better than the current Modern Movie Syndrome ones.
The Sea Hawk never connected properly with me though. For some reason, I kind-of prefer Captain Blood. :duel:
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Never thought of him as particularly fleshed out, but he's not exactly shallow either and has some nice character development.
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This is one of the strong points of CI, actually. Most of the characters are quite well fleshed out despite the movie being very high action and very little screen time given to character moments. If you pay close attention, the way they've tied the story together, we get glimpses into the characters and their motivations through the action -- through their body language and actions, as well as the brief word-exchanges. I can't think of a single semi-important character in CI who has no real motivation to be there, or who is just there for the sake of the plot. Every character has reason to be there and part of the story -- a real motivation and purpose.

The more I've watched the film the more I've realised this. It's actually expertly crafted when it comes to its characters. They are stereotyped to a certain degree -- as such a high-action film requires -- but fleshed out enough that we get a thorough glimpse into their inner world. The POTC films could actually learn a thing or two from CI. Most of the characters even in the first POTC film are bland in comparison -- with the only exception being Jack Sparrow and his boatswain.
 
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Cerez said:
This is one of the strong points of CI, actually. Most of the characters are quite well fleshed out despite the movie being very high action and very little screen time given to character moments. If you pay close attention, the way they've tied the story together, we get glimpses into the characters and their motivations through the action -- through their body language and actions, as well as the brief word-exchanges. I can't think of a single semi-important character in CI who has no real motivation to be there, who is just there for the sake of the plot. Every character has reason to be there and part of the story -- a real motivation and purpose.
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You're making me want to watch that movie again!! :woot

But indeed, I never felt like the story didn't make sense. Plus, bad guy Dawg is just SO BLOODY ENTERTAINING!
He's evil, he knows it and he loves it. Whether that's a realistic sort of character? Don't know about that.
It's hilarious to watch though and the actor is making the very best of the situation. :cheeky

Cerez said:
The POTC films could actually learn a thing or two from CI. Most of the characters even in the first POTC film are bland in comparison -- with the only exception being Jack Sparrow and his boatswain.
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In the first film at least, I did understand all the characters and it still made complete sense to me.
Second and third, though? Not so much.
By the time of #3, it had become genuine Chronic Backstabbing Disorder; apparently just for the sake of chronic backstabbing. :facepalm

Jack and Mr. Gibbs are indeed some of my favourite characters throughout the series.
But don't forget Captain Barbossa. Brilliant bad guy too and he could actually give Cutthroat Island's Dawg a run for his money.
The two of them are basically "brains versus brawn".

Commodore James Norrington was a really cool character too.
Will and Elizabeth though? Reasonable, but a bit dull.
And then in the final sequels, they really lost the concept of good characterisation.

Such a shame. That series had the potential to be SO much better than what we ended up getting in the end.
We had actually started writing a prequel script here ourselves with some (I believe) pretty darn brilliant ideas.
I would've watched the crap out of that movie. Or... movies/TV series, because honestly... we had more ideas than could fit into a single one.
It all made sense, was semi-historically-accurate, had character motivations and all sorts of exciting action and adventure.

Oh well... :shrug

If you're interested, see here for three incomplete drafts:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Hoist the Colours v1
Pirates of the Caribbean: Hoist the Colours v2
Pirates of the Caribbean: Hoist the Colours v2
 
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