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Favorite pirate movies/TV shows?

JackOfOwls

JackOfOwls

Powder Monkey
What got me into playing New Horizons was a combination of playing the PC game Starpoint Gemini 2 and watching the excellent new television series Black Sails. I discovered the most fun parts of Starpoint Gemini 2 for me was boarding and taking over ships, to either sell, loot, destroy or commandeer for my own. I was intrigued by the fact that the POTC mod emphasized this, but with far greater variety of ships and options. Then I started watching Black Sails and now I'm hooked on pirates. My question is: what were some of your favorite pirate themed movies or TV shows? I recently watched the 1990 version of Treasure Island with Charlton Heston & and a teenage Christian Bale and found it gritty & good (loved Christopher Lee's monstrous Blind Pew, probably his scariest makeup since Curse of Frankenstein), thinking it might be the best version of the tale. Before that, I tried watching the Orson Welles as Long John Silver take from the early 70s and found it dragged.
 
I have made a point of collecting and watching all pirate and historical seafaring films and TV shows that I can find. I'm still missing out on some, but one day....
While I do have that version of Treasure Island; it is on my to-do list to actually watch.

Also trying to get myself to watch the recent TV series of Crossbones. Saw the first two episodes,
but I found the absolutely ridiculous look of the chronometer to be really very annoying.

Black Sails is interesting, but there is too much talking and not enough honest pirating for my liking.
And everyone seems to be betraying everyone so that in the end basically nothing happens. Oops. :facepalm

Haven't yet watched all the recent episodes, but I sincerely hope the Jack Rackham character will end up using his REAL historical flag.
He made a big deal about wanting his flag to look right and since his flag is one of the most famous ones ever,
if they are going to make a point about his flag, they might as well make the RIGHT point.

Blackbeard's flag in PotC 4 was quite embarassing because it looked nothing like his real one.
Of course they had already given his real flag to another semi-random pirate in the third film, which probably explains why they had to come up with something else.
Still stupid though. :facepalm

Anyway, my favourites are:
Old black-and-white version of Peter Blood with Errol Flynn: The other Errol Flynn ones are also fun, though a bit less so as far as I'm concerned
1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty (though the older one and newer "Bounty" are good as well)
Old film of Captain Horatio Hornblower, R.N.: Not pirating, but SOOO good
The Crimson Pirate: A bit of a comedy and not realistic whatsoever, but lots of crazy piratey fun
Hornblower TV Series
Cutthroat Island: I don't care what "everyone" says. It is proper pirating, probably the most "everything a pirate film should have" one ever. Plus the music is far beyond amazing. :cheeky
Pirates of the Caribbean: Entire series, but especially the first film

Curious ones:
Yellowbeard: Monty Python style crazy stuff
Swashbuckler: Made well after the end of general pirate films
Nate & Hayes (Savage Islands): Not so old film with Tommy Lee Jones, with cannibals, Germans and an armored steamship
 
That version of Treasure Island with Charlton Heston, Christian Bale and Christopher Lee is the only movie version I have seen that comes closest to the book. Not to mention the acting was pretty good as well, not bad at all for a made for TV movie! If you haven't read the book though, I highly recommend that you do so, it is a classic for a reason!

Crossbones and Black Sails had potential, but like most things written for TV nowadays, all they try and do is create conflict, they don't even bother to try and tell a story any more. Pieter makes some great recommendations there for some great pirate and nautical films! A couple more that I would add to his list :

The Black Swan - 1942 - Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara
The Buccaneer - 1958 Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner
 
I took a look at Crossbones. Wow, what a great steaming turd of a pirate-themed television series, going by that dreadful pilot episode! Black & white heroes and villains, bad costume (melo)drama and the otherwise interesting John Malkovich's hideously mannered performance as the titular Blackbeard. What a tit! I can safely drop this one from the list of Must-See and put it on the Must-Miss one

I like the characterizations on Black Sails, especially the back stories & flashbacks that give some depth to the central characters especially the bisexual Flint and his perpetual homosexual panic that moves him to acts of excessive machismo :D And if they weren't all stabbing each other in the back all the time they wouldn't be proper pirates, now would they? But yeah, because of this the story arcs move forward at a glacial pace, but this is probably par for the course for ANY television series featuring recurring characters where they have to fill & pad content for whole seasons, sometimes for years at a time.

Another movie I liked that's not exactly pirate themed but reminds me of pirates was Billy Budd (1962) with it's brutal draconian Royal Navy code & precepts of the era. Now Robert Ryan's bad boy woulda made a great pirate. You know it.
 
JackOfOwls said:
And if they weren't all stabbing each other in the back all the time they wouldn't be proper pirates, now would they? But yeah, because of this the story arcs move forward at a glacial pace, but this is probably par for the course for ANY television series featuring recurring characters where they have to fill & pad content for whole seasons, sometimes for years at a time.
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They might actually accomplish something though. How much time have they spent now NOT getting the Spanish gold and NOT getting their official independence and demolishing their own fort instead?
It's not very effective, is it?

I'm not entirely sure of the point and purpose to it all. Is there a "beginning, middle and end" to it?
Or more specifically, is there a goal that will eventually be accomplished so that another goal can be revealed?
While I do sort-of like Black Sails, I have recently been getting quite bored with its apparently lack of pace and progression.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
They might actually accomplish something though. How much time have they spent now NOT getting the Spanish gold and NOT getting their official independence and demolishing their own fort instead?
It's not very effective, is it?

I'm not entirely sure of the point and purpose to it all. Is there a "beginning, middle and end" to it?
Or more specifically, is there a goal that will eventually be accomplished so that another goal can be revealed?
While I do sort-of like Black Sails, I have recently been getting quite bored with its apparently lack of pace and progression.
Click to expand...

But there's a very clear goal and end story to all this. Assuming it's going to be somewhat canon, what eventually happens to Flint & Long John Silver is detailed 20 years later in the events of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic. It all goes back to the problem of a regular tv series with recurring characters where the characters must serve the plot and the demands of filling/padding out 12 episodes a season. Ideally, it should be a mini-series, trimming all the fat, which would keep the meandering & slow plot-lines to a minimum but we're stuck with a series, and a popular one at that. But I think they're finally picking up momentum with John procuring a crew for retrieval of the gold. This is easily the best pirate series I've watched and after seeing the putrid Crossbones seems even more a boon to the genre. Give it time. It'll get better... or not :p
 
The only other pirate series I know are Long John Silver and indeed Crossbones. Haven't yet finished either.

I do hope they'll head towards the end goal of Treasure Island + the Woodes Rogers deal with pardons for the inhabitants of Nassau.
Though I do wish they'd hurry up and get some proper pirating done soon.
Surely if they accomplish one goal soon, they can come up with a new goal to pursue?
Or at least have Jack Rackham and John Silver go off on some proper pirating while Flint keeps going round in circles or something.... :wp
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Black Sails is interesting, but there is too much talking and not enough honest pirating for my liking.
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Indeed. :yes
I would say that the pirate theme/background is not essential in this serie. The most important is the psychology of the characters.
And frankly, I like this serie. I also like Vikings and Game of thrones, but Black Sails is the only one I would be motivated to watch again the episodes.
Of course, I'd like to see Flint attacking/capturing a town at large scale... Well, something more "spectacular".
But, this serie doesn't have the financial resources of a Game of thrones for instance.
 
Bartolomeu o Portugues said:
But, this serie doesn't have the financial resources of a Game of thrones for instance.
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It's the same studio behind it. If Black Sails would be as popular as GoT, certainly they could do something proper amazing.
But it isn't going to get that popular unless it gets more interesting and exciting.
So it's a bit of a circle: Won't get the budget without the audience and probably won't get the audience without the budget. :facepalm
 
I'm only 23 so Pirates of the Caribbean was a major part in igniting my love for pirates.

In 2006 I saw a movie on television about blackbeard by the BBC, it's called 'Blackbeard: Terror at Sea (or The Real Pirate of the Caribbean)' starring James Purefoy as Blackbeard.
I really liked the way Blackbeard was portrayed in the film, even if it's not 100% accurate, it's probably the most accurate film there is about him.

Don't confuse this film with a similarly titled film starring Angus Macfadyen by Hallmark Entertainment, this one's about Blackbeard looking for Captain Kidd's treasure and it's shit.
I was especially disappointed because I got this film on DVD believing it to be the other one, boy was I in for a let down.

Also I have to join Pieter and give a nod to Yellowbeard which is very Monty Python-esque and stars several Python members, and if your into the Muppets they did a version of Treasure Island too.
 
darthjantom said:
I'm only 23 so Pirates of the Caribbean was a major part in igniting my love for pirates.

In 2006 I saw a movie on television about blackbeard by the BBC, it's called 'Blackbeard: Terror at Sea (or The Real Pirate of the Caribbean)' starring James Purefoy as Blackbeard.
I really liked the way Blackbeard was portrayed in the film, even if it's not 100% accurate, it's probably the most accurate film there is about him.
Click to expand...

There's an amusing moment (perhaps the only amusing moment) in the pilot episode of Crossbones where Blackbeard is threatening the doctor-guy if he doesn't do his bidding, telling him all the terrible things he's going to do to him...in one hilariously long, seemingly endless sentence! xD It was suppose to be fearsome but it was as if the line had been written by Terry Jones or Michael Palin themselves for an old, never-used Monty Python or Yellowbeard sketch! :rolleyes: Thanks for the recommendation on a proper Blackbeard movie. Couldn't find it listed for sale anywhere so searched for an old NZB file on Usenet. Now I'm golden. :napoleon:checklist:doff
 
I figured I would join in here. I saw you mentioned "crossbones" never seen it, so I just started to watch the first episode. The series is set in 1715, but the HMS petrel in the very first scene looks like something out of the Spanish grad armanda.... so about 150 years outdated? that really bothers me..

and about Black sails, the scenes are great, but there is too much drama, not enough pirating. it is still one of my favorite series. (GoT will always be number 1)

and one last one, not pirate related, but it contains muskets, swords and a lot of fights. "the musketeers" from BBC
 
JackOfOwls said:
Thanks for the recommendation on a proper Blackbeard movie. Couldn't find it listed for sale anywhere so searched for an old NZB file on Usenet. Now I'm golden.
Click to expand...

It took myself a long time to find the BBC Blackbeard film on DVD, after years of looking and even accidentally buying the shitty Hallmark film I finally found it in a BBC boxset called 'Great Warriors' which also contains films about Napoleon and Genghis Khan. I don't know if it's still available, I found it by accident at a sale at a large department store.

What I really liked about the movie was the portrayal of Blackbeards friendship with Israel Hands.
 
darthjantom said:
What I really liked about the movie was the portrayal of Blackbeards friendship with Israel Hands.
Click to expand...

Watched it last night. Quite good. Decent-acting, believably scripted, some genuine surprises (Frenchie), well-mounted action sequences, and some interesting psychological grotesquerie with the character of Teach, ie the weird games he liked to play with his crew, the mock executions of his officers, the brimstone sauna, the misogynistic humiliation of his wife for their benefit (only after she humiliated him), etc. Some histories painted him as a simple bloodthirsty psychopath but it's nice to see he was a far more complex character than that. The only gripe I had was the cheap made-for-TV look of it, as if it was shot on HD video and transferred to film. But it was all professionally presented with a hard, authentic-seeming documentary feel to it. I urge others here to see it if they haven't already.
 
I thought James Purefoy was a great choice to play Blackbeard, definitely an underrated actor.
I find that many BBC productions around this period have a very cheap looking quality to them, but despite it's look it's still one of my favorite pirate movies.
Then again I can't really name any other realistic pirate movies that actually follow history instead of some fantasy story line the writers came up with.

Talking about the BBC, there is an episode of Doctor Who called The Curse of the Black Spot (Series 6, Episode 3) where they travel back to the 17th century and meet Henry Avery.
Not a very realistic portrayal of Avery or pirates (the whole premise contains many sci-fi elements), it's not even that great of a Doctor Who episode, but it might provide some entertainment if you have 45 minutes to spare.
 
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