Writing Lessons From Dead Man's Chest

     When most people are asked the question: "What's your favorite movie?" there's usually a short burst of panic as people scramble to think of a definitive favorite film. After all, not everyone has such strong opinions on film, and even if they do, its pretty hard to single out just one film that stands above your other favorites. Personally, after time and time again of panicking and saying something like "Oh... I like a bunch of movies... I can't pick just one favorite," I decided that the next time I was asked this question, I'd have one, definitive answer so I could talk to people about it.

    However, when I say that my favorite movie of all time is Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, it tends to catch people a little off guard. After all, it's kind of expected to name a famous "film bro" movie, one with high critical acclaim, or perhaps some super-niche small film that only a select few have seen. Mentioning a Disney franchise, and a sequel to one at that, tends to confuse people, or lead them to assume I have bad taste in films. Having said that (and I'm sure there is some truth to those assumptions), I feel like Dead Man's Chest is probably the most well-rounded film in almost every aspect of a film I can think of: it has great writing, great cinematography, great music, great acting, great CGI... I could go on and on. But I don't plan to gush about my favorite movie in this blog post. Instead, I wanted to talk a little about how the writing of Dead Man's Chest led to my interest in screenwriting, and which lessons I took away from watching this film over a dozen times.

    One of the principal things about Dead Man's Chest (from now on I'm going to refer to it as POTC2 to take up less words) is its massive ensemble cast and how the film manages to balance all perspectives and characters with equal respect. This was the Avengers: Infinity War before Avengers: Infinity War. Without delving into a complete plot summary, I think that the film does a good job of establishing each protagonist with their own set of motivations, characterization, flaws, and journey. However, having a bunch of characters with equally demanding screen presence running around and switching perspectives is pretty hard for a general audience to follow, so it weaves every storyline together by making them all have the same objective goal: obtaining the titular chest.

    Jack Sparrow wants the chest because he wants to replace Davy Jones, Will initially wants the chest to save Elizabeth, but this morphs into wanting the chest to free his father. Norrington wants the chest to restore his honor, Elizabeth wants the chest to free herself and Will, Beckett wants the chest to control the seas, and Davy Jones, of course, wants the chest to keep himself from dying. So you see, even though I just named six characters with their own unique goals, they all need the same thing to achieve their goal: the chest. This therefore structures the film a little more soundly: everyone is racing to get their hands on the chest first. By tying together every narrative through each character needing the same object for their own goal, not only do the writers create a scenario where different characters are all brought together into the same situation, but it also creates a much easier to follow narrative for the audience watching the film. Pretty genius, right?

    The masterful writing doesn't end there. It's interesting how every character wants the same item to reach their goal, sure, but that's only really interesting when you're looking at the bigger picture. In the middle of the film, you aren't really processing all of these different storylines and themes and overarching plots at once, you're watching the action directly onscreen in that moment, which is the interesting character interactions and dynamics between each protagonist and villain. But how do the writers of POTC2 make these interactions more interesting to an audience?

    They achieve this through adapting one of the most basic aspects of character interactions in writing: power dynamics. By establishing which character is more powerful than another, or moving characters up and down in the power rankings of other characters in the film, writers are able to establish tension by the very fact that someone like Davy Jones, the most literally powerful  character in the film, is inches away from the face of Will Turner, a character that we know isn't anywhere near the power level of Jones. It injects worry into the audience, making them think: How will Will get out of this one? Will he come out of this interaction alive?

    Power dynamics are effective in creating an interesting interaction between characters, but its still a very basic concept in writing. How did the writers for POTC2 manage to adapt this concept into something more engaging? By introducing the concept of leverage in the film. Leverage mimics the structure of power dynamics, but instead of focusing on the physical power that one character holds over another, it subverts audience expectations of what they think would happen when two characters interact, since now the dynamics aren't based on power, but rather the information or leverage that one character may hold over another. This makes audiences have to actively follow in the politics between characters, keeping track of who has information another character needs, or what one character wants out of the other. Through the concept of leverage, an interaction between Davy Jones and Will, where the audience expects Jones to win over Will since he's more powerful, actually skew in favor of Will, since he holds the knowledge that Davy Jones needs to get the chest (or else he dies). This subversion of power dynamics then makes their interaction much more interesting, since Davy Jones can't hurt Will at all (even though he can physically) since Will has leverage over him.

    What's great about this leverage concept isn't just how interesting it makes certain character dynamics, but instead how this concept is found in almost every single interaction in the film. Elizabeth may have a gun pointed at Beckett, but only Beckett can sign the letters of marque that free Elizabeth and Will of their criminal charges, meaning she has to do what he says in order to secure her and Will's freedom, despite her having the advantage in the physical power dynamic between the two of them. And here we can tie this interaction into the other concept I mentioned earlier about the chest tying every storyline together: Elizabeth's absolute goal is still securing freedom for her and her husband, but now her more immediate goal has shifted to be retrieving the chest for Beckett, since he's the one in control over her freedom. Isn't that so cool?

    I would keep rambling about POTC2 and its masterful writing, but I'm afraid I must sleep for now. I started writing this in a frenzy after my nighttime shower, and it's already midnight (and I have to be up early tomorrow). So I'll leave this film discussion here for now, and I will definitely return to it sometime in the future. Hopefully you can understand why I say it's my favorite movie!