Pirates: Buccaneers or Gentlemen of Fortune?

As I said in my Peter Pan review, Hook is a great pirate. But not to be outdone by Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow is also a great pirate.

Perhaps the two aren't well compared, though. They're two very different kinds of pirates. Captain Jack is a scalliwag, a rapscallion, a low-life who gets along by pure wit and canniness, a rogue and a rum hound. Hook, on the other hand, is a gentlemanly fop. He plays the harpsichord, he enjoys poetry, he is obsessed with the ideal form, he has a cultivated appreciation for the finer things. With the soliary exception of Smee, he isolates himself from the uncouth brutes that crew the Jolly Roger. He waxes melancholy, philosophical, weary of life. A poor misunderstood soul. Not Jack. His first appearance on the screen shows him riding into port on the mast of a rickety old dinghy so dilapidated that it doesn't even make it to shore without sinking. But he sails it triumphantly, as though it were the finest vessel on water. He revels in infamy. Jack may be the worst pirate you have ever heard of, but you have heard of him.

Who is the better pirate? I can't say. But the third Pirates movie is coming May 25th.



But speaking of Pirates and Hook, does it seem at the end of the first Pirates movie that Will Turner is trying to bring back the Hook-style pirate dress? He doesn't have the bright colors, but he's got the ridiculously big feather, the longish hair, and the wispy mustache.

Of course, everyone's first thought is that he's the fourth musketeer, D'artagnan's tag-along little brother, Pierre. But then again maybe Disney is tipping its hat to its first great pirate. Although, Hook's mustache has a bit more Dali in it than does Turner's.