This sort?

I don't know why everyone's giving the OP such a hard time. it's easy to see that there was some influence from POTC. POTC is such a big movie it would be hard to do any pirate based episode without certain comparisons. Everyone needs to lighten up a little, I'm sure this episode was meant for that. Good grief Charlie Brown.

Because he's a troll?


POTC maybe a 'big' film but it is almost entirely derivative.

Thus it's extremely stupid to pick on it rather than the numerous examples of the genre that preceded it, at least one of which had a much stronger influence (black spot, Treasure Island).


If OP hadn't got so heavy in his absurd assertions there would have been no thread in the first place.

This thread should have ended here.

What a pity that your answer to the OP's assertion is that he's a troll. So infantile.
As, I've said before POTC and most of our ideas of Pirates has been predominately based on Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson), the book and the film with Robert Newton who started all that pirate jargon (Arrrgh, matey) stuff.
My kids thought it was based on POTC, but sadly only watched half of this episode (boredom!) and went back to watching POTC.

Hello

Doctor Who: The curse of the Black Spot

Pirates of the Caribbean: The curse of the Black Pearl

So, you don't mind Black Spot pushing you towards Treasure Island- but have a blind spot to the obvious homage-aspect of the title?

Not to mention the similar themes- fathers finding salvation in the love for their sons- but at a cost- as they both become interred in a malevolent ship?

The similar ways in which both crews were undead- the coma mirroring aspects of being both dead and alive.

But again- you haven't seen the Pirates of the Caribbean.

You're arguing because you don't like the comparison and refuse to believe it exists.

Having not watched the film.

That's pure fanboyism.

Hello

I guess until time-travelling is feasible- it's open to interpretation but:

If you move out of time and then back- but enter at a different juncture.

You're still time travelling.

Strangely enough, I like this thread (but I liked the baked beans thread).

I personally don't mind that the OP asserts that there are similarities to the Curse of the Black Pearl (even the Radio Times made the link). There are things that are similar (however, I can see that both have their origins in earlier stories i.e. Stevenson's Treasure Island).

I don't mind writers borrowing things and paying hommage. It's quite fun. I think the "Curse of the black spot" was definitely an affectionate hommage, whereas other aspects were intentionally similiar to Pirates of the Caribean. Either way, I don't care.

At the risk of repeating what most of the other posters on this thread have said already, I believe it is plainly obvious that this episode was a kind of homage to pirates and pirate mythology as a whole, and not to a franchise of films which obviously goes down the pirate mythology route itself seeing as that is what it is based around.

The only 'inklings' that say POTC to me are the title is particularly similar to the first POTC film - but, as has been said, this is a reference to The Black Spot from Stevenson - and, as someone else said, some of the scenes with the way they came across, ie the scene with Amy swinging across the ship. This, though, is a product of how - to quote MS - "filmic" Doctor Who has become this series.

In conclusion, the comparisons that Milton seems to try and use to aid his assertion seem, to me (and apparently a lot of posters on this thread) to be a tad on the weak side and, as some have pointed out, if they are to accused of lifting from anyone or anything, it would be likes of Stevenson who would have most reason to be angered (obv not going to be because he's dead but you see what I'm getting at).

He is a troll as you can quite clearly see if you look at his posts, particularly the later ones, in any detail.

And you are quite right, a somewhat infantile troll at that.

'Yo ho, ho! Or don't you actually say that?'

Exactly! The whole thing was a deliberate and amusing homage to pirate stories and films, as Moffat himself said in Confidential and it looks like some people on this thread have lost their sense of humour. Moffat said that they had to have a stowaway boy, they had to have someone walking the plank, they had to have a sword fight, etc, and my guess is that the title was a joke too - a typical piratey title and a play on words,

Shame they didn't have a parrot though.

Hello

What Treasure Island story covered the theme of:

Man sacrifices freedom and becomes interred on a cursed ship because of love?

A literary device encapsulated in both:

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

And

Doctor Who: The curse of the Black Spot

The similarities between titles encourage comparison- invites the audience to spot the cross pollination.

Another twinset of ideas is the undead element- bound to a ship for all eternity, neither dead or alive.

That was the denouement to both

Doctor Who: The curse of the Black Spot

And

Pirates of the Caribbean: The curse of the Black Pearl

The Keira aping of Amy Pond- the cursed aspects of treasure being a catalyst for man regaining heart/love- is placed squarely within the Depp franchise.

Yes, the theme of salvation has provenance else where- but the particular treatment was more 'in the style of' than one more generic.

Actually I felt that this episode had a bit of a Star Trek vide going on.

In the first few mins I felt that it was a bit like one of those episodes where Kirk and crew visit a planet that is like earth in the past or come across a camp Pirate alien pimping women to the crew.

Then once on board the hidden alien ship I thought that the grills with glowing lights behind were very Star Trek - The Original Series, as were the uniforms of the dead crew, and control panel.

Once the Emergency Medical Holographic revealed, I wondered if this episode was some deliberate homage to Star Trek.

Am I the only one that though this?

troll or no troll milton sir you in this thread have made me smile and what ever anyone sayd you have stuck to your guns!!!

It certainly crossed my mind, as did the 'Treasure Island' connection with the black spot.

The problem is that throughout the course of human literature, films and television, there have been so many story lines and plot devices that it's impossible to see any production of any length and not see parallels with a multitude of instances of prior art - in many cases the author of the new work will not even be aware of many of them.

When it becomes silly, as in this case, is when there is a very rich seam of related stories, tropes and memes going back well over a hundred years and someone tries to assert that a new instance is a rip-off of something that is, itself, very recent.

It's something children often do if they become very familiar with a contemporary production. They cannot quite get their heads around the fact that an earlier instance of a similar story is not copying what they see as the original - because in their time-line the newer version is the original.

It was a good fun - if slightly indulgent episode.
I enjoyed it looking forward to the Dr's Wife

Apart from the fact that Captian Avery's not stuck on the ship, which is not cursed.


Apart from the fact that there was no mention of eternity, and all the crew are alive.

I will grant you the devastating fact that 'the titles are similar'.
Last edited by Lazlo Wolf : 10-05-2011 at 14:10

Indeed. At the end, I was expecting the story to allude to the Flying Dutchmen, because the crew (or the kid anyway) can't leave the ship. But the homage would have been to "The Flying Dutchman" just as the use of a "Blackspot" is a homage to "Treasure Island" not anything more recent that may or may not have involved Johnny Depp

Just a thought but isn't it possible that almost all pirate-related books/films/TV have certain elements in common - boats with sails, scruffy blokes who say "Arg!!!" a lot, becalmed and scared, in a storm and scared, a captain who calls everyone "Scurvy dogs!", treasure, superstitions regarding females (actual or imaginary), mutineering crew - who then change their mind when the captain is proved right, sickness amongst the crew etc etc?

Isn't it just possible that the only "connection" between this episode and PotC is that Moffat knew over a year ago (as most people did) that there was a new PotC film due out in May 2011 and knew that it would be good for ratings to ride the wave of "piratemania" that would accompany such a popular film?

In other words, the pirate film is a genre and all stories within that genre have commonality. Take those away and there is really no comparison between PotC and this story. If anything, this just follows the old Dr Who standby of taking a simple story - mysterious disappearences, ambigous "baddy", misunderstood motives etc - and putting it into an interesting location. The same story would have worked in a spaceship or a nursery - the pirate ship location is purely to add visual interest and create some level of variety whilst fulfilling at least some of the original remit for Dr Who - mixing entertainment and history - what the Yanks call edutainment.

Me too! I was half expecting Bones to walk into the hospital ward,

The shot of the Captain flying the spaceship at the end was also very like Star Trek - Space, the final frontier ... to boldly go etc.

What I'm wondering though is where exactly are they going to go in that spaceship and why? All will be revealed later I guess.
Last edited by thematical : 10-05-2011 at 16:16

Hello

Smiling is the logical reaction because this sophistry is producing a deficit of attention- 'cos anyone with a 'Free Frames at Spec-savers' voucher,

can see that the central argument is not whether Doctor Who is derivative- but to what extant.

And is deriving creative impetus from one source- less wrong then taking from several?

The Who was never conceived immaculately- he was pulled from H G Wells- so, attaching moral value to any writer with a swag bag is preposterous.

However, there are noticeable flights of infancy around here- from the 'keep Doctor Who in its original packaging' types-

who refuse to look at Disney and spy thematic similarities

but then apply time-delayed restrictions of plagiarism: concepts borrowed in the last five years incur penalty- but not decades ago.

Time confers venerability- but recent time suggests criminality?

All these streams of thought abound from ideas of laziness- or the corruption of creative vitality.

The Who became a patchwork of other works.

Perhaps- to enrich the legacy of the Who- the future, past- the modern, should be re-imagined, entirely,

Not just in bit-part strokes.

Dr. Who is obviously a rip-off of a movie called Back to the Future .

LOL.

Subtle.

For which reason Curse of the Black Pearl is in turn a shameless ripoff of Log of the Black Pearl.