Review Detail

Before watching TM2YC's The Song of the Brethren Court I reluctantly watched the previous fan edit, The Heart of Davy Jones (reluctantly because I really liked Dead Man's Chest) and even though the problems I had with Dead Man's Chest was fixed, more problems came as well and ultimately I had the same feeling with The Heart of Davy Jones, just different in a few details.

I later edited my review a few times until I had a final verdict (just a few minor details) and then I stated if The Song of the Brethren Court wasn't as good as I hoped (because At World's End was terribly disappointing), Dead Man's Chest would remain in my shelf and I would edit my own version of At World's End (probably with the name Pirates of the Caribbean: Gathering of the Seven Seas (of course I would ask Radzinsky for permission to use that title if I would do the edit)). However if it was as good, The Heart of Davy Jones and The Song of the Brethren Court would replace Dead Man's Chest and At World's End on my shelf. And you know what? It was!

First, the technical aspects. In my review of THODJ I said the color correction highlighted the green seas and skies. In TSOTBC however the color correction was PERFECT. The color was just like DMC's/THODJ's vibrant colors, and there was no odd color. The editing was done perfectly as well, if there was any abrupt cut it was either unescapable or I didn't notice it.

Now the narrative. I will start with the negative: I get why the original AWE opening was cut, but it doesn't work very well (especially considering the title) because that song is the song that summons the Brethren Court. The song is about the court binding Calypso to her physical body (i.e. The king and his men stole the queen from her bed, and bound her into her bones...), and after the first court they decided that the song should be the trigger of the pieces of eight. After the song is sung in the pirates' lowest situation (The E.I.T.C. taking over the seas and dominating pirates) the pieces of eight start to ring to signify that the song has been sung and the Brethren Court is summoned for help. That scene also is a great scene, especially with Becket being aware of the Court and saying "Finally" to foreshadow his eventual plan. Removing that made things more confusing. What is the song? Is this really a song? When was the court called, and how? The only escape from the flaw is to assume the song was sung offscreen (or whatever they do to ring the pieces of eight, assuming a song was the nickname or something, I dunno) and the point is that the Brethren Court is called (even though the pieces of eight are just like alarm clocks and the pieces of eight that are actually used are pieces of junk, but that's an unescapable flaw made by the filmmakers, not TM2YC). Also, how did Beckett know about the song being sung in order to send Mercer to Singapore? Which leads me to the next problem:

The other problem I have is the redundancy of E.I.T.C. in the beginning. Mercer (Beckett's henchman), some soldiers and his spies have learned about pieces of eight and tells Beckett about the Court. Okay, then why are there still E.I.T.C. soldiers roaming around in Singapore? It still works, it's just too weird.

However, those 2 problems I have are overshadowed by the numerous removals, movings, recuts and trims, making a worthy successor to Dead Man's Chest/The Heart of Davy Jones. Gone is the love triangle continued from DMC! Gone is the terrible humour! Gone is the annoying CG-Jacks and Mini Jacks! Gone are lots of unnecessary boring scenes!

My only other problem with this movie (not this edit because TM2YC done everything he could to improve this movie (and he succeded)) is that it's still a disappointing entry to the franchise. And no, I'm not saying this is still a bad movie, or that it's a disappointing fanedit. I mean that DMC promised an action packed, no exposition war, but in the real version we had politics, unnecessary exposition (along with important ones too of course, but mostly unnecessary) and middle fingers to the audience. What I wanted with AWE was Return of the Jedi to the Pirates movies. But instead we got a dead Kraken.

If this was released in theatres I would give it a 6/10. But as this is a fanedit and not much could possibly be changed for bad movies, I give the fanedit a 9/10. Definitely recommended!