YMMV / Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

• Ass Pull: See the franchise's page.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Are the mermaids really vicious predators (since it's implied they can reproduce with humans), or do they despise humans because the former keep kidnapping mermaids, torturing them for their tears then leaving them to die?
  • Is Blackbeard truly a Beyond Redemption monster who doesn't care for anyone but himself, or just a really horrible man who was afraid of death but actually cared about his daughter? Much of the dialogue suggests he actually loves his daughter and thinks she is the only good thing he has done even when she isn't with him (like the scene in Blackbeard's cabin), and some instances suggest he actually wishes for redemption even when he acknowledges he has gone too far in villany. Not to mention it is left somewhat vague whether he knew which of the guns were safe in the Russian Roulette game and was for convincing Jack to go down. Also him wanting Angélica to sacrifice herself for him in the Fountain of Youth; a moment of him being a Manipulative Bastard to save his skin or a Moment of Weakness that he would likely regret for the rest of his life?
• Anti-Climax Boss: Blackbeard is defeated by Barbossa putting an scratch in his hand while he was distracted and then getting stabbed in the impulse. Granted it was with a poisonus sword but is still an anticlimatic way to go for someone claimed to be "the pirate all pirates fear".
• Badass Decay: In contrast to his more meticulous Chessmaster planning from previous movies Barbossa is very out of element during this installment. He's introduced to the movie by being easily outsmarted by both Jack and Gibbs (out of all the possible characters) and it only gets slightly better from there. He manages to manipulate his Navy crew but his poor leadership leads to almost all of them dead which proves to be an disadvantage once he has to face the Spandiards and Blackbeard's crew. To top it all, he has a rather poor showing in his only fight in the movie against Blackbeard and only wins by stab him with a poisonus sword once Blackbeard got distracted by the Spandiards. He thankfully does recover his badassery in Dead Men Tell No Tales
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Angelica is either a quirky new character and a breath of fresh air who is a better Straight Man to Jack that fits better with the tone of the franchise that Will and Elizabeth ever did, or a Replacement Scrappy for the two who just backstabs Jack all the time even when it made no sense. Her romance with Jack is either seen as a funny and interesting Dating Catwoman scenario, or you find the relationship stupid and inconsisting. There's also a bit of a Broken Base around whatever the character should come back in a latter movie or if she's better staying in that island.
  • Many didn't like the way Barbossa was turned into a privateer for most of the movie, feeling like it took away the essence of the character (a pirate who was trying to gain his freedom turned into a Privateer who served the Crown) and feel he suffered from Badass Decay as a result. The fact that he has less screentime than in the first and third movies didn't help. Whereas others (including Geoffrey Rush) feel that this was a new and interesting facet of the character which also made sense with how Barbossa would handle this particular situation, and if anything he returned to his pirate ways at the end of the movie.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene where Jack crashes into Judi Dench and steals her earring. Dench herself having seemingly been cast solely to invoke this kind of moment only makes it feel even more odd.
• Broken Base:
  • The overall Lighter and Softer tone and the fact that the movie is notably a lower stakes adventure in comparison to the Darker and Edgier first two sequels. Many fans appreciated the choice of making the story easier to follow after the previous sequels got hit with Continuity Lockout and think it makes the movie feel closer to the tone of the original, on the other hand other fans found the story not interesting enough and felt it resembled a Filler episode and there's a third faction who see it as a poorly executed Salvaged Story, as there are still many needlessly complicated details and too many subplots.
  • Fans to this day debate whatever having Will and Elizabeth Put on a Bus while Jack Sparrow became the sole protagonist was one of the movie's few right guesses or one of it's biggest flaws. Fans on favour, argue that their story is over and that Jack Sparrow was the most interesting character so the change was justified, other fans think that Jack Sparrow worked better as a supporting mentor and that having him as the sole protagonist turned him into a boring Pinball Protagonist, not to mention the sector of the fanbase who feel Pirates of the Caribbean was really their story and as such, there's not more story to tell once they leave the series.
  • Groves's death. Many fans see it as a Dying Moment of Awesome, while other fans were pissed off that a beloved character was killed over a pointless cause after a movie of not achieving anything.
  • Jack abandoning Angelica at an Island at the end of the movie. Some fans saw it as a Out of Character Kick the Dog moment feeling that Jack would never do something so low to someone he cares so much about without any convinience from his side. Other fans argue that while a low blow, is very justified given as much as the two love each other, Angelica was still gonna try to kill him for killing his father, no matter if it was to save her and argue that Jack probably knew Angelica was gonna make it out of the island and he's just assuring his safety.
• Complete Monster: Captain Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard, prides himself on being one of the most feared men on the high seas. Blackbeard abuses and murders members of his own crew on the basis of "if I don't kill a man every now and then, they forget who I am". He incinerates his ship's cook to demonstrate this and resurrecting some of his own slain crew members as mindlessly obedient zombies. On his quest to the Fountain of Youth to avert his prophesied death at the hands of a one-legged man, Blackbeard puts a mermaid named Syrena through hideous treatment for the purpose of gaining her tear, first showing her the remains of her own fellow mermaids and then ordering Philip Swift, the single man who displays compassion to her, supposedly killed in front of her to further manipulate her. Blackbeard claims to love his daughter, but undersells even this through a risky game of Russian Roulette with his own daughter's life and ultimately trying to sacrifice her life for his own at the Fountain of Youth. Blackbeard admits he feels closest to God in moments of pain and anguish and calmly tortured and murdered anyone who dared to stand against him.
• Contested Sequel: It's either an improvement over Dead Man's Chest and At World's End for featuring a plot that's easier to follow, or a downright Franchise Zombie installment where the writers are struggling to find new ideas. The fact that the movie switched from High Fantasy back to the Low Fantasy style of the first movie did not seem to have an effect on lots of people.
• Critical Backlash: Given this movie is a very popular pick in "Worst Sequels Of All Time" lists, is quite common for newer viewers to finally check it and find it to be mediocre or average at worst. It became a particulary prominent opinion after the polarizing Dead Men Tell No Tales was released and a lot of fans while admiting they still didn't care much about this movie felt it had a lot of elements that make it superior to the fifth movie.
• Critic-Proof: The film received mostly negative reviews from critics, but that didn't stop it from grossing over $1 billion worldwide.
• Die for Our Ship: Angelica being declared as Jack Sparrow's One True Love didn't went well with fans who shipped Jack with....well, anyone else. Is has even become a Fandom-Specific Plot to have Angelica pulling a Face–Heel Turn for Jack killing Blackbeard, just so Jack can get with whoever the author prefer to ship Jack with.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The fandom took a shine to the Spaniard despite (or perhaps because of) his limited screen-time. The Spaniards as a whole are this as they are the only functionally heroic faction in the story, with the mostly noble goal of destroying the Fountain of Youth, which in actuality works by sacrificing a person's potential future lifespan to the recipient that drank the chalice with the mermaid's tear, even if it's by reasons of religious fanaticism.
  • Out of all of new crew members introduced this movie, Scrum was the one who resonated more with the fanbase. He's the only character introduced in this movie to appear in the following sequel.
  • Ezekiel, the Cool Old Guy and Only Sane Man during the mermaids scene. Also a Memetic Badass that survives till the end.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Beyond those who ignore the whole movie, many fans prefer to pretend the death of Gillete, Groves and the Uncertain Doom of the older Black Pearl's crew didn't happen because of those character's Ensemble Dark Horse status and the overall feeling they deserved more dignified deaths.
• Genius Bonus: When Barbossa tells Jack Sparrow the story about how he lost his leg, he paraphrases the poem ''Invictus'' by the Victorian poet William Ernest Henley ("I am the master of my fate ... I am the captain of my ship"). Henley had lost a leg to a tuberculosis infection at age 16. Furthermore, Henley was a major inspiration for the original one-legged pirate, Long John Silver, in his friend Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The film received an extra boost in the Hispanosphere through the magnificent appearance of Óscar Jaenada as The Spaniard, with bonus points for Hispanists and history buffs because, for once and miraculously, the Spanish Empire was being portrayed in a mainstream media work without a single trace of Black Legend, only with a case of Honor Before Reason that actually works in their favor in terms of heroism. A lot of people lamented the character was not brought back for the next film.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Or Hilarious in Hindsight, depending on how you view it. Óscar Jaenada, who played the Spaniard in this film, was fined in 2018 for faking a boat captain's license of all things. Naturally, Spanish fans couldn't resist the temptation to make some jokes about piracy.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • The movie gives the older crew of the Black Pearl an Uncertain Doom but most of the fanbase likes to believe they were no longer part of the crew once Blackbeard attacked. The third movie ended with the whole crew minus Gibbs going with Barbossa but they are also shown regretful of abandoning Jack and only siding with Barbossa for having Sao Feng's map so is not unreasonable to think they will walk away once they discovered Jack tooked the map. Dead Men Tell No Tales gives plausability at this idea by showing at least Marty, Murtogg and Mullroy survived and extra material reveals that 15 years happened between the end of At Worlds End and Blackbeard's attack, giving hope that some of the other crewmates survived, especially Pintel and Ragetti.
  • Many fans like to believe that Gillete and Groves went back to London with nothing but a bunch of cool scars on their chests.
• Inferred Holocaust: From Barbossa's account of the Pearl's capture, the audience can assume that Jack, Barbossa, Gibbs, and Jack the Monkey are the only survivors left of the Pearl's crew. Granted, Jack the Monkey is alive aboard the bottled Pearl, but he's immortal anyway. We also see Cotton's Parrot, which might or might not mean that the rest of the crew is still alive on it. On the other hand, upon close inspection of that scene, one bottled ship is seen firing its cannons (possibly at the glass to escape?). It stands to reason, that if one crew is still alive, another could be as well. The sequel doesn't clarify it, as while it establishes that Marty is alive and part of Jack's new crew, and that Murtogg and Mullroy are also alive as part of Barbossas' pirate fleet, it reveals nothing about the rest.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some fans only see it for either The Mermaids, The Spaniards or the Jack and Barbossa's Rivals Team Up.
• Magnificent Bastard: The Spaniard is the leader of the Spanish Armada seeking the destruction of the Fountain of Youth as they believes God's power to give and take life doesn't belong in man's hands. Refusing to engage enemies on a whim and keeping his mind on his mission, the Spaniard successfully steals the chalices needed for the ritual as a means of delaying those on the quest to get there. Upon arrival at the Fountain, the Spaniard shoots a British Naval officer for nearly declaring the land for the British—while wanting to remember the man for his bravery—and has the chalices taken from Angelica after asking nicely so as to then stomp on them. After the Spaniard succeeds in having the Fountain blown up, killing the rest of Blackbeard's men in the process, he then orders his men to follow him as he gracefully departs.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: The characterization of the Spaniard and his people is not entirely positive, as aside from being antagonists, it turns out they are such a cadre of religious loons that their only intention towards the Fountain of Youth is to destroy it for not being Christian enough, even when the conquest and exploitation of such a powerful artifact would give them and their king an absolute edge over the rest of the world (which is exactly why King George I, the biggest rival to the Spanish Empire at the time, seeks it himself). Even so, and despite the fact that few modern Spaniards would agree with such sentiment, many Spanish viewers and even some Latin Americans loved their portrayal, not only because they were still pictured as stylish badasses that outmatch almost everybody in the film, but also because, for a time, Spaniards were appearing in a Hollywood period movie without being stereotyped as toreros, bailaores or irredeemable butchers. (This was incidentally the reason why Capitán Salazar from the next film would be less well received, as he unfortunately managed to be all the three things mentioned despite being otherwise a more developed character.)
• Moral Event Horizon: Blackbeard crosses this when he has Syrena tied up half in the water for a slow, painful death to extract a tear from her. Phillip, who before stated that everyone had some good in them, admits he was wrong and there is no chance of redemption for Blackbeard.
• Narm: The scene where Philip gives "Syrena" her name is impossible to take seriously in Spanish given "Syrena" literally means "mermaid" in spanish. So it looks like Philip pulling A Dog Named "Dog" situation but Played for Drama.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Richard Griffiths as King George II who spends the entirety of his only appearance devouring the scenery as an Upper-Class Twit.
  • Dame Judi Dench as the noblewoman whose earring Jack steals, then asks Jack "is that all?"
  • Sebastián Armesto as King Ferdinand VI the Just, whose appearance in the prologue is enough to profile him as a Dashing Hispanic without ever needing to grab a sword.
  • Óscar Jaenada as The Spaniard is a downplayed example. He's important to the plot, and has a couple of brief appearances, but his only substantial scene is the climax - where he completely steals the show.
  • The mermaids aside from Syrena, especially Tamara, the one who speaks to the pirates (played by Gemma Ward) and Marina (the second mermaid who reaches the boat and who was in a Missing Trailer Scene with Jack, played by Jorgelina Airadi), are this crossed with Creepy Awesome.
  • From the same scene, Ezekiel (Christopher Fairbank), who acts as the Only Sane Man aboard the ship and gets some of the coolest kills in the entire movie.
• Replacement Scrappy: Philip the clergyman. Many people thought he was an out-of-place character (missionary on a pirate ship) and that his subplot was pointless. Some even see him and Syrena, his mermaid girlfriend, as replacements for Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, the straight man and straight woman to Jack Sparrow's fall guy in the previous films. Angelica is also seen as this for Elizabeth in some circles.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Finnick Odair spent some time imprisoned on Blackbeard’s ship before returning to the Hunger Games arena.
  • Perhaps Peter Pan’s fascination with pirates came from his time as a Cabin Boy on Blackbeard’s ship.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Philip and Syrena. That whole interspecies romance thing doesn't fit at all with the main plot except for the three seconds or so that Blackbeard exploits it.
• Ron the Death Eater: Syrena is mostly a Nice Girl and the Token Good Teammate of the mermaids in canon, but many interprent her as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that didn't truly save Philip at the end of the movie and just did whatever the rest of the mermaids did with the rest of the pirates.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Whitecap Bay battle against the mermaids is often ranked as this film's most memorable moment, due a Creepy Awesome Nightmare Fuel portrayal of the mermaids (sometimes described as "Singing Jaws") and the creepy, yet beautiful rendition of "My Jolly Sailor Bold" that precedes it.
  • The arrival of the Spaniards to the Fountain of Youth is also cited often.
• So Okay, It's Average: Many fans think it doesn't deserve the bad reputation it has, but at the same time it is hard to find fans who think it's overall great, even between those who like it better than the first two sequels.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Technically it's a ship, but the Queen Anne's Revenge counts. Blackbeard's (later Barbossa's) flagship, it has a massive flamethrower and can be magically controlled with the captain's sword. The flamethrower is used twice in On Stranger Tides for relatively mundane purposes and not at all in Dead Men Tell No Tales. Despite being one of the most epic ships in the series, it has yet to be used in a naval battle.
  • The Spaniard. A cool, mysterious individual who, along with his crew, is set up to be a genuine threat to snatch the Fountain of Youth out from under Blackbeard, Jack and Barbossa... and he has no impact whatsoever on the plot, aside from serving as a pretense for Barbossa to go after Blackbeard (which, given the latter's notoriety and reputation for heinous crimes, was probably unnecessary anyway) and later tearing down the temple housing the Fountain in the name of God (which could easily have been rewritten as occurring during a battle between Blackbeard's crew and the British). To make it worse, the film briefly teased an intriguing sword-fight between the Spaniard and Blackbeard, only for that to amount to nothing more than a diversion so that Barbossa can slash Blackbeard with his poisoned blade, which could have easily been written in as occurring after a few minutes of dueling between the Spaniard and Blackbeard (or at the end as the latter was about to win). As it was, the entire Spanish contingent could have been removed from the film with minimal impact on the plot.
  • The mermaids are seen as one of the highlights of this installment, but more that a few fans expressed disappointment they are only in one set piece at the middle of the movie before the focus goes to the love story between Philip and Syrena, given nothing else on the island is as big of a challenge as the mermaids were, so them showing up a couple more of times could have give more tension to the quest.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Sao Feng's map being destroyed when the purpose of its introduction in the previous film seemed to be to create a cool visual plot device that could be employed in future films.
  • The Jack and Barbossa's Rivals Team Up. It could have a very fun way to play with the formula of the franchise plus a perfect chance for Jack to get on top of the situation once again, sadly it only lasts 10 minutes before both characters go back to their respective subplots.

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