| For other uses, see Dragon (disambiguation) |
The Dragon Spirit of Formosa.
- "All those loyal to Sao Feng are required to wear the tattoo of the dragon. The dragon's considered to be benevolent and good luck."
- ―Unknown
A dragon was a reptile-like legendary creature that appeared in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and four-legged, as well as capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures were usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons' traits are often a hybridization of feline, avian, and reptilian features.
History[]
Jack Sparrow, Shan, and Jing next to a mural of a black dragon in Cheng's Castle.
When the Timekeeper restored different parts of history of Isla Esquelética, it brought back to life many prehistoric animals, including pterodactyls and sabertooth tigers. When one pterodacty saved young Jack Sparrow and Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III, Jack named him Drag, as in Dragon.[1]
In Asia, the dragon was a sign of power, imperial might, and strength in war. Captain Sao Feng bore this tattoo as did his loyal followers.[2][3] The dragon was considered to be benevolent and good luck. Even the name of one of his junk ships, the Hai Peng, meant "flying dragon".[4] With most junks, like Sao Feng's flagship, the Empress, the stern section was customized with canvas structures that resemble dragon wings.[5] Sao Feng's navigational charts had strange symbols, as images appeared in the mystical meanderings of this map's contours; sometimes a dragon, a harbinger of great fortune in war, emerged.[6]
One of the many legends of Captain Jack Sparrow's was that he and Will Turner fought Madame Tang in Formosa, where Tang stole the Dragon's Eye and fled to her temple, hoping to awaken an evil Dragon Spirit.[7] By the time Jack Sparrow visited Cheng's Castle, a mural of a black dragon was painted on the wall.[8] One of the pirate ships in Hector Barbossa's fleet, the Red Dragon, had the figurehead of a dragon holding a shield.[9]
Behind the scenes[]
Overview[]
A dragon engulfs a squid.
Dragons first appeared, and identified by name, through the Dragon Spirit in the 2006 video game Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow.[7] Previously, during the climactic battle of the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Hector Barbossa tells Jack Sparrow "You're off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters!" which derives from the inscriptions on old maps.[10][11] This was a reference to the real-world phrase "Here be dragons" which medieval cartographers put on the maps along the illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures to indicate potential dangers in uncharted areas.[12]
Various media relating to the 2007 film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End featured dragons. According to the reference book Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, Captain Sao Feng and his loyal followers bared dragon tattoos;[3] the stern sections of most junk ships was customized with canvas structures that resemble dragon wings;[5] and Sao Feng's Map had strange symbols, including a dragon, a harbinger of great fortune in war.[6] In the "Inside the Brethren Court" bonus feature, it was said the dragon was considered to be benevolent and good luck, and the name of the Hai Peng meant "flying dragon".[4] One of the illustrations in the 2011 Croatian version of the junior novelization shows a dragon engulfing a squid.[13]
"Rise of the Dragon" was the name of an item winning event in the 2014 video game Pirates of the Caribbean: Isles of War.[14]
Unused concepts[]
Hector Barbossa's line to Jack Sparrow in The Curse of the Black Pearl would be called back in Terry Rossio's 2012 screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. According to Rossio's screenplay annotations, Barbossa delivered the line quickly and loudly in the midst of battle and it was somewhat lost, giving an opportunity here to say it slowly and with relish, just before he becomes a skeleton and sinks into the sea.[10][11]
In Chris Schweizer's planned ending of the Joe Books Pirates of the Caribbean comics series, Commodore James Norrington used the legendary Weather Gauge off Tripoli to summon the four winds, connecting the plot to the story of the sinking of the HMS Dauntless during the pursuit of the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.[15] In Schweizer's early design, each wind played off art traditions from somewhere in that wind's domain; but Disney had him change them to wind dragons.[16]
Appearances[]
- Jack Sparrow: Dance of the Hours (Mentioned only)
- The Dragon Tile! (mural)
- The Shanghai Tigers (carving)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow (First appearance)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (tattoos and maps)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (figurehead)
Sources[]
External links[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Jack Sparrow: Dance of the Hours, p. 57
- ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 76-77 "Sao Feng"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End "Inside the Brethren Court" featurette
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 82-83 "The Empress"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 86-87 "Sao Feng's Map"
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow
- ↑ The Dragon Tile!
- ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Wordplayer.com: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES by Terry Rossio
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Men Tell No Tales - Annotations - Terry Rossio - 8/14/12 - Page 24
- ↑ Here be dragons - Wikipedia
- ↑ Pirati s Kariba: Na kraju svijeta, p. 5
- ↑ Ahoy Matey! Only 1 day left to win The Viper, the Bambuna, and the Guardian Lion in the Rise of the Dragon event!
- ↑ "One of the things I thought would be really fun to do with this series would be to use the POTC framework to do genre stories. So the second issue was a wandering gunslinger/samurai playing two gangs off each other story, the fourth issue was a Heart of Darkness riff, the fifth would’ve been a spy story, the seventh a heist caper, and the eighth a Kaiju story, with the four winds that Norrington calls up (using the weather gauge they're hunting for in the first few issues) in Tripoli serving as these giant, unstoppable beasts of destruction."
- ↑ my very early-stage original idea roughs for the winds, each playing off art traditions from somewhere in that wind's domain; Disney had us change them to wind dragons
