pirates
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"Oh, yes. Chapeau, mate. Except for this sojourn in the brig, it's utter clockwork."
―One of Jack Sparrow's hallucinations[src]

A clock, chronometer, or timepiece was a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the year. Some predecessors to the device may be considered as "clocks" that were based on movement in nature: A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, a well-known example being the hourglass.

History

A hanging wall clock in the main hall of Governor Weatherby Swann's mansion.

A hanging wall clock in the main hall of Governor Weatherby Swann's mansion.

"Do you remember that night we went to The Drunken Lady? And your grandfather was waiting for us to return—his pocket watch in one hand, and the other on the hilt of his sword?"
―Jack Sparrow to Esmeralda[src]

During young Jack Sparrow's teenage adventures, Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III owned a magical watch known as the Timekeeper, which served not only tell time as a clock, but had the ability to affect time itself.[1] Don Rafael, the Spanish pirate captain of the Venganza and Pirate Lord of the Caribbean, owned a pocket watch. His granddaughter Esmeralda kept a clock in the captain's cabin of the Venganza during her captaincy of the ship.[3] There was a big clock on Saint Stephen's Tower in London.[4] After the death of the Zerzuran high priest Piye at the hands of Ian Mercer, his superior Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company implied Mercer was too rough with his interrogation technique, but Mercer claimed the old man just closed his eyes and stopped like a clock.[5] During the quest for the Shadow Gold, when Jack Sparrow and the French Pirate Lord Capitaine Chevalle joined forces to free their crews from the prison in Marseille, at the end of the battle some of the petty criminals stayed behind in the courtyard, nabbing watches and coins from the pockets of the unconscious men lying on the cobblestones.[6]

In the 1720s, during Weatherby Swann's tenure as the King's governor of Port Royal, there was a large hanging wall clock in the main hall of the governor's mansion. On the day of Commodore James Norrington's promotion ceremony, around 9:45 a.m. in the morning, blacksmith Will Turner arrived to the mansion with the ceremonial sword that Governor Swann ordered for Norrington.[7] About one year later, following the arrival of Lord Cutler Beckett and the East India Trading Company, a clock was used in construction outside Beckett's office and the headquarters of the East India Trading Company.[8] Beckett also owned a clock which he kept in his cabin on the HMS Endevaour.[9]

Carina Smyth's chronometer watch.

Carina Smyth's chronometer watch.

By 1750, a big clock stood on one of the buildings facing the courtyard of St. James's Palace, the grand and elegant residence of King George II in London. One day, at 10:45 a.m. in the morning, Captain Jack Sparrow saved his first mate Joshamee Gibbs found themselves at St. James's Palace courtyard, surrounded by a detachment of the King's Royal Guards.[10][11] About one year later, in 1751, Gibbs owned a pocket watch which he looked at when he and the rest of the crew of the Dying Gull prepared a bank robbery in Saint Martin. The same day, Carina Smyth obtained a chronometer watch from the Swift and Sons Chart House which she later used during the search for the Trident of Poseidon to decipher the Map No Man Can Read and calculate the route to Black rock island. According to Scrum, comparing Carina's study of time as a horologist, his mother always looked at her watch when conducting her business as a "horologist," something that fellow crewman Marty vouched for.[2]

Behind the scenes

"The inner workings of the map underneath are really beautiful, like a grandfather clock. Several hundred phrases needed to be translated into Chinese calligraphy, so propmaster Kris Peck brought in expert J.C. Brown. The original painting was done on washi—handmade Japanese rice paper—treated with layer upon layer of transparent washes of watercolors, some acrylic, and artist inks. There's a real history to it. Over the centuries, pirates have added their own secrets and scribbled notes to each other. There's unlimited mysteries held within. [...] There are some secrets on the map that are beyond even my understanding!"
―James Ward Byrkit[src]
The Torre del Cielo clock tower at .

The Torre del Cielo clock tower at Walt Disney World.

A clock tower appears outside the Pirates of the Caribbean at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World.[12]

James Ward Byrkit, the conceptual consultant of the Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, said the inner workings of Sao Feng's map underneath were beautiful, like a grandfather clock.[13]

In Peter Pan, after the title character cuts off Captain Hook's hand, he went so far as to feed it to a crocodile. The crocodile loved the taste of it so much that he pursued Hook ever since, hoping to get to eat the rest of him. Because the crocodile also swallowed a clock, it can always be heard approaching because of the constant "tick-tock" noise coming from its stomach.[citation needed]

The chronometer watch used by Carina Smyth in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is John Harrison's marine chronometer which wasn't designed until 1759, eight years after the events of the film, making its appearance in the film anachronistic.[citation needed]

Appearances

Sources

External links

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jack Sparrow: The Timekeeper
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  3. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Fourteen: Hard Bargains
  4. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Ten: Revelations
  5. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Seven: Lost and Found
  6. ↑ Legends of the Brethren Court: Day of the Shadow, Chapter Eleven
  7. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  8. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  9. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  10. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
  11. ↑ Taken from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides promotional images and film screenshots, specifically the promotional image and film-screenshot of the Royal Guards capturing Jack Sparrow and Joshamee Gibbs.
  12. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies
  13. ↑ Bring Me That Horizon: The Making of Pirates of the Caribbean