Captain Jack Sparrow
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Captain Jack Sparrow is a fictitious character, played by Johnny Depp, created by screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and portrayed by Johnny Depp. He is introduced in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). He appears in the sequels Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and At World’s End (2007), and will appear in a future film, On Stranger Tides (2011). Jack Sparrow was conceived by Elliott and Rossio initially as a supporting character, but Jack serves as a main protagonist in the films. He was brought to life by the actor Johnny Depp, who based his characterization on the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.
The series Pirates of the Caribbean was inspired by a Disney theme park ride, and in 2006, when the ride was revamped, the character of Jack Sparrow was introduced to it. Jack Sparrow is also the subject of a children’s book series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow, which chronicles his teenage years and the character has also appeared in numerous video games.
In the context of the films, Sparrow is one of the Brethren Court, the Pirate Lords of the Seven Seas. He can be treacherous, but survives mostly by using wit and negotiation rather than weapons or force, preferring to flee most dangerous situations and fight only when necessary. Sparrow is introduced seeking to regain his ship, the Black Pearl, from his mutinous first mate, Hector Barbossa, and attempts to escape his blood debt to the legendary Davy Jones while battling the East India Trading Co.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Jack Sparrow first appears in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), where he arrives in Port Royal looking to commandeer a ship. Despite rescuing Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), the daughter of Governor Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce) from drowning, he is jailed for piracy. That night, a ghost ship called the Black Pearl attacks Port Royal, capturing Elizabeth in the process. Its Captain, Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), is trying desperately to break an ancient Aztec curse that he and the crew are under. Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), a blacksmith who loves Elizabeth, frees Sparrow to aid him in rescuing her. They steal the HMS Interceptor and acquire a crew in Tortuga before heading to Isla de Muerta, where Elizabeth is being held captive. They are quickly captured, and Barbossa maroons Sparrow and Elizabeth on a deserted island.
The pair are rescued by the British Royal Navy. In order to escape hanging, Sparrow cuts a deal to deliver them the Black Pearl. During the film’s final battle at Isla de Muerta, Sparrow steals a cursed coin, making himself immortal so he can fight Barbossa. He shoots his rival with the same bullet he has carried for ten years just as Will breaks the curse, killing Barbossa. Sparrow is captured and later sentenced to death. At his scheduled execution in Port Royal, Will comes to his rescue, but they are quickly caught. Governor Swann and Commodore Norrington are reluctant to resume the hanging, however. Right at that moment Elizabeth shows her love for Will, and he is pardoned, while Sparrow escapes by falling off the sea wall. He is rescued by the Black Pearl crew, and made captain once more. Apparently impressed by the clever pirate, Commodore James Norrington (Jack Davenport) allows him one day’s head start before giving chase.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
In the sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), Sparrow searches for the Dead Man’s Chest, which will help him to “control” the seas and save himself: thirteen years earlier, Sparrow bartered his soul to Captain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in return for Jones raising the sunken Black Pearl and making Sparrow captain. In the film, Sparrow must either serve for one hundred years aboard the Flying Dutchman, or be taken by the Kraken to Davy Jones’s Locker. The Dead Man’s Chest contains Jones’s heart, which Sparrow can use as leverage against Jones and end his debt. Adding to Sparrow’s woes, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Trading Company wants to settle his own debt with Sparrow and forces Will Turner to search for him. Will finds Sparrow and his crew hiding from the Kraken on Pelegosto, where they have been captured by cannibals. They escape, but Davy Jones captures them and demands that Jack pay his debt. Jack argues that he was captain for only two years before he was mutinied by Barbossa, but Jones rejects his argument, stating that he’s been calling himself “Captain” Jack Sparrow for the allotted years. Sparrow betrays Will to Davy Jones as part of a new deal to deliver 100 souls in exchange for his own. Sparrow recruits sailors in Tortuga, where he unexpectedly encounters Elizabeth and the disgraced James Norrington. Convincing Elizabeth that she can free Will by finding the Chest, Sparrow and she head for Isla Cruces after she pinpoints its location with Jack’s magic compass. Will also arrives, having escaped Jones’s ship after stealing the key to the Chest. Will wants to stab the heart and free his father who is in Jones’s service, while Norrington—who has discovered that Lord Cutler Beckett desires the heart in order to control Davy Jones and the seas—hopes to regain his career by delivering the heart to Beckett. Sparrow fears that if Jones is dead, the Kraken will continue hunting him. Jones’s crew arrives, and during the ensuing battle, Norrington steals the heart. Jones summons the Kraken to attack the Black Pearl. After seeing his crew get attacked by the Kraken, Jack tries to escape in the last undamaged longboat, but just as he nears an island, he is struck with remorse at abandoning his crew, and goes back to help rescue them. Once there, he sadly gives orders to abandon the ship; when Gibbs asks if he is sure that he (Jack) wants to leave his ship behind to the Kraken, he replies, “She’s only a ship, mate.” Realizing that the Kraken only wants Sparrow, Elizabeth tricks him by giving him a passionate kiss while chaining him to the mast to save the crew, with Jack looking on smirking, he calls her a pirate. The Kraken then arrives, spitting out Jack’s hat. Jack, having freed himself, resigns himself to his fate and charges the beast’s mouth muttering, “Ello beastie.” Sparrow and the ship are dragged down to Davy Jones’s Locker.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
At World’s End (2007) opens with Davy Jones’s heart now in Beckett’s possession, and the nine pirate lords of the Brethren Court are summoned to convene at Shipwreck Cove to combat the combined threat of Beckett and Jones. Though taken to Davy Jones’s Locker at the end of the previous film, Sparrow, who is the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean, must attend the meeting, as he failed to bequeath his “piece of eight”, a pirate lord’s identification marker, to an heir. The collective “pieces of eight” can free the sea goddess Calypso. A resurrected Barbossa leads Sparrow’s crew to Davy Jones’s Locker using the Singaporean pirate lord Sao Feng (Chow Yun-fat)’s navigational charts. There Sparrow has been hallucinating an entire crew of himself, each member representing a facet of his personality. After Barbossa and the crew find him, Sparrow deciphers a clue on the charts that indicates they must capsize the Black Pearl to escape the Locker; at sunset, the ship upturns back into the living world. Sparrow and Barbossa journey to the Brethren Court where they encounter Elizabeth, who was traded to Sao Feng, and was made a Pirate Lord by him just before he died. At the Brethren Court, she is elected “Pirate King” after Sparrow breaks a stalemate (in all previous meetings, Pirate Lords had always voted for themselves). During parley, he is traded for Will, who was captured by Jones and Beckett after Jack sent him overboard on the Black Pearl. The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman face off in battle during a maelstrom created by Calypso, Sparrow steals Davy Jones’s heart to become immortal. During the act Jones breaks Jack’s cutlass. When Jones mortally wounds Will, Sparrow instead helps Will stab the heart, killing Jones and making Will the Flying Dutchman’s new captain. Together, the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman destroy Beckett’s ship. At the end of the film Barbossa again commandeers the Black Pearl and Feng’s charts, and maroons Sparrow and Mr. Gibbs in Tortuga. Fortunately, Sparrow has already removed the chart’s center, and he sets sail in a dinghy, using his compass and the chart to guide him to the Fountain of Youth.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Johnny Depp will reprise the role of Sparrow in a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, set for release in 2011.
Outside films, Jack Sparrow first appeared as a companion character in the 2005 video game Kingdom Hearts II, where he was voiced by James Arnold Taylor in the English version and Hiroaki Hirata in the Japanese version. Sparrow has since appeared in other video games, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow where he was voiced by Johnny Depp, the adaptation of Dead Man’s Chest and various game versions of At World’s End, where he was voiced by Jared Butler with motion capture movements provided by Johnny Paton. The character was also voiced by Jared Butler in Pirates of the Caribbean Online, which takes place before the second and third films.
Sparrow’s backstory in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide indicates he was born on a pirate ship during a typhoon in the Indian Ocean, and that he was trained to fence by an Italian. Rob Kidd wrote an ongoing book series entitled Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow, following a teenage Sparrow and his crew on the Barnacle as they battle sirens, mermaids and adult pirates while looking for various treasures. The first book, The Coming Storm, was published on June 1, 2006.
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