Captain Jack Sparrow has been at the heart of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise since the release of the first movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, in 2003. Played by Johnny Depp, Captain Jack is now sailing the seas once more in the fifth Pirates movie, Dead Men Tell No Tales. This might be a fourteen-year-old franchise, but it’s only in Dead Men Tell No Tales that we actually learn how and why Jack became a pirate captain.
The Curse of the Black Pearl introduces us to a hapless, yet somehow rather skilled, Captain Jack, who arrives in Port Royal hoping to commandeer a ship. He is promptly caught and imprisoned. When the Black Pearl attacks the Port, Captain Barbossa takes Elizabeth hostage. Will Turner frees Jack in order to rescue Elizabeth, and thereby meaning Jack can take back the Black Pearl.
The crew of the Black Pearl all labor under a curse, though; after Barbossa marooned Jack on an island and therefore assumed captaincy, the pirates stole a chest of cursed gold, making them all undead. That curse will only be lifted when each gold piece is returned to the chest along with the blood of its owner. The final piece belonged to Will’s father, and so it is now his blood that must fall.
Jack knows all this, he’s far savvier than he ever lets on; he takes a piece of gold from the chest knowing that it protects him from being harmed. Barbossa stabs him but it has no effect since he is a skeleton. This distraction enables Jack to then shoot Barbossa at the same time as Will drops the coin into the chest, meaning Barbossa dies from his injuries.
Jack has a long history of outstanding debts, and we’ve seen them come back to bite him on more than one occasion. In the second Pirates movie, Dead Mans Chest, Jack encounters the Kracken when he fails to follow through on a promise he made to Davy Jones. Jack is also, at that point, in possession of a compass that, again, will feature throughout the arc of Pirates of the Caribbean. The compass is highly sought after since it points to whatever the owner’s heart most desires.
By the end of Dead Mans Chest, Jack is in the Kracken’s belly, seemingly gone forever. But, for some reason, Jack inspires great loyalty, and none more so than from Joshamee Gibbs; his dedicated first mate. Joshamee inspires others, and they decide to set out to rescue Jack. They are aided in this by Tia Dalma, a voodoo priestess whom originally gave Jack the compass. She now introduces the alive-again Captain Barbossa as the man who will lead them back to Jack.
It's baffling to see just how Jack does inspire such loyalty when you look at the third Pirates movie, At World’s End. Elizabeth, Will, Barbossa, Gibbs, and crew all risk their lives in order to save Jack from the depths of the ocean. Together, they fight against Davy Jones, who eventually triumphs over Will and binds him to The Flying Dutchman for the next ten years. Elizabeth loses her husband and the father of her unborn child, everyone nearly dies, but Jack sails off into the sunset, alone, in order to seek the fountain of eternal youth.
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He’s still on that quest when the fourth movie, On Stranger Tides, picks up. Jack heads to London to rescue Gibbs (only because he his assistance), and King George II asks him to guide Barbossa, now a Naval Privateer, to the Fountain before the Spaniards can get there. Jack refuses.
After being warned about the fountain’s powers, Jack then discovers someone is impersonating him and trying to recruit a crew to reach the fountain. That someone turns out to be Angelica, Jack’s former lover. She is the daughter of Blackbeard, and the pair force him to guide their voyage. Finally we see Gibbs’ loyalty repaid, when Jack bargains with Blackbeard; he will obtain the chalices needed to drink from the fountain in exchange for Gibbs’ safety and the return of his compass. In order for one person to have their life extended by the fountain, two people must drink from it at the same time, from two different chalices. One chalice must also contain a Mermaid’s tear, and the person who drinks that will have their life saved while the other dies.
Blackbeard asks Angelica to drink the chalice without the tear, thereby sacrificing her life for his. She agrees, but Jack hands them the wrong chalices and Blackbeard dies. Angelica is furious, and doesn’t believe Jack when he said it was a mistake. The pair admit they still have feelings for one another, but Jack doesn’t trust Angelica, and he leaves her stranded. At the end of the movie, a voodoo doll of Jack washes up at Angelica’s feet, and she looks very pleased. We can’t say we blame her.
By the time Dead Men Tell No Tales rolls around, Angelica seems to have been forgotten; However, not only does this fifth movie explain more about Jack’s origins, it also paints him in a far more caring and kinder light. Salazar is an undead Spanish Naval captain, determined to kill all pirates - especially Jack Sparrow.
As a young pirate, Jack was at sea when Salazar and his crew were ‘cleansing the waters.’ Jack taunted Salazar openly, driving him into a furious rage. Determined to wreck the ship, and Jack, he followed them towards Devil’s triangle, but Jack swung his ship clear at the last second, leaving Salazar and his crew on a course straight into cursed waters. In awe of his skills, the rest of the crew appointed him as captain.
It is, presumably, these actions that have kept Gibbs and the others, indebted to him for so long; Jack saved all of their lives and also rid the ocean of a menacing threat. Throughout all the movies, Jack has captained with reckless abandon; more a ‘do it and hope for the best’ approach rather than a carefully laid plan, but he always comes through. This is solely down to his intelligence; kept well-hidden underneath shroud of rum, Jack is hyper aware of the sea, it’s laws, its paranormal activities, and how it all works. Gibbs and crew know this, so does Will, so does Elizabeth, and more importantly, so does Barbossa.
The pair have a long shared history of animosity, but there’s also a strong mutual respect, and that’s very evident in Dead Men Tell No Tales. So too, is Jack’s affection for Will and Elizabeth. He works with, but also seeks to protect, their son, Henry, and he seems to feel genuine remorse when Carina loses her father so soon after meeting him. Though he once again sails away - this time at the helm of his beloved Black Pearl with his compass back in his possession - we do at least understand a little more about this character. Jack Sparrow is more than just rum and slurred one-liners. He is a pirate captain to be admired. He might not always treat people very well, but he’s not afraid to take risks, and above all, he was born to be a pirate captain.
