Beckett Shocked / Destruction Of The Endeavor

About

Beckett Shocked or Destruction Of The Endeavor, also known as Guy Walking Down Stairs as Ship Is Destroyed Around Him, refers to the climactic ending scene from the third movie in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, At World's End. In the scene, the character Cutler Beckett (played by British actor Tom Hollander) is seen looking stunned at the destruction of his ship (the Endeavor) and as he's frozen with fear while walking down a staircase mid-battle with cannonballs and explosions splintering the wood around him. The scene, through images and GIFs, became popularized as a reaction and caption meme throughout the 2010s and 2020s. The format is similar to the This Is Fine meme and is typically used to express someone remaining unphased while chaos is happening around them.

Origin

The scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which came out on May 25th, 2007, used in the meme format takes place near its finale. After the events of the film, the ship The Endeavor is surrounded on both sides by pirate ships that are seen shooting cannonballs into it, with the character Cutler Beckett being unable to react as his vessel is destroyed around him in slow motion.

On May 26th, 2017, a decade after its release, the YouTube channel JoBlo Movie Clips^[1] uploaded the full destruction of the Endeavor to YouTube, where it gained over 14.7 million views in seven years (shown below).

Following the movie's digital release, various scenes from it began to be shared as memes. On December 11th, 2012, Redditor BrutalMassacre3^[2] uploaded a GIF of the scene to the subreddit /r/Funny, with the caption saying that Beckett is "How I feel walking into a class knowing I'm not going to do well on the final," gaining over 2,000 upvotes while comments talk about how well the moment in the film looks (shown below).

Spread

Over the following years, the scene would be used in numerous memes as people posted it within the context of being a dead man walking or being calm as something chaotic is taking place.

For example, a meme uploaded to the subreddit /r/piratesofthecaribbean by Redditor DrStein2010^[3] on September 11th, 2019, in which Beckett can be seen walking down the stairs at a different angle, used the format with the caption, "when your mom calls you downstairs using your full name…" with the assumption being that parents only use your full name when you're in a lot of trouble (shown below). The post received over 170 upvotes in five years.

Once TikTok started to become more prominent in meme culture, the Pirates Of The Caribbean scene also began to be posted there in numerous memes.

On October 20th, 2023, TikToker memeboi7567^[4] uploaded the scene while using it in a different context. Using the scene as the backdrop, the punchline came from the onscreen text describing the situation as "when you leave work just as everything is going to sh**" with the ship exploding around him as he leaves work (shown below). The post received over 450 and 110 shares in roughly a year.

Various Examples

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External References