MovieChat Forums > The Bounty (1984) Discussion > Why did they burn their ship at the end?...

Why did they burn their ship at the end? Seemed like a stupid move!


There's something I don't get about this story. At the end, when Fletcher Christian and the mutineers go to Pitcairn island because it's not charted on British naval maps, making it the perfect hideout, why do they then burn the HMS Bounty ship? Isn't that the stupidest move, to burn a big valuable ship like that and strand yourself on an island with no way out? Seems like a totally stupid decision. So what was the logic of it? Just so passing ships wouldn't see it and figure out that they were there? Doesn't seem like a wise move either way, since with the ship at least they had a fighting chance to escape or move if need be.

The benefit of destroying it seemed far less than the benefit of having a ship that gave you mobility and means of escape and travel. And the consequence of destroying it seems far greater than the consequence of keeping it. So the logic behind burning it seemed horrible. I would never have done that if I were them. Besides, such a ship was very valuable and hard to attain, so it could have been sold for a lot of money, treasure or gold too.


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I think it was more a motivational act for the mutineers. When Cortez reached the Aztec Empire, he burned his ships and as a result of it, his crew fought the Aztecs and won.

You have to look at it like this. They burned their ship, so there is no way home, so now you have no choice but to stay and make everything work out.

If memory serves, the HMS Pandora was dispatched to find the mutineers and sailed right by Pitcairn Island. Hadn't they burned the ship, the Pandora may have spotted it and captured them. So, they may have burned to stop to avoid capture as well.

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They destroyed the ship to protect their location. They knew they would eventually be discovered if they left the ship parked in the Ocean so the only choice would be to destroy the ship that did two things. It protected the mutineers since the Island was not on any map, and it made the choice for any of them to go back to England and disclose their location absolutely impossible. Anyway, this is basically what I got from watching the movie and reading several books on The Bounty.

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Well they were outlaws - mutineers. Being found would be a death sentence.

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I think all these guys are right. When push came to shove though they had to destroy the ship; there was no other option. They woulda came and found them at some point so it was better safe than sorry. It also left open a chance someone coulda got fed up and took off in it when they had the chance and woulda stranded everyone.

They had to eliminate the chance.

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The British Navy was looking for a specific ship, and you can't actually hide a tall sailing ship. They weren't safe in open water because the Bounty could be recognized from miles away, no nation who had any dealings with the British would grant them safe harbor, and the ship could not by physically hidden. Those things have very deep keels, and could only be kept in deep ocean or a deep bay, they couldn't be sailed up a river out of the sight of naval traffic. So once the mutineers realized that the Tahiti thing wasn't going to work out, they knew that the ship itself was a huge problem, they needed it to get away from Tahiti but it also marked them as fugitives. So they had to either get away from the ship itself, which difficult in a region of small islands, or destroy it.

So burning the ships on Pitcairn served several purposes, it protected them from easy identification, it marked an end to their wanderings through the south seas, and it settled that they couldn't get away from each other. Which in turn led to a lot of them killing each other in fights over the women they'd brought along, just so you know.


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I thought it was to evaporate the ocean so they could walk where they wanted to go next.

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All or nothing

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We also need to take into account the island that they settled on.

When we think of pacific islands, we think of long sandy beaches and lagoons; perfect spots to anchor a ship. But when you watch videos and documentaries of Pitcairn Island, you'll notice that the island's entire coastline is all rocks and cliffs and rough seas. You can't anchor a ship anywhere near the island's coast. This made hiding the ship more impossible.
If the mutineers did keep the Bounty, they would have to constantly man the ship. I don't believe that there was any plausible way of keeping the ship.

Of course, the island's rough seas and terrain were another reason as to why Christian chose Pitcairn as their new home. If any other ships did pass by, they wouldn't even attempt to land on the island.

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