Requiem for Pirates of the Caribbean

"We wants the grandfather clock!" Image: Disney.

I had already stopped reading the largely depressing spectacle that is the Disney Parks Blog some months ago, so I had to hear about this through the grapevine. I would imagine that it says a lot right there that the major source for official news is depressing enough for me to stop reading it. When I hear people attempt to defend Disney when they do things like this by saying "You just have to trust Disney, they know what they're doing," I see no evidence to support that claim.

If somehow you have not heard about this, the current refurbishment of the Disneyland Paris version of Pirates of the Caribbean will include not only Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones, Blackbeard, and Barbossa (inserted unceremoniously into the scene with the skeleton at the helm, because at this point why not?), but an altered auction scene in which it is not wenches up for sale, but the villagers' loot. Because, after all, why would pirates be looting loot themselves when they could just buy it? Furthermore, these changes are not limited to Disneyland Paris: they are set to be introduced to rides in Disneyland and Walt Disney World in 2018. The offending post can be read here. The comments are golden.

Concept art of Barbossa in the skeleton at the helm scene,
like a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Image: Disney.

Presumably the changes were undertaken with the idea of making the ride more politically correct in respects to the status of women. Really, this is a logical trajectory after the alteration of the scene where pirates were chasing women. After the vandalism perpetrated to the ride through the addition of Jack Sparrow as the entire ride's focal point, inappropriate projection effects of Davy Jones and Blackbeard, and ill-fitting clips from the film soundtrack, the ride no longer has artistic or narrative integrity anyways. I can't really muster outrage for the Disneyland and WDW versions of the ride, because they have already been irredeemably wrecked. 

What I'm most upset about is the vandalism to the Disneyland Paris version. Though the layout of the attraction is different, it was the last remaining version that retained the spirit and intent of the original. The movie-based vandalisms had not yet been applied, and all the original show scenes were intact, including the pirates chasing the women. When we rode it on our trip to Paris in 2013, I actually began tearing up because I had forgotten what an amazing ride Pirates of the Caribbean used to be. When all the elements work together in a coherent whole, it is one of the best themed attractions ever designed. Or was.

The usual tonedeaf, clueless interviews with Imagineering (including dusting off Marty Sklar) came with the news. One particular nugget, from Kathy Magnum, Sr. VP of Imagineering, sums up the entire problem:  "Our team thought long and hard about how to best update this scene." Any thinking Disney fan knows the appropriate response to this: "WHY?!" The scene didn't need updating. Keen to vandalize the work of their predecessors, they decided to needlessly destroy one of the ride's most iconic scenes and replace it with... nothing. A wry and witty scene that everyone understood was based ultimately in the fact that pirates were bad people is being replaced by a nonsensical scene in which nothing really happens. The new redhead pirate just stands there, the former auctioneer just stands there, and I guess the guys across the shore will be just be sitting there. There is no joke implicit to this scene, and nothing memorable about it. Though I guess in a ride where the highlight is now catching a glimpse of a Jack Sparrow animatronic just standing there, we're expected to take the redhead pirate just standing there as a memorable moment. I'm not even confident that, with this accumulation of changes, what Magnum herself described as "the standard for the theme park industry for half a century" even qualifies as a good attraction anymore.

Some might retort that Disney has to keep changing in order to keep drawing guests, just like how the curators at the Louvre make little changes to the Mona Lisa every year to keep it fresh. I've already wasted my time and breath addressing that particular argument though. Great works of art are timeless because they are great. They don't need to be made "fresh," they don't need to be "updated" to remain relevant. No, I don't hate change: I hate the wanton destruction of great, beautiful, important things.

"Our team thought long and hard about how to best update the
Mona Lisa. The painting has always represented great
Da Vinci storytelling, but it's a story you can
continue to add fun to," said curators at the Louvre.

Some time ago, I watched a video on the question of what would be the "last straw" to finally make you stop going to Disneyland. It occurred to me that if it was anything, it would probably be something that, on it's own, appeared kind of petty and silly. That's because my growing dissatisfaction with Disney is really a death by a thousand small cuts. It's not the addition of Jack Sparrow to Pirates of the Caribbean on its own, or the loss of the Court of Angels on its own, or the truncating of the Rivers of America on its own, or the loss of Big Thunder Ranch on its own, or even the loss of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror on its own (though that was certainly enough to swear me off California Adventure)... It's the cumulative effect of turning Disneyland into a place that is increasingly alien, inartistic, and unpleasant.

Could this be the last straw? I don't know. But I do wish that when we took our last trip to Disneyland in 2015 that I knew about all the changes that would come in the past year and a half. I would have spent more time savouring what would be lost, understanding the very real possibility that our last trip could well be our last trip.
  

Tom Sawyer Island - Part 1: Pirate's Lair

There are two sources I credit for encouraging me to discover Mark Twain's writing for myself: the 1986 Claymation film The Adventures of Mark Twain and Disneyland. If you have not seen the former, I highly recommend it. By pulling stories and quotes from Twain's own body of work, it became a children's film of uncommon maturity and sensitivity, meditating on life, death, love and eternity. Disneyland, of course, piqued my interest through the Mark Twain Riverboat (the only attraction poster I have in my home) and Tom Sawyer Island.



At that nascent stage in my affection for Twain – who is now my second favourite author after Jules Verne – Tom Sawyer Island was more of a contest than a fond bit of nostalgia. I was dimly aware of the iconic images of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but had yet to read the book. I was terribly curious about the basis for Injun Joe's Cave, Harper's Mill, Smuggler's Cove, the Treehouse, and the rest of the island's features. Shortly after that first trip in 2005, I devoured Twain's novel, and when I returned to Disneyland a year later I could definitively say that... well... it didn't actually have all that much to do with it. Most of the island served the interests of a giant, free-range playground, with a few impressionistic ideas from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The landing for the rafts to Tom Sawyer's Island.

A pair of the original rafts, named for Mark Twain's characters.

The famed whitewashed fence.

The original Fort Wilderness.

Looking down the Rivers of America to the Native American village.
You could almost imagine that you weren't even in a theme park.

Smuggler's Cove.

Perhaps because of this (and Twain’s own prescient quip that "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."), Disney's marketeers felt it would be a prime location for a movie-inspired pirate makeover in 2007. They nevertheless failed to account for the nostalgia held by Disney fans, who objected so strenuously to the plans that Disney clarified that this pale imitation of Adventure Isle was Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island, not Pirate's Lair instead of Tom Sawyer Island. To justify adding a Jack Sparrow stage show, the Dead Man's Chest, and a cage made of human bones, they invoked the chapters of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in which the boys flee home to play pirates. Ironically it was those same chapters that have the closest to a literary justification for Tom Sawyer's Island in the first place. Though the famed whitewashed fence seems to have disappeared, the Treehouse got some extra references to the book, by way of the boys' pirate names scrawled on the walls.

Ashley enjoying some piracy.

In chapter 13, Tom has decided to run away from his Aunt Polly's and take to a life of crime, on account of the neglect he suffered from Becky Thatcher. Along the way he met up with Joe Harper, who was also on a pilgrimage into the world and intent on adopting the life of a hermit, “living on crusts in a remote cave, and dying, some time, of cold and want and grief.” However, “after listening to Tom, he conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate.”  

All that they were in need of was a lair, which brings us to the following excerpt...

The Saint Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum

Walt Disney World is replete with pirates, from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and A Pirate's Adventure: Treasure of the Seven Seas interactive game, to Peter Pan's Flight and the Pirates and Pals Fireworks Voyage (not to mention the great Pirates of the Caribbean game in DisneyQuest). An approximate three-hour drive from Orlando, Florida brings visitors to the centre of a town bristling with a true-life legacy of pirates: Saint Augustine. 

Saint Augustine was the first town founded by the Spanish on the continent, thus making it the oldest city in the United States. After the town was established in 1565, work began on a series of forts, culminating in the stone Castillo de San Marcos. These forts frequently fended off attacks by English and French privateers, with varying degrees of success. One of the worst attacks was by Sir Francis Drake, whose crew managed to occupy and ransack the town for three days at the end of May, 1586. 

Given such a legacy, Saint Augustine was a natural place for entrepreneur Pat Croce to relocate his collection of authentic pirate artifacts. Right across the street from the Castillo de San Marcos, the Saint Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum is a marvellous institution to cap off a visit to a city with so many connections to historical scallywags and swashbucklers.   

Pirates of the Caribbean to Become a Club 33 Exclusive

Soon the Wicked Wench will only sail for Club 33 members.

In a quiet press release this morning, Disney Parks and Resorts chairman Tom Staggs announced that after a short refurbishment period, Pirates of the Caribbean would become an exclusive ride for members of Club 33.

"We are very proud to provide this exclusive new opportunity for our valued members of Club 33," said Staggs. "Walt Disney's original vision for Club 33 was to provide the very best in themed entertainment experience for his executive guests, and we have finally been able to realize that long-held dream."

News of Pirates of the Caribbean becoming a Club 33 exclusive has been met with some mixed reactions. Said one Disney Parks Premier Passport holder, "I can't believe that they are taking something away from the general public so that only wealthy people in an exclusive club can enjoy it! Who has the money for that kind of thing?!" However, another blogger and Club 33 member was quoted as saying "some people just don't like change." He added, "I don't see what the big deal is. You can still see it, you just need to be a Club 33 member. Disneyland is not a museum."

Conversion of Pirates of the Caribbean into a Club 33 exclusive will include the Pieces of Eight store, which will be expanded into adjacent shop space and sell Club 33 merchandise in addition to Pirates of the Caribbean. Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean need not worry though: the same Pirates of the Caribbean merchandise will be available in every other shop throughout the Disneyland Resort. According to the press release, the Blue Bayou will not become part of the turnover. Instead, the restaurant will be walled off for the privacy of Club 33 members and new projection mapping effects applied to the walls to simulate being inside of a building simulating an evening on the bayou.

Among the upgrades scheduled for Pirates of the Caribbean's refurbishment is an interactive system that will read the information from the RFID chips embedded in Club 33 members' MagicBands, beginning the popular technology's integration into the Anaheim resort. These will allow each pirate to speak a greeting to every Club 33 member in the boat by name. "The ability to stop the show and personalize a message to our guests is exactly the height of immersion that Walt Disney himself envisioned," said Staggs.

"Mr. Staggs, what will ye offer for this winsome wench?"

Castillo de San Marcos: A True-Life Fort on the Spanish Main

The Spanish Main... A name that evokes the long ago days of buccaneering pirates and Spanish Conquistadors, palm trees and buried treasure. Geographically, it was the mainland portion of Spain's empire in the New World, encircling the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. It included the coastlines of Texas, Mexico, Central America and the northern coast of South America, as well as the land known as La Florida. Gold and spice-laden ships from the Caribbean had to pass Florida on their way to Spain, making them tempting targets for privateers and enemy navies. To protect their shipping routes and land claims in North America, the Spanish built what remains today as the oldest stone fort in the oldest city in the United States: Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida. 

An historic aerial photo of Castillo de San Marcos. Photo: NPS.

The Real Fountain of Youth?

It is the stuff of legend and tall tale: how Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, became enthralled with stories of the mystical Fountain of Youth in a mysterious land far to the north and west... beyond Hispaniola... beyond Cuba... beyond even the Bahamas. There, at long last, would be the secret to eternal life that had so eluded humanity for so long. In 1513 he landed at a place he called La Florida and disappeared into the jungles, never to be seen again...

Or not. The quest for the Fountain of Youth was attributed to Ponce de León after his death in 1521. He died of a poisoned arrow shot from a Calusa Native American bow during a failed attempt at establishing a colony in the vicinity of Charlotte Harbor. His journey in search of La Florida had more prosaic concerns of finding gold and expanding the Spanish Empire in the New World. And so far, that mysterious Fountain of Youth still eludes its dogged pursuers. That said, the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in Saint Augustine, Florida, still tells the important story of America's oldest city and its first European colonizers.
    

The Story of the Flying Dutchman

Few maritime legends were left untouched in the course of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. From Greek deities to Robert Louis Stevenson, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Davy Jones himself, the rich mythology built by sailors and authors fueled the sprawling and circuitous plot by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. But if Davy Jones is going to be turned into a squid-pirate, then a squid-pirate presumably needs a ship. Which one? Well there are no ships more famous and more infamous than the Flying Dutchman!

The Flying Dutchman, by Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1896.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the Flying Dutchman acts as a vessel for Davy Jones (then Will Turner) to ferry souls to the afterlife. Amongst professional mythologists, this role is known as a "psychopomp," which derives from a Greek word that literally means "guide of souls." These are figures who, like Charon in Hercules, are meant to conduct the dead safely to the other side. They are not the judges of the dead (as Charon in the Hercules series quips, "I just row the boat."), merely the guides. In some cultures, they work both ways, not only ferrying the dead to the afterlife, but ferrying new souls through birth. Though the ship comes to this use in Pirates of the Caribbean, the actual plot between Davy Jones and Calypso is heavily influenced by the most celebrated version of the Flying Dutchman's story.

The Story of Davy Jones

The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was a brilliant piece of cinema capturing the rollicking adventure of swashbuckling films of yore. Using the ride as its jumping off point, it brought together great characters, great actors, great action, and a great story (and skeleton pirates!) to deliver the deeply satisfying kind of viewing experience one rarely gets in movies made after 1960. Then they had to make some sequels. Rather than keep up the strategy that made The Curse of the Black Pearl so successful, writers Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio took a queue from Lord of the Rings by trying to cram Dead Man's Chest and At World's End full of mythology and plotlines that never quite jelled together.

However, if you're an aficionado of maritime lore, there were lots of really neat allusions pillaged for content. The title of the second film, and the treasure chest to which it refers, was taken from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Just as "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" sounds like an old sea shanty despite being written by George Bruns and X. Atencio expressly for the ride in Disneyland, Stevenson invented his own suitably pirate-sounding song for his novel, entitled "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest." The Flying Dutchman is a legend amongst sailors, and the plotline surrounding it is unmistakably adapted from Richard Wager's eponymous opera. Inside the ship is an organ decorated with a relief of Gustave Doré's engravings for Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Then there is the man playing it, a Lovecraftian tentacle horror identified with Davy Jones.