An Animatronic Pirate's Life For Me

I went to Disneyland today and finally got to check out the renovations they’ve done to “Pirates of the Caribbean” in conjunction with the release of the new movie. The “Pirates” ride is just about one of my favorite things in the world, and I was pretty incredulous about Disney’s decision to change the ride. The first movie was based on the ride, and now they were changing the ride to tie in with the movie. Disney’s lust for synergistic opportunities clearly knows no bounds. I suspect most Disney executives would kill their mothers if it created an opportunity to “synergize.” They are obsessed with it- when I worked for them in Glendale, they actually had a “Synergy Lab,” the concept of which terrified me. I had visions of mad scientists working hard to figure out how to exploit “High School Musical” as a theme park ride, leaving many lab rats dead in their insane experiments. It turned out the “Synergy Lab” was just a place where the company showed off their latest and sexiest consumer products gizmos, but still- it’s a key buzzword at Disney that I heard so many times, I thought I was going to go insane.
All of which made me worry about their plans to change the rise.

My worries were basically realized. Some of the new effects are cool, and the Jack Sparrow animatronics are well crafted. But the whole thing seems pretty forced, and the story the ride is telling doesn’t make a lick of sense (kinda like the convoluted movie sequel.) In an early scene, the villainous Captain Barbosa from the first film attacks a town and demands that they “surrender Jack Sparrow.” Yet it turns out Captain Jack is in the town in trying to steal the key to the town treasury. Doesn’t really make sense, and clearly feels like the people who planned the changes just forced the characters from the movie into the ride where they didn’t belong. Worse yet, lots of the audio of the ride constantly reiterates the idea that Jack is around- most of the characters are asking where he is, yelling out for him, or talking to themselves about how Jack won’t find the key or map he’s protecting. The name “Captain Jack Sparrow” is repeated so many times, I almost stood up in my boat and yelled “WE GET IT ALREADY FOR FUCKS SAKE! HE’S A POPULAR CHARACTER AND YOU WANT US ALL TO KNOW HE’S PART OF THIS RIDE NOW, JUST STOP SAYING HIS NAME BEFORE I DRILL A HOLE IN MY HEAD” But I’m pretty sure I would have been dragged away in a straight jacket if I had yelled at an animatronic pirate, dragging me to the Synergy Lab where they would have used my body for scientific research that would result in another crappy direct to DVD sequel to “Lilo and Stitch.”

The fact that our ride broke down, and our boat was stuck in a scene where the name “CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW” was repeated for almost a full half hour on a loop, didn’t help things. For some reason the ride has apparently been getting backed up a lot, even though the track that the boats travel on hasn’t changed a bit. Clearly, the changes have caused a curse.

I was pretty disappointed by the clumsy execution of the changes to my all time favorite ride. I hope they eventually smoothe over some of it, and at least take out a few of the blatant and repetitive references to Cap’n Jack to try and make the new additions and story a little more subtle. There really is no other way to explain the changes than to take advantage of the film franchises current insane popularity. But these rides are supposed to be built to last. In ten years, are people really going to care about Jack Sparrow like they do now?

It was disheartening, but at least I can take solace in the fact that Shark Week is starting tonight on The Discovery Channel.