Pirates Of The Caribbean

On first glance, the premise of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction might seem to be one of the most morally objectionable premises for a family-friendly attraction. A group of pirates invade, loot, and burn to the ground a colonial Caribbean seaport. Along the way, they torture city officials, drink rum like there's no tomorrow, and drunkenly sing about the joys of piracy as the city burns around them.

You know, feel-good kiddie fare.

Despite this, the attraction has been beloved for over 50 years. It has been built in nearly every Disney Park and loosely inspired a somewhat succesful film franchise, (at least initially.)

Clearly, the attraction has been a wild success, probably far beyond the highest expectation of its main founding father: one Walter Elias Disney. Pirates was, in fact, the last park attraction personally supervised by the founder, though he did not live to see its opening.

Generation after generation, the animated debauchery of pirate animatronic figures have entertained boatloads of children and their parents in the happiest place on earth. A low-speed comfortable vehicle takes riders for a cool, relaxing ride, with the thrills provided by Caribbean "pirates," whose decidedly drunken and antisocial acts of questionable legality thrill and amuse—political correctness be damned.

Oh wait, not quite. The attraction has seen numerous changes over the years to accommodate the changing sensitivities of its audience as well as to accommodate cross promotion for its loose film franchise offspring.

In the original attraction in Disneyland (in this article I focus mostly on the original Disneyland ride), one scene depicted pirates chasing the town maidens, using simple turntables to create the main action effect. In the center of the scene was an overweight male pirate sitting in front of a barrel holding what appeared to be a woman's undergarment. He addressed passing guests, saying that he "be looking for a lively lassie" with whom he would like to "hoist his colors." "I be willing to share I be," he adds. In the barrel behind him, a terrified young woman's head would occasionally pop up, showing that she was clearly hiding from the pirate.

The 1997 Changes

This bawdy scene stayed in place for the attraction's first thirty years, but a 1997 refurbishment to the Disneyland version changed the scene's premise. Change was achieved by putting food in the hands of the women on the turntables so that the male pirates were now hungry rather than lustful. Further, designers gave the pooped pirate a chicken leg, which he now offered to share with guests. The woman in the barrel was replaced with a cat.

A few years earlier, in 1994 Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom version had changed its similar scene, albeit to a lesser degree. The women were now chasing the Pirates, who were given sacks of gold. The Pooped Pirate was given a treasure map and magnifying glass and asked guests where the x that marks the spot is. The woman had remained in the barrel but was given a small treasure chest.

Outside of a few additions here and there, this change was the only really major scene revision to the ride in the 20th century, Inevitably, many Disney fans decried the changing of the chase scene, attributing it to "Political Correctness." The original show writer of the attraction, X Atencio, himself complained that they were turning the ride into "Boy Scouts of the Caribbean."

From all appearances, this particular move seems to have been preemptive and driven internally; at this point, Disney was more politically correct than most of its audience—perhaps understandably given the behemoth the company had become and how much was on the line in its every move. And really, the entertainment value of the ride wasn't significantly affected by this taming of the crew.

The 2006 changes

Bigger changes were to come, in 2003, when Disney released a film based on the attraction, albeit very loosely. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a major box office success. In some ways, this was an unexpected coups for Disney, as attempts to make movies of its other theme park rides (eg, Country Bear Jamboree, Haunted Mansion, Tomorrowland) have been only marginally successful at best.

While the film spiked the popularity of the Pirates ride, the general public also realized how loosely connected the film was to the ride, with many guests wondering why the film characters Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa did not make an appearance.

With the immense success of the first Pirates film, it was not long before a sequel was announced. As part of that publicity, Disney let it be known that its "Imagineers" would be adding some of the movie characters to the ride.

In early 2006 the attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World closed for refurbishment, reopening early in summer along with the second movie. While some additions were indeed quite seamless, the introduction of the movie characters significantly altered the ride experience. Where once there were only two voices in a dark tunnel warning guests about cursed treasure, now the villain of the second film, Davy Jones appeared on a mist curtain contradicting the classic "Dead men tell no tales" warning with the addition "Ah but they do tell tales. So says I Davy Jones."

The original Captain of the "Wicked Wench" pirate ship was replaced with the film's Hector Barbossa character, who makes his only appearance while music from the film blasts in the background of the formerly scoreless scene. The dialogue of the aforementioned "well" scene was altered to make reference to the fact that the pirates were looking for Captain Jack Sparrow in addition to the treasure they had previously been after.

The first of three Jack Sparrow animatronics stands nearby in a formerly vacant spot hiding behind a dressmakers form. How seamlessly he fits in the scene is a matter of debate, with some saying that the hyper-realistic figure (it's a fully accurate depiction of Johnny Depp) looks out of place next to the heavily caricatured look of the other pirates and townspeople.

The change also created logical absurdities in the script—or if you wanted to be more charitable, some indication that you don't quite have the whole story. For example, why would the supposedly lawfully appointed mayor of a Spanish colonial town be hiding a pirate from other pirates, let alone be willing to risk drowning for him? The new script also has the pirates constantly referring to "Captain Jack Sparrow," voiding a running gag in the film series where few characters give Jack the respect of his self-proclaimed "Captain" status.

Sparrow makes a second appearance hiding in the barrel once occupied by the frightened young woman and the cat from the 1997 re-do. The eccentric Captain listens in while the pooped pirate who was given a key and a treasure map in this update, spouts new dialogue bragging about how Captain Jack Sparrow "would never find the treasure."

The remainder of the ride, with tales of gangrene, arson, prison and various forms of mayhem, was left pretty much as before—at least until the very end where a new scene of Jack Sparrow has him lounging in the town Treasure Room singing a mostly a capella "Yo Ho a Pirates' Life for Me," followed by the voice of Davy Jones exclaiming that "Dead Men Do Tell Tales, Don't They," seemingly putting an exclamation point on the fact that the ride's original mantra has been consciously and officially contradicted.

The 2018 Changes

The ride would stay virtually the same for the next eleven years, when in July 2017 Disney announced that the "Bride Auction" scene would be undergoing a significant alteration. The scene, in which the women of the town are sold to the Pirates and the Pirates heckle for the "redhead" rather than a more heavyset woman, would be changed to a more generalized loot auction. In the new scene the townspeople would be forced at gunpoint to sell their possessions to the pirates, with the redhead now a pirate herself. Incidentally, the redhead's new status might have been planned all along, as evidence of her future is seen in a painting in the skeletal Crew's Quarters. This painting, which appears early in the ride, has been part of the ride since its initial voyages in 1967.

The revised scene debuted in the Disneyland Paris version of the ride in July 2017, in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in March 2018 and finally in Disneyland on June 8, 2018. Once again, derisive cries of political correctness were hurled by many outraged Disney fanatics. But this time there's no doubt that Disney was reacting to changing social feelings about women and their place in society. Opponents of the move, again went to the idea that Disney was messing with historical fact, again giving versions of real pirates who were now being depicted as boy scouts.

I understand both the arguments for and against this change. For one thing, as a Disney traditionalist my first impulse on almost any change is negative, but I understand that Disney is in a tricky situation here. I do hope that the scene and staging is revised again at some point to make the current premise less stupid. It is far better handled in Paris than in Anaheim or Orlando as of right now with the pirates heckling over chickens and the bizarrely dressed and wigged line of townspeople selling oversized grandfather clocks and statues to the pirates presumably?

Also, during the 2018 refurbishment the original narration in the "time travel" cave in the attraction was restored with the Davy Jones effect having been removed along with his opening dialog. I see this opening as a better mood-setter than its movie-based replacement, though again I'm an admitted traditionalist. also, in the same "time travel" cave a new vignette was added, showing a pirate transforming from a skeleton to a flesh-and-blood pirate, providing a visual transition to let the rider know that he/she is traveling through time. I found this effect to be seamless with the rest of the ride, and ultimately very effective.

The 2026 changes.

In late June of 2026, Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean re-opened from yet another major refurbishment with yet another major revision during the final treasure cave scene of the attractions "Grotto sequence" in which you see the skeletal remains of the pirates before traveling back in time to the Caribbean after leaving the cave to see the pirates in their heyday for the "Town" portion of the attraction. As with all the other vignettes, the final treasure cave originally featured a static skeletal pirate sitting on top of a horde of treasure posed as if counting gold coins. The 2026 revision now shows the figure initially as a live pirate who picks up a coin and is transformed into the previously existing skeletal figure. While the effect is impressive and frankly less obnoxious and distracting than I thought when first having read about it, it does unfortunately mess with the existing story logic of the ride especially when juxtaposed with the following "Transition Tunnels" 2018 revision with the skeleton turning into a live pirate. The way this should have been handled in my opinion would be to have this figure replace the always morally questionable Treasure Room scene with Captain Jack Sparrow added in 2006 before the final up ramp that concludes the attraction especially considering that the movie franchise has long since entered the realm of 2000s era nostalgia after the series of continually underwhelming sequels in the film franchise. It would be especially appropriate because a scene with a similar premise once existed in the very space now taken up by said scene which was present from 1997 until 2006 and utilized re-used and re-dressed animatronic figures from the then-recently closed World Of Motion attraction at EPCOT as pirates struggling to pull a sack of treasure only to be seen again moments later as skeletons as the boats ascended the up ramp. The new figure would be a perfect bookend in this area they could even throw an audio reprise of the "Dead Men Tell No Tales" voice from the earlier grotto sequence as the boats go up the ramp to replace the inexplicably still present final dialogue from the Davy Jones and Blackbeard characters from the film franchise which makes no conceptual sense now seeing as how their earlier physical appearance in the "Marketing Mist" in the transition tunnel which had existed from 2006 until 2018 had been gone for 8 years as of this year. Never mind that Jones' spiel literally recycled dialogue from the original transition tunnel spiel which had at the time been removed to make room for his appearance in the "Mist". The restoration of said dialogue eight years ago now means that guests now hear the lines "You may not survive to pass this way again" twice said by two different characters in two different contexts. in late August of 2026 a portrait of the original Redhead from the original Auction Scene was added to the treasure horde in the same recently revised scene which is interesting since there is already another portrait of her on the opposite side of the flume in the preceding Crews Quarters scene as previously mentioned.

I am hoping that someday most of the movie franchise-based changes are scaled back such as restoring the original Captain of the Wicked Wench Pirate ship based on Blackbeard and voiced by Paul Frees instead of Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa, the original well scene dialogue by X. Atencio fully restored and Jack Sparrows appearances reduced to just one cameo in the barrel in the chase scene. The original Auction and chase scenes are obviously never returning due to the social climate of the present day though I would like to see their premise and dialogue tweaked to make them less stupid. I look forward to that day.