Pirates of the Caribbean Ride Gets a Facelift

The folks at Disney recently converted their Pirates of the Caribbean ride into a vehicle for promoting their next big movie(s)...which were taken from the ideas created by the ride. Sort of Art, imitating art, imitating life... Sort of.

Apparently a lot of folks are upset at this, despite the official word from Disney that "Walt would have wanted it this way."

Back in 1997 Disney modified their pirate ride to be more politically correct when they changed the scene of the pirates sacking a port village and chasing after the women to instead be chasing after the food the women were inexplicably carrying.

Now, they are dropping in characters from the next movie and changing the storyline of the ride altogether. Instead of sacking a town, they are trying to capture "Jack Sparrow" and beat him to the big treasure.

Ugh.

I am personally a fan of the pirate ride, no matter how horribly historically inaccurate it may be, but this cross-promotion stuff is really starting to get on my nerves.

It's amazing when you think of how far pirates of the 18th century have evolved from murderers and rapitsts into swashbuckling, romantic big-screen icons, suitable for all ages and families at "the happiest place on Earth."

Clearly, history is not written by the winners, it's merely "re-imagineered" by a mega-corporation into whatever they want it to be; Mashed up, sterilized for your protection and presented in the most lawsuit-avoiding, politically-correct, non-offensive way possible. Regardless of how far from reality it may drift.

Maybe those think tank gurus called Imagineers could work their gentrifying magic to make other atrocious parts of world history a bit more politically correct and socially tolerable: How about a ride called "The Nazis of Bergen Belsen" where riders board miniature cattle cars and are towed past large ovens that are used by those wacky, zany German soldiers to bake bread for all the happy homeless children. Then they could have promotional tie-ins with Wonder Bread and Hostess cakes to pump the smell of fresh baked bread throughout the ride, which conveniently ends in a gift shop where families can purchase all sorts of nifty merchandise (made in China, of course) and eat large quantities of fattening food.

Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Fantasy is always better than the truth.