Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3

Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man's Chest
news and rumors
page 39
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News stories may contain SPOILERS!

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More of The Legend of Jack Sparrow Wallpapers

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The POTC2/3 production is moving back to Los Angeles for the Holidays.  They are expected to return to the CAribbean in January for about a month.

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A Sparrow by Any Other Name

One of the worst kept secrets at Disneyland is that the newly reopened Space Mountain received, among other things during its recent reconstruction, a second ride program. This second ride program, called Rock It Mountain, will feature a musical soundtrack and lighting effects different from those used when the ride operates under the Space Mountain name.

Space Mountain will become Rock It Mountain when the sun goes down. Rock It Mountain is expected to debut sometime after the first of the year, or perhaps just before the Spring/Easter Break season.

What isn't nearly as well known is that the idea of having one attraction with two separate ride themes didn't originate with Space Mountain. According to sources familiar with Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) and Disneyland management, Pirates of the Caribbean was the first attraction proposed for the dual ride story treatment.

Following the phenomenal success of Walt Disney Pictures Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, everyone from fans of Johnny Depp to fans of the ride have been clamoring to have Depp's balmy Captain Jack Sparrow somehow inserted into both the Anaheim and Florida versions of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction…and WDI has been clamoring to accommodate them.

Early on, Imagineers came up with the idea of adding a second track and additional story elements to the original Pirates ride in Disneyland. The Disney World version of Pirates is in a smaller building and would not be able to accommodate a second track.

The new track, as the story goes, would be located behind the Port Royal, set on the left-hand side of the current track, in an area currently used for storing boats. Here, as evening fell upon New Orleans Square, not only would you see Captain Jack but also Barbossa and the cutthroat crew of the Black Pearl, and, just as in the movie, as the sun went down you'd see these villains morph from human form into unearthly walking skeletal form.

The current scuttlebutt on Captain Jack and company is that the second ride track idea has been thrown overboard for budgetary reasons. Current plans call for Jack, along with several other pirates, to be installed along the current ride track where they will transform under the simulated moonlight to their cursed form.

Rumor has it these changes will take place during Pirates regularly scheduled refurbishment scheduled for early 2006. There is also informed speculation that contrary to promises to never again close Disneyland early during the summer season, the park will play host to the world premiere of the second Pirates film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. To accommodate the world premiere, Disneyland's guests will once again be forced to walk the plank, so to speak, and exit the Magic Kingdom late one June afternoon.

 The last time Disneyland played host to a movie premiere guests traversed New Orleans Square around and beneath bleachers for more than a week while regularly scheduled performances of Fantasmic were also canceled.
Image © obe-mediaone.

How did Disneyland become so twice blessed? Disney studio press and publicity people argued that it would be easier, and cheaper, to get celebrities to travel down I-5 to Anaheim than it would be to fly them out to Orlando. With the new film scheduled to open in early July while the Happiest Home Coming on Earth celebration, which is drawing huge crowds, is still in progress, the question becomes will things run as smoothly at Disneyland for the premiere of Dead Man's Chest as they did for the Curse of the Black Pearl event?

Fun Fact: The last time Pirates of the Caribbean had a major overhaul, the media became obsessed with the idea that Disney had altered the ride's storyline to make it more politically correct. This rumor came about when Imagineers from WDI were showing the changes in the show elements to Disneyland's publicity staff.

Pirates' amended storyline was intended to illustrate the Seven Deadly Sins. To accomplish this, a female figure hiding from a drunken pirate was removed and replaced by a cat, and the pirate, now meant to represent gluttony, was surrounded by food. The scene of two pirates chasing a woman was reversed, and the woman now chases the pirates with a rolling pin as they attempt to flee carrying plates of stolen food.

"The publicity people took one look at the ride with these women's roles changed or removed," said a production designer familiar with the history of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, "and decided that what Imagineering had done was to make the ride more PC."

"How could anyone look at a ride that shows women tied together, being sold off at auction, and call it Politically Correct?" asked Imagineer Tony Baxter. "How much more un-PC can you get than that?"

If you or planning in visiting the Caribbean, you can discover more about travel there by visiting
The Bahamas Vacation Guide
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