News Pirates of the Caribbean closing for refurbishment in February for new auction scene

W

willtravel

Well-Known Member
Expo_Seeker40 said:
Ah yes, social justice of the caribbean. While there were a handful of female pirates back in the day, why would any contemporary woman want to be associated with such vile "toxic masculinity"? What role model would this do for a girl? Getting drunk and stealing people's stuff is fun!
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I think you are going to have to ask Penelope Cruz that question... Good to see you back.
 
Phineas

Phineas

Well-Known Member
dmw said:
Just to add some perspective, I never considered the scene to be the centerpiece. To me, the ride just flows from scene to scene. I'm actually OK with the change. And, I never noticed whose voice was used for any one character.
To answer your other question, I never heard anyone complain, but I don't work for Disney so I can't say if Disney has received complaints.
That said, I do not think a change was needed to the original scene.
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Thanks-I really do appreciate the different perspective.
 
DisneyDebRob

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
Phineas said:
That's the thing though; it's not a small change. This is the centerpiece of the attraction. I understand a vocal minority complaining about the content, I do. And I get that maybe Disney wanted to create some distance before too many people from this outrage generation became too vocal. But this is one of the most iconic Disney attractions. The characters and scenes are part of American popular culture. And they went in, and changed everything for the worse. There's no sense of logical narrative to the scene now. The new audio recordings stick out like a sore thumb. This scene was done so haphazardly, so cheaply, that it's offensive.

There was a real opportunity to re-imagine the auction scene. And they squandered it.

And real question here to anyone reading: Has anyone ever actually heard someone complaining about this scene's content before the change was announced?
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I have. It started a huge argument which I won’t get into here. The good though was my wife was right next to me agreeing with me the whole time . :)
 
WDWTank

WDWTank

Well-Known Member
Phineas said:
That's the thing though; it's not a small change. This is the centerpiece of the attraction. I understand a vocal minority complaining about the content, I do. And I get that maybe Disney wanted to create some distance before too many people from this outrage generation became too vocal. But this is one of the most iconic Disney attractions. The characters and scenes are part of American popular culture. And they went in, and changed everything for the worse. There's no sense of logical narrative to the scene now. The new audio recordings stick out like a sore thumb. This scene was done so haphazardly, so cheaply, that it's offensive.

There was a real opportunity to re-imagine the auction scene. And they squandered it.

And real question here to anyone reading: Has anyone ever actually heard someone complaining about this scene's content before the change was announced?
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Don’t forget the jail scene at the end is also ingrained in pop culture; the park down the street parodied it with Snidley Whiplash.
 
tl77

tl77

Well-Known Member
Phineas said:
That's the thing though; it's not a small change. This is the centerpiece of the attraction. I understand a vocal minority complaining about the content, I do. And I get that maybe Disney wanted to create some distance before too many people from this outrage generation became too vocal. But this is one of the most iconic Disney attractions. The characters and scenes are part of American popular culture. And they went in, and changed everything for the worse. There's no sense of logical narrative to the scene now. The new audio recordings stick out like a sore thumb. This scene was done so haphazardly, so cheaply, that it's offensive.

There was a real opportunity to re-imagine the auction scene. And they squandered it.

And real question here to anyone reading: Has anyone ever actually heard someone complaining about this scene's content before the change was announced?
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I don't know if anyone came out and complained about the original version of the scene, but I think the thing that bothered people, or at least seemed a little creepy to me, is how scared the female characters lined up behind the Red Head were, because they're basically afraid of being sexually assaulted. I can see how if you were a woman that had lived through something like that in life, this is not something you would want to be reminded of, or confronted with, while on vacation at "the happiest place on earth." So I definitely felt it was time to change up that scene, and the only real purpose of the scared women was as comedic foils to the Red Head and the Short Stout woman next to the Auctioneer, who both seem more than happy to be in the auction, I'm just disappointed by what they came up with.

The Red Head was certainly the iconic part of that scene, every time they announced a new Pirates film I expected to hear that they cast someone like Christina Hendricks or Rose McGowan to play her in a film. She's definitely a character you remember after you got off the ride, she was a "force to be reckoned with" originally because of how defiant she was, and that was what was funny about her, but now she's basically just a barmaid, and the short stout woman just stands there sadly holding a chicken, I think they should have made her a crazy pirate too, maybe patterned her after someone like Melissa McCarthy or Rebel Wilson... There have always been comedy films and TV shows that revolved around "women behaving badly", recently there's been a bunch like Bridesmaids, Bad Moms, Pitch Perfect, but it goes back as far as 1934's "It Happen One Night" with Claudette Colbert flashing her leg to get a ride hitch hiking, which is the same gag that original Red Head was "borrowing".

I agree they squandered an opportunity to re-imagine this into something... ya know? funny... as well as modern, and still be timeless. Had they turned them all into a bunch of rowdy girl pirates, they could have kept a lot of the Auctioneer's dialogue about "brazen wenches" and then let them fire back with guns and/or one-liners
 
mf1972

mf1972

Well-Known Member
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i’ll just wait until they restore the auction scene to its previous version
 
Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Here's how I would have changed it:

Replace the two pirates on the bridge with two new characters; a dashing swordsman of a pirate and a clearly outmatched member of the town. Keep all the other characters the same except the redhead (now an expert fencer). The auctioneer would be taking bets on who would win, and ask if they want to see "this lass" take on the next winner. The crowd on the other side would then shout "we wants the readhead!". Meanwhile, the women (no longer in ropes) swoon over the obvious winner, except one who's clearly upset to see her husband lose.

This scene would have kept nearly all the characters and staging of the original, removed any references to selling women and given us a cool new character to bring even more animation to the scene. That and retaining the most iconic line of dialogue.

That this chicken debacle is the best WDI could come up with is very disappointing. The ride and its guests deserve better.
 
SSE_King

SSE_King

Member
For me, audio recording / voice acting completely ruins the new scene. When the footage first got released, I watched it without the sound and I thought, "wow, this looks amazing!" I loved the movement of the redhead animatronic and the whole overall look of the new scene.

But then I watched it again, this time with the sound, and completely changed my mind. The redhead's voice doesn't sound intimidating or "pirate" like at all - my first thought was that she sounded like Jimmy Neutron or some character from a children's show. "Quit yer cluckin"? Seriously?

The auctioneer sounds like a terrible pirate impersonator. "Strike your feathers, show them your flock" makes no sense and it sounds like a first grader's attempt to rewrite the original dialogue to fit the context of the new scene.

And don't get me started on the other pirates. Whenever I watch the scene again and hear the "I'll give you twenty...FOR THE RUM" I seriously cringe. The delivery of that line makes my ears bleed. And changing "we wants the redhead" to "we wants the rum" is just an insult to the many, many people who were upset about this change to begin with.

Compared to the timeless, humorous audio of the rest of the ride, this scene now just sticks out like a sore thumb. Not even a sore thumb - more like a thumb that's been smashed with a hammer and is now swollen to ten times the size it used to be.

Sorry for the rant. But POTC has always been one of my favorite, if not my all-time favorite ride at WDW, so the fact that there's now a scene in it that makes me physically cringe is really disappointing to say the least. I hope they come to their senses and at LEAST change the audio, which I would imagine wouldn't be that hard to fix.
 
Magicart87

Magicart87

HOUSE OF MAGIC Member
Premium Member
Animaniac93-98 said:
Here's how I would have changed it:

Replace the two pirates on the bridge with two new characters; a dashing swordsman of a pirate and a clearly outmatched member of the town. Keep all the other characters the same except the redhead (now an expert fencer). The auctioneer would be taking bets on who would win, and ask if they want to see "this lass" take on the next winner. The crowd on the other side would then shout "we wants the readhead!". Meanwhile, the women (no longer in ropes) swoon over the obvious winner, except one who's clearly upset to see her husband lose.

This scene would have kept nearly all the characters and staging of the original, removed any references to selling women and given us a cool new character to bring even more animation to the scene. That and retaining the most iconic line of dialogue.

That this chicken debacle is the best WDI could come up with is very disappointing. The ride and its guests deserve better.
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A Gambling Ring. Smart! Instead of bidding they're betting. I like it!
 
PizzaPlanet

PizzaPlanet

Well-Known Member
Phineas said:
From NY Daily News:

“Our team thought long and hard about how best to update this scene,” Kathy Mangum, a senior vice president with Disney Imagineering, said. “Given the redhead has long been a fan favorite, we wanted to keep her as a pivotal part of the story, so we made her a plundering pirate!”

Did you, Kathy? Did you?
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Some of the greatest imagineers of all time have worked on PoTC. Marc Davis, X Atencio, Blaine Gibson, Claude Coats, Kathy Mangum, etc.
 

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