Dznefreek
It's Epic, well kind of . . . . . .
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- Nov 13, 2000
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For the past 18 months, more than 400 Disney Imagineers have been toiling away in California and Florida (the Disney World version opens July 7) to replicate that glorious absurdity, adding new video and lighting installations; digitally remastering the audio effects and adding snippets from the movies' Hans Zimmer-composed soundtracks; and fashioning more than 400,000 new gold coins and set pieces. And then 750,000 gallons of water had to be drained and put back over the course of three days.
Instead of the old storyline featuring pirates on a pillaging bender, riders will watch the same pirates trying to capture the charming ne'er-do-well Jack Sparrow--played by an animatronic figure modeled after Depp's heavily eye-penciled film character--before he can reach the newly blinged-out booty. The other person brought to electronic life in the ride is Jack's nemesis, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Sorry, ladies, no Orlando Bloom animatronics today.
The ghostly image of Davy Jones, a new already-dead character from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest played by Bill Nighy, will be projected onto the ride's refurbished waterfall scene. LED displays will make the "sky" appear more forbidding and natural looking, the banjo player languishing on the edge of the bayou will have some new licks, and the cannon blasts will be more up-close and realistic (or, louder, if you will--so, if those old pop-pop-pop gunshots used to startle you, cover your ears).
Depp, Rush and Nighy all lent their voices to the ride's soundtrack, which is now piped in through 220 speakers and bass subwoofers strategically placed throughout the 14 1/2-minute-long attraction.
Despite the upgraded special effects and new story line channeling the action from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Disney has said that the changes will not tarnish what people tend to love about the ride--its kitschy, retro charm.
"The film's writers really used our ride as their inspiration, so the new characters feel like they've always been part of our attraction," Kathy Rodgers, a senior show producer at Disney Imagineering, told E! Online. Rodgers' job is more or less to ensure that the vision designed on paper years before a ride debuts is then translated into a tangible, immersive Disney experience. (So, no pressure or anything.)
"We have not disturbed the classic storytelling," she said. "We have given Pirates of the Caribbean a new fresh look that will add to its longevity."
Fans of the original have been worrying that their favorite ride is now going to look more like a Happy Meal box than it will the 1968-era creation that features a band of rowdy, red-faced pirates chasing after treasure, beer and barmaids. Even a minor change in 1997 that made the merry marionettes hunger for plates of food rather than women had purists up in arms. (Good news for them--as part of the redesign, the pirates have ditched the grub and are after the gals again.)
A fan who grew up riding the original told the Los Angeles Times that if it wasn't broken, it didn't need to be fixed. "I think it's really lamentable when society feels that they need to go back and adjust their pop culture icons to fit whatever new spawns out," Candy Richter, 39, said. "I don't think people are going in Haunted Mansion and wondering where the Eddie Murphy character is." (Well, she's got a point there.)
But Rodgers said that she is very confident that no one will walk away disappointed. And, she added, in response to the observation that more things in this world should be designed to look like Johnny Depp, "You're not going to find anyone who's going to disagree with you."
Depp, 43, whose adaptable talents are a huge part of what makes these Pirates of the Caribbean films so darn appealing, recently sat down with Newsweek to discuss the films, fame, fatherhood and why he likes to do Pirate publicity while still sporting Sparrow's gold teeth.
"They don't come off until the ride stops," he said in the interview featured in the magazine's June 26 issue. "It's a horrible process. I didn't want to go through yanking them off and putting them back on. And it leaves some residue of the character behind."
That tactic appears to have worked in the past, considering Depp earned an Oscar nomination the first time he inserted those metallic falsies a few years ago.
He decided to do Pirates because he originally wanted to make a movie that his kids could see (they haven't quite reached the Blow level yet), and is still processing how popular the film became. It "made perfect sense to me on the one hand, and at the same time, it made no sense at all, which I kind of enjoyed," Depp said.
The father of two also related how he never worried about losing his "serious actor" credibility by signing up for a big-budget action flick.
"Never, not once, and I don't know why," he said, "because one would think that I would have. I suppose it's because I feel like I have a voice. The idea of commercial success never bothered me necessarily. What bothered me was striving for that, and lying to get that. If I was going to do something, it had to be on my terms--not because I'm some hideous control freak--but because I don't want to live a lie. You really dont want to look back on your life and go, 'I was a complete fraud.'"
But in addition to a voice, the man who was named People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2003 also happens to have a face--a face that has been pleasing movie audiences in all its incarnations for years, from Depp's sensitive aesthete who can't touch anybody in Edward Scissorhands to his transvestite turn in Ed Wood to his freakish Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (all Tim Burton films, by the way).
And all that face time has taken him to a fairly stratospheric level of fame, or whatever Depp wants to call it, which he offsets by spending a lot of his time in France with his girlfriend, French singer Vanessa Paradis, and their children, seven-year-old Lily-Rose and four-year-old Jack.
"I can't use the word 'fame' with myself, but yeah," Depp said. "I was never horribly self-obsessed or wrapped up in my own weirdness, but when my daughter was born, suddenly there was clarity And it was liberating. In that moment, it's like you become something else. The real you is revealed."
But if you can't get close to the real Depp, Disney's animatronic version will be a good place to start.
Instead of the old storyline featuring pirates on a pillaging bender, riders will watch the same pirates trying to capture the charming ne'er-do-well Jack Sparrow--played by an animatronic figure modeled after Depp's heavily eye-penciled film character--before he can reach the newly blinged-out booty. The other person brought to electronic life in the ride is Jack's nemesis, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Sorry, ladies, no Orlando Bloom animatronics today.
The ghostly image of Davy Jones, a new already-dead character from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest played by Bill Nighy, will be projected onto the ride's refurbished waterfall scene. LED displays will make the "sky" appear more forbidding and natural looking, the banjo player languishing on the edge of the bayou will have some new licks, and the cannon blasts will be more up-close and realistic (or, louder, if you will--so, if those old pop-pop-pop gunshots used to startle you, cover your ears).
Depp, Rush and Nighy all lent their voices to the ride's soundtrack, which is now piped in through 220 speakers and bass subwoofers strategically placed throughout the 14 1/2-minute-long attraction.
Despite the upgraded special effects and new story line channeling the action from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Disney has said that the changes will not tarnish what people tend to love about the ride--its kitschy, retro charm.
"The film's writers really used our ride as their inspiration, so the new characters feel like they've always been part of our attraction," Kathy Rodgers, a senior show producer at Disney Imagineering, told E! Online. Rodgers' job is more or less to ensure that the vision designed on paper years before a ride debuts is then translated into a tangible, immersive Disney experience. (So, no pressure or anything.)
"We have not disturbed the classic storytelling," she said. "We have given Pirates of the Caribbean a new fresh look that will add to its longevity."
Fans of the original have been worrying that their favorite ride is now going to look more like a Happy Meal box than it will the 1968-era creation that features a band of rowdy, red-faced pirates chasing after treasure, beer and barmaids. Even a minor change in 1997 that made the merry marionettes hunger for plates of food rather than women had purists up in arms. (Good news for them--as part of the redesign, the pirates have ditched the grub and are after the gals again.)
A fan who grew up riding the original told the Los Angeles Times that if it wasn't broken, it didn't need to be fixed. "I think it's really lamentable when society feels that they need to go back and adjust their pop culture icons to fit whatever new spawns out," Candy Richter, 39, said. "I don't think people are going in Haunted Mansion and wondering where the Eddie Murphy character is." (Well, she's got a point there.)
But Rodgers said that she is very confident that no one will walk away disappointed. And, she added, in response to the observation that more things in this world should be designed to look like Johnny Depp, "You're not going to find anyone who's going to disagree with you."
Depp, 43, whose adaptable talents are a huge part of what makes these Pirates of the Caribbean films so darn appealing, recently sat down with Newsweek to discuss the films, fame, fatherhood and why he likes to do Pirate publicity while still sporting Sparrow's gold teeth.
"They don't come off until the ride stops," he said in the interview featured in the magazine's June 26 issue. "It's a horrible process. I didn't want to go through yanking them off and putting them back on. And it leaves some residue of the character behind."
That tactic appears to have worked in the past, considering Depp earned an Oscar nomination the first time he inserted those metallic falsies a few years ago.
He decided to do Pirates because he originally wanted to make a movie that his kids could see (they haven't quite reached the Blow level yet), and is still processing how popular the film became. It "made perfect sense to me on the one hand, and at the same time, it made no sense at all, which I kind of enjoyed," Depp said.
The father of two also related how he never worried about losing his "serious actor" credibility by signing up for a big-budget action flick.
"Never, not once, and I don't know why," he said, "because one would think that I would have. I suppose it's because I feel like I have a voice. The idea of commercial success never bothered me necessarily. What bothered me was striving for that, and lying to get that. If I was going to do something, it had to be on my terms--not because I'm some hideous control freak--but because I don't want to live a lie. You really dont want to look back on your life and go, 'I was a complete fraud.'"
But in addition to a voice, the man who was named People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2003 also happens to have a face--a face that has been pleasing movie audiences in all its incarnations for years, from Depp's sensitive aesthete who can't touch anybody in Edward Scissorhands to his transvestite turn in Ed Wood to his freakish Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (all Tim Burton films, by the way).
And all that face time has taken him to a fairly stratospheric level of fame, or whatever Depp wants to call it, which he offsets by spending a lot of his time in France with his girlfriend, French singer Vanessa Paradis, and their children, seven-year-old Lily-Rose and four-year-old Jack.
"I can't use the word 'fame' with myself, but yeah," Depp said. "I was never horribly self-obsessed or wrapped up in my own weirdness, but when my daughter was born, suddenly there was clarity And it was liberating. In that moment, it's like you become something else. The real you is revealed."
But if you can't get close to the real Depp, Disney's animatronic version will be a good place to start.
