In the post-near coital hell of the Writer's Bluff, Hollywood has become amazingly boring. This Tuesday morning I blew off going to see PEARL HARBOR at a critics' screening, because I want to see the film with a regular audience Wednesday night instead. Michael Bay films are best seen with Audiences (in my experience) and not in the silent slumber of dawn screenings.
The mail is coming in, lots of stories about this BBC canned interview about JURASSIC PARK 3 and EVOLUTION... yadda yadda yadda... USA TODAY articles about the brilliance of SHREK..... TERMINATOR 3 is continuing to develop... oh but this time it might be Vin Diesel or a Babe as the evil terminator... because God Forbid... Arnold can't be a bad guy anymore....
I've been clicking around to other sites to read the latest news... and there just has been nothing exciting, nothing fun... nothing to pontificate about... nothing to care about. So once again, I returned to my own page and looked at the stories... Decided to reread the Jim Hill piece on COUNTRY BEARS... Currently the most interesting piece of new news online, in my opinion... But I sat there thinking about each of the Disney Theme Park attractions... Speculating in my noggin about which one I would most like to see...
Easily it came to THE HAUNTED MANSION... hell, it already has a back story... characters... all sorts of fun that can be had. This Saturday, as part of my SATURDAY MORNING FILM CLUB for kids, I screen the Rankin Bass MAD MONSTER PARTY in 35mm... and next month I screen Roger Corman's THE RAVEN for kids. A fun creepy scary movie for kids... done with an absolute love for the material... It could be a joy.
But then my mind turned to the second favorite attraction I love at DISNEYLAND.... PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN...
This is where I began to fear. You see, while THE HAUNTED MANSION is perfect fodder for film, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN is a tougher work.
If you just make a Pirate movie and call it PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN... well... that's not THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. That would be Pirates... that happen to be in the Caribbean.
I started thinking about what made PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN special to me. Was it, "Yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!"? Was it the fact they were pirates?
No, it was the ride itself... The way those creepy semi-human looking caricatures of pirates came to life. The thought of a PIXAR - PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN came in, but then I feared that Disney and family friendly Pixar would be politically shamed into making the Pirates as un-pirate as they have begun to do to the ride itself.
Pirates, in their fantasy world... Raping is fun. Drinking vast amounts of alcohol is fun. Murdering and having your leg and arm blown off is fun. Having your eye ripped out and being fed to alligators... well that's fun too.
Making the pirates palatable to modern day sensibilities... That's just not cool. Pirates are a thing of the past... Robert Newton could never be as cool on cinema today as he was in Disney's original TREASURE ISLAND.
Even the original "Yo ho" song has been softened and made... Un-pirate.
So if you can't make PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN family entertainment because... well raping and murder and drinking to idiocy is ... not family... What do you do?
Well, I'd make it scary and good.
Imagine if they set the film at DISNEYLAND...
The film is set in the mid-90's. In the pre-credits we go on the ride... the entire thing... Steadicamed out... we come out as a group of Disney execs decide to get rid of 'offensive' material in the original approved by Walt Disney, himself, and make the ride more PC...
As the credits roll we begin to see the ride being changed.. Pirates no longer chasing to rape a woman, but chasing after the food she is carrying... We watch and it is a bit sad... progress, that is. Watching the old go out and the new more palatable come in.
The changes are in place and as the technicians leave that night... The characters begin to come to life... Their 'Johnny Cab' rubber faces stretching, their glass eyes rolling...
The pirates look at the maidens with lascivious stares, and run to rape them, only to find... they are not equipped. Not only that, but when they went to get that dame, their urge was to eat the food instead. They begin to realize that something is wrong with them.
They wander outside of the ride and capture a Disney security guard... In a scene right out of RESERVOIR DOGS they torture him to find out how much he knows... Where they are? What happened to their cocks? Why they can't bleed? They learn... They learn the horror of their existence. They are ALEX at the end of CLOCKWORK ORANGE, but with the knowledge of what has happened. How it can be changed back... And the revenge they must take.
Their goal would be to kill the bastards that took their privates, their language and their desires and kill them in the best pirate ways. Secondary to this, they want to fix themselves so that they can rape and kill and get drunk, so they must capture the IMAGINEERING brains and become fully outfitted. Eisner and his droogs would be killed on screen... And the pirates want to capture some women and sail the seven seas again.
The lead pirate should be voiced by Malcolm McDowell... hehehe... This would be Stan Winston's coolest project ever... pulling molds from the original characters, but making them fully expressive.
See, the problem with this entire property is the concept of making it FAMILY FRIENDLY... Pirates don't want to be family friendly... they don't want a family... if they did they'd rape their own daughters and kill their own sons... Pirates are loathsome fellas in the best CLOCKWORK ORANGE fashion.
Oh... and the whole film should be directed by Paul Verhoeven. hehehe... Alas... we will see some lame pirate flick with a tacked on title... UGH...
