Nifty page design, eh? Sort of piratey, you almost expect it to say 'cracked by CrakZor the Infinity' like my old copy of Monkey Island used to say.
(Er, that's a joke obviously. It was actually cracked by someone called 'Skid Row'.)
But that Monkey Island, eh? Good game, good game. But how shameless of those bastards Disney to create a perfect carbon copy of the game in the form of the movie Pirate of the Caribbean! Right? Eh?
OR IS IT NOT THAT SIMPLE?
I want to reject some of these notions with this badly researched and poorly argued article. To begin with, and most obviously, both the game and the movie are derived (in part or in full) from the same amusement park ride, and that in an instant explains 90% of all similarities. I'm no authority on the ride itself because I've never seen it, but I do have a friend who claims to have been on it when he was about four. But now I'll take a closer look at some of the points that have been made:
* WILL TURNER? GUYBRUSH THREEPWOOD? HELLOOO?
CAN YOU NOT SEE THE RESEMBLANCE?
No, not really. Some people have said 'Will becomes a pirate in the
end just like Guybrush does', and although it's been some time since I saw
the film, I can't really remember this happening. In fact now that I think
about it, Guybrush doesn't really become a pirate either. Does he ever engage
in any real piracal activity that he isn't actually forced to do for the
sake of the plot? Between the first game
and the second he's a sort of travelling storyteller. He sells a few books.
Between the third and the fourth he's on his honeymoon. Between the second
and third
he doesn't
do much at all except recap.
So anyway, the point is that Guybrush is more of a storyteller than a pirate,
and Will is more of a blacksmith than a pirate. They feature in pirate stories
and undergo character development. They have traditional pirate story exploits.
I'm trying to think of similarities between them, but I can't think of any
that they don't share with, for example, Luke Skywalker.
* LECHUCK? BARBOSSA/DAVY JONES? HELLOOO? CAN
YOU NOT SEE THE RESEMBLANCE?
Bad guys, eh?
Okay, so LeChuck and Barbossa are both undead, and LeChuck and Davy Jones are
both... bearded. Good call! Look, they're all just bad guy pirates, okay? Or
at least I assume Davy Jones is a bad guy, I haven't seen the film yet so he
might
just
be a little misundersood. Bad guy pirates do bad guy pirate things, you know?
As
for LeChuck and Barbossa both being undead, I'm not familiar with the original
theme
park
ride
or the book One
Strange
Tide
(I'm up
to
page
three), but
I'm
fairly
confident
that
the
one
being undead did
not
borrow
from the other being undead (I told you I haven't done any research). Besides,
one
is
ghost/zombie and the other is cursed/living, and that's like confusing goths
and punks. Anyway,
I don't know what else to say. Bad guy pirate captains. In pirate stories. Not
much of a scandal there.
* ELAINE MARLEY? ELIZABETH SWANN? HELLOOO?
ETC?
By now the links are getting a bit tenuous. Governor, Governor's Daughter.
If the plot involves a woman getting kidnapped, it's generally useful if the
woman is the daughter of a person of authority, for example, the Senator of
Alderaan, or, in this case, a Governor. For the male protagonist to go on a
crusade to rescue the Cobbler's daughter is a little less spectacular, and
her kidnapping is less likely to inspire the authorities to send out their
best men. Also a Governor's Daughter is going to be a little better dressed
and
a little
more
pampered, which makes it all the more shocking when she does anything so ladylike
as get in a swordfight. All good reasons
for her to be a Governor's Daughter.
* JACK SPARROW? UM, WALLY B FEED? ER...
Now you're just clutching at straws. Jack Sparrow, or, the main protagonist
of Pirates of the Caribbean, clearly does not have any sort of doppelganger
in the Monkey Island games. Has the movie struck a chord for originality?
Bonus!
Actually this is an important point: the hero of the story does not bear
any resemblance to any Monkey Island characters whatsoever. People look
too much for similarites between the film and the game but ignore strong
dissimilarities. What else is different? What does the game have that the
film doesn't? It doesn't have a voodoo lady, or a Stan, or a fat Governor,
or an anarchist collective island, or a giant monkey head, or voodoo dolls,
or anything where 'X marks the spot', or crazy old hermits, or rubber trees.
The computer game doesn't have a cursed treasure, or a ship that somehow
manages to sail faster than other ships despite the fact that its sails
are all ragged and full of holes. The moon doesn't play any part at all.
* THE STORIES ARE KIND OF THE SAME! IN PLACES!
I guess so. I have a book under my bed (it fell there) called "The Seven Basic
Plots", and it's all about why stories all have the same stories (I'm
up to page three). Woman kidnapped. Check. Been done a few times before.
Guys go to rescue her. Um... what else... er...
I run out of clean comparison points. Guybrush trains to become a pirate.
Doesn't happen in the movie. Guybrush tries to find a crew. Doesn't happen
in the movie. Guybrush learns swordfighting. Guybrush explores mythical
island. Guybrush goes to Hell. Guybrush dissolves ghost. None of this happens
in the movie. Guybrush grows a beard and searches for treasure. Guybrush
looks for map pieces. Guybrush blows up fortress. Guybrush constructs voodoo
dolls. And so on. Not ringing any bells.
But other than that, of course, the stories are identical... they're pirate
stories!
* THEY ENGAGE IN WITTY REPARTEE DURING THE
FIGHTING SCENES AND STUFF. AND THEY'RE BEING ALL CREATIVE AND STUFF IN A
BLACKSMITH SHOP DUEL. YOU FIGHT LIKE A DAIRY FARMER!
Oh yeah? What do you expect them to do during a fighting scene? Stand on
the spot and wave their swords around in a figure eight pattern? Are they
supposed to say nothing, or maybe something along the lines of "You suck!"
"No, you
suck and I'm
going
to stab you now!"? Let's face it, if a swordfight isn't witty or creative,
it's dull. You gotta spruce it up a bit. Add some choreography, some lexicography,
maybe a little bibliography. Make 'em tumble like circus performers or rogues
with a high dexterity, make 'em taunt like Shakespearian performers or bards
with a high charisma. It's called entertainment for a reason, chaps. Or role
playing.
* SOME SCENES ARE ACTUALLY IDENTICAL, LIKE
THE DOG BONE PRISON THING
Do you mean the dog bone prison thing that both the film and the game
copied from the amusement park ride? Or some other dog bone prison thing?
Anything specific like this which can't be explained by saying 'because thats
what happens in pirate stories' probably originated the original theme
park ride.
* RON GILBERT HIMSELF HAS PUT FORTH A PASSIONATE
ARGUMENT IN HIS BLOG THAT THE MOVIE IS RIP-OFF OF HIS GAME, AND HAS GENERALLY
DENOUNCED IT AND DEMANDED A BOYCOTT OF IT AND STUFF
I have nothing to say on the subject, except that the blog entry itself is
probably the result of mass hallucination and swamp gas. When I myself went
to investigate this so-called 'blog entry' all I found was a patch of empty
land in the middle of nowhere and a small hippy commune. The hippies, when
questioned, claimed to know nothing.
To conclude, I haven't seen many (any) of the old pirate films but if I did I imagine a lot of the same motifs would pop up over and again. I'd bet my left nipple that at least two old pirate films involve a woman with a noble position getting kidnapped, and some kind of wimpy youth goes to rescue her and evolves into a hardened pirate or whatever. He probably has girly hair too. He learns to swordfight from a master. And so on.
So there you go. There area few things I left out but don't think they even need to be mentioned. Fairly self-explanatory stuff. I'm going to bed. David Thomsen, signing out.