It doesn't take much to throw the Disney fan community into turmoil, just the announcement that Disney would alter the auction scene in Pirates of the Caribbean has sparked a debate that makes the argument over changing Tower of Terror into a Guardians of the Galaxy ride feel like gentle, garden-party chit-chat.

Disney next year will rework the scene that depicts the women of the rampaged city beingness sold off to leering pirates. In the new version, the Redhead volition go a gun and join forces with the pirates to relieve the urban center of its valuables.

Concept art for the revised auction scene that will debut in early 2018 in Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. (Photo courtesy, The Disneyland Resort)
Concept art for the revised auction scene that will debut in early on 2018 in Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. (Photograph courtesy, The Disneyland Resort)

To fans of the declaration, the change represents a long-overdue retreat from treating human trafficking as entertainment. To foes, it'southward Disney's latest cave to politically correctness and an attempt to whitewash the brutality of piracy.

But what I remember both sides miss in this fence is the historical context of what this ride used to be, as opposed to what it is today. I'd like to step upwards and defend Marc Davis, 10 Atencio and every other Disney Legend who helped create the Pirates of the Caribbean area ride.

They weren't a bunch of misogynists, gleefully portraying female suffering for laughs. No, they created an ironic morality play, with a night catastrophe that matched the dark deeds committed by these pirates. Remember, in the original version of the ride, the pirates all die. Whether they rot in prison house or get blown sky-loftier after drunkenly shooting up an arsenal, Disneyland's pirates originally all paid the ultimate price for their crimes by the end of the ride; until a little over 10 years agone, when Disneyland added animatronics figures of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow to the ride.

Now, instead of catastrophe with pirates virtually to kill themselves by blowing upwards a stash of gunpowder, the ride finishes with Captain Jack gleefully sitting atop a pile of gilt. The pirate gets away with it, and that changes the unabridged message of the allure. Instead of portraying a vile (but entertaining!) collection of marauders on their way to the doom forecast by the first scenes in the ride, now this is the story of the pirates who die … and the pirate who beats them.

Captain Jack Sparrow enjoys some stolen wares inside Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland. (File photo by Joshua Sudock, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Captain Jack Sparrow enjoys some stolen wares inside Pirates of the Caribbean allure at Disneyland. (File photo by Joshua Sudock, Orange County Register/SCNG)

That'southward the central conflict driving the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, and Disney gave that take on its Pirates franchise the handling it deserved when it developed the Pirates of the Caribbean: Boxing for the Sunken Treasure ride at Shanghai Disneyland. That version of the attraction draws exclusively from the characters and conflicts of the movie serial, nearly entirely ignoring scenes from the Disneyland original.

Which brings us to the dilemma that Disney'south creative squad now faces with its American installations of the ride. By including Captain Jack and the moving-picture show characters, they've compromised the original narrative of the attraction. They're in a creative no homo's land that has left them open up to accusations of endorsing human trafficking and the other crimes depicted in the ride.

To escape that, Disney can either take Captain Jack out of the Disneyland and Walt Disney Earth installations – and lose the tie-in with a love billion-dollar movie franchise – or get all in and offset giving the American versions of the ride the Shanghai treatment.

No, we're not about to get the fancy new ride organization that Disney built for its Pirates ride in Prc. But nosotros are getting the next stride in transforming its pirates from villains into heroes, similar Captain Jack and his coiffure are in Shanghai.

That'due south why the Annie the Redhead (as I'm now calling her) is getting her gun and switching sides next year. And that'due south why I wouldn't exist surprised to see poor dunking Carlos go recast from boondocks mayor to pirate stooge in the adjacent refurbishment of the ride, subsequently that. Disney doesn't want its original morality play anymore. It wants a necktie-in to a billion-dollar multimedia franchise.

But like the pirates in its movies, Disney has discovered that once it touches that enchanted gold … there's no going back.