The Monkey Island SCUMM Bar: The Depp Blue Sea

As some Mojo readers might have seen, I've been going Entertainment Weekly scanning kerazy this week, and will continue the trend with this one of Pirates of the Caribbean (PoC). As anybody who hasn't been sleeping away the past few months know, PoC is based on the Disneyland ride of the same name, which also was the main inspiration for the Monkey Island games. In this scan you can see both Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in what must be considered a very promising photo from the film, which opens July 9th in the US. Click thumbnail below to view it.

Although PoC looks promising, I can't help but be a little leary of the Jerry Bruckheimer connection.

He's renound for producing/directing brainless fluff targeted at very dumb adults just for the sake of making few bucks. All his movies have this annoying style of quick editing an jerky camera movements that look so contrived. Most of them are instantly forgettable, and provide a "low-attention-span"-style, substance-void assult on the senses that leaves any intelligent person who cares about quality movies wondering why they paid good money to see a bunch of boring explosions and redundant car chases (it's all been done to death man!)

Hopefully this will be an exception to the rule. On the other hand though, Gore Verbinski ("The Ring") will be directing, which is good news. He has a sense of visual style that would be freaking perfect for this genre. I wish there was a way to contact him and send him a copy of MI... you know, for inspiration :-)

Posted Jan 21, 2003

Yeah, I'm not a Bruckheimer fan at all, but I loved Verbinski's work on The Ring. Though he did do Mouse Hunt too I guess.

Posted Jan 21, 2003