Video: New Transforming Pirate in Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean

We headed out to Disneyland bright and early this morning to check out Pirates of Caribbean, which had been closed for a nearly two-month refurbishment. As we headed into the park we were surprised to see one of the ride’s most iconic scenes had gotten a major addition. In this post we’ll take a look at the new cutting edge transforming pirate.

As you can see, the figure sitting on the gold pile at the beginning of Pirates of Caribbean now moves, talks, and transforms from a human to a skeleton. In a video released by Disney, Joel Peavy from Walt Disney Imagineering says “We’ve come up with this hybridized technology that combines a front projection with a partially mechanically articulated face, which together makes for these incredibly characterful faces.” Also, I wanted to point out that we purposely stayed zoomed out in our video to give you an idea of what the updated scene and figure look like from the perspective as someone viewing it from the boat on the ride.

Our take:

Disney may want to tweak a few things in this updated scene. The first thing we noticed after experiencing it this morning was how loud the sound effects and voice of the new figure were. This kills the eerie and quiet vibe of this part of the ride. Other than that we thought it was overall an impressive effect.

What do you think about the new transforming pirate on Pirates of Caribbean? Let us know in the comments.