re: #49 Jack Burton, Gunner on Death Star of David

One thing I’d add to this is what I refer to as “Disney’s Pirates Problem”.

First Disney makes Pirates of the Caribbean ride. In 1967.
It has some problematic things in it but… they are pirates. They are supposed to be problematic to some degree. They aren’t heroes.

Then Disney decides to make a movie based (sort of) on the ride.

Disney makes the pirates the “good-ish guys” in the flick.

Disney starts to put references to the movie in the ride.

The ride starts to become about the movie, rather than the other way around.

Can’t have the pirates be the heroes but also… pirates. You can’t stick an animatronic Jack Sparrow in the middle of pirates doing pirate things while burning a Spanish port to the ground. So Disney has to start removing problematic things.

They created their own problem. If they had stuck with a “These people aren’t the heroes” stance the whole time, maybe they could have left the damn ride alone or removed less, but they shot themselves in the foot.

Still even with all the above, for every problematic thing they removed, I’m sure someone can find a dozen more still there, and I bet you almost *everyone* who bitches about the ride being “woke” (I hate I have to use that word) loves those damn movies too.

My problem with the changes Disney made to the ride is that it was coherent — it told a story — before the changes, and a mess afterwards. (I don’t really care much about the movies one way or another.)