JoshuaRed

No need to be so testy. What part of don't you understand? I'm rooting for you, man! :) I merely said I was skeptical. I have done my Kidd homework too, which is why I'm skeptical. Based on everything I've read (every major modern source on Kidd as well as some period sources) I feel that the man was too flustered, in too much of a rush to have time for such an elaborate project. Btw, I like your site very much!

El Pirata - it's one Disc 2. "Pirates In The Parks". There is a classic Disney featurette from the late 60's hosted by Walt all about the making of the ride. If you have a DVDrom you can pop Disc 2 in your pc and watch a great documentary on the ride with footage, and there is a "virtual ride" that lets you exlore all the vignettes from the ride in a quicktime movie. Neat stuff.

There's also a scene where a pirate chases a buxom wench around and around. Didn't the swap them so the wench was chasing the pirate , thus condoning female empowerment? Incidentally if you get the POTC dvd, they have some amazing footage of the classic ride from the time of it's creation. It's almost as good as being there!

They wouldn't have carried them in a boarding action - no time to reload in a hot n' heavy deck battle. That's why pirates were known for heavily arming themselves with sometimes a score of pistols stuffed in every belt, sash, bandolier and pocket they had. Once they were fired the butts made excellent clubs for crackin' skulls! Course I'm sure they had plenty of powder horns on their own ship for loading and hunting while on shore.

All the best luck to ye mate! While I sincerely hope you're spot on, I remain skeptical. Have you had a handwriting expert analyze those charts against known samples of Kidd's hand?

Woulda worn the same dirty sea slops as any other mariner of the day, gone barefoot at sea, had maybe a basic cotton shirt, knife, worn leather belt or rope holding his slops up. Course if he had any luck at all a-pyratin' he'd quickly score whatever finer clothes he could off a prize!

The English & French buccaneers waged a private war on the Spanish in the Carribean throughout most of the 1600's that changed the course of history in the Western Hemisphere. Without the constant guerilla warfare of the pirates there, England, Frace and the Netherlands may not have been able to loosen the stronghold Spain had on the New World's vast wealth.

LOL my wife likes Anthony Wiggle. Captain Feathersword (Paul Paddick) is indeed ripped....but word is that he plays fer the other team...so ta speak. :) I guess Anthony Wiggle was considered a soccer mom's heartthrob, till he recently married the chick that plays Dorothy the Dinosaur. Is it freaky and weird that I know so much about the Wiggles? Hell yeah. But when your 19 month old pretty much has final say in family tv viewing, you haven't much choice.

Captain Feathersword is the MAN!!! Anyone who can keep my wild little buccaneer enthralled everyday deserves a pirate huzzah!

hey Great Diamond Island is just offshore from my home here in South Portland! Beautiful, fun place to hang out. Fort Georges, Fort Williams, etc...all are very cool, but never saw any action. Btw - isn't Nix's Mate where they hung William Fly and other pirates?

The Floating Brothel is great! Fascinating stuff, though it came later in the 18th century. Hands down the best account of daily life at sea for pirates and nonpirates for our time period is Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea : Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 by Marcus Rediker. A MUST HAVE. Here is detailed info: AMAZON

Aw gawd!!! By thundah!! That is SOOOOOO.....stupid!!! Even a 10 year old kid would know that the "first pirate ship to set sail" was thousands of years ago, not some specific, "Goonies Galleon" perched on some reef bed in the Caribbean! AAAA!!! By all that is pyratical...they better not ruin the great thing they began with the first movie. When will Hollywood dare to show pirates do something besides look for long buried treasure? It's a no brainer that a ship full of gold that's still afloat is FAR easier to capture than a pile of mud covered doubloons in Davey Jones!!

Agreed, but don't you think the extra scenes from Tortuga & Port Royal should have stayed? They REALLY helped the viewer feel like these were living, bustling port towns. My only real complaint about POTC is that often you feel like the main character are the only ones living in this amazing world.

Pilots are still in use today. Here in Portland, Maine we have a crazy busy harbor with tankers and freighters coming and going. There are local pilots (who may be Coast Guard, not sure) who take these massive vessels in and out of port. On a cruise to Bermuda a couple years back, when our ship made land we waited offshore for an hour while the pilot made his way out to the ship. Here is something I wonder about pilots from the days of old. In the 17th/18th century, was the hiring of a pilot a necessity for most every port? Once you've sailed your vessel to a port and watched the pilot bring 'er in and out again, couldn't you just take notes and do it yourself next time? I imagine that pilots were chiefly used for first time visitors to ports, eh? Does anyone know what they charged for services?

Watched all the deleted scenes last night - WOW! They're amazing. Any minor complaints I had about the film after seeing it in the theater would have been removed had these deleted gems been included in the final cut. Not only did they further explain the deep plot, but they really fleshed out the settings of Port Royal and Tortuga and made them feel like lively, bustling ports. HOW could they not add them in the film? Oh man, and the extra stuff with Jack and Liz on the deserted isle was excellent! When she asks him about the truth of his other wild stories and past, and he shows her the scars, and says "No love....no truth at all...." - - YIKES! Sounded to me like he was being sarcastic and that his past was even more violent and epic than his own tales and reputation. And Depp ad libbing with the pirates about the French and mayo....HILARIOUS! Of all though, I wish those missing Tortuga scenes were put back in the movie. The blooper reel is good, but a little let down. I was hoping for some real funny pranks, falls, etc., instead of the usual flubbed lines routine.

OOOh don't ferget our good ol' Captain Feathersword from the Wiggles! He is my 19 month old son's FAVORITE!!! He can be seen every morning at 8, 9 and noon on Playhouse Disney. Fans of Spongebob should be familar with The Flying Dutchman, a ghost pirate who haunts Bikini Bottom. This guy is hysterical. Voiced by Bill Murray's gravelly throated brother Brian-Doyle Murray. Spongebob is ripe with pirate goodies. From the singing painting in the show intro to occasional appearances by Patchy the Pirate (live action). It's great fun!

Pirate Hunter is a helluva good read! Got it back when it first came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. I just got Clifford's new book for Christmas so I haven't gotten to it yet, but I have his other 2 books and loved them both as well. Especially The Lost Fleet.

Makes sense to me, Carrie! I was just being argumentative fer fun.

Do 2 men phsyically have the strength to pull an overturned boat full of air to the ocean bottom and walk? I wondered that when I saw Crimson Pirate years ago too....

Actually Cutthroat Island came out in 1995 which makes it only 8 years the junior. It is worth watching if only for Patrick Malahide's wicked cool performance as Governor Ainslee. But Geena....oh man....hawwruble! I gotta side with those of ye wot did not care fer her bein' in this flick. She is so "Al Gore-ish". So wooden. She looks visibly uncomfortable in her role throughout the movie, unlike Depp who visibly relishes each line of dialogue. But my number one pet peeve with Cutthroat Island is that when they wash ashore there and set off into the jungle.....you distinctly hear a lion roar. A lion. In the Caribbean. Uh-huh. Here's another good one. In Port Royal at the slave auction that arrogant aristocrat looks over at the wall of wanted posters to see one for Morgan. Right next to it and rather prominently displayed is one for Blackbeard as well. But this movie is set in 1668 which would make Blackbeard either not born or a snot-nosed toddler 'angin off his mum's teat back in Bristol! Now I am all for loosening the constraints of history a bit in favor of action and fun. Lord knows Hollywood does it all the time. But in a movie like POTC it works because they are intentionally ambiguous about times and dates, and rarely mention other real life pirates or events. But Cutthroat Island pretends to exist in reality. So to me, mistakes like that are not cool. Speaking of 1668....as mentioned above that's when this movie is set. Yet at one point in the movie during that violent storm Shaw is in Morgan's cabin and steals a journal with the date 1680 clearly embossed on the cover. Maybe it's pirate science fiction? I could go on all day. :)

Spoofy is great when it gets pulled off correctly - the problem with Cutthroat Island is that Renny Harlin wasn't trying to be spoofy - he was trying to make what he thought was a rousing pirate adventure to showcase his wife Geena. Trouble is he based it entirely on old Hollywood pirate movies, with nary a shred of historical accuracy except the gorgeous costumes which are worth the cost of the movie alone. It's a copy of a copy of Treasure Island. It's fun to watch for the great score and costumes, but man what a stinker otherwise. :)

Aye, didn't he also say that "in jail you find commonly better company than at sea"?

I think Elizabeth didn't get cursed because greed was not her motive when she took it from Will. As in the script:

Something I always wondered is why does Barbossa get so agitated when Elizabeth holds the doubloon out over the side of the ship when she first gets kidnapped in Port Royal? Why not just let her drop it over the side and then tell one of his crew to "take a walk" on the ocean floor and pick it up?

I've never read ANY pre-1700 firsthand account that specifically mentioned Jolly Rogers. that I would deem certifiable. Personally I think that it wasn't popular till the end of Queen Anne's War, with the exception of a few early trendsetters like Wynne.