The International House of Mojo

If there's one thing I never get tired of, it's thinking about the links between Monkey Island and Pirates of the Caribbean. An article over at Tom's Hard-ware does a good job of collecting a host of comparisons, and analysing them. Naturally I was interested in reading it, and you might be too.

One point the article makes is that:

"Elizabeth Swann's (Keira Knightley) transition from Governess' daughter to brutal, Chinese-slaying corsair in the space of the somewhat clumsily bridged gap between Dead Man's Chest and At World's End represents something of a departure from the character of Elaine, who Elizabeth had aped to closely so far. The character grows in the change, becoming more than the perpetual damsel in disress [sic] that was Elaine Marley."

I would disagree with this: Elaine Marley a "perpetual damsel in distress?" If anything, she's the anti damsel in distress. She plays that role for the most part of The Secret of Monkey Island, but once we get to the actual rescue, we find that Elaine didn't need rescuing at all - and is in fact more in control of the situation than Guybrush could ever be. Seems like a Pirate King to me!

The article continues:

"The one character who bears no resemblance to anything found in Monkey Island is Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) himself. The uncoordinated character of Jack Sparrow manages to fit into the role of a master pirate to William Turner's apprentice brigand. This of course is a role best left unfilled in a game context, where players are expected to learn for themselves the behavior necessitated by life on the high seas."

Our resident Johny Depp expert, Daniel Wishart, had this to say about the above quote:

"No-one seems to understand the whole Sparrow thing with relation to Monkey Island. Of course he's nothing like anything in MI... but that's Depp's interpretation, you have to look at him on paper."

I suppose following this line of thought, Captain Jack (Sparrow, not Harkness) is like a spirit of pirateness, found in several areas of the game, like at The SCUMM Bar, and during Insult Sword Fighting.

Thanks a lot to Huz for the article link.