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"You believe in pirates, of course?" Walt Disney once asked on a Disneyland television program. . . . Disney Pirates: The Definitive Collector's Anthology delves behind-the-scenes across ninety years of Disney film, television, and park history. Pirates have captured people's imaginations for centuries, and Walt Disney believed in pirates as a source of great popular entertainment. Walt's very first all live-action feature film was based upon Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island , and even before that, he selected J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan , in which pirates figure so prominently, as a key feature-length animated film for his studio. Years later, Pirates of the Caribbean opened in Disneyland just months after Walt had passed away, making it one of the last Disney theme park attractions in which he was personally involved. That attraction ultimately spawned similar versions at Disney parks around the world, one of the most successful series in motion picture history with the five Pirates of the Caribbean films, and a vast themed land at Shanghai Disneyland called Treasure Cove--celebrating the entirety of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
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"Who knew-without a good deal of thinking-just how many Disney pirates have swashbuckled their way through the studio's history? I presumed this would be a volume devoted to the phenomenally successful Jerry Bruckheimer Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (especially since the book's foreword is by Johnny Depp) but those films only account for about a third of the 145 pages. The story begins with a resume of Disney pirates before Jack Sparrow took to the high seas beginning (I bet this will come as a surprise to most of you) in 1927. . . . There's an extensive history of the pre-movie, theme-park lives of the Pirates of the Caribbean before the book focuses on the adventures (and misadventures of Jack Sparrow and crew) and wraps up with a feature on Treasure Cove at Shanghai Disneyland. All in all, a total joy!" -Brian Sibley, writer, broadcaster, and Disney scholar
