YO HO, YO HO! REVAMPED PIRATES RIDE SETS SAIL.

Byline: Jerry Rice Staff Writer

They're doing more than just swabbing the decks in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Disneyland's venerable attraction -- the last one built under the creative supervision of Walt Disney -- now has a special-effects makeover, new wrinkles in the story and some characters just off the ship from the 2003 movie ``Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl'' and the sequel, which opens July 7.

``Because the writers for the film used our attraction as their inspiration, it really became natural that Capt. Jack Sparrow and (his nemesis) Capt. Barbossa ... would come back into the attraction at the theme park,'' said Kathy Rogers, the Walt Disney Imagineering producer leading the charge on the ride's creative changes, which are now in place.

The popularity of ``Black Pearl'' provided a treasure chest filled with opportunities to revamp the attraction, which opened in 1967. But Disney's creative folks would have preferred to walk the plank rather than do a major overhaul on the story.

``The intent never was to change it and make it into the movie ride,'' Rogers said. ``It is such a classic storytelling attraction, and it was so well done that all of us who worked on Pirates felt a duty to keep that quality of storytelling intact and to treat it with great care.''

To that end, when audio-animatronic versions of Sparrow (played in the movies by Johnny Depp) and Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) landed, the ride required only a few tweaks to the plot. Now, for instance, Capt. Barbossa is piloting the Wicked Wench, and he's after the sly Sparrow and the gold.

While Sparrow makes three appearances in the attraction, more apparent to riders will be a series of sound, lighting and other enhancements throughout.

The original analog audio tracks have been digitally re-mastered, and the sharper sound is pumped through more than 220 new speakers that have the ability to better direct it. New lighting using LED technology gives the attraction a fresh look.

Those improvements -- along with music from both of the ``Pirates'' movie soundtracks -- will be especially noticeable when Barbossa cuts his cannons loose in the classic battle scene. Large bass subwoofers have been installed between the pirate galleon and the Spanish fortress to provide a sense of concussion when the big guns are fired and the cannonballs hit the water.

Getting the sound just right was no easy task for an earlier generation of Imagineers who built Pirates of the Caribbean, said Al Lutz, a longtime Disneyland observer who operates the Web site Miceage.com.

``Essentially, they were working in a giant warehouse, and it's very difficult to clarify sound when you're dealing with these big environments,'' he said. ``With these new projecting sound systems -- they put them in the (Haunted) Mansion first -- they can pinpoint sound right out to the rider, and it clarifies things. Before, everything sounded like a muddled mess, but now you can hear things individually as it's ported out to you.''

Another new wrinkle in the attraction is the appearance of the ghostly image of Davy Jones, the evil ruler of the ocean depths and a character in the second movie. The specter appears in a ``waterfall'' that the boats travel through.

Pirates purists will be happy to know that the buccaneers in the chase scene -- which was changed in 1997 to have them going after a plate of food instead of a scared maiden -- have returned to their earlier pursuit.

On Saturday night, the park hosted a celebrity premiere of the new ``Pirates'' movie, ``Dead Man's Chest,'' and also let those in attendance check out the ride for the first time since it shut down in March.

Several recent blog postings on Snopes.com show that some fans believe Disney has now plundered a treasure. Among the comments:

``I would be OK with them changing the politically correct women-chasing scene, but adding Jack Sparrow and Barbossa and changing the score to match the movies is taking it much too far. If I wanted to see those characters, I'd pony up the five bucks to rent the movie.''

But while Lutz was waiting last week to check out the attraction, he was encouraged by other observations.

``Every description I've heard so far -- and these are from aficionados who have already gotten into it -- they've been very pleased,'' he said.

DISNEYLAND

What: Relaunch of the park's classic Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.

Where: 1313 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim.

Tickets: Single-day park ticket is $59, $49 for ages 3 to 9.

Information: [phone]; www.disneyland.com.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) no caption (Pirates of the Caribbean)

(2 -- 3) That's not the real Johnny Depp, above, but his likeness on Disneyland's revamped Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which still includes the beloved pirates, below, of the attraction's past.