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Octopus

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Ancientoctopus

An octopus was a soft-bodied, eight-limbed sea animal. Like other cephalopods, grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids and cuttlefish, an octopus is bilaterally symmetric with two eyes and a beaked mouth at the center point of the eight limbs, known as tentacles. Octopuses inhabit various regions of the ocean, including coral reefs, the seabed, and the abyssal depths, as well as appear in mythology as sea monsters like the Kraken.

History

After Davy Jones tore his still-beating heart from his body and locked it away in a chest, his body began to transform into something monstrous, with tentacles dangling from his cheeks, and the rear of his skull grew to resemble the pulsing body of a large octopus.[1] A long beard of octopus tentacles that moved and curled with a life of their own was one of many mutations of Jones' crew from human to beast while under the curse of the Flying Dutchman.[2][3][4]

At the end of the quest for the Sword of Cortés, Jack Sparrow's ship, the Grand Barnacle, was attacked by a British warship. When the Navy crew attempted to board his vessel, Jack used the magical powers of the Sword of Cortés to turn all the attackers into small octopuses and starfish.[5] The magic was undone after the defeat of the spirit of Hernán Cortés at the hands of Montecuhzoma.[6]

During Lord Cutler Beckett's War Against Piracy, the Ancient Octopuses were attacked and murdered by pirates because of the great amount of materials their bodies provided.[7]

Behind the scenes

Octopuses first appear in Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland Paris. As the bateaux glides through the Blue Lagoon on their way to the hulking remnants of a partially submerged shipwrecked pirate galleon, where an octopus is laying claim to the remains of the ship's cargo as a bold crab challenges him for a piece of the action. Show producer Chris Tietz said with a smile, "The octopus-versus-the-crab gag always gets a big laugh. The guests eating at the Blue Lagoon restaurant can't see inside the shipwreck, so they have no idea what everyone's laughing at and it makes them want to go on the attraction to see for themselves."[8] In Richard Platt's reference book Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide, as well as Glenn Dakin's reprint The Complete Visual Guide, Davy Jones was described as having a "beard made of octopus tentacles".[2][3] Despite the in-universe appearance of Jones' tentacles in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,[4] the actual sea creatures known as octopuses make their first appearance in Rob Kidd's book Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés.[5]

While attacking Davy Jones' serpentine beard in Dead Man's Chest, animation supervisor Hal T. Hickel had a tough time finding reference material of octopi wriggling their tentacles; there are miles and miles of film shot in the ocean, but Hickel and his team needed to see how an octopus writhed out of the water. Hickel turned to a Godzilla movie for inspiration. "In Godzilla vs. King Kong, there's this little Polynesian island, and in one of the scenes, they built a miniature of the village. They turned loose this very large red octopus -- a real octopus -- and it's crawling around on top of this miniature village, crushing it. Just amazing. So, I got the DVD and showed it to the animators and the creature TDs [technical directors] and everything. 'See how the webbing stretches here? See how the tentacle curls up and slops over? It's not like a snake, and it's not like an elephant's trunk.' That ended up just being the best reference I could find."[9]

To coincide with the release of the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, a waterfall projection of Bill Nighy as Davy Jones was incorporated into the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.[10] By 2018, the waterfall effect was removed, with new figures of a skeletal pirate and an octopus put in its place at Disneyland, with the scene depicting the skeleton transforming into a live pirate holding a treasure chest while the octopus steals the treasure from the chest.[11]

In Terry Rossio's original 2012 screenplay draft for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Jack Sparrow finds a tiny and cute baby octopus in the Caribbean Sea, mistaking it for a giant Kraken at first.[12]

An octopus was meant to appear in the Young Jack Sparrow story in the graphic novel Pirates of the Caribbean: Six Sea Shanties, which was scheduled to be released in 2011.[13] However, since the novel was cancelled, it is unknown if its appearance is canon or not.

Appearances

Sources

External links

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Timekeeper, p. 3
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 62-63 "Davy Jones"
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés, p. 49
  6. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés, p. 116
  7. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Tides of War
  8. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies, p. 75
  9. ↑ Behind The Scenes of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - DVD Talk
  10. ↑ Dead Men Tell New Tales: Re-Imagineering the Attraction
  11. ↑ Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean reopens with new scenes - Attractions Magazine - Archived
  12. ↑ Wordplayer.com: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES by Terry Rossio
  13. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Six Sea Shanties