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Back in 1997, Disney angered some of its fans by making the outlaw buccaneers in its popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride less rapey, altering it so that its horny bandits were chasing a meal instead of terrified wench tail. Today's LAT reports that the Most Synergistic Place on Earth has once again run afoul of purists by cynically inserting characters from their blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise into the attraction; predictably, Disney officials defend the cross-promotional move as organic and What Walt Would Have Wanted:

"I cannot imagine how anybody can see this attraction and walk off and say, 'Boy, they did something they shouldn't have,' " said Disney Imagineer Kathy Rogers, who is overseeing the ride's creative changes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida. "It really has strengthened the classic."

Rogers said ride designers had tried to seamlessly add characters into the attraction in the same way that movie scriptwriters adopted elements of the ride. (Remember the dog holding the keys to the jail cells in the 2003 movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"?)

The ride's story line has been tweaked. Instead of pirates ransacking a Spanish seaport town in search of gold, they're now trying to capture Jack Sparrow and beat him to the treasure. The booty, incidentally, has a lot more bling, Disney said. [...]

The makeover is in the spirit of what Walt Disney would have wanted, [chairman of Disney's theme park division Jay] Rasulo said. According to one of Disney's most famous quotes, Disneyland will never be complete "as long as there is imagination left in the world."

"I think true purists will know that Walt was a man of innovation," Rasulo said. "Walt was a futurist. He thought nothing of embracing new technology and making new magic."

To demonstrate that the changes have their founder's total posthumous approval, Disney's Imagineers will debut their next-generation, hybrid animatronic technology when the ride reopens next week, which will allow for the part of Jack Sparrow to be played by the cryogenically preserved visionary himself during the run-up to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest's release. While the cameo is expected to be startling at first, visitors to the revamped attraction will find themselves soothed as a bandana-wearing, heavily-eyelinered Walt mechanically waves to their boats, urging them in his own voice to "Get their scurvy behinds to theaters July 7th. Arrrr."