And a bottle of rum.

Yo ho ho - or does nobody actually say that...?

Doctor Who, The Curse of the Black Spot

About a year ago I was in small claims court regarding a dispute over a transfer of intellectual property.  No payment was to be involved unless the other party decided to proceed with the web site proposal that I had helped create, but when they did proceed, there was some difficulty obtaining a cheque for the agreed upon amount (or any amount at all).

Part of the defendant's unsuccessful argument was that it wasn't the same site that had been created, and as such there was no obligation to follow through with the agreement.  In addition to detailing the various similarities and correspondences with the original proposal, I pointed out to the presiding judge that if it was so completely different, shouldn't they have at least have given it a different name?

Similarly, I'm a bit suspicious of the new Walt Disney film, On Stranger Tides.  If you look up this latest installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise on the Internet Movie Database site, you'll find the following writing credit:

Tim Powers (novel On Stranger Tides) (suggestion). 

For those of you unfamiliar with Tim Powers, this 59-year-old science fiction and fantasy author has based much of his award-winning fantasy around actual historical events and characters, such as his 1979 novel The Drawing of the Dark, which takes place during the 1529 siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks, or his 1987 pirate novel On Stranger Tides, which takes place in the 18th Century in the Caribbean.

The novel deals with a Caribbean equally rife with piracy and the supernatural, where the protagonist, Jack Chandagnac, unwillingly joins the ranks of pirates after the ship he is travelling on is captured by buccaneers.  One of the pivotal events in the book is the search for and discovery of the fabled Fountain of Youth in Florida, a trip that Jack makes in the company of the most famous pirate of all, Blackbeard.   

Now for me, a suggestion is about as simple and basic a contribution that you can make to something.  As an example, if someone was building a house, saying "Hey, maybe you should paint the kitchen green" would qualify as a suggestion.  In contrast, using Power's novel to develop a movie script dealing with a Caribbean pirate named Jack who discovers the Fountain of Youth with Blackbeard the Pirate - I'm sorry, that's not a suggestion, that's almost a full blueprint. As with my legal encounter, if it was just a suggestion, shouldn't they at least have given it a different name?

I realize that there's not a complete correspondence between the book and the movie.  Captain Jack Sparrow is a long way from Jack the reluctant swashbuckler in the novel, and from what I've read online there are other substantial differences in the plot structure.  However, I think that it would be appropriate for Disney to acknowledge Powers as having made a larger contribution than a "suggestion" - as it is, it looks like they've relied heavily on the book for inspiration but are reluctant to acknowledge just how much they've hijacked from the text.

Gosh, I guess that means that it really is a pirate movie.

- Sid