[ExI] Film: Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (starring Charles Darwin)

[John Grigg]

This sounds like an absolutely wonderful family film!  I envision Spike
watching it with his son...  : )


http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/03/the-pirates-in-an-adventure-with-scientists.html



The Hollywood pitch for this movie would be pretty simple: it’s *Pirates of
the Caribbean* meets *Walace and Gromit*.

But in fact, it’s even better than that. *The Pirates! In an Adventure with
Scientists <http://www.thepirates-movie.co.uk/>* is an absolute treat from
start<http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/03/the-pirates-in-an-adventure-with-scientists.html#>to
finish: daft, funny, clever and visually stunning.

The story begins in 1837 with the pirates, a hapless crew of buccaneers led
by the equally hapless pirate captain. He is
desperate<http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/03/the-pirates-in-an-adventure-with-scientists.html#>to
win the Pirate of the Year award but cannot seem to plunder a single
doubloon.

Their blundering eventually leads them to board The Beagle, where they meet
a nerdy young naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin. As the captain
laments that he has plundered yet another ship with no treasure (unless you
count a baboon’s kidney), Darwin notices that the pirates have something
even more precious in their possession: a pet “parrot”, Polly, that is
actually a dodo<http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13918884.300-justice-at-last-for-the-dodo.html>
.

Thus begins a rollicking tale of greed, double-crossing and slapstick
adventure that leads The Pirates! into the heart of Victorian London’s
science circles and beyond, all the way to Blood Island and the award
ceremony for Pirate of the Year.

*The Pirates!* is instantly recognisable as an
Aardman<http://www.aardman.com/>movie - director Peter Lord also made
*Chicken Run* and *Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit* - but by
adding CGI and 3D to its trademark claymation technique the animators have
upped the ante on their already astonishingly high standards.

Science and scientists are central to the plot, and as with all things
Aardman the attention to detail is painstaking. Darwin really looks like
Darwin and the movie is full of subtle references to his life and works;
when The Pirates! gatecrash the Royal Society (motto: “Playing God Since
1660”), it is accurately set at Somerset House on the Strand in London,
where the Society was based for most of the 19th century. Michael Faraday
and other luminaries of Victorian science make recognisable cameo
appearances.

But you don’t need to know anything about science (except that dodos were
extinct by 1837) to enjoy this movie. It’s brilliant - absolutely brilliant
- family entertainment. My two sons, aged 9 and 11, have seen pretty much
every animated movie ever made. They both thought this was the best yet.

And there’s more where that came from. The movie is an adaptation of a 2004
novel<http://www.amazon.com/The-Pirates-In-Adventure-Scientists/dp/0375423214>by
Gideon
Defoe <http://www.gideondefoe.com/index.htm>, the first of a series of four
Pirates! adventures. A sequel is already in the works. The scientists will
be missed, but I for one can’t wait.

*The Pirates! in an Adventure with
Scientists<http://www.thepirates-movie.co.uk/>
* opens Wednesday 28 March in cinemas throughout the UK. Learn more
about opening
dates in other countries <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1430626/releaseinfo>
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