The WP’s “review”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=style/movies/reviews&contentId=A29898-2003Jul8¬Found=true of _Pirates of the Caribbean_ has some useful insights into the scriptwriters’ authorial intentions. It informs us that in the “production notes”:http://laughingplace.com/Info-ID-Movie-Pirates-ProdNotes.asp to the movie, one of the film’s authors says:
bq. We wanted it to be a very classic, Jane Austen-style, bodice-ripping romance.
This is, I have to say, a rather lovely idea, which should be developed further. We already have “Jane Austen’s Terminator”:http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=3E7FC19F.55ED%40wizvax.net&rnum=87 (courtesy of “Making Light”:http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/). Surely it can’t be difficult to sex up, say, _Pride and Prejudice_ a little bit? If Alastair Campbell can make weapons dossiers sound lascivious, Jane Austen should be a cinch. And why not include a congeries of cutlass-waving undead pirates too, while we’re at it. Friends, I hand the task over to you.