Wake Up, Sheeple! Pirates of the Caribbean Is a Prequel to Captain Ron. Get ready to be shocked you didn’t notice yet… but thankfully I’m here for you!
Captain Ron was released in 1992 and currently (January 29, 2023) has a Tomatometer score of 26% and an audience score of 52%, so I’m going to assume that IF you ever saw it then it was years ago and you came across this article because you and a buddy were talking at a Jimmy Buffet concert about how The Academy giving best actor to Pacino for yelling his way through Scent of a Woman was a crime when Kurt Russell was never even nominated for his textured performance as a carefree seadog.
So sit back, relax, put on Cheeseburger in Paradise, and let me elucidate why Captain Ron and Jack Sparrow are in fact the same person. We’ll start by dispensing with the obvious questions.
How can Jack Sparrow, who roamed the seven seas in the age of sail, be a charter boat captain named Ron Rico in the ‘90’s? Well, all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are about some other people’s love life nonsense and Jack’s quest for immortality; clearly at some point he gets it.
Hold on, Ron’s missing an eye and Jack has both of his. That’s not really a question, but I’ll ask you, how many people would give their right eye for a box trifecta at Santa Anita, don’t you think he would give his left for eternal life?
Alright, so Jack becomes immortal; if Ron is Jack, then why is Ron afraid of getting shot by the wronged spouse of an illicit lover? Because being shot hurts.
OK, fine, but Ron says he drove the Saratoga, that’s a cold war era Forrestal-class supercarrier, are you saying that he went through the trouble of faking a birth certificate from 1951 just to enlist in the US Navy? No, of course not, that’s ridiculous. I’m saying he was on the 18-gun sloop-of-war which was lost at sea without a trace in 1781 or the 22-gun sloop-or-war that helped to open up Japan in 1850 or maybe both. The Navy doesn’t exactly go in for new ship names.
That’s enough on the sticking points, let’s talk similarities. When we’re introduced to them, they’re both captains without a boat who arrive in a junky vehicle which sinks into the waters just off the dock. They drink and they womanize. The latter often means they need to leave an island just ahead of a bullet. They both have compass problems, but always seem to end up where they want to be, just not exactly where they said they were going to go. That loose familiarity with the truth bleeds into a shaky concept of property ownership. Ron doesn’t steal stuff, he just borrows it, maybe when you’ve been alive since the 17th century other people’s ownership doesn’t mean much. Then there’s the shared sartorial choice of filthy well-worn rags and long beaded hair. Still, there is the heartwarming side, a roguishness without malice and a buffoonish exterior hides not just a talented seaman, but a surprisingly deep streak of loyalty.
Sure, you can say that the similarities are just tropes of the sailor’s adventure comedy, but there’s only like 10 of those and three of them involve Gilligan’s Island. No, it’s time to face the truth Kurt Russell was the first actor to play Jack Sparrow.
If you’re ready for more mind-blowing articles that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. As always, drop a comment down below. Let us know if this rabbit hole goes even deeper… is their a prequel prequel?
