In regards to the music, Pirate Adventure did not have a leitmotif in the rides music what so ever. It did have some good pieces of music yes, but they were totally different from scene to scene with no similarities what so ever. They certainly were not synced either, but they served the ride well.
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You're right! Leitmotif was the wrong word as there is no recurrence of the themes during the ride which slipped from me! You know exactly what I meant though
. It has well constructed themes associated with each area.
You are however, in my opinion, completely wrong about the feel of the audio for POTC. It's too repetitive for me. In fact, ironically given what we're talking about, its the yo ho yo ho leitmotif of the POTC that I don't like. I've just listened to the original track on youtube. Don't get me wrong, the ambiance is brilliant, but apart from that there's not a lot in the way of themes and tunes
beyond 'yo ho'. There are far more distinguishable themes in each scene of Pirate Adventure. I've had loads of people always tells me how much they loved the chanting in the jail scene at the beginning in particular (not people who you'd describe as theme park enthusiasts either) , and the organ at the end was completely haunting. And I forgot to mention the queue line music for Pirate Adventure that played on the ramp and in the lantern lit corridors was fantastic too.
Disney do tell stories very well and yes of course the audio (and dialogue) compliments the story. But the issue with this sometimes IMO is that sometimes the story is being told "at you". Pirate Adventure has very little in the way of dialogue, with the exception of the Captain, a couple of shipwrights talking at the start, and of course the bellringer at the end by the ghost scene; and I think in some ways I prefer this as it gives me room and imagination to figure out what's going on in my own mind.
That being said, the Disney ride overall is obviously of a much higher standard given what was thrown at it and obviously the iconic 'audio animatronics' obliterate the basic animatronics that were used by GLD for Pirate Adventure which were pretty simple to configure. I'm pretty sure a lot of the PA animatronics in there have the same basic/facial designs as well. One of them was called the fireman right? The bald one that was on the plank in the treasure caves and the one that spat out water. I know there were names for each type but I can't remember what they were, perhaps you know?
But yeah, I love the Disney ride, and I notice that you put the DLP variant as your favorite ride; I admit that it is quite possibly the best dark ride in the world designed with utter creative brilliance and in many ways is the ideal themed indoor attraction
. But I think Pirate Adventure is an excellent British copy of the ride which does things very well, albeit differently in different areas especially when you consider budget.
