Better with Plissken: Escape from the Black Pearl!

It was brought to my attention that we’re way overdue for another Better with Predator segment, where I rewrite an unlikely story or movie by adding Predator. (Many thanks to Wikipedia, whose movie plot entries are incredibly helpful!) At the same time, my partner-in-crime, Angela Wallace, chooses the same story but puts her take on it by My-Little-Pony-ifying it.

Whether we’re improving these stories or not is anyone’s guess, but it’s at least a hell of a good time.

However, since we’re still rocking and rolling along with Snake Plissken Month, I’ve done a little switch on my end. Instead of Predator, we’re dropping Snake Plissken in.

Or hang-gliding him in. Or one-man submersible-ing him in.

You get the picture.

Angela chose the movie this time around, delighting me with the idea of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. As soon as she mentioned it, I knew I had to do it for Snake Plissken Month. I mean, he’s got an eye patch—we’d better make use of it. When you’re finished up here, you can head on over to Angela’s blog and take a peek at her Pony-fied version, Friendship is Magic: Pirates of the Caribbean. I’ll link it again at the bottom so you don’t have to go fishing around for the link.

***

As Governor Weatherby Swann and his young daughter Elizabeth sail to the new prison in Port Royal, Jamiaca, they encounter a burning shipwreck with an unconscious survivor, the young Will Turner. Elizabeth steals the gold medallion the boy is wearing, in order to keep him from being arrested as a pirate. The crew glimpses a ghost ship, the Black Pearl, sailing away from the wreckage.

Eight years later, Commodore Norrington proposes to Elizabeth but before she can respond, her over-tightened flak jacket causes her to faint. She topples into the bay where the medallion, which she wears as a necklace, sends out a signal to the Black Pearl.

Simultaneously, Snake Plissken and Captain Jack Sparrow have just arrived in Port Royal to serve life sentences at the town-turned-maximum-prison—Jack Sparrow for being a pirate and Snake Plissken for looking like one. As they are standing on the dock waiting to be processed, they both see Elizabeth fall into the water. Snake grunts and shrugs, but Sparrow jumps into the water and rescues her, then uses her to negotiate, hoping to be released from the prison. Commodore Norrington agrees to reverse all charges against Sparrow and let him go free. Though Snake tells Sparrow it’s a lie, Sparrow releases Elizabeth and, as Snake predicted, Sparrow is taken into the police base for processing before being released into Port Royal prison.

That night, the Port Royal base is attacked by undead skeleton zombie pirates of the Black Pearl. Elizabeth is kidnapped by the pirates, who sail away.

Will Turner, who loves Elizabeth, strikes a bargain with Jack Sparrow to help him find the Black Pearl and Elizabeth in exchange for freedom. Jack agrees, thinking he can use this opportunity to reclaim the Black Pearl—though he knows he can’t do it alone. As soon as Will unlocks the jail cell, Sparrow explains that he can’t retake the Black Pearl alone. He needs Snake Plissken’s help. The next hour is spent trying to convince Snake Plissken, who doesn’t give a crap about your skinny damsel or your ship, to help.

Sparrow realizes they’re getting nowhere with Snake so they give up on the negotiation. He and Turner break into the prison kitchen, where they poison Snake’s bread and water. They return after dinnertime to inform Snake that they’ve poisoned him, and he’ll receive the antidote once he’s rescued Elizabeth and helped Sparrow retake the Black Pearl as his own. Snake agrees to help, though he’s addressing Will Turner, and it’s unclear if he means to help Sparrow. Will Turner opens the door and Snake steps outside. He immediately punches Jack Sparrow in the face. Sparrow crumples to the floor. As Snake steps over him, toward the exit, he growls, “Now I’ll help you.” They steal a ship and set sail for an island where Sparrow knows the Black Pearl will make port.

Upon finding the Black Pearl, Snake leads an underwater assault in one-man submersibles. After climbing up onto the Pearl’s deck, they find that the crew has gone into the nearby cave. They rescue Elizabeth and plan to sail away in the Black Pearl, but Elizabeth exposes the zombie pirates’ plans: the medallion she wore was part of a cursed treasure, and whoever steals from it becomes an ugly zombie skeleton. The only way to turn back the curse is to return every coin as well as the blood of everyone who stole the treasure. The pirates of the Black Pearl are working with her would-be fiance Commodore Norrington, who plans to use Elizabeth’s blood to shift the curse from the pirates to everyone inside the Port Royal prison, including Snake and Sparrow, and turn them into the ultimate, unkillable zombie army. Though Elizabeth’s is the last missing coin, her blood did not break the curse. She confesses that she stole the coin from Will Turner years ago, which has turned her into an undead skeleton zombie. Sparrow confirms that Will’s father was a pirate of the Black Pearl who stole the coin and sent it to Will, and even though Will didn’t exactly steal anything and isn’t an undead skeleton zombie, only his blood will stop the curse. While the group debates who did what and whether it will make someone a zombie skeleton by proxy, Snake seethes with fury because he’s seen what being a skeleton zombie will do to his hair, and he will not allow his luscious feathered locks to become so bedraggled. He vows to stop Norrington and the pirates and enact his own justice.

Snake leads his ragtag crew to the crow’s nest, where they take off in hang gliders and fly into the cave, to a big cavern where the cursed treasure was originally found. A futile gunfight ensues until Will Turner is shot, his blood sprays everywhere and lands inside of the treasure chest. Everyone who was an undead skeleton zombie is now turned back into human form, and it becomes an ugly bloodbath. During the fracas, Commodore Norrington steals a coin from the treasure chest and escapes to his ship. Snake pursues him and catches up as Norrington is climbing into an escape pod that will launch him into space and then redirect him to anywhere on earth that he wants to go. Norrington plans on escaping the fight only to come back later and switch the curse to the inmates of Port Royal. Snake shoots him in the leg, preventing him from getting inside the capsule.

Commodore Norrington pleads with Snake, begging him not to throw the coin into the capsule and blow it up, as doing so would prevent the curse from ever being reversed, and because the capsule is the property of the Free World, and worth millions of dollars. Instead, Snake tosses the coin into the capsule and sets it off into space with no return, thus turning everyone on earth into undead skeleton zombies except for those not part of the Free World—including Snake and inmates of New York, Los Angeles, and Port Royal maximum-security prisons.

Snake grunts and welcomes Norrington to the new world. He lights a cigarette and saunters off into the night.

THE END!

Hope you enjoyed Better with Predator Snake Plissken! Don’t forget to hop over to Angela’s blog for some hilarious My Little Pony pirate action.

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