What’s special about this? I’m just saying it doesn’t seem like it’s particularly limited to Disney, they’re used in orchestras and soundtracks all th-

Oh, violence. I got you. A supercut of that in Disney movies would probably take at least twenty minutes. I mean, there aren’t even any Hercules or Sleeping Beauty clips in here. And yet somehow all these villains wind up falling off cliffs anyway. They should really put up some railings.

(via Laughing Squid.)

I’m one of those people who thinks the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise should have ended a while ago but seeing as how they are cash cows at the international box office, they’re still being churned out. The most recent news on that front is a writer has been chosen for Pirates 5. His credits include Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Speed 2: Cruise Control. 

Okay, I admit it. There is one part of that headline that may be a projection rather than indisputable. The fact is that Craig Pearce‘s series, adapted from Kimberly Cutter‘s recent novel The Maid, a version of the Joan of Arc tale that interweaves her perspective on the end of the Hundred Years War with the perspectives of “the international noble houses which battled for control of the French throne and ultimately the birth of a nation.”

I chose to simplify that sentence with the phrase “Game of Thrones but with Joan of Arc.” The rest of it? Absolutely no hyperbole. The writer behind Moulin Rouge! is preparing a drama series about Joan of Arc, and Weta Workshop will be doing the design.

It is a question for the ages: What would the results be if Batman were to come head-to-head with each of the team from The Avengers? Their movies are already battling it out for records at the box office; it begs the question of what such a rivalry would look like face-to-face. Moviefone recruited artist Dennis Culver (of The Nicktoon Avengers and If Pixar Took Over the Summer Movies) to illustrate the different ways their readership suggested Bruce Wayne might take down the Avengers team.

After the most recent installment of Pirates of the Caribbean underwhelmed, could Guy Ritchie be the one to make pirates awesome again? News is out that he’s set to direct an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson‘s classic swashbuckling novel Treasure Island. He’ll produce with partner Lionel Wigram, with whom he teamed for Sherlock Holmes and its recent sequel. Hmm, let’s see: these guys take a classic novel, add in kickass action sequences that feel modern but make total sense in a period movie, and then find a supremely charming star to take the lead. This has clearly worked once. And now — pirates. Yeah, I think it’s fair to be more than cautiously optimistic about this one.

I admit it, I’ve only been to one Renaissance Faire, but in my defense I was in costume. I still have the costume. I just need a new bodice for it. And while there are a lot of different things to go see at a Renfaire, jousting is probably at the top. I mean, where else are you going to see that?

Okay, Medieval Times.

But let’s face it, nerds need to get out in the sunshine somehow, and Renfaire is one of the best ways to do it. This summer, if you head on over to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale, CA, you can watch Virginia Hankins become the first woman jouster in RPF history cross lances with the rest of the knights.

For the past 20 years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — better known as MIT — has unofficially been offering a super secret athletic “program” for students who take a certain group of courses. Upon completing all of these course, they achieve a certain “scurvy-scum” status amongst their less inclined peers. Indeed, students who take and pass courses in “pistol, archery, sailing, and fencing” are deemed pirates. And while this was done by students just for kicks, MIT has decided not to ignore the swashbuckling that’s been going on and will now issue these students actual, physical pirate certificates.

With her astounding genre cred, one’s first reaction to hearing that producer Gale Anne Hurd is producing anything is usually joy, excitement, and eager anticipation. Like when we found out she was producing a show about Area 51. And then, you find out that Hurd is going to be producing a show about pirates for FX, and one can barely even contain themselves. And that is exactly what’s happening: following her runaway success as a producer of AMC‘s The Walking Dead, Hurd will lend her talents to a new series about the infamous Jamaican town Port Royal. Heavens to Betsy, imagine all the zombies vs. pirates vs. aliens arguments we’re going to get to have!

Sword-fight choreographer and fencer, Bob Anderson, has passed away. You may not know him by name but the talented man worked on many films and franchises we love including acting as Darth Vader’s stunt double in Star Wars. 

Back in 2009, Amelia Andersdotter, then 21 years old, ran for a seat in the European Parliament as a member of Sweden’s Pirate Party — and that June, she won. Now 24, Andersdotter is finally about to take her seat after years of bureaucratic delays, becoming the second member of the Pirate Party to become a MEP and the youngest person ever to do so. Among the major parts of her platform: a united Europe and a focus on telecommunications.