Shanghaî Disneyland Treasure Cove "Pirates of Caribbean" land was acclaimed when the park opened two years ago, and for good reasons as the incredible quality of theming and the stunning new version of the POTC ride are exceptional - the POTC ride won a fully deserved THEA Award the next year.
The artwork above shows the officially released artwork of Treasure Cove as we know it but did you know that another design of the land was envisioned, which included the POTC ride but also much more? D&M has found the WDI rendering of it and it's the amazing one below.
Now, let's have a closer look at the artwork to see what were the differences with the one showing the final version. First let's see what remain similar. As you can see the big ship and the two smaller sailing boats are there in both versions, including the canoes going to Adventure Isle, and the Pirates village as well. Note the wooden bridge on the left which don't exist in the final version.
The big E-Ticket ride itself was there in this first version with the fortress themed show building located on the right, where El Teatro Fandango is now for the pirates stunt show, and the main difference was the giant Skull Rock and its waterfalls which was located in the lagoon, close to the POTC fortress.
But the BIG difference is for the Pirates stunt show which apparently was envisioned to be outdoor with a fierce canon battle between two real size Pirates ships and more Pirates village buildings in the background. Note the entrance to the lagoon on the left, i suspect that one of the Pirates ship would have enter this way during the show to attack the other one. It surely would have been a more expensive stunt show and this is probably why it was cut, still both versions of Treasure Cove are great.
In addition, i have also for you some great never-seen-before artworks done for the SDL POTC ride by WDI artist Stephan Martiniere who also did the two Treasure Cove paintings above. Click on each pciture to see them in bigger size. The first ones below shows the sunken ships and treasure.
The next artwork below shows the scene of the amazing encounter with Davy Jones in his ghost ship.
Next, is the artwork showing the sequence of the ships rising to the surface by the power of Davy Jones.
You probably know this next artwork as it was the only one released officially, showing the final battle between the two ships.
The last never released artwork shows the the final scene, the battle between Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow.
I've got more SDL artworks for you so make sure to come back on D&M tomorrow!
All artworks: copyright Disney / Stefan Martiniere
