The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! passenger Charles Darwin. Darwin recognises the crew's pet Polly as the last living dodo, and recommends they enter it in the Scientist of the Year competition at the Royal Society of London for a valuable prize. Secretly, Darwin plans on stealing Polly himself with the help of his trained chimpanzee, Mr. Bobo, as to impress his love interest Queen Victoria. The pirates disguise themselves as scientists to enter the competition, and the dodo display wins the top prize, which turns out to be minuscule trinkets and a meeting with the Queen. The Pirate Captain hides Polly before the meeting. There,
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! the film has been retitled to "The Pirates! Band of Misfits". The official explanation from Aardman was that Defoe's books don't have "the same following outside of the United Kingdom," so it was not necessary to keep the original title. Hugh Grant, the voice of The Pirate Captain, said that the studio "didn't think the Americans would like the longer title." Response from the director of the film, Peter Lord, was that "some people reckoned the United Kingdom title wouldn't charm/ amuse / work in the United States. Tricky to prove eh?" Quentin Cooper of the BBC analysed the change