Why did Guybrush's appearance change?
 

Why did Guybrush's appearance change?

In Secret of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 1) he was blond and beardless.

In Monkey Island 2 he had brown hair and a beard. I didn't even recognize him at first - kept wondering where Guybrush was.

Then in Monkey Island 3 he was back to blond and beardless again.

Why'd they do that? :confused:

Maybe he spent too much time in the swimming pool? :P

Well, he got the beard in MI2 because it shows him to be more mature. He is no longer a callow youth who wishes to be a pirate, he IS a pirate!

But MI2 to MI3.... well, that I can't explain. A wizard did it.

Why the change in hair color though?

Yeah right. The chlorine in the swimming pool bleached his hair and dissolved his beard. :rolleyes:

Well, maybe he bleached his hair in a swimming pool, and then shaved his beard. I'm sure they had razors back then. :D

Maybe in the time space between the games they invented razor blades and hair dye. :shifty:

Why don't you first figure out how he got from the ending of MI2 to the beginning of MI3? :-)

What?! The first thing Elaine says is (the first bit of dialogue in the game!)

Is that not enough of a clue? :p

Im pretty sure he was joking.

Guybrush had identically coloured hair in both MI1 and MI2. The only difference is that in MI2, there was more shading applied to it, thus giving the illusion that it's darker. Feel free to check up on this by taking screenshots yourself and then matching the colour codes up. The exact same hex colour code is used in both games.

As for CMI, I have no idea. I'd assume that he looks darker haired in the first two games because of the colour palette in MI1 being limited, and then the same colours for his hair were carried across to MI2 purely for the sake of consistency. He's clearly shown as blonde in the arty close-up pictures in MI1, so there's no argument that he should be blonde.

if he didnt have a beard the little in-jokes wouldnt really be that funny either :)

No. I thought the game had malfunctioned and skipped part of the intro.

I wouldn't know about the hex colour code. Look at the pictures.

Secret of Monkey Island
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...eShotId,62805/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...eShotId,38799/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...meShotId,3169/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...meShotId,3165/

Monkey 2
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...eShotId,19296/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...eShotId,27593/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...eShotId,27594/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...eShotId,27606/

The lightest part of his hair in Monkey 2 may be similar to the darkest parts in Monkey 1, but the way the shading is done makes it clearly look brown overall in Monkey 2, while in Monkey 1 the closeups, at least, show Guybrush's hair as blond. And there's no doubt he's blond in Monkey 3.

It's not similar, it's identicle. As I said, it was probably slightly browner than blonde in MI1 due to palette limitations at the time. In MI2 they couldn't just leave it all flat and such like it was in MI1, since the whole game had a lot more shading and detail, so they simply applied more thorough shading to the same coloured hair

I agree, Guybrush's beard was probably just simple character development on Ron Gilbert's part. As for MI2 -> MI3, well, Gilbert was no longer directly involved with the game design, and the new project leads (who held very different ideas to Gilbert on where to take the series) probably wanted to return to the goofy, post-adolescent Guybrush of the orignal game.
Personally I think this was a bad, unadventurous and ultimately uncreative decision, but that's just me. I liked the way Guybrush seemed to evolve as a character from the beginning of MI1 through to the end of MI2, and I think that the decision to re-characterize him in his original form took away alot of his carefully cultivated depth.

I seem to remember Roger Wilco flip-flopping between blonde and brunette as well. As for MI2, I think it was meant to have a darker feel, a la Empire Strikes Back, and the beard looks more piraty and less doofy. I actually thought the bearded Threepwood looked better. The lanky, doofy later Threepwood always seemed off tone to me. The earlyer MI's were more edgy than wacky. More Simpsons and less Spongebob. It may be a question of nuance but it is there.

I like the changing of appearance of Guybrush between Monkey Island 1 and 2.
To me, he went from 17 to 20, hence the changes.
Now of course, what I don't get is why he got younger for Curse of Monkey Island. :rolleyes: Which is the main reason why I'm not that fond of the game.

I think Guybrush's style is different in MI1-MI2 and Curse-Escape because of an art style change. I played Curse (which still remains to be my favorite of all four games) before any of the others, so I didn't find his look a problem.

Also, something else to take into consideration is the missing chapter between MI2 and Curse. Who knows - he could've mixed up a voodoo potion at the carnival that turns him back into an adult, and some of the side effects were: loss of facial hair, blonde hair, and growing too tall. :P

Perhaps the people behind MI3 were simply conforming to the old adage 'blondes have more fun'?! ;)