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Return to Monkey island by Ron Gilbert : 19 september 2022
Why not lol. He does the same meta im a genius thing, in every game, see thimbleweed park.
Touché. It goes beyond that though because loads of people had suggested that the secret was that Guybrush was simply imagining his pirate adventures within a theme park and Ron Gilbert explicitly replied that that was categorically not the secret. Turns out, that WAS in fact the secret. I don’t know why he decided that lying to fans for three decades was an okay thing to do, nor do I understand why so many fans accepted being lied to for three decades and even went so far as to praise him for doing so.
Yeah I understand what you’re saying, it’s just I don’t like meta games and endings at all when they goes too far. A couple of in-jokes can be clever and can be fun but when creatives literally pull the rug out from under the player I don’t appreciate that. I don’t like that in other forms of media either, in fact the only time a meta ending ever worked for me at all was the second Bob Newhart Show, when he wakes up at the end of the series and he’s in bed with his original wife from the original show, and the entire new show was a dream.
Even though all entertainment is a time waster and a made for people’s enjoyment, you want the story and characters to be taking somewhat seriously, well at least I do.
Why not lol. He does the same meta im a genius thing, in every game, see thimbleweed park.
Touché. It goes beyond that though because loads of people had suggested that the secret was that Guybrush was simply imagining his pirate adventures within a theme park and Ron Gilbert explicitly replied that that was categorically not the secret. Turns out, that WAS in fact the secret.. I don’t know why he decided that lying to fans for three decades was an okay thing to do, nor do I understand why so many fans accepted being lied to for three decades and even went so far as to praise him for doing so.
Not quite true though. The secret was the T-shirt. So he wasn’t technically lying.
AKA Charo
Why not lol. He does the same meta im a genius thing, in every game, see thimbleweed park.
Touché. It goes beyond that though because loads of people had suggested that the secret was that Guybrush was simply imagining his pirate adventures within a theme park and Ron Gilbert explicitly replied that that was categorically not the secret. Turns out, that WAS in fact the secret. I don’t know why he decided that lying to fans for three decades was an okay thing to do, nor do I understand why so many fans accepted being lied to for three decades and even went so far as to praise him for doing so.
Maybe I’m desperately holding on to this idea which I obviously can’t prove, but I’m still convinced that the original story thought up in the 90’s was completely different and had a different ending.
As you pointed out, I don’t even believe Gilbert’s recent words anymore (the ones in which he says that the whole idea was simply “Guybrush chases LeChuck to hell and Stan is there”).
There are too many past interviews where he said he planned that story in detail. “I couldn’t do it again because others had already done it”. Yeah. And the solution to this possible accusation of unoriginality was to replicate the structure of Monkey 1 and Monkey 2 down to the smallest detail. Great idea. Very original, above all.
No. It’s an excuse that doesn’t stand. To fully understand what led Gilbert to abandon his initial idea (which could be developed in thousands of different ways without being assimilable to what incidentally had already been done), we must necessarily assume that that idea was too… dark. Given the narrative implications of Monkey 2, he would necessarily have dealt with themes such as death, the afterlife, the conflict between siblings and parents, etc. He would have faced it and he would have done it in a realistic way, as the first two games, not with a cartoon aesthetic.
This was obviously too off target for Disney, so management (along with Grossman) allegedly convinced him to drop it for something “new” and less disturbing (again, it may well be that it wasn’t necessarily a peremptory order, but a series of subtle suggestions that breached Gilbert’s insecurity and convinced him to change direction).
As if that weren’t enough then, beyond this reckless change of direction, many pieces of the new narrative were then lost along the way, including perhaps the only truly courageous choice ... Guybrush divorced? Playtesters don’t like it, let’s remove it!
In short, from wherever you want to look at it, you see a game that was built not following pleasure, creativity, wonder, fun…but following the fear of making mistakes, following the fear of not being enough young and understandable, or by obeying to demential “superior orders”.
No. This is not the way to make masterpieces, neither decent games.
Because I could have tolerated the ugliness of the graphics, the lack of depth in the interface, the ridiculous ease of the game…if there had been an epic, huge story, capable of tying together all the loose ends ( the Big Whoop amusement park, Guybrush’s parents, the sibling issue, the orphanage…).
This was what I expected, this was what Gilbert owed us.
Yeah I understand what you’re saying, it’s just I don’t like meta games and endings at all when they goes too far. A couple of in-jokes can be clever and can be fun but when creatives literally pull the rug out from under the player I don’t appreciate that. I don’t like that in other forms of media either, in fact the only time a meta ending ever worked for me at all was the second Bob Newhart Show, when he wakes up at the end of the series and he’s in bed with his original wife from the original show, and the entire new show was a dream.
Even though all entertainment is a time waster and a made for people’s enjoyment, you want the story and characters to be taking somewhat seriously, well at least I do.
I agree completely. I think that Doug Naylor (co-creator of Red Dwarf) put it best when he explained his destain for meta endings which recontextualise the prior story as being fictional in-universe. He correctly stated that’s it’s a complete middle finger to your audience and essentially saying to them “You know that universe and those characters who you were so emotionally invested in? Well, none of it was real, none of it actually happened and therefore none of it matters”. Such endings really are treating your fans with contempt for daring to be engaged within the world which you created.
Incidently, Doug Naylor’s words were in regards to his feature length special Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, which ingeniously started by pulling the rug from under the audience to tell them that the entire previous 8 series were fictional in-universe, when the characters find out that they’re merely characters in a TV show, but then at the end of the special, it’s revealed that in fact OUR world (i.e. real life) was the fictional universe; a mere illusion and that the Red Dwarf universe is in actuality the real one. Now, that’s how one executes a meta subversion correctly.
Not quite true though. The secret was the T-shirt. So he wasn’t technically lying.
Eh, not really. That was just a little extra joke. Following the release of RTMI, Ron Gilbert literally confirmed that the real secret was that Guybrush is within a theme park and pretending to be a pirate.
Yeah I understand what you’re saying, it’s just I don’t like meta games and endings at all when they goes too far. A couple of in-jokes can be clever and can be fun but when creatives literally pull the rug out from under the player I don’t appreciate that. I don’t like that in other forms of media either, in fact the only time a meta ending ever worked for me at all was the second Bob Newhart Show, when he wakes up at the end of the series and he’s in bed with his original wife from the original show, and the entire new show was a dream.
Even though all entertainment is a time waster and a made for people’s enjoyment, you want the story and characters to be taking somewhat seriously, well at least I do.
I agree completely. I think that Doug Naylor (co-creator of Red Dwarf) put it best when he explained his destain for meta endings which recontextualise the prior story as being fictional in-universe. He correctly stated that’s it’s a complete middle finger to your audience and essentially saying to them “You know that universe and those characters who you were so emotionally invested in? Well, none of it was real, none of it actually happened and therefore none of it matters”. Such endings really are treating your fans with contempt for daring to be engaged within the world which you created.
Incidently, Doug Naylor’s words were in regards to his feature length special Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, which ingeniously started by pulling the rug from under the audience to tell them that the entire previous 8 series were fictional in-universe, when the characters find out that they’re merely characters in a TV show, but then at the end of the special, it’s revealed that in fact OUR world (i.e. real life) was the fictional universe; a mere illusion and that the Red Dwarf universe is in actuality the real one. Now, that’s how one executes a meta subversion correctly.
Not quite true though. The secret was the T-shirt. So he wasn’t technically lying.
Eh, not really. That was just a little extra joke. Following the release of RTMI, Ron Gilbert literally confirmed that the real secret was that Guybrush is within a theme park and pretending to be a pirate.
the way meta movie can sort of work is if it’s running parallel through the entire film, for example Total Recall. You can read that movie two different ways, either Arnold Schwarzenegger actually was a secret agent that had his mind wiped or he’s actually still sitting in the chair with his brain getting fried as he’s living this awesome vacation fantasy that he paid for. Both story lines work because the movie Never tries to trick the audience, it lays it all out there from the beginning.
Same with Inception even though I think that movie has mirad of problems; much like most of Nolan’s movies, but the germ of the idea it presents, is there throughout. so even that is not a pull the rug out from the audience type movie.
I hadn’t thought of the ‘hell’ thing - that Guybrush’s hell (and ours) is for it all not to be real. Ron probably saw with MI2’s ending and the reaction that a lot of us wanted it to be.
Still, can anyone else think of a secret that wouldn’t have been a disappointment due to all the expectation? I think that was the point of the ending, and at least it’s something to think about.
It’s just a story in the end, and it doesn’t really matter. The stories can continue whether or not it even makes sense hardly impinges on our enjoyment - MI3 continuing like nothing happened is testament to that.
I guess I had the opposite reaction from you guys - I didn’t like the ending at first, but enjoyed thinking about it later.
AKA Charo
It’s just a story in the end, and it doesn’t really matter.
How so? Isn’t that a bit like saying “It’s only a film; it’s only a novel; it’s only a TV show, so the story is irrelevant. It doesn’t need to make sense or be consistent, nor does it need to be well written and engaging”?
The stories can continue whether or not it even makes sense hardly impinges on our enjoyment - MI3 continuing like nothing happened is testament to that.
The Curse of Monkey Island absolutely did address the ending to Monkey Island 2 though. Obviously one’s mileage may vary on whether the answer provided was satisfactory, but it did provide an answer (via LeChuck’s rather heavy handed exposition dump during the beginning of the final act).
It’s just a story in the end, and it doesn’t really matter.
How so? Isn’t that a bit like saying “It’s only a film; it’s only a novel; it’s only a TV show, so the story is irrelevant. It doesn’t need to make sense or be consistent, nor does it need to be well written and engaging”?
The stories can continue whether or not it even makes sense hardly impinges on our enjoyment - MI3 continuing like nothing happened is testament to that.
The Curse of Monkey Island absolutely did address the ending to Monkey Island 2 though. Obviously one’s mileage may vary on whether the answer provided was satisfactory, but it did provide an answer (via LeChuck’s rather heavy handed exposition dump during the beginning of the final act).
I think yall are both right about the curse of Monkey Island, there is an answer, but it’s barely there and I think the game is all the better for it. It walked a tightrope for sure but I was just glad we didn’t go down, “the we’re just kids in an amusement park” and went straight back to being that fun Pirate game, I liked in the first place.
once again I just want to opine my love for MI3. From the Great puzzles, wonderful voice acting, some of the best voice acting in any video game, even today. then the art Direction and music is also top notch. There is very little I do not like about this game besides the ending being clunky, and the third act not being quite as good as the First Act to me, but it’s close. I know some hated the rehash of the insult sword fighting but it worked for me and I found it fun, probably because one of my favorite early games is Sid Meyers Pirates gold, I used to play it on the Sega Genesis way back in the day. I can’t tell you how many times I rented that game from blockbusters.
Still, can anyone else think of a secret that wouldn’t have been a disappointment due to all the expectation? I think that was the point of the ending, and at least it’s something to think about.
I would expect something that had to do with finding out more about Guybrush’s parents, who were they, what was their connection to that island, for example, it was their resting place. Maybe Guybrush could resurrect them, learn that they were hereditary ghost hunters and that LeChuck was responsible for their deaths, and that everything that had happened at the end of MI2 was indeed just LeChuck’s magic. And then Guybrush could finally take his revenge and get rid of LeChuck forever in an epic battle with the help of his friends.
PC means personal computer
And then Guybrush could finally take his revenge and get rid of LeChuck forever in an epic battle with the help of his friends.
Or just ANY kind of battle with LeChuck; something which RTMI bafflingly failed to provide.
Still, can anyone else think of a secret that wouldn’t have been a disappointment due to all the expectation? I think that was the point of the ending, and at least it’s something to think about.
I would expect something that had to do with finding out more about Guybrush’s parents, who were they, what was their connection to that island, for example, it was their resting place. Maybe Guybrush could resurrect them, learn that they were hereditary ghost hunters and that LeChuck was responsible for their deaths, and that everything that had happened at the end of MI2 was indeed just LeChuck’s magic. And then Guybrush could finally take his revenge and get rid of LeChuck forever in an epic battle with the help of his friends.
Then a final scene atop the Melee lookout point, Guybrush enters. The lookout asks him what he’s doing there. Guybrush says “I’m Guybrush Threepwood, and I don’t want to be a pirate anymore” and leaves via the north arch. Fade and roll credits.
AKA Charo
About Guybrush chasing LeChuck to hell thing. If Ron intended MI3A to be about Guybrush going to hell, i think whole game or most of it would have been about hell. Think about it -LeChuck told Guybrush that he will send him to dimension of infinite pain and soon after that things got weird. Guybrush faces his deepest fears about bullying brother and if it is hell then he has to spend eternity with his brother or demon pretending to him.
If Ron once wanted to make game ABOUT hell, he is either not that person anymore or there is no change in Disneyland to make this game with Disney. Also, in that case he didn’t reveal all details of his original plans to either not to alienate fanbase or so that Disney wouldn’t get associated with concepts that are this dark.
If Ron once wanted to make game ABOUT hell, he is either not that person anymore or there is no change in Disneyland to make this game with Disney. Also, in that case he didn’t reveal all details of his original plans to either not to alienate fanbase or so that Disney wouldn’t get associated with concepts that are this dark.
I think you nailed it 100%.
A freshly posted interview with Dominic Armato by Matt Barton, probably my favourite game interviewer. It’s 2 hours long and I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s probably a fun watch anyway, they are both nice guys:
PC means personal computer
Just finished it. Here’re my two pieces of eight in the form of a review:
Ron Gilbert created one of the best adventure game series of all time with the help of Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer, and 30 years later, he faced the challenging task of creating another game in the canon, despite not being involved with the three games that followed Monkey Island 2.
Was it a success?
Let’s start with the graphics. It’s not what I hoped for, but it hasn’t been since Monkey Island 3. It feels too new-agey, edgy, and, on occasions, cheap. Still, it has a distinctive paper doll or children’s drawing, highly stylized look, and it’s far from being bad. When the game was announced, I criticized the art direction, but after finishing the game, I cannot criticize it because it’s very unique. When you think about it, every MI game had its own unique and different graphics style. Furthermore, it even resembles the canceled infamous MI movie style, with sharp edges and a hint of cubism. However, what I CAN criticize is that they haven’t reached the full potential of the style they chose. At places, the colors are bland without too much shading or a rich palette, resembling a Flash game, and the character models could use more details and polish.
As for the voices, Armato did a fantastic job once again as the voice of Guybrush. He even sounds better to me than in the Special Editions, as he doesn’t talk so fast, and every pronunciation and joke is spot on. The rest of the crew is fine; it’s not Earl Boen for LeChuck’s voice, but the actor in place of him also sounded good. The music brings Caribbean happy vibes and a smile to your face once again, though the new themes are nothing to write home about, and it’s still old themes in new variations that will make your heart dance.
The story is told through an older Guybrush telling the story to his son about the search for the Secret of Monkey Island, similar to the search for Big Whoop in Monkey Island 2. Actually, the whole game is very, very similar to Monkey Island 2 in combination with the elements of the first game, both in terms of story and design. You start on Melee Island, “Secret” is the big word on the street just like Big Whoop was on Scabb Island, you need to obtain a ship in this way or another to reach Monkey Island, and later more twists and turns ensue as we travel between multiple islands at our own leisure. Only this time it’s Terror (similar to Blood Island with volcanic eruptions), Scurvy (green, more cheerful place), and Brrr Muda Island (touch of Norse mythology) instead of Phatt and Booty. When that happens, the game takes you to golden age times where you can visit dozens of places at once, with total freedom and increased difficulty.
Speaking of difficulty, the puzzles are mostly very good inventory fare, and I haven’t been reminded of Day of the Tentacle inventory madness like this for a long time. It’s not that you can hold a crazy amount of stuff at once, but still, you will spend plenty of time rummaging through your stuff, inspecting it again and again, and thinking about it in the context of the game world until the green light switches inside your head. Only the best games in the genre succeed at that. Even mazes are done in the original way. On top of that, “Return” has one of the best hint systems in the history of the genre, that can be compared to that of Keepsake, which feels very organic, just like a good friend of yours who already finished the game is sitting beside you and giving you a drop of hints or nudges in the right direction whenever you need it. It’s not an overly hard game, but I dare anyone to finish it without calling for hints. Some of the puzzles, especially the last one, are deviant that much that I was imagining Ron smiling at the poor souls who need to solve it. Only one time I felt I haven’t been given enough clues, which is acceptable for this sort of twisted-logic game.
(continued)
Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale
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