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Are MI games parodies?
In Chit Chat forum, in “Meta-endings in parody movies” thread Doom wrote.
Holy Grail also had meta-beginning, meta-mid parts and meta-show that preceded it, so I knew what to expect and had no problem with it
I don’t like Mel Brooks’ comedy at all, but his movies are parodies for the sake of parodies, he never cared for characters/plot development and just used any setting to mock other movies. Monkey Island games are their own thing, with a believable world and characters. Even if they make fun of pirate cliches, they never go as far as to directly quote them while winking into the camera.
Exaggerating role of insulting while fighting with swords, jokes about grog and treasure hunting -to me it seems to spoof pirate fiction. Then again, in SOMI parody mostly tries to not break fourth wall, like Zucker, Abraham and Zucker films mostly doesn’t break fourth wall. (Then again, there are dialog option in SOMI to wonder why pirates talk way they do and dialog partner will answer to Guybrush that it was way that pirates talked and he should play along.) Maybe that explains problem that some people have with Ron’s endings -SOMI was more of ZAZ type of parody and then LeChuck’s Revenge veered into Brooks’/Holy Grail direction.
Monkey Island is 100% parody, there’s absolutely no doubt about that.
It targets a whole number of different things, but even in the Lucas context it’s somewhat self-referencing.
There is a young, unlikely protagonist (Guybrush Threepwood, Luke Skywalker).
The antagonist is somewhat faceless, somewhat non-human thing with supernatural powers (LeChuck, Darth Vader).
The love interest is a woman who is in some kind of high political position (Elaine, Leia).
And obviously one of the key places in both cases is a shady pub.
And so on.
Obviously in the sequels the monkey universe started to get a life of its own, but there are still many attempts of parody, some of which work, and some of which don’t (Monkey Kombat).
And of course all games keep breaking the fourth wall, in different ways.
There’s actually quite a bit of parody in the early Lucas games. Manian Mansion was a parody of old b-horror movies, Zak MacKracken spoofed conspiracy theories and tabloids papers of the era. Even The Last Crusade was more of a comedic affair and had some 4th wall-breaking.
It targets a whole number of different things, but even in the Lucas context it’s somewhat self-referencing.
Not to mention referencing games of Lucasfilm themselves, with SCUMM Bar referencing very interface of adventures of Lucasfilm, optional dialog choices taken from their other games like “I am selling those fine leather jackets.” etc.
There’s actually quite a bit of parody in the early Lucas games. Manian Mansion was a parody of old b-horror movies,
I used to think that MM changed its target material into unrecognizable form but then i remembered that at least one old sci-fi movie had hostile alien organism coming down with meteor.
There is a young, unlikely protagonist (Guybrush Threepwood, Luke Skywalker).
The antagonist is somewhat faceless, somewhat non-human thing with supernatural powers (LeChuck, Darth Vader).
The love interest is a woman who is in some kind of high political position (Elaine, Leia).
Or maybe it just follows an ancient fairy tale trope “damsel in distress” when a poor guy completes trials, becomes a hero and saves a princess from an evil wizard/dragon/etc. You might just as well call it a parody of King’s Quest, Ultima, Prince of Persia, or any other fantasy/RPG media that was popular back then. As a comedy game it sure has its number of in-jokes and references, but calling it “a 100% parody” is absolutely misleading.
PC means personal computer
As a comedy game it sure has its number of in-jokes and references, but calling it “a 100% parody” is absolutely misleading.
I would say that Elaine’s and Guybrush’es relationship in SOMI mixes element of satire with parody and other strong female characters add to satire of stereotypical gender roles. Since that kind of ghost pirates who can actually leave their ship wasn’t cliche back then (correct me someone but i think they were only seen in Tim Powers’ novel “On Stranger Tides”), i don’t Ron spoofed ghost pirates, just treated them with dark humor. In my book it makes SOMI still 99% parody.
What’s NOT a parody then? Because one may describe any comedy this way. Grim Fandango and Tex Murphy are noir parodies, Broken Sword mocks secret societies and cultural stereotypes, Back to the Future spoofs time traveling, mad scientists, the Wild West and the 1950s, Guy Ritchie’s movies make fun of crime movie cliches, Friends is a parody on the relationships between six archetypes, even Life is Beautiful references the lives of Jews under Nazis in a comic way, let’s also call it a parody.
Parody doesn’t equal comedy, it’s a subgenre built around obvious spoofs of other media or rial-life events meant to be easily recognised by the audience, with little to no original touches added, why it’s often considered to be a lower form of comedy. To me Space Quest, Eric the Unready, Simon the Sorcerer, Earthworm Jim are parodies, and even then one might argue they were original enough to start their own unique franchises.
PC means personal computer
I don’t think so. It’s a pirate comedy, not a pirate parody.
I think games like Pyst and How To Beat Up a Millionaire are parody games.
Parody movies would be Scary Movie, This Is Spinal Tap, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Not all themed comedies are parodies. I think a parody’s raison d’etre is to mock or point out or pervert or very explicitly exploit the idiosyncrasies or ludicrous aspects of its subject/topic/theme for a humorous purpose.
I don’t think Monkey Island’s main objective is to do that. Monkey Island respects its theme, while simultaneous acknowledging the humorous possibilities contained therein. It doesn’t chew on and poop out its subject matter the way that many (not all but many) parodies do.
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You might just as well call it a parody of King’s Quest, Ultima, Prince of Persia, or any other fantasy/RPG media that was popular back then. As a comedy game it sure has its number of in-jokes and references, but calling it “a 100% parody” is absolutely misleading.
I fail to see any direct connection to the games you mentioned, but overall the first Monkey Island is also a parody of a computer game in itself.
This is very obvious throughout the game, especially the solution to the underwater puzzle, or the final conversation after finishing the game.
You might just as well call it a parody of King’s Quest, Ultima, Prince of Persia, or any other fantasy/RPG media that was popular back then. As a comedy game it sure has its number of in-jokes and references, but calling it “a 100% parody” is absolutely misleading.
I fail to see any direct connection to the games you mentioned, but overall the first Monkey Island is also a parody of a computer game in itself.
This is very obvious throughout the game, especially the solution to the underwater puzzle, or the final conversation after finishing the game.
“He’s right. And he’s right. They’re both right!”
- Tevia, Fiddler on the Roof
So I was having a chat wit a friend yesterday about early rock and metal bands. Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Queen, Rush, to name a handful. All of those bands are typically categorized as one or the other -rock OR metal-, yet all of them also have several complete songs and significant sections of even more songs which are definitively associated with the genre of which the band is NOT. Okay, that was convoluted. To keep it simple: Queen is a rock band. Stone Cold Crazy is a metal song. Lots of Queen songs have ‘metal parts’. Yet Queen is still a rock band, and almost no one would argue otherwise.
Monkey Island is a comedy game. It has complete small sections which are predicated on parody (as Gatekeeper mentioned, the underwater scene is a great send-up of the needlessly convoluted solutions that were/are abundant in the genre). But the game’s core is still very much a pure comedy—which sometimes uses parody for comedic effect.
In fact, and maybe this is important: The parody is never (or very rarely) quintessential for the joke to hit, it only enhances the joke for those who ‘get it’. Perhaps this could be a vague dotted line to help delineate between the two genres.
Airplane! the movie is similar, and that’s why I’m a little hesitant to call it a parody instead of a straight up comedy, even though it’s usually mentioned as a parody.
But my point is, it’s possible for something to be something while still having elements of another thing in it. A hotdog with mustard on it is still definitively a hot dog, it’s not a Schrodinger’s catdog that might be mustard or it might be a hotdog.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
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Airplane! the movie is similar, and that’s why I’m a little hesitant to call it a parody instead of a straight up comedy, even though it’s usually mentioned as a parody.
Did you guys know that Airplane! is actually a remake of a serious movie called Zero Hour? Zucker and Abrahams bought the rights to the script of Zero Hour and used it to construct the movie. It’s scene by scene the same movie, with the difference that Airplane! is a spoof.
There are scene comparison videos of it on Youtube.
Confusion about what is made fun of when older fiction is parodied, seems to apply to confusion about MI games themselves. Swashbuckler films have long history. No surprise if someone doesn’t get, when game parodies them.
Talking about Ron Gilbert’s opinion about parodies, Wikipedia page of LeChuck’s Revenge claims that his favorite movie is Mel Brooks’ fourth wall breaking parody film Blazing Saddles.
Confusion about what is made fun of when older fiction is parodied, seems to apply to confusion about MI games themselves. Swashbuckler films have long history. No surprise if someone doesn’t get, when game parodies them.
An excellent point!
Even Douglas Fairbanks (senior, not junior) made them before there was sound in the movies.
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