Niemandswasser

I mean, they can strongly dislike that interpretation all they want, but if it causes them to actually dislike the ending itself...maybe they just didn't like the ending to begin with? There's nothing in the game that gives the ending a definitive explanation, so anyone who dislikes a given take on it is free to interpret it another way. Personally that read of the ending never rang true for me, but I also think it's ridiculous to propose adopting a broad policy that we should stop talking about it "for the sake of the franchise" or something. It's not hurting anything or anyone to mull over different interpretations.

I'd like to go on record as stating that I've never met anyone until now who thought Monkey Island 2 suffered because some people interpreted the ending a certain way

I actually once had the chance to ask Dave Grossman about this bit...and he couldn't remember who it referenced. What's especially frustrating is that everything about it seems to point to the navigator head except for the missing eye...while MI1 also features a character whose defining visual characteristic is that he has a glass eye.

I've heard a lot of people say similar things about that line over the years, but honestly it's never struck me as anything but a joke about the characters in the game being played by "actors," a la the outtakes Pixar used to include in all their end-credits. The guy is overcommitting to his accent and Guybrush has to ask him what he just said, and he's ticked off because he doesn't want to have to do another take. I've always figured it was one of the "placeholder" jokes that Schafer and Grossman included to amuse themselves that wound up in the final game.

As I recall it wasn't included on the "Monkey Island Madness" CD release from the late '90s, either.

Honestly that might be the one place where the game is funnier on easy mode than on normal difficulty. It still makes me snicker to think about. (For those who don't remember, the puzzle solution is to ask Wally if he has any ideas, and his response is "Well, I might have one...but you have to close your eyes." Then the screen goes black and you hear a PSSSSST sound.) As a kid I played on easy mode first and when I played on normal I couldn't believe it cut one of the game's funniest jokes.

I'd put money on almost 100% of it being entitled older fans stuck in the distant past, convinced that they and they alone know what's right for the series and that any departure from their long-held vision of a "proper" "MI3a" is not only wrong but a grave insult bordering on personal violence. It's an attitude that's been there in communities dedicated to classic adventure games for a long time, and anything Gilbert & co. did was never going to be good enough, short of literally reaching through a rift in space and time to a dimension where a Gilbert-led Monkey Island 3 released in 1994 and bringing a copy back. And half those people would still whine about how they didn't understand the one joke that referenced President Gary Hart's administration.

I don't know how to put this any more clearly--they aren't putting the voice back in because they don't want to. Nothing you say about how easy you perceive it to be is going to change that, because the thing stopping them from doing it isn't that it's hard. It's that they don't want to do it. You wanting them to do it won't change their minds, because again, the thing stopping them isn't that they thought nobody would want it. It's that they don't want to do it. What that means, ultimately, is that they're not going to do it, and you are not going to convince them to do it. Believe me, I'm upset that Titus Welliver couldn't make it back for the Deadwood movie, but no amount of complaining on my part could ultimately alter the fundamental physical reality that he didn't want to stop filming Bosch to go do it. Considering the fact that you yourself just ran through a list of options that you personally have--RIGHT NOW, at THIS VERY MINUTE--to play the game with the voice acting you want, and that Skunkape themselves made the originals available at NO EXTRA CHARGE, all you're coming across as is a spoiled kid who views it as a grave injustice that he can only have 97% of what he wants rather than 100%. You're not getting the thing you want, and that's not going to change. I implore you to learn the lesson the rest of us picked up when mom told us we couldn't have ice cream for breakfast and move on with your life.

See, this is why people are calling your argument disingenuous. He didn't call you a Nazi--he said recasting the role is a decision that would upset Nazis, which it undeniably is. He said that saying "But people will review bomb the game, which is bad PR, so better to just not do anything!" isn't a good enough argument against doing it, because review bombing a game over something like this is a favorite tactic of the radical right and we shouldn't worry about what they think. As to what could be an "offensive argument," how about saying that, despite your not being in the US, you have a pretty good handle on what the history of American race relations is "pretty much" like and know the best way to handle them? As to bringing back the radical right by calling people Nazis--if somebody says they became a Nazi because somebody insulted them, buddy, they were just waiting for a good excuse. Incidentally, just for context, the timely gentleman you're responding to is one of the developers behind Ben There, Dan That!, Time, Gentlemen! Please, and Lair of the Clockwork God--i.e. games inspired in large part by his own die-hard LucasArts fandom--so again, you *may* want to consider that your finger isn't as on the pulse of "what the fans want" as you think. EDIT: Apologies to elTee, I posted before seeing your reply. This is the last I'll say on the subject.

The sister bit is definitely a joke about Guybrush not wanting to admit he had a dollhouse growing up. "Reminds me of a dollhouse I used to have...I mean, my SISTER used to have."

I registered an account just to finally respond to you on this, because I'm tired of reading this disingenuous "Why can't everybody just be reasonable and admit I'm right while giving me everything I want" argument over and over again. You know why they made the changes. I know why they made the changes. It wasn't as a proof of concept for a "future iteration." It wasn't "extra content." It wasn't that it used to be okay to cast a white guy as a black character and have him do a broad stereotypical accent, and now it isn't; it's that it was never okay, but it used to be acceptable not to care. In recent years a whole lot more people have decided they're not willing to just sit back and accept a bad decision because it was handed to them, and Skunkape made a conscious choice to update the games in line with that. They're not going to render it back down into an optional patch or a toggle switch or downloadable content, because it's not a cosmetic choice--it's an informed decision that they made for clearly stated reasons. They knew there'd be people who wouldn't like it, and they did it anyway. You can choose to live with that and move on, or you can wring your hands and pretend you're just concerned about the non-existent damage being done to the poor, poor Sam & Max IP. You argue that change is fine, but only if it happens *later*, in a hypothetical product that doesn't and may never exist rather than in one that's in front of you forcing you to think and feel things; it's a wishy-washy attempt to insist that everything you're used to should stay just the way it is--i.e., the world where you didn't have to care--while still trying to cast yourself as being on "the right side." You go to great lengths to insist that you understand the original performance was stereotypical and wrongheaded, but if you keep going "It was *my* stereotypical wrongheaded performance, and I want it to stay the same!" then guess what? You're not on the right side! You keep appealing to what "basically every old fan feels like" to argue with people *who have stuck with a LucasArts fansite since the mid-'90s* about decisions in remasters *that were made in part by one of the founding voices of that fansite.* If you don't like it, I can't make you like it. But stop pretending like you represent some silent, long-suffering majority.