ThunderPeel2001

So apparently some of the comments were directed at Ron. I don't get it... as a fanbase have we become less mature as we've gotten older? Or is it younger fans that think it's OK to react this way? Really sad

Wasn't DoubleFine primed to be involved in a Remaster or Sequel at some point? I seem to remember seeing Loom featured prominently on a monitor in the DFA documentary... or maybe it was all just rumours and speculation from that one shot in the documentary? Either way, intriguing!

Yep, the original version I owned was a very budget release. I guess the sales didn't justify a more expensive one. Took me years to finally get my hands on a "real" Grail Diary!

It was fantastic. I got two questions answered, too, which was just icing on top of an already very icing covered cake.

Seriously...? That's mind blowing! How did you get exposed to this? Are you connected with the VGHF? Was there anything else not released? It seems to be that this was them comparing art styles: The left was drawn directly, and the right was scanned in. A proof of concept perhaps. Wonderfully interesting!

Where did this image come from? It's not on the VGHF website?

I've sent them all several death threats, but I assume they know I was joking. (Seriously, why would people Tweet mean things? Aggressively entitled fans are the worst.) Very aptly put. We're agonising over minuscule morsels like ravenous beggars. Microscopically inspecting every breadcrumb. I hope they give us something more substantial soon.

Actually it's been a steady rotation of people, like a tag team. But either way, I'm bored now. I'll always remember this quote: It's super important to not be led by your principles when making entertainment! Or doing anything at all. Let that be a lesson for us all

I'd put the LAUGH reaction on that video, but the reaction functionality isn't working for me again.

The more I look at the images we have (especially in high res) the more it's growing on me. I think it looks worse when it's shrunk down to a thumbnail size, which is obviously not how we're not going to play it. I especially like that courtroom in hires, actually (might have to open in a new tab and zoom in to see all the detail):

It's strange. My generation was all about the "Director's Cut". We learned that studios often meddled with a director's vision, and getting that original unfiltered vision became the holy grail for fans. Now it seems it's getting a tailor-made edition that suits your tastes exactly. Creator vision be damned. In a way that's fine if people are prepared to make changes themselves (fan edits, fan mods, etc), but it sounds like the comments must have drifted into flat out abuse for Ron to shut down his website. Although hopefully it wasn't abuse towards the team and maybe just squabbling between fans.

I read it all, so I guess I'm awesome. This is completely subjective, which was elTee's point. You're just saying, "this was important to me, so therefore I should have the option to disable it". You're trying to argue that there's some objective standard that we all could agree and adhere to, but even if use your Star Wars example, that simply isn't true: Things in Empire and Jedi were changed in order to tie those films better into the prequel trilogy. Dialogue was rewritten. Actors were replaced. Objectively the meanings of several scenes were altered. But the biggest complaint by far, the one that led to fans going berserk, was the one you cited: Han not shooting first in the original film. Which arguably had far less impact on meaning than the other changes but which drew far less ire from fans. It's all inconsistent. And despite what you've said about SFX changes being acceptable to most fans because no "meaning" was changed, there are several high profile Star Wars restoration projects and they're ALL focused on removing every single change that has happened since 1977. Not just the infamous Greedo scene. In fact if there is a project that removes that single scene and keeps the other modern changes, I've not heard of it. But could list the others off the top of my head: 4K77 and Harmy's Despecialised Edition. For the fans who care the most, the ones who are prepared to put thousands of man hours into these projects, it's all or nothing: They want the untouched original. So there is no real consistency: There are just different camps of people who believe certain things are important. And because you belong to one particular camp, you think you represent the majority. Which again brings us back around the original point: This is all subjective. What's important to you is not important to me. And vice versa. And even if you find a subreddit somewhere that is a home to a lot of people who all agree on one point, it does not mean that their opinion is more valid, important or objective. It's just one of the dangers of the internet: It can easily make you feel that your opinion is the only sound-minded one out there by putting you in an echo chamber. And what's worse: You put things out about "censorship" and "wokeness" and other people, who actually don't care as much, will parrot back what they've heard. Like people who only read the headlines of news articles. Objectively speaking, changing Bosco's voice doesn't alter the meaning of anything. Nor does removing references to special needs children. But for you it alters the "authenticity" (the meaning of which could be debated in itself) of the experience. For me it doesn't. It's still all subjective. As for your comment about ignoring "imaginary bad actors", this has been addressed several times already. In short, the dev team did not wish to put their name to something they felt uncomfortable releasing. They were prepared to potentially upset some fans in order for them to be happier with what people played. In other words, they put their principles before money. Anyway this conversation has gone on far too long. I can't believe there's a single point that hasn't been covered by now. And I suspect that if people really do care that someone will release a patch that inserts the original dialogue into the remaster anyway.

Yikes. I didn't bother to read the comments, but they must have been really terrible if Ron has taken his blog down. I think he's pretty philosophical about things generally, so I can't imagine. It's great that Ron decided to create this whole thing in a vacuum, otherwise it would have been two years of toxicity messing with the creative process. I wonder if Schafer can offer some sanguine words privately to the team, given that DF have been through this themselves. There was a poll on a big LucasArts Facebook group (18K members) and the result was that 80% of people liked the new style. 15% were disappointed but hopeful. Only 2% didn't like it outright. So it seems like a vocal minority anyway.

It's been so long since I saw that screen. Were they separate cards? I thought it might have been grail diary quotes. Ah yes, as I write this, wasn't Greek letters or something?

I wonder. It was probably financial, whatever the reason. I do believe the later releases didn't include the full grail diary, so it might be to reduce production costs at the risk of sales lost to no copy protection. Or the fact that couldn't really win without at least the grail diary excerpts... Hmm.

I agree with you there (but I still hate the lighting in the new Melee scene -- although I have grown to like the other two examples we've seen).

What you're suggesting implies a toggle to switch off ALL the changes that the Remasters made (which were a LOT more than just recasting Bosco and rewriting a few minor lines), because why should they just cater to YOU and nobody else who wants another specific change reversed? Which brings us back to the original reply that elTee made to you: And round and round we go...

Intriguing. I wonder why they did that? I guess some versions came without a full Grail Diary. I know the Amiga version kept the copy protection.

Yes, it was one of the things I didn't like about Bill Tiller's art direction at the time. The world was never cartoony, it was always very grounded. Can you point me to where you found that image that you said was from the VGHF? I watched the whole thing live and have scanned their webpage... unless I'm going blind (which is definitely a possibility) I cannot see the image you claim came from there? https://gamehistory.org/monkeyisland/ And can we all just stop for a second and appreciate the utter beauty of this image... Look at those shadows, the gentle use of colour. It's GORGEOUS. I love Peter Chan's work. And it still looks beautiful with a limited palette.. Sigh

I don't understand how these two sentences can co-exist. Perhaps you just went off half-cocked in your first post, but if so, you can see how someone can misinterpret your intentions.

The magic of writing means anything can fit between those two events. Hell an entire season of 24 supposedly happens in... 24 hours. There's plenty of time if that what Ron wants to do (and personally it's what I want to see).

elTee makes better points than me, but quite frankly the logic of the complaints towards the Remasters seems reflective of so many other hyper-emotional fanboi rants that seem to bleed out from Reddit. To me they are the product of groupthink -- ideas supported and bolstered by a group existing in a vacuum. And when they're challenged outside of that vacuum there's an inability to defend them without resulting to circular logic or side-stepping. Or just a plain old hyper-emotional response. In the case of people complaining about missing lines and recasting in the Remasters. Hmm. Lines were changed between versions of MI. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake. (Some of them have only just been restored in ScummVM.) And the special editions made even more changes, cutting lines. I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset any them. Same goes for recasting. TellTale games would sometimes recast roles between episodes! Sometimes people missed the originals, sometimes they preferred the new takes. Sam & Max themselves have been recast countless times throughout their many iterations! Again, I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset about that. I know elTee suggests this is purely a generation thing, but honestly I can't say I'm convinced, because when someone is recast for reasons which could be described as "woke" (reasons for which I wholeheartedly applaud and support), strangely then it's a huge issue. Changing a line like "take our complimentary goggles designed for special needs children!" is treated as a crime against culture! Sorry, I just don't buy it. I do prefer the performance of the original Bosco actor, but I also understand and agree with why it was changed. Same goes with the line alterations. And believe me, I'm someone who has gotten bent out of shape when other remasters have gotten things wrong. It drives me crazy when something I really care about is changed for bad reasons (like the "Golo Flake" label oversight in Grim Fandango which makes the puzzle harder to solve -- after DoubleFine promised a "Criterion Edition" level remaster). But the changes made to the S&M Remasters weren't done for bad reasons... So if that still bugs you then I think it's less about the changes themselves, and more about the reasons for the changes. Recent example to illustrate my point: Earl Boen isn't going to reprise LeChuck in Return to Monkey Island and so the role is going to be recast. Fans accept this unfortunate turn because of the reason (Boen has decided to retire). So I think it's actually all about the reason for the changes. Either you think the reasons were justified, and so you are disappointed but understand. Or you think they were unjustified, and so you refuse to buy the product and blame the developer for making them. I know this makes me sound old, too, but this sort of reaction (and the blind belief that everyone, everywhere agrees with it) makes me worry about the future. *shakes old man cane*

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think anyone was hankering to play Willy Beamish Has a Mental Breakdown and Thinks He's a Pirate. Monkey Island was always about actual voodoo pirate tales. Moving away from that would have been brave, certainly, but it's not what I think anyone wanted (to play or to make). I also don't think you can compare it to the Deckard thing. Whether Deckard is a replicant or not doesn't change the elements of the story... whether it's all in his head or not (as you're suggesting for Guybrush), certainly does. It would become the focus. I mentioned previously that the whole "is it fiction or is it reality?" thing has been done before in Buffy and K-Pax, too. For me the idea that it's all a child's fantasy is very unfulfilling. And I'm not sure you can have your cake and eat it: Either I'm going to be invested in the story and the characters, or I'm going to be detached because it's all a fantasy. I can't see how it can be both. In the end, I just want a good pirate story, but let's see what Ron and Dave have cooked up!

Given they cut back to Elaine and even capitalised the word "SPELL", I think that's especially important for understanding what happened.

I don't recall that? Could you refresh my memory?