Unpopular opinions

[BillyCheers]

I totally loved and still love the island hopping. Sure, it feels less big in total. But the game mechanic is so great, as @KestrelPisaid.

 

I really like the islands in MI1 and 2. But I have to say, that the islands feel even more real in CMI. Almost all locations feel connected to another like in no other game of the series, as you can always see at least one other locations in the background. This way it always feels like you walk from one screen directly to the next one – so great! 🥰

[KestrelPi]

My favourite LucasArts game is The Last Jedi.

[BaronGrackle]

Some of you have expressed displeasure with the institution of marriage and its role in Monkey Island games, particularly MI3 and MI5. You have said that as you've grown older, your opinion on marriage has soured, and therefore you're not as keen to see it elevated in these games.

 

My suggestion: when playing these MI games, try to visualize marriage as an elaborate voodoo spell. It has wild magical power in the same way that a voodoo doll or recipe to Monkey Island.

 

Related to this: try to read Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides if you get the chance. It was one of Ron's inspirations, right? And if you go from On Stranger Tides straight to The Secret of Monkey Island, you can almost imagine that LeChuck's goal of marrying Elaine could have more to do with the governorship of Mêlée than with anything related to the incel life.

 

In which case, score a point to MI4's gubernatorial seal.

[KestrelPi]

6 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

Some of you have expressed displeasure with the institution of marriage and its role in Monkey Island games, particularly MI3 and MI5. You have said that as you've grown older, your opinion on marriage has soured, and therefore you're not as keen to see it elevated in these games.

 

My suggestion: when playing these MI games, try to visualize marriage as an elaborate voodoo spell. It has wild magical power in the same way that a voodoo doll or recipe to Monkey Island.

 

Related to this: try to read Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides if you get the chance. It was one of Ron's inspirations, right? And if you go from On Stranger Tides straight to The Secret of Monkey Island, you can almost imagine that LeChuck's goal of marrying Elaine could have more to do with the governorship of Mêlée than with anything related to the incel life.

 

In which case, score a point to MI4's gubernatorial seal.

This is funny, but to be clear it's less that my opinion on marriage has soured, and more that I don't like its status as the default or ultimate expression of love. I feel like love takes many forms, and none of them require marriage to be valid and many of them are incompatible with marriage as it exists in most jurisdictions.

[Aro-tron]

I recently read through a lot of the original design pitch for Curse, which originally was Ahern and Ackley originally proposed to be a MUCH longer game (I've attached it in case any of you haven't read it and are curious), and I was struck by how much of the game was thematically tied to the idea of weddings as cursed or fraught. Some of this made it to the finished version -- most obviously there is the doomed Goodsoup engagement. The pitch also includes a different puzzle with the theater, where Guybrush has to act out Romeo & Juliet, "pledging his undying devotion to a hook-armed pirate in drag".

 

Most notably the overall arc of the game is that the Voodoo Lady has given Guybrush a number of tasks that he must complete in order to "destroy what remains of LeChuck's wedding plans", which includes visiting the wedding reception (which is somehow still in-progress four years later), returning a bunch of LeChuck and Elaine's wedding gifts, and visiting the 'Tree of Life' to crossing out where LeChuck has carved "LeChuck + Elaine".

 

There are some interesting ideas in there, but the plotting is ropey because it feels weird to have to undo all of these things about a wedding that didn't actually take place. Maybe they could have finagled it into working -- like maybe the voodoo magic spell is set up so that it takes effect once Elaine puts the ring on, for example. I think they made the right choices in simplifying the game.

 

This next spurious bit of psychoanalysis is probably totally wrong, but the original outline suggested to me that least one of the designers was working out a lot of MARRIAGE ANXIETY. I mean, they probably weren't, but the subtext of this version of Curse would have been a lot meatier. It make marriage as an institution seem kind of creepy, and has at least four iterations of cursed engagements: Guybrush and Elaine, LeChuck and Elaine, Romeo and Juliet (as performed by Guybrush), and the Goodsoups.

 

The original pitch does not end with a successful wedding (although it calls for a romantic musical number).

 

After everything Guybrush has to go through in this longer, rather darker, version of Monkey Island 3, I think it could have ended with both him and Elaine deciding that marriage was waaaay too much commitment (and voodoo), and parting ways.... maybe something like:

Elaine: After the way my last engagement ended? I'm not looking for any more attachments right now.

Guybrush: Funny, I was thinking the same thing...

 

It could be played as glib on the surface, but with a tragic undertone.

 

I don't think it would have been the crowd-pleasing ending that matched the overall tone of Curse, but it would have been hewed closer to the tone of the first two games, which undercut their expected climaxes. It would have also avoided saddling the subsequent games with a happily-married protagonist, while setting up a potential plot element for the next game (which Curse doesn't really do).

 

Anyway, I'll be interested in seeing what Ron does with their relationship.  ...and thank you for reading my dissertation on the theme of marriage in an unproduced version of a computer game I first played when I was in middle school.

1995 08 29 Curse of Monkey Island.compressed.pdf

[KestrelPi]

I would SO love for Guybrush and Elaine to separate but part as friends in the end of ReMI, I feel like it would be a great way for Ron to get what he wants out of their relationship while respecting what came before.

[ThunderPeel2001]

7 hours ago, Aro-tron said:

The original pitch does not end with a successful wedding (although it calls for a romantic musical number).

 

It does basically imply everything but a wedding, though...

 

Quote

LeChuck finally defeated, Guybrush sets all the monkeys free, and is reunited with Elaine.  The music swells, they smooch, big romantic musical production ending.

 

I agree that Elaine being head over heels for Guybrush felt a bit wrong, but Curse sets he giddy tone from the first scene ("the only man I've ever loved").

 

I guess the writers needed one less thing to talk the audience through: "Let's just revert Elaine back to Monkey 1 so we don't have to explain ANOTHER thing!"

 

Nice catch with the wedding anxiety theme!

Edited August 1, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[BaronGrackle]

I guess it's unpopular: I see Elaine as head-over-heels for Guybrush in both Secret and Revenge. She left the guy for year(s) and wrote books about him being disappointing, but she was about to jump back together with him LIKE THAT, back in the Booty Island mansion. I wouldn't imagine it as a giant leap for her to pine after him after assuming him dead for months.

 

People have told me that doesn't necessarily mean they're destined to be married. Fair, but it does lean toward them being together - even if it's the modern type of relationship that's sort of become equivalent to how marriage was recently perceived.

 

EDIT: I sometimes wonder if it was Grossman or Schafer who wrote the scenes at the MI1 docks or MI2 mansion, rather than Gilbert, whenever I read Gilbert's comments on Elaine and Guybrush. Because those scenes don't give me a "little brother" vibe.

Edited August 1, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[Aro-tron]

39 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

I sometimes wonder if it was Grossman or Schafer who wrote the scenes at the MI1 docks or MI2 mansion, rather than Gilbert,

I think this is probably right, but both of those scenes seem like pastiches of romantic scenes to me, rather than filled with genuine emotion.
 

The escalating plunderbunny teams of endearment scene is hilarious i think because of contrived and goofy the dialogue is, while the characters themselves don’t really emote at all visually, all while the music swells. I haven’t played it in the SE, but I would think the lines would come off awkward when spoken, they seem like they’re made for the player to read aloud on their own, while cracking up more each time (but maybe that’s just my own experience of them).

 

I can buy Ron’s interpretation of that scene, where Elaine, a little older and wiser, is just messing around acting out a  scene she’s seen in soap operas, while Guybrush is totally confused, but plays along with it, assuming she is sincere and kind of trying to impress her.

[BaronGrackle]

Twist: Guybrush lives in a totally believable pirate voodoo world, but anything that seems out of place with a totally believable pirate voodoo world is his imagination. Examples being anachronisms like the grog machine, and the entire docks scene with Elaine. Heh.

 

And also he killed like eight guys while swordfighting on Mêlée roads.

Edited August 1, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[Garystu]

Liking Guybrush and Elaine as a romantic couple is the popular opinion.

 

And I share the popular opinion. I like the partnership. Its true the couple did get together on a bit of a retcon. I would understand a Monkey 3a which kept them separated. But I can't see them apart up in a Monkey 6. Not after all the couple has been through together. Does that make sense?

 

Although if they divorced but remained good friends who loved each other, I could enjoy that. I'm also a big marriage skeptic.

 

And hey. Anythings fine for the two as long as the story is interesting. I am really interested to see how the two work in RTMI, no matter how they work.

 

The only thing they could do wrong is to damsel Elaine again. That would be bad. Please, I'm so sick of her being damselled. It stopped being cute after MI1. I don't like a large bulk of Elaine's screentime being "subversion of a trope". Especially because subverting the trope came to mean her getting damselled a lot, which defeats the point. There's more to Elaine, and I want to see that more, more.

 

Not unpopular opinions, sorry.

 

 

10 hours ago, Aro-tron said:

Anyway, I'll be interested in seeing what Ron does with their relationship.  ...and thank you for reading my dissertation on the theme of marriage in an unproduced version of a computer game I first played when I was in middle school.

 

No. Thank YOU for writing it. I enjoyed reading it a lot.

 

[ThunderPeel2001]

13 minutes ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Liking Guybrush and Elaine as a romantic couple is the popular opinion.

 

And 57.2% of facts are made of up on the spot

[KestrelPi]

I think it's more that Guybrush and Elaine are so established as a romantic, married couple now, people have trouble imagining anything different.

 

But people do drift apart. A failed romance can turn into a successful friendship. A breakup doesn't have to be fiery or even extremely sad - it can be a sign of two people growing, or finding happiness elsewhere. We don't see those kinds of stories very often in video games but I think they're just so much more inherently interesting than 'and the couple who are meant for each other get together just like it was supposed to go'

 

There's a lot of nuance and depth to be had in that space of 'there's a world in which these two could have worked, romantically, but it's not this one'

 

I mentioned it before but I loved that for the ending of Full Throttle, and it's so well directed, very little is said but you absolutely understand the emotions at play:

 

There's that moment of 'so what happens at now'. You know that both of them want to talk about some feelings they have. Ben has doubts but Maureen thinks perhaps they still have a future.

 

Then Maureen gets a phone call. She has to take it. As soon as she does, she's back in work mode. She's an Important Person now. She has Responsibilities.

 

We hear a car door open and close as Ben leaves. Maureen gives just a little glance over toward it, before continuing with the call. She's sad, but she knows he's right. Duty calls. Ben knows it's best if he just goes. It's not a bad thing - a little sad, but it's just him playing out the inevitability of what would have happened if they'd tried to make something worse. Best do it now, quietly, and avoid the pain. Duty calls.

 

It's so beautiful to me, brings those characters to life way more than any kind of shoving them together could have done.

 

MI1's romance was absurdly, comically unbelievable, it was played almost entirely for laughs.

 

In MI2 they play a lot of it for laughs too, but via a post-break up version of the relationship because of course they do - the MI1 romance was absurd, there was nothing about that non-relationship that was set up for long-term success. The attraction is still there, and Elaine is definitely not immune to it, but she's wiser to who Guybrush is as a person and doesn't fall for it for very long. 

 

Then we had the next few games where we suspend disbelief that they had anything approaching a workable relationship before. Fair enough, that's the direction things went, I'm not going to begrudge it, but it leaves so much unaddressed, that I'm just begging for something that brings a bit of depth to their dynamic.

 

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Garystu]

3 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

And 57.2% of facts are made of up on the spot

 

Yeah fair enough lol. I know the extremely Monkey Island fans have discussed if Guybrush and Elaine should be together A Lot. Its a debate that's been happening online since... I dunno, the release of MI2? Or CMI? Like, twenty years at minimum, over thirty at max. Christ almighty everyone (including me).

 

But when it comes to more a casual majority of fans, people liking the couple is the vibe I get. But there's no stats to prove anything so I am just making shit up. You're right.

 

GOD we are so close to RTMI ending this. Ship wars never truly end, but at least we can get canonical closure.

[ThunderPeel2001]

13 minutes ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Like, twenty years at minimum, over thirty at max. Christ almighty everyone (including me).

 

Yep, I know...

 

 

Feels that long, anyway!

 

[BaronGrackle]

2 hours ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Ship wars never truly end, but at least we can get canonical closure.

"Canonical closure"? 😅 Forgive me, but I... I've witnessed Star Wars, Harry Potter, Kingdom Hearts... I heard something about some books called Twilight...

[Staple Remover]

After a recent playthrough, I have developed the wildly unpopular opinion that If they included the spitting contest and the bone song, the Monkey Island 2 lite version would be a better than the regular. 
 

 

[BaronGrackle]

1 hour ago, Staple Remover said:

After a recent playthrough, I have developed the wildly unpopular opinion that If they included the spitting contest and the bone song, the Monkey Island 2 lite version would be a better than the regular. 
 

 

Point of order: Even at the exclusion of Kate and Rogers?

[Staple Remover]

20 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Point of order: Even at the exclusion of Kate and Rogers?

Where the lite version of the game loses me is by obtaining Lindys map piece for 100 pieces of eight. I think by trading the plaque for 6000 pieces of eight and obtaining the map at that price would be a sufficient lite puzzle. 
 

The drinking puzzle is a good one too, I think that’s a pretty big omission. The bone song is just fun and creepy and it should be in this version. 

[Garystu]

5 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

"Canonical closure"? 😅 Forgive me, but I... I've witnessed Star Wars, Harry Potter, Kingdom Hearts... I heard something about some books called Twilight...

 

And I'm a fan of Final Fantasy VII. Where people will fierce debate if Cloud loves Tifa or Aerith. Aerith. One of the most famous videogame deaths of all time, very much dies right in the middle of the story, Aerith. Anyway it's been happening since 1997. Aww, as old as CMI arguments.

 

Canon is super clear. Han loves Leia, Sora loves Kairi, Bella loves Edward, and Cloud can never be with Aerith. Anything other is just fan work, which is fine.

 

.

 

What makes Guybrush and Elaine different and interesting is Ron Gilbert's statements that he wouldn't have put the pair together in his Monkey Island 3a.

 

So what do we make of this? Is Ron Gilbert the authority on his own characters, and we must listen to him? Or are the other writers contributions important, and we must consider them authoritative because of their position as official sequels? Or is every post-Gilbert game an entertaining reimagined spin-off, a fun what-if but not a "true" Monkey Island? People have argued all of these and more.

 

These are the kinds of arguments have some closure coming in RTMI.

 

But people will still be arguing about Guybrush and Elaine after RTMI. I know.

 

Despite any canon closure, people will still argue about this. Just like every other pairing here. But it'll be more in what-ifs and fanfiction territory now.

 

Really, it would be funny if RTMI gave us even more to argue about regarding Guybrush and Elaine as a couple. Imagine

Edited August 2, 2022 by Guybrush Transmasc

[BaronGrackle]

1 hour ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Canon is super clear. Han loves Leia,

(cough cough) Old EU power marriage, or Force Awakens can't make it work?

[Garystu]

22 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

(cough cough) Old EU power marriage, or Force Awakens can't make it work?

 

To be honest, not a big Star Wars fan, so I didn't know these wrinkles. You got me.

 

Wow an unpopular opinion from me, finally. I don't like Star Wars. For no reason either, its just not for me.

 

I have only seen the original trilogy, (and The Phantom Menace). And from those, it seemed very clear. But yeah, whoops. My bad. I didn't know. Sorry.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Guybrush Transmasc

[Aro-tron]

Oof, I forgot what a bad hand the Han/Leia relationship was dealt in the sequels. Hmmm.

 

I can only imagine what an ‘unpopular opinions’ thread about Star Wars would look like. 😵‍💫

 

I think the way Ron abandoned the MI3a dream in favour of a sequel that honours the previous games is an admirable act of generosity and open-heartedness. It makes this franchise feel far healthier (and more fun) than a ‘splintered timeline/let’s return to 1994’ approach would have been. I’m glad that he’s uniting rather dividing. I don’t really want to see him split Guybrush and Elaine, and I hope he gives us some depth to their relationship. 

 

Along those lines, my unpopular opinion is that I think I would like to see Ahern & Ackley take a stab at MI7 if it ever gets made. History has been kind to Curse, and I would like to see what their approach to the genre would be after decades designing stuff for the Disney theme parks 😎

[Garystu]

While I don't like Star Wars, I appriciate Star Wars references are part of Monkey Island's identity. The games have always referenced the latest in Star Wars.

 

Therefore, I'm sure we can all agree that Baby Yoda needs to be added to the game.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Guybrush Transmasc

[Marius]

(Pssst, please put ReMI content outside the ReMI thread into spoiler tags, k thx byeee)