Return to Monkey Island

[ThunderPeel2001]

Also I have to add: I cannot see any meaningful similarities between Mulholland Dr and MI2! Convince me @Remi!

[ThunderPeel2001]

1 minute ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Damn, you guys are making me want to watch Twin Peaks. I know barely anything about it too, other than it's a murder mystery in a small town and there might be some paralell universe stuff (?) 

Just watch it If you’re not hooked by Episode 2 then it’s probably not for you, though!

 

Also bear in mind that it was the first TV show that looked like a movie — revolutionary for the time. It really stood out. 
 

These days even TV comedies look like movies. It’s still wonderful though!

[Remi]

8 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Also I have to add: I cannot see any meaningful similarities between Mulholland Dr and MI2! Convince me @Remi!

That'd pretty much be an essay -- I will type it in when I have more than a few minutes.

[Rum Rogers]

OK, I'll have to watch it now. That's it.

[Marius]

If you watch Twin Peaks I recommend the Twin Peaks Rewatch Podcast by @Jake and Chris Remo. 🙂

https://www.idlethumbs.net/twinpeaks/

[Sopabuena]

 

[Asterothe]

6 hours ago, Rum Rogers said:

This is what Ron had to say about it on the TWP forums. Basically confirming your thesis.

Link to the original post for validation purposes.

Thank you so much for bringing this up. I knew I read this at some place and you found the source. I'm in TP forums too.

 

 

[Rum Rogers]

2 hours ago, Asterothe said:

Thank you so much for bringing this up. I knew I read this at some place and you found the source. I'm in TP forums too.

You're very welcome!
I think I do have an account on the TWP forums but never really posted there. I love that there's direct contact with Ron, Gary and David but on the other hand their presence there also causes a level of kissassery from regular users desperately trying to impress them / look smart that is a little too much to bear for me.
I lurk from time to time though, because of interesting posts from the authors like that one.

[ThunderPeel2001]

11 hours ago, Rum Rogers said:

This is what Ron had to say about it on the TWP forums. Basically confirming your thesis.

Link to the original post for validation purposes.

That is good to know and makes me feel more confident in Ron and Return to MI!

 

Also just to be clear: I do not "hate" TWP’s ending. Hate is far too strong a word. I felt completely “meh” about it. Like I never cared to experience it again. I wasn’t the slightest bit angry or agitated or anything like that. Just left cold by it. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Lagomorph01]

16 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Yes! I am a huge Lynch fan, and a huge Twin Peaks fan. (Unrelated to my level of fandom, but I was once married to someone who worked on the show. I know a LOT about Lynch and TP in general.)

 

The Return was a difficult first watch, because I wanted the original show back sooo much. (I took the day off work to watch it — it actually started on my birthday, nice coincidence.) There were staggering highlights (eg.Part 8 and the amazing ending), but it took some adjusting. 

But FWWM was the same, and now it might be my favourite slice of Peaks. 
 

When I watched The Return the second time I enjoyed it a lot more though. It really is a GREAT series that ties together nicely, and you can appreciate that a lot more on the second run. 

 

But the ending was always amazing. Gave me goosebumps. (I hate it that the clip of the scream is used everywhere — that should be banned so it shocks first time viewers.)

 

Anyway, as much as I love that ending, all I want from Return to MI is a GOOD ending. Season 3’s ending was a GOOD ending. It wasn’t particularly divisive, (it was generally well received in the TP community) but it was still challenging and provocative. 
 

I just don’t want Ron to try and create an ending that he hopes half the people who see it will HATE. Because that’s not being true to the story, it’s being disingenuous and contrived. Lynch and Frost didn’t sit down and say, “what could really fuck off half the audience?” They wrote the appropriate ending to the story they were telling. And it worked wonderfully. 
 

I think we’re all ultimately saying the same thing. 
 

Sorry, that was a long answer to a short question. On some topics I just get carried away
 

 

I understand completely! And I do agree that The Return is a difficult first watch. I was completely open to everything being wiped off the table, but the series walks a very thin line in which it constantly gives you the nostalgia you crave in very, very small doses, which keeps you hungry. I loved it the first time, but it definitely needed a rewatch in which I knew what to expect to fully appreciate it! It felt a lot faster too the second time!

Man, I’m looking forward to the new series Lynch is making!

 

And you were married to someone on production! What a good story!

I used to have a teacher who worked on season 1. Those were the only lessons I never skipped! Ahh, the memories…

 

Anyway, I agree that the ending shouldn’t be provocative to be provocative. If you can organically come up with a surprising resolution that fits the story and setting and blow people’s minds in the progress, than DO IT! (And you’ll pretty much have hit the creative jackpot.)

(And if you do, don’t use a movie parody in the climax. I never liked that about MI2’s ending…)

[MurraySchull]

20 hours ago, Junaid said:

Funny thing that happened when Ron visited Amsterdam years ago and met up with a couple of fans, myself included.

I asked him what he thought of the Herman Toothrot thing from the EMI ending and he said he didn't knew about it. So I spoiled it (with permission, of course) and his face was pretty blank.... So to this day I still  don't know if he liked it or not 🤷‍♂️

Haha, that’s great! I remember a very old interview with Ron saying that he only got 20 minutes into Escape and “got stuck.” I’d imagine that even that early in the game, it wasn’t exactly true to his vision of the series, so it’s probably no surprise that he distanced himself from it and maybe isn’t aware of the games’ plot that followed.

 

I also remember a collection of theories on one of the MI sites about how it could actually be possible for the Herman/HT plot to work out between games, and some of them actually did make sense, but who knows if that’s what the developers were intending. I think within the confines of the one game, the twist works fine, but when compared to the rest of the series, it makes you stop and think maybe a little too much.

 

I also theorised that this was the reason that Elaine was recast in EMI to be American, just so that the Herman twist might seem vaguely plausible with them both being American. (And having Herman be British might’ve given it away too soon!)

[MurraySchull]

On 4/11/2022 at 4:25 AM, OzzieMonkey said:

Alexandra Boyd is confirmed as Elaine and interestingly, Gavin Hammon as Stan, who played him in Tales. I wonder if Pat Pinney was asked or did Ron not like his voice?

That’s very interesting. On his Twitter, he said he’s returning but I don’t think he’s specified he’s playing Stan (I’d imagine he is, though). I definitely liked his Stan portrayal in Tales, but for the sake of consistency, I’d have absolutely gone with Pat Pinney just to round off the trilogy with the same cast.

 

Pinney’s voice with the speed of Hammond’s delivery would be my ideal Stan voice. I think Stan’s delivery was hindered in the Special Editions by being too slow paced.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well bear in mind that Ron wasn't involved in the Special Editions, so the first two games don't have any voices.

[ThunderPeel2001]

4 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

I understand completely! And I do agree that The Return is a difficult first watch. I was completely open to everything being wiped off the table, but the series walks a very thin line in which it constantly gives you the nostalgia you crave in very, very small doses, which keeps you hungry. I loved it the first time, but it definitely needed a rewatch in which I knew what to expect to fully appreciate it! It felt a lot faster too the second time!

Man, I’m looking forward to the new series Lynch is making!

 

And you were married to someone on production! What a good story!

I used to have a teacher who worked on season 1. Those were the only lessons I never skipped! Ahh, the memories…

 

Anyway, I agree that the ending shouldn’t be provocative to be provocative. If you can organically come up with a surprising resolution that fits the story and setting and blow people’s minds in the progress, than DO IT! (And you’ll pretty much have hit the creative jackpot.)

(And if you do, don’t use a movie parody in the climax. I never liked that about MI2’s ending…)

 

Interesting! What was the name of your teacher and what did they do?

[Lagomorph01]

31 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

Interesting! What was the name of your teacher and what did they do?

Ruurd M. Fenenga, although he is credited in Twin Peaks as Rudy Fenenga Jr., he was the first camera assistant for season 1.

I don’t remember what his lessons were called, but he taught us all about the movie making process. Great times.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Rum Rogers]

So, what do you guys think about the new screenshots? Love the style of everything but the humans. Personally I'm not a fan of the blocky nose. Still everything else looks quite cool to me!

[Goury1]

56 minutes ago, Rum Rogers said:

So, what do you guys think about the new screenshots? Love the style of everything but the humans. Personally I'm not a fan of the blocky nose. Still everything else looks quite cool to me!

Agreed, I love the backgounds, but the humens - not so much! The screenshot of the street on Melee is particularly awesome!

[TimeGentleman]

https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/ron-gilbert-dave-grossman-return-to-monkey-island

 

In case anyone missed it.

 

To be completely honest, the art isn't what I would have wanted from a new MI game at all. But I appreciate they don't want to do pixel art again, I haven't seen it properly in motion yet, and at least this will age better than the 3D ones.
The canon stuff is still so intriguing, I don't think we'll get a straight answer before release - they clearly don't want to give away too much/colour people's judgement too much. I think it'll start at the end of MI2, then move to post-Tales. I suspect it'll be dealing directly with the flexible canon of the franchise, not necessarily a multiverse thing or whatever, but even just thematically - why is this world always pushing at the boundaries of reality, and why has it had so many different tones etc over the years, playing with that stuff the way the first two games did.
 

Edited April 14, 2022 by TimeGentleman

[MurraySchull]

The Adventure Gamers interview also sadly confirms that Boen won't be back as LeChuck. Very unfortunate but completely understandable given his age and retirement. His replacement has a lot to live up to. It's really going to feel offputting if we don't have somebody with Boen's energy and passion in the role.

 

My immediate thoughts to towards Kevin Blackton, the human voice of LeChuck in Tales. While he didn't have too much of a chance to play "evil" LeChuck, the small parts we heard showed promise and definitely sounded enough like Boen that he could fool the casual player. Adam Harrington sounded so different to Boen that it was just so distracting, despite his performance itself mostly being fine, so I hope that the re-cast doesn't become too much of an issue with RMI.

[Asterothe]

Amazing interview for the time being.
It's not exactly MI3a but starts after amusement park (which is a great relief). Somehow other games won't be invalidated. I hope Guybrush and Elaine  are not married like Ron wanted back then.

I can relate and value very much how stressed Ron felt for a new MI game. He knows how it means to so many and does not want to disappoint. The way he says  it's a great pirate  adventure makes me happy. 

Graphics are a bit disappointing but as long as they will make us feel the atmosphere they will be fine. I understand very well they do not want to be seen as a retro game. 

All in the all it's a great time to be a Monkey Island fan. I cannot wait!

[TimeGentleman]

7 minutes ago, Asterothe said:

starts after amusement park

 

It starts in the amusement park, to be exact.

[Zaxx]

1 hour ago, Rum Rogers said:

So, what do you guys think about the new screenshots? Love the style of everything but the humans. Personally I'm not a fan of the blocky nose. Still everything else looks quite cool to me!

I'm just really happy that it looks different and clean / consistent. I always liked the fact that every MI game has a somewhat different art style that all somehow still fit into the overall "MI art design" and this one seems to nail that too. I'm sure I'll grow to love it if the animation work is anything like what we've seen in the trailer. With that said I really hope that somewhere in the distant future there is another MI game with Bill Tiller's work, I just want to see that man work on an HD MI game.

 

Consistency and just the whole thing looking clean is even more important to me than just liking the looks of the game though because I think that's where Escape and Tales really missed the mark. I don't want to bash those games because I still like them very much but just for the sake of explaining what I mean: they had some very jarring moments where you got the sense that something was rushed or was left looking bad because of budgetary reasons. See Tales constantly recycling character models and environments while also skimping on a lot of interior areas, Escape having some really badly made backgrounds and cutscenes etc. They were just messy.

 

With this more stylized and "lo-fi" art style I just don't see those problems occuring, they can just make a beautiful adventure game from an adventure game budget without it looking or feeling cheap. As a result of that I'm pretty sure that Return will be miles better to engage with than the previous two entries. Aaand there's a bit of a Broken Age vibe I really appreciate too.

 

Anyway I just registered so hey, everyone!

Edited April 14, 2022 by Zaxx

[TimeGentleman]

You laugh, Asterothe, but considering the granularity of speculation about the exact structure of the game so far, I think it's a valid distinction to make.

 

Anyway, another interview (thanks MixNMojo front page!):

https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/14/23021974/return-to-monkey-island-ron-gilbert-dave-grossman-interview-screenshots

Edited April 14, 2022 by TimeGentleman

[Asterothe]

1 minute ago, TimeGentleman said:

You laugh, but considering the granularity of speculation about the exact structure of the game so far, I think it's a valid distinction.

 

Anyway, another interview (thanks MixNMojo front page!): https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/14/23021974/return-to-monkey-island-ron-gilbert-dave-grossman-interview-screenshots

Not saying it was not valid. It was a good distinction.  What I meant it was right after our time in MI2 amusement park but "in" is better.

[Rum Rogers]

I'm particularly excited about the location under Monkey Island, with classic mushrooms included. I knew there would be something else under Monkey Island in Ron's vision, or that at least it would be part of "the secret" somehow. Whatever that is, if there even IS one.