Return to Monkey Island

[KestrelPi]

It's time to shake the speculation tree with the list of

Ron And Dave Interviews Statements Hyping Up Return's Greatly Enigmatic Story, or RADISHURGES
 

RadishUrges about the relation between ReMI and other games:

"One of the things that was very important to me about this was that I did want the game to start right at the end of Monkey Island 2, when you walk into that amusement park. I wanted the game to start there. I don’t want to go into all the details of it, but we do start there, and then it takes lots of weird twists and turns that you would expect from us."

(on the chronology) "How would you describe it, Dave? It’s kind of amorphous. It’s undefinable in a lot of ways." - Ron

"And possibly not important, ultimately. Trying to assign specific numbers to the stories will become hard at some point." - Dave

 

"We very purposefully don’t do anything to invalidate any of the canon that’s happened in those games. We’re not saying any of those things didn’t happen, we don’t talk down to them at all. We embrace a lot of the things we liked in those games. So we were very, very careful about that." - Ron

 

" but with two caveats. One of which is, it’s actually kind of hard to keep track of everything that’s canon, and some of these other games don’t even agree with each other. So a little bit of paradox is necessary and probably healthy for us as creators and as human beings. And the other caveat is that too much canon can get in the way of the story you’re trying to tell, so we decided that we would adhere to canon unless it was going to get in the way, and we would ignore some minor details if we needed to." - Dave

"That’s a tricky thing to discuss. As we announced when we announced the game, this game really does pick up where Monkey Island 2 ended. But how it all weaves into the whole world… that’s something that’s been a lot of fun to figure out, and I don’t think we’re ready to really talk about the details yet. Other than that, it’s kind of what you would expect from us." - Ron

 

"While Return to Monkey Island does start right after Monkey 2 ends, it's not a 'sequel' to Monkey 2 either. It's going to be a fun journey. It will be an e-ticket ride." - Ron

 

RadishUrges about the general story tone/themes of ReMI:

"It is a game about pirates." - Dave

 

"But we also were very aware that there are probably way more people out there in the world who’ve never played Monkey Island but have heard about it. We also wanted to do something that was accessible to them so that they could be eased into the world of Monkey Island and not feel like outsiders the moment they started the game. Those are really important story and design aspects of what we tackle." - Ron

"I think with games in general—and the Monkey Island series in particular—it has always been a bit autobiographical. We always are injecting a little of ourselves—not necessarily our past, but our present—into these games. And the first one we did as fresh designers starting out on a new career is about Guybrush starting out on a new career. It's been interesting to come back to this now, not with things that have been lingering over the last 30 years but as creators returning to something that we haven't touched in a long time. I think we have brought some of that to the material itself." - Dave

--

OK I can't be bothered to pull more quotes

 

[OzzieMonkey]

They're really dancing around the chronology and how the other games fit. I wanna know which games I need to count in my marathon 😆

[KestrelPi]

When I take these quotes together it makes me think that there could, possibly be a time skip involved but actually I think it'll be weirder than that. If they just wanted the game to be set in an unspecified time in the chronology they'd just say that. But instead they keep on talking about how the ending of mi2 is important but the relationship to the rest of the timeline is something they're not ready to talk about.

 

Dave's comment of "possibly not important, ultimately" is very interesting because on the one hand it feels like they're saying "don't worry about where this sits, just have fun" but you can't help but feel there's more to it than that, given their comments about how carefully they thought about Canon.

 

I'm leaning more and more to some multiverse interpretation of the MI universe.

 

Basically, I think Guybrush is spider man.

 

Well... No. But I do think that the reason they can't fully address this right now has to do with where they are taking MI as a world, and whether it will make sense to even talk about chronology by the time we reach the end.

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Lagomorph01]

LucasArts Extended Universe confirmed!

[Toymafia88]

What if Monkey Island 2 is like the 'Ocarina of Time' of the series.

 

The carnival is all about time travelling. Maybe a certain event of you as a 'kid' causes a time split. The good ending and a bad ending?

 

Maybe Curse of Monkey Island is the good ending where you get married. 

 

I dunno just random thoughts.

 

Ocarina has a time split. One leads to Majora's Mask, the other to a Windwaker timeline i believe.

 

That way everything is canon but doesn't effect anything.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Toymafia88

[Lagomorph01]

4 minutes ago, Toymafia88 said:

What if Monkey Island 2 is like the 'Ocarina of Time' of the series.

 

The carnival is all about time travelling. Maybe a certain event of you as a 'kid' causes a time split. The good ending and a bad ending?

 

Maybe Curse of Monkey Island is the good ending where you get married. 

 

I dunno just random thoughts.

 

Ocarina has a time split. One leads to Majora's Mask, the other to a Windwaker timeline i believe.

 

That way everything is canon but doesn't effect anything.

Nice reference there. Weren’t there three Zelda timelines?

Too bad the Ocarina of Time split was an afterthought of Nintendo trying to glue together a hurdle of games with mostly their own stories. I don’t think any sane story teller would tell a story that way.

Anyway, if this is the case, I’d rather have them keep the timeline a secret… of Monkey Island… (sorry, had to make that pun.) Let the players speculate about it for years to come.

[OzzieMonkey]

If they want, they have a plot point right in front of them that's primed for exploring: we already know there are 2 Guybrush Threepwoods thanks to Tales and Kathryn Krebbs wanting revenge on the wrong one, with Q as their middle name. I saw a theory somewhere that suggested maybe a voodoo spell inside a Hall or Mirrors at the carnival causes one of the reflections to become real and that one goes off to be in Curse/Escape/Tales while the OG Guybrush stayed behind and had a very different life, perhaps one that involved framing Krebbs for mopery on Wirthling Shores and embarassing her husband in a creepy karaoke contest  

[KestrelPi]

Heh! I don't get the sense from any of this that they want to directly address any of the plot points from CMI/EMI/Tales ... maybe some characters/references but I feel more like they want people to stop worrying about what interpretation of events is correct or incorrect.

 

I joked about Spider Man, but that's kind of what that series did, right?

Spoiler

Not only in that there have been multiverse interpretations of Spider Man for a while now, but also in that in the recent film they just brought all the old Spiders Man from the other films back and so now there's no 'right' or 'wrong' version, just different universes.

 

I don't think what MI is going to do is going to be QUITE like that, because I think there's other stuff that is mysterious about the MIverse (and also I just think like others that they're not going to fully explain anything). I don't think it's going to be as 'simple' as 'there are lots of alternate MI universes' - but I think the implications might be similar.

And from the other stuff they talk about, I believe that the intro part of the game is going to touch on these themes, a bit, and then for the majority of the game we're going to get a normal, piratey adventure in the vein of the first 3 games and Tales (I don't think EMI really gives us that), and then at the end it's going to get weird, and the MI2 ending is going to be somewhat (but not fully) addressed.

 

Ultimately I think they're going to end it in a place which gives whoever works on MI next a lot of freedom.

[Vainamoinen]

2 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

Ultimately I think they're going to end it in a place which gives whoever works on MI next a lot of freedom.

 

That was always the case with Monkey Island instalments (except, notably, LeChuck's Revenge). When Telltale's Tales chopped off Guybrush's [spoiler/not his dick], that could have been a lasting change that future designers would have to cope with, but Threepwood magically got his thingie back by the very end of the last episode.

 

I kind of wonder whether Ron and Dave would even want to keep their lasting footsteps on the canon to be this light. It's possibly exactly the opposite logic: We respected everyone else's work as canon, now respect ours.

 

We don't know yet what central themes the story will revolve around (we just know that one of its symbols/falcons is keys 🔑 ). But LeChuck's Revenge seems to heavily tease that Ron would want to get into Guybrush's family matters. And that would indeed create a lot of canon for future writers that's not easily ignored.

 

 

4 hours ago, Toymafia88 said:

That way everything is canon but doesn't effect anything.

 

"Alternate universe" as a playground to do anything with the series. I must say, I'd rather have Ron be the one to write the non-alternate canon. 😄

 

There are a whole lot of other options here though. Ron has said that ReMI is "neither MI3 nor MI6", which could of course mean anything.

 

The following is not a theory that I find likely, but one I think could work:

Return to Monkey Island has a framing story set after Tales (possibly even at the end of Threepwood's life / when he's an old man). From that starting point, we would see a series of flashbacks as Guybrush remembers scenes from his life, the first would bring us right back to the carnival. The red thread of the story would be one of Guybrush's lifelong struggles (e. g. his lust for piracy, his fleeting love for Elaine, the search for his lost parents, the eternal battle versus LeChuck, his struggle with cleptomania ... who knows) . The flashbacks/mementos themselves could be set between any of the MI parts and would serve as individual chapters tied together by cutscenes from the framing story.

 

In that way, without any kind of time travel or alternate universe stuff involved, we could reintroduce any character from the series without violating the canon.

 

Also, it would give Rex the opportunity to represent Guybrush in a whole lot of different ways throughout, including physique, beard growth, hairdo, and clothing.

 

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[KestrelPi]

2 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

The following is not a theory that I find likely, but one I think could work:

 

Return to Monkey Island has a framing story set after Tales (possibly even at the end of Threepwood's life / when he's an old man). From that starting point, we would see a series of flashbacks as Guybrush remembers scenes from his life, the first would bring us right back to the carnival. The red thread of the story would be one of Guybrush's lifelong struggles (e. g. his lust for piracy, his fleeting love for Elaine, the search for his lost parents, the eternal battle versus LeChuck, his struggle with cleptomania ... who knows) . The flashbacks/mementos themselves could be set between any of the MI parts and would serve as individual chapters tied together by cutscenes from the framing story.

 

In that way, without any kind of time travel or alternate universe stuff involved, we could reintroduce any character from the series without violating the canon.

 

It's an interesting thought. If it were to be something like that, then I think what it would possibly be like is that each part would be a moment in his life, at various ages, but it being unclear how they relate to each other until something towards the end links together all the moments in his life, and guides them towards a big denouement that makes sense of them, probably by returning to Monkey Island.

 

But if I were Ron and Dave and going to make a story like that then I would have called it:

 

The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years.

[KestrelPi]

7 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

I kind of wonder whether Ron and Dave would even want to keep their lasting footsteps on the canon to be this light. It's possibly exactly the opposite logic: We respected everyone else's work as canon, now respect ours.

 

Oh, I think the stuff they introduce in ReMI could have HUGE 'lore' implications. I am expecting my understanding of what the world of MI is to at least be tested, if not completely upturned, based on the stuff they've hinted at.

 

But I think they're going to do it in such a way that the next people who make a MI game are going to feel less beholden to a particular chronology. I think the most interesting quote in the whole thing is

 

"How would you describe it, Dave? It’s kind of amorphous. It’s undefinable in a lot of ways." - Ron

"And possibly not important, ultimately. Trying to assign specific numbers to the stories will become hard at some point." - Dave

Not to pick it apart too much, but let's pick it apart too much:

 

How would you describe it, Dave? = Help me out, here, Dave. We're stepping into territory we can't easily talk about without spoiling

It’s kind of amorphous. It’s undefinable in a lot of ways. So they're saying the game very definitely starts out at the end of MI2, but nevertheless its timeline is 'amorphous' and 'undefinable'. Not just undefined, mind, but undefinable. Not just vague, but amorphous. And yet they keep on saying that the other games are canon and they were very careful about respecting that, as much as possible.

And possibly not important, ultimately. This could be Dave saying 'I wouldn't worry about it too much' but it could also be saying that the concept of the games having a specific, infallible chronology becomes unimportant, because of where they take the plot.

Trying to assign specific numbers to the stories will become hard at some point. This is kind of a weird addendum to this. They're trying to say that ReMI doesn't fit neatly between MI2 and 3 without saying it outright, but to me this is also implyng that what they are doing also throws the whole chronology of MI as a whole into question. He doesn't say 'trying to assign a specific number to this story' but 'specific numbers to the stories' - he could be talking just about any future games, but he could be talking about the existing ones too.

 

I think some people would be really uncomfortable with the idea of Monkey Island's whole timeline becoming fuzzy and confused, but depending on what their angle is, and how they approach it, I think it could be really cool and add to the mystery.

 

[Toymafia88]

33 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

 

It's an interesting thought. If it were to be something like that, then I think what it would possibly be like is that each part would be a moment in his life, at various ages, but it being unclear how they relate to each other until something towards the end links together all the moments in his life, and guides them towards a big denouement that makes sense of them, probably by returning to Monkey Island.

 

But if I were Ron and Dave and going to make a story like that then I would have called it:

 

The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years.

Memoirs of Monkey Island 😍

[OzzieMonkey]

1 hour ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

The following is not a theory that I find likely, but one I think could work:

Return to Monkey Island has a framing story set after Tales (possibly even at the end of Threepwood's life / when he's an old man). From that starting point, we would see a series of flashbacks as Guybrush remembers scenes from his life, the first would bring us right back to the carnival. The red thread of the story would be one of Guybrush's lifelong struggles (e. g. his lust for piracy, his fleeting love for Elaine, the search for his lost parents, the eternal battle versus LeChuck, his struggle with cleptomania ... who knows) . The flashbacks/mementos themselves could be set between any of the MI parts and would serve as individual chapters tied together by cutscenes from the framing story.

 

In that way, without any kind of time travel or alternate universe stuff involved, we could reintroduce any character from the series without violating the canon.

 

Also, it would give Rex the opportunity to represent Guybrush in a whole lot of different ways, including stature and clothing.

 

 

I absolutely love this idea! Every chapter focusing on a different installment sounds like such a lovely way to celebrate the series as a whole. That would really make it the Monkey Island game to end all Monkey Island games. Heck, there's opportunity to fill in some gaps between EMI and Tales if you really wanted to. We never did find out how LeChuck got his ego back after it was destroyed by the Ultimate Insult. Then again, it's probably best left alone, like any acknowledgement of Herman being Elaine's Grandfather. Oh, dear, sweet, flawed Escape from Monkey Island, I do love you...but story-wise, you drank too much GrogXD.

[Trapezzoid]

Best way to fuzzy up the timeline would be to make Guybrush into a folk legend like Baron Munchausen.

[ThunderPeel2001]

23 hours ago, Giorgio said:

It was not meant to be a cliff hanger.

 

I have no idea what means. It could only have been more of a cliffhanger if Guybrush had been left hanging from a cliff. Ron also had this to say in the chat:

Quote

The ending of MI2 does connect to the secret, but not in the way most people assume.

 

I think ReMI is going to be a very interesting trip!

 

 

I see we've gone right past the analysing the minutia of what we've seen and are now deep into "what if" territory... Soon enough someone will correctly guess what we're about to see (if it hasn't happened already). God, I hope they release more stuff soon!

[Toymafia88]

Sorry i'm always changing the subject, but do you think Ron will introduce a form insult sword fighting in the game? 😁

 

 

[Rum Rogers]

34 minutes ago, Toymafia88 said:

Sorry i'm always changing the subject, but do you think Ron will introduce a form insult sword fighting in the game? 😁

 

 

Nah don't think so, he already scraped it in Monkey 2. I don't see him taking it back now that it's been used even more in other games.

[Toymafia88]

13 minutes ago, Rum Rogers said:

Nah don't think so, he already scraped it in Monkey 2. I don't see him taking it back now that it's been used even more in other games.

Aww that's a shame. I really missed it in mi2 and Tales.

[TimeGentleman]

Here's something that many of you may not have realised: Monkey Island has always been explicitly set in a multiverse. 'Prime' Guybrush often meets and interacts with alternate universe versions of himself. Here are a just a few instances:

Edited May 17, 2022 by TimeGentleman

[Rum Rogers]

Seeing Guybrush being sprayed root beer upon during the dream sequence reminded me of a crazy theory I had.
Before spraying, LeChuck says he's about to destroy Guybrush's spiritual essence (as Guybrush did in MI1): we know that that dream isn't 100% a dream, because the notes Guybrush takes down are real, so what if LeChuck actually destroyed some part of Guybrush's spirit right there?
I mean probably it's just a dream and there's no explanation for the bone dance notes being real after he wakes up, but still, if we went nitpicking on that sequence it's quite odd that no one but me ever mentioned it?

[KestrelPi]

2 hours ago, Toymafia88 said:

Aww that's a shame. I really missed it in mi2 and Tales.

 

I enjoyed its appearance in CMI, but there's no getting around it was basically the same puzzle but with rhyming and ship combat. I preferred the way it was done in Tales, where it was just one puzzle, and it was a fresh take on the format by having to find the response to fit two pieces of dialogue at once. If it is revisited in this game I think it would be in some limited way like that.

[CalisDraws]

Same, although the jokes are enjoyable, once you solved the puzzle in Monkey Island 1, you solved it in every game that uses it. 

[OzzieMonkey]

I'd make an exception for a brief appearance with a unique spin like Tales did, but I think I'm done having to grind for insults and comebacks. Ultimately though, I don't think it's really necessary to do it at all in any context.

[Vainamoinen]

11 hours ago, Toymafia88 said:

Aww that's a shame. I really missed it in mi2 and Tales.

 

Ohhhhhh but the swordfighting insult mechanic clearly was in Tales of Monkey Island! 🙈 You're helping a male Manatee to woo a female using just a human-manatee travel phrase book (episode 3, Lair of the Leviathan). The paradigm was masterfully adapted, and damn I always fail so hard at this.

 

I agree with Rogers, we're probably not going to get another iteration. The mechanic was picked up in parts 3, 4 and 5 by other designers, maybe because it turned out to be one of the most widely quoted things from the first part. But RoDaTi haven't put it in LeChuck's Revenge. It's a bit of a mystery how much of the TSoMI insults was in fact their creation and how much was written by Orson Scott Card. Possibly, Ron thinks of the insult sword fighting as an alien creation 👽 foreign to his body of work.

 

11 hours ago, TimeGentleman said:

Here's something that many of you may not have realised: Monkey Island has always been explicitly set in a multiverse. 'Prime' Guybrush often meets and interacts with alternate universe versions of himself. Here are a just a few instances:

 

The Ron parts did it in dream sequences, and I always felt he was just playing with Star Wars as a source material (Luke kills Dream Vader and finds out he has his face / Guybrush is confronted by LeChuck, who turns into a younger version of himself). The throwbacks to Melee Island™ in Curse were for the laughs, I think, and never had any deeper meaning. The only actual 'multiverse' stuff was in part 4.

 

The much beloved Escape from Monkey Island tried to rejuvenate a series that was erroneously felt to be old and brittle with some time travel. I ... have recently heard the rumor that Lucasfilm will attempt the same thing with another series of theirs, 20 years after EMI. Urghhhhhhh.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[TimeGentleman]

5 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

The Ron parts did it in dream sequences ... The throwbacks to Melee Island™ in Curse were for the laughs, I think, and never had any deeper meaning. The only actual 'multiverse' stuff was in part 4.

 

I know, I was joking

 

What multiverse stuff was there in Escape? Because there isn't any in the picture I posted!