Return to Monkey Island

[OzzieMonkey]

Just now, neoncolor8 said:

I get Stan and Murray, but what about the voodoo lady?

The interaction between Guybrush and the Voodoo Lady makes it very clear that they haven't seen each other since he was searching for Big Whoop. 

From Curse:

GB: "Boy have I got some stories to tell you!"
VL:"Stories?! Yes...well, I'm sensing a great disturbance. I have to go".

GB: "But I've gotta tell you about LeChuck! And Elaine!"

VL: "I'm going to disappear now in a big flash of light, cover your eyes!

GB: "No no, wait! It started back on Dinky Island...and I knew LeChuck was close..."

VL: "I'll be disappearing here any moment!"

GB: "Ok, ok, no stories"

 

Or this:

GB: "I finally found Big Whoop and was enormously disappointed"

VL: "Big Whoop is pure evil. You were lucky to escape alive"

GB: "I can't remember much about it, just that I was expecting so much more and felt so let down."

VL: "Yes, it is the source of much of LeChuck's power"

[neoncolor8]

3 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

The interaction between Guybrush and the Voodoo Lady makes it very clear that they haven't seen each other since he was searching for Big Whoop. 

Got it, thanks!

[OzzieMonkey]

1 minute ago, neoncolor8 said:

Got it, thanks!

Anytime! And yes, I totally wrote this from memory. I've played these games A LOT (as I'm sure many of you guys have).

[Goury1]

13 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

EMI to me has the more aggregious retcon with Herman Toothrot, because it actively changes a character to the point where they can never re-enter the series as the same person; in other words, it did irepperable damage. 

 

Ooooh, don't get me started on the whole Herman Toothrot thing and the Giant Monkey Robot thing! I'm getting frustrated at the very thought of it all!

[Rum Rogers]

1 hour ago, OzzieMonkey said:

The interaction between Guybrush and the Voodoo Lady makes it very clear that they haven't seen each other since he was searching for Big Whoop. 

Again, I don't think this needs to be taken literally. Voodoo spells/curses could simply erase his memory.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Once again, there are SO many ways to explain these things. I’m not saying this is what Ron is doing, but off the top of my head:

 

Stan: We never release him from the coffin in RTMI. All conversations happen through the lid. Maybe we actually provide him with some sustenance to explain how he didn’t die. 
 

Voodoo Lady: Easy. You could literally repeat the same dialogue and it would still make sense. RTMI: Guybrush wants to tell her his stories of heroism and bravery (just like he tries to tell everyone on MI2), she’s not interested. CMI: Guybrush STILL wants to share his stories, she’s STILL not interested. 

Edited April 11, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Glokidd]

3 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Stan: We never release him from the coffin in RTMI. All conversations happen through the lid. Maybe we actually provide him with some sustenance to explain how he didn’t die. 

 

I just had this thought as well,  that would be hilarious 😂 he's till trying to sell you stuff while occasionally mentioning how he cant let a small thing like being trapped in a coffin stop him from feeling the thrill of a sale or something better written than that 🙂

 

... or, if we do go to hell maybe he actually did die and is there but we run into him trying to sell death or whatever pirate devil something they want in trade for coming back to life. I sort of like that and it doesn't really need to change any dialog. If anything it reinforces stans choice to sell life insurance. any changes that might have to come could be solved as well by  having him not remember his time in hell although I like him remembering better

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ha. I love the idea that he's in hell... and maybe he's so annoying they send him back!

[Jake]

I like to imagine that at some point the real Captain Marley shows up and it transpires that Herman’s “revelation” in Escape was caused by him being hit over the head too many times. 

[Goury1]

32 minutes ago, Jake said:

I like to imagine that at some point the real Captain Marley shows up and it transpires that Herman’s “revelation” in Escape was caused by him being hit over the head too many times. 

 

Awesome idea! Sadly, the real Captain Marley was killed by LeChuck - as revealed in COMI - if I remember correctly. Herman is an imposter! Maybe he has split personality or something...

[ThunderPeel2001]

If they do that, I hope that's the only thing from EMI they consider trying to fit into RTMI. It would suck if someone on the RTMI team was like, "Hey, let's try and fix Monkey Kombat!" or "let's bring in more references to the later games!".

 

I have a feeling Ron is just focussed on making his game, though. Phew.

 

Speaking of characters who could appear, there's so many to choose from the first two games I'd like to see again. Actually one of the things I enjoyed about EMI was seeing Otis and Carla again. And being on the original islands was a great idea -- except they were unrecognisable, so that ruined it. I hope Melee and (presumably) Monkey Island don't have their geographies changed at all. 

 

Actually all this reminiscing is making me want to play the first two games again... sigh.

[Goury1]

10 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

I have a feeling Ron is just focussed on making his game, though. Phew.

 

I hope so too. As much as I would like to see a continuation of TOMI plotline, I want Ron to tell his own, original story most of all! That's what I'm waiting for the most - to know what on earth was in Ron's head when he designed the ending sequence of MI2. I want to know his story and the real secret of Monkey Island. I hope that incorporaiting elements from COMI won't change his original plan too much...

Edited April 11, 2022 by Goury1

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 4/11/2022 at 10:00 PM, Goury1 said:

 

I hope so too. As much as I would like to see a continuation of TOMI plotline, I want Ron to tell his own, original story most of all! That's what I'm waiting for the most - to know what on earth was in Ron's head when he designed the ending sequence of MI2. I want to know his story and the real secret of Monkey Island. I hope that incorporaiting elements from COMI won't change his original plan too much...

 

I know I'm repeating myself, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. I have a strong feeling Ron didn't have a clue about that ending and didn't have any way to resolve it. I think he just did it and was going to worry about it later.

And here is why I think that: Ron discussed difficult endings at PAX Australia in 2013 and he talked about them as if they were a thing unto themselves. Not an unfortunate side effect of not finishing a planned trilogy, but something you should aim for.

 

See what you think of what he said here (emphasis added by me):

 

Quote

For me, it’s probably not true for everyone, but for me something is perfect not when everybody loves it, but when half the people love it and half the people hate it.
 

I’m not saying that creating something everyone loves is easy but in some ways it really is the easy way out. If you want to create something everybody likes, take a picture of a cute puppy and a kitten.
 

Everybody loves puppies but what have you really told the world? You’ve told the world that puppies are cute. How have you challenged your audience, what part of their imagination have you fired up? What part of their soul have you stirred and engaged?
 

Now, for me such a thing is the ending to Monkey Island 2.
 

That ending really polarized people. Half the people love that ending and half the people just hated that ending and really nothing can make me happier.

...
 

To this day not a week goes by that I do not get one or two hate and profanity-filled emails from people over that ending.
 

I also get emails from people that tell me how much they loved that ending. And that ending really polarized people and that it means the ending meant something. I could have done it anywhere Guybrush and Elaine live happily ever after but no one will be talking about that ending 20 years later, no one would be sending me ranty emails about how much they loved how happy Guybrush and Elaine were.
 

Ranty emails really start my day in a lot of ways they are, they are my morning coffee.
 

Now the thing is I didn’t really have an ending from MI2 for a long time, we were almost done with the game and I still had no ending. It’s not like I didn’t have a bad ending that I hope I make better or a mediocre ending. I just had no ending and I was starting to panic. Now panic can be an amazing motivator. Panic and fear often the lubrication of the creative engine.
 

So then one morning I was laying in bed and I was just staring at the ceiling and the ending to Monkey Island 2 to just hit me. Not with all the details like the Star Wars parody, but the basic gist of it, and it just felt absolutely perfect; it was odd and it was strange and I knew a lot of people would just hate it.
 

But I also knew a lot of people would love it, and it just felt right, it was kind of the ending that the game was waiting for. So next morning I got got back to the office and I sat down with Tim and Dave and Steve Purcell and we worked through all the details. I don’t remember who came up with the Return of the Jedi parody but it was perfect and it just fit.
 

When you were creating something, don’t be afraid to enrage your audience, don’t be afraid to make them hate you, don’t be afraid to challenge them and make them feel uncomfortable, it means you’re creating something that has meaning.
 

Now, you don’t want to do this all the time. You want to do it just enough to keep everybody thinking and unsuspecting. Art should challenge us. Art should make us think and it should make us examine who we are. Art is an object riddled with smart with sharp edges that can cut you, it’s like you can pound all those edges away and make it smooth and make it safe but we are left with is just the shapeless blob, it’s safe and it’s smooth but it’s uninteresting.
 

You shouldn’t enrage your audience all the time just to enrage them, you need to enrage them for a reason. I love cute pictures of puppies just as much as everyone else but I also like to read or watch or play things the make me stop and think “what the fuck was that?”. It’s like I never want to watch or play that again, but I can’t stop thinking about it.

I understand what Ron is saying, and I even agree with it. But I especially agree with: "You shouldn’t enrage your audience all the time just to enrage them." And I feel that's what he tried to do with Thimbleweed Park. It was like, "I know, the game just never resolves anything and just ends! That will be interesting!".

 

I think the truth is more complicated than Ron believes: You can't just choose to polarise an audience, because you actually need to make them care first. (This is why Thimbleweed Park's ending didn't work for me, even as a shock. I didn't care. I didn't care about the world. I didn't care about the story. I didn't care about the characters. The only thing that could have made me care was a clever ending that tied everything together. I doubt I'll ever play it again -- I've tried and quit.)

 

I understand the desire to provoke an audience, but it's not something that's easy to do well. And if you fail, you fail harder than if you tried to satisfy them. (And I don't mean "fail" in the cool, edgy way Ron is trying to romanticise -- I mean fail in the "leaves audience feeling meh" kind of way.)

 

The worst way Ron could end Return to Monkey Island would be to try and "top" his ending for MI2.

 

At this point it's become expected. "Oh gee, Guybrush is just series of computer signals in the computer I'm playing -- how meta!" or "Oh gee, Guybrush is a construct of the author and the audience -- how meta!" or "Oh gee, Guybrush is really the player wanting to be somewhere else, but why do I want to be somewhere else? What does that say about modern living? How meta!"

 

I can also see the game attempting to walk a tightrope between "is this reality, or is it just a child's dream?" the entire time. Like that episode of Buffy from 20 years ago which did exactly that ("Normal Again") or that movie K-Pax.

 

Right now I'd challenge Ron to give Return to Monkey Island a good story and satisfying ending. If Ron resisted the urge to try and provoke the audience and focussed instead on crafting a good story. That would surprise me. I think if you're deliberately trying to provoke ranty emails in 20 year's time, there's something disingenuous about that. With MI2 the ending truly came out of nowhere because that's how it was discovered: It just appeared one day and felt right to Ron.

 

I think provocative endings have their place, but the truth is that once you've made the audience care what happens, it's easy to be provocative: Just don't give what they hope to see. Voila! A provocative ending. Unfortunately when such an ending is expected it's no longer provocative. 

 

This is just a long way of me saying: I love Monkey Island for the world, the characters and the story. I didn't love it just for the few minutes at the end of Monkey 2. So, you know, don't fuck this up, Ron!

 

Watch Ron's whole keynote here:

 

UPDATE: July 2022. I actually replayed THIMBLEWEED Park and completely revised my opinion of it, and its ending. In short: I found it completely different the second time around and LOVED it. 
 

I was as surprised as anyone. So my reservations about Gilbert and endings has totally changed. I think (well, hope) that he’ll give the Return a proper ending, rather than just one that will calculatedly divide fans. 
 

I’m far less worried, anyway!

Edited July 24, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Asterothe]

This only means that the ending of MI2 was not set but he had a general idea how the story will conclude. I'm sure he had a story in place for the trilogy.  

[ThunderPeel2001]

39 minutes ago, Asterothe said:

This only means that the ending of MI2 was not set but he had a general idea how the story will conclude. I'm sure he had a story in place for the trilogy.  

 

Hmm, he's literally said he didn't have a story in place (watch below -- I've set the video to start where he's talking MI3):

 

 

Of course, Ron likes to keep his cards close to his chest.. and this was October 2020, so in theory he was already working on Return to Monkey Island?!? So maybe we can't trust what he says here...

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Marius]

I hope for an ending that leaves us with plenty to discuss and makes the world of Monkey Island mysterious and hard to describe. I can‘t really put my finger on it, but the ending of Twin Peaks - The Return was amazing. It wasn't a concluding ending I hoped for, instead it left me speechless and I had to digest it first. The Twin Peaks world is too big for me to understand, and I think that’s beautiful.

[ATMcashpoint]

7 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

Hmm, he's literally said he didn't have a story in place (watch below -- I've set the video to start where he's talking MI3):

 

 

Of course, Ron likes to keep his cards close to his chest.. and this was October 2020, so in theory he was already working on Return to Monkey Island?!? So maybe we can't trust what he says here...

 

Of course, he also mentioned IIRC in that very same interview that his ideas for MI3 involved Guybrush in Hell...

 

I wonder if RtMI will use that or if it's going to be changed due to Tales using that idea in some fashion?

[Lagomorph01]

2 hours ago, Marius said:

I hope for an ending that leaves us with plenty to discuss and makes the world of Monkey Island mysterious and hard to describe. I can‘t really put my finger on it, but the ending of Twin Peaks - The Return was amazing. It wasn't a concluding ending I hoped for, instead it left me speechless and I had to digest it first. The Twin Peaks world is too big for me to understand, and I think that’s beautiful.

I love you for bringing Twin Peaks’ ending up in this context! That was absolutely amazing!

 

Monkey Island shouldn’t focus on being a David Lynch thing, but it would be wonderful if the ending had the same kind of impact!

 

@ThunderPeel2001, did you see TP3? Just curious, since you hated the Thimbleweed Park ending, what did you think of thát ending?

Edited April 12, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Goury1]

9 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

And here is why I think that: Ron discussed difficult endings at PAX Australia in 2013 and he talked about them as if they were a thing unto themselves. Not an unfortunate side effect of not finishing a planned trilogy, but something you should aim for.

 

Thanks for your extensive answer! The things Ron said are very interesting! I'm very grateful to you for sharing it!

[Rum Rogers]

11 hours ago, Asterothe said:

This only means that the ending of MI2 was not set but he had a general idea how the story will conclude. I'm sure he had a story in place for the trilogy.  

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.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Rum Rogers

[Junaid]

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 🤷‍♂️

[Lagomorph01]

I wonder if he played all the sequels. Based off that tweet I’d say he knows about CMI, but has he played EMI as well? And I wonder how he involved he was with TMI since he was only credited as “visiting professor of Monkeyology”, if I remember correctly.

[Remi]

9 hours ago, Marius said:

I hope for an ending that leaves us with plenty to discuss and makes the world of Monkey Island mysterious and hard to describe. I can‘t really put my finger on it, but the ending of Twin Peaks - The Return was amazing. It wasn't a concluding ending I hoped for, instead it left me speechless and I had to digest it first. The Twin Peaks world is too big for me to understand, and I think that’s beautiful.

Agree with all of this. The parallels between the Monkey Island games and various David Lynch properties have been there all along -- MI2 was obviously released before Mulholland Drive but there was a weird amount of similarities between the two. (Let's just assume Lynch ripped off MI. (Let's not.))

 

Seeing Gilbert is a stated fan of The Return -- let's just assume that is where he got the ReMI title from (let's not) -- I wouldn't be overly surprised if there were some tonal similarities at least.

[ThunderPeel2001]

7 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

I love you for bringing Twin Peaks’ ending up in this context! That was absolutely amazing!

 

Monkey Island shouldn’t focus on being a David Lynch thing, but it would be wonderful if the ending had the same kind of impact!

 

@ThunderPeel2001, did you see TP3? Just curious, since you hated the Thimbleweed Park ending, what did you think of thát ending?

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
 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[OzzieMonkey]

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 (?)