Spoiler-Filled Interview with Ron Gilbert and Laura Cress

[KestrelPi]

It makes sense to me that if you're going to reveal the secret after all these years then the way to do it is to reveal it, as originally intended, but in a way that will just leave fans debating for the next 30 years what the secret actually means about the world.

 

I think the idea this game adds over and above MI2 is turning into a generational thing. Adding the whole element of these being stories which are passed down and change in the telling and are remembered differently by different people. Which of course adds a whole lot of flex to the 'canon'

 

For me the definitive ending is taking the key but not opening the chest, choosing that it was better not to know. I see this story's ending being about Guybrush finally accepting what everyone else is trying to tell him.

 

Good interview, though not much surprised me (except that I really did expect that having the T-shirt prize was probably an idea from 1990 as it is so in keeping with the first game)

[Thrik]

4 hours ago, Sadbrush said:

I still don't understand why Ron says that the secret is that it was an amusement park and he's been waiting to tell us that for 30 years. And yet, the ending of MI2 made that very clear.

It did and it didn’t. There was enough ambiguity — Chuckie’s glowing eyes and Elaine’s comment about the spell being the usual suspects — for there to be never-ending debates about it during the last 30 years.

 

I think it’s good that some closure has been given to that particular hole in all of our childhoods, while at the same time introducing new layers of intrigue that will torment us until we die.

[Knight Owl]

I'm still interested in knowing the intent behind MI2's ending. If that was supposed to be the reveal of the secret, what the lighting eyes and Elaine saying "I hope he doesn't have a horrible spell on him" meant, or if they had any idea how they were gonna resolve it in a potential third game. Just curious

[ThunderPeel2001]

Once again, this all points to what Bill Tiller told the world in 2003, being true:

 

Quote

Bill Tiller: I was told that the ending of MI2 was originally going to be the ending of MI1. But Dave Grossman and Tim Shafer didn't like it and talked Ron out of it. Then I heard from Larry Ahern that two to three months before MI2 was supposed to be done, an ending had still not been decided upon. And about then Ron decided to go with the amusement park ending he was originally going to use in MI1.
 

The explanation I heard is that Guybrush was lost in the Pirates Ride at Big Whoop Amusement Park the whole time, imagining the whole adventure. Then Chucky, his mean older brother goes and pulls him back to reality. The end. And that magical lightning coming out of Chucky's eyes and Elaine waiting by the hole on Dinky Island (which sounds a lot like Disney Land) was put there just in case there was to be a Monkey Island 3.

 

Although Ron and Dave would say that the ending of MI2 is a different ending (because, OK, technically it is -- the game doesn't just reveal it's all a dream, it adds a bunch of other things to murky the water) but for most of us a huge part of that ending was the amusement park reveal. And that is clearly what Tiller was referring to, if you ask me.
 

Edited October 13, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[demone]

5 hours ago, Knight Owl said:

I'm still interested in knowing the intent behind MI2's ending. If that was supposed to be the reveal of the secret, what the lighting eyes and Elaine saying "I hope he doesn't have a horrible spell on him" meant, or if they had any idea how they were gonna resolve it in a potential third game. Just curious

I don't think the end of the second game was the official reveal of the Secret, nor was it intended to be by Ron, Dave, and Tim. I think that ending was to set up more intrigue and get people asking as many questions as possible, while layering in big implications about the Secret. Ron obviously wanted to continue to explore the fantasy/amusement park for at least one more game, but they also wanted an ending that hooked people. The commentary for the Special Edition of MI2 reveals that they wanted the ending to be polarizing, but also get people talking and theorizing regardless if they loved or hated it. Guybrush and LeChuck being brothers, the parents, Elaine talking about a spell, among many other aspects, all did this very well.

 

What's great is all of these plot points have been explored in the games in some way, shape or form. Were Guybrush and LeChuck ever intended to be brothers? Based on it being a clear ripoff of Star Wars, along with how it is resolved in Return, I'm going to say no and it wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously. Had they made their third game shortly after the release of the second, I would imagine they would've explained it as Guybrush's imagination being an unreliable narrator, rather than his son's reimagining, which was an idea they came up with specifically when writing for Return. It's important to note that though the Secret was the same as they conceived it years ago, the method of how it would be conveyed, along with other aspects, is what Ron still had to detail before he made Return.

 

I think MI2 and its ending especially were really all about Guybrush realizing that something just isn't quite right with his reality. Throughout that entire game, there is something very unsettling beneath the surface. You feel it in the environment, characters, and, in my opinion, especially the music. Yes, Guybrush is being hunted by LeChuck, but his reality/imagination is also gradually beginning to fall apart. A good example of this is when you observe the water pump on Phatt Island. Guybrush will say "What's this doing in a pirate game?" Beyond the fourth wall breaking, I think it's an indication that Guybrush is realizing more things about the world around him and, around that same area, he gets his first interaction with the odd tunnel system.

 

By the time he gets to Dinky, the unsettledness is at a peak as Guybrush navigates the jungles. By the time he reaches the maintenance tunnels filled with carnival items and no attractions, the absolute proof that he is at an amusement park, his world comes crashing down. Perhaps all the plot points, from the spell to LeChuck creating the carnival, were Guybrush and his imagination's attempt to prolong the fantasy as much as possible. 

 

Overall, I think the ending of the second game wasn't so much the official reveal of the Secret, as it was gradually peeling back the layers to the truth, while setting up more intrigue for other questions to lay the groundwork for the next game. The next game would've still been in the fantasy, but with answering the question of Guybrush and LeChuck being brothers and overviewing one more adventure in the fantasy to close off the Secret head-on. That is essentially exactly what we got with Return. 
 

Edited October 12, 2022 by demone

[Utwarrior]

Shortly after completing MI2, we must remember that Ron left Lucasarts. So, if Larry said the ending was decided just a few months earlier, there's a high possibility that Ron already knew at the time that he would leave the company and miss the opportunity to make a third game. That means that throwing that ending was a way to finish the story he wanted to tell.  

[KestrelPi]

I do think it sort of makes different people's accounts of things a little confusing, and you have to wonder how much of it is people's memory versus their memory of their memory of their memory of it, etc. I'm sure at some point Ron or Tim or someone said they don't remember anything about it being the original ending to MI1, but this seems to make it clear that it was actually. And Ron's talked about how the amusement park ending came to him very close to the end of MI2 and they had no idea how to end it before that... which I took to mean that they weren't really thinking about it before, but judging from the new interview it was at least something that was in his head since the start and they were just choosing to surface it.

[BaronGrackle]

When Ron says they didn't have the ending of MI2 until the last minute, I wonder how much of that is the Empire Strikes Back parody.

[BaronGrackle]

I think it's funny that the idea for crew voting in Return Part II came from the Black Sails show. Ron said so in this interview, and Dave has also referenced inspiration from Black Sails.

 

I find that very funny because we know the designers were familiar with Tales Chapter III (Guybrush can basically recount the plot when telling his Chums story), where gaining everyone's vote was a major puzzle chain.

 

It's interesting which inspirations stick with us in specific areas.

Edited October 12, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[BillyCheers]

On 10/12/2022 at 1:50 PM, BaronGrackle said:

When Ron says they didn't have the ending of MI2 until the last minute, I wonder how much of that is the Empire Strikes Back parody.

I remember that in the audio commentary of the SE they said that Ron had the idea for the ending and then the rest, including the SW reference, came along. I always read it that that's how the brother thing came about.