The Real Monkey Island 3

[Alex]

Spoiler warning: This thread is (well, at least should be, who knows how it will turn out, right) about Monkey Island 2's ending and how Mr. Gilbert would have continued the series. If you haven't finished those games, well, go play them! The fist two Monkey Island games are awesome and well worth a (re)play!

Well, anyway, I recently finished replaying the first two Monkey Island games (I am going to play the third one soon too). And that damn ending got me again. The whole endgame sequence, from blowing up the bunker walls, to finding the skeleton of your parents, to taking the elevator back to MI1 to the real end where you finally take LeChuck's mask and then go out to meet your parents is such a ... Well, I am at a loss for the right word for it, actually. Maybe mindfuck.

But while the game doesn't take itself very seriously at any moment, and it has plenty of "anachronisms" with the pirate age feel, I never really liked the way MI3 dealt with it. I mean, just saying that the first two games were the wild imagination of a child isn't such a hot idea, of course, as it would mean everything in the first two games was just a dream. It would be rather off-putting, and this isn't even supported by the ending itself. But I feel the treatment it got in MI3, which made that whole ending sequence a dream (or an illusion, or whatever) just as bad.

So, I wonder what Mr. Gilbert had in store for his version of Monkey Island 3. Could he use the ending in MI2 in a way that didn't spoil the preceding games or the end game I mentioned? What would it have been about? Where was he going with all those characters? I have tried looking around in the internet to see if he ever explained these things, but even now he seems unwilling to share what he had in mind for it. Do any of you have any thoughts or insights into this?

 

[felipepepe]

Perhaps there never was any thought for a Monkey Island 3... most of the LucasrtArts game of that time seem hard to follow up; Full Throttle, The Dig, Day of Tentacle... They pretty much end and that's it. And honestly, I like that about them. While some games work well in series, it allows you to do fantastic stuff like killing the main character, destroying the world or just going for a completly mindfuck end. It's a dying art, as every game now has to be prepared for sequels if succesfull...

BTW, more than the end of MI2, I never got the start of MI3... why the fuck is Guybrush floating on a bumb car in the middle of the sea?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I don't think he had anything in store. They were done with the series after MI2. The reason they ended it the way they did was basically to troll people - there's an excellent commentary from them in the MI2 Special Edition which is well worth listening to. They never intended people to take the storyline that seriously, so the weird shit at MI2 wasn't meant to set up a sequel or anything like that.

I haven't played the later MI games (except for Telltale's one, which wasn't bad), so I don't know how they handle it. I'm just going by what Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman said in the commentary.

 

[Alex]

I dunno. Interviews like this one make me think that, even if he didn't have a specific idea for a sequel right away, he did eventually want to make one. So I was wondering if he might have let slip more details about what it would be like.

 

[Aeschylus]

MI2's ending is awful. It's the worst part of an otherwise fantastic game. It's not a hugely popular opinion among the adventure gaming crowd, but that's that. I do think they made a pretty brilliant recovery with CoMI though.

And I believe Ron Gilbert has said that the only thing he would have done really differently with MI3 is not having Elaine and Guybrush get married. Though I suppose that's kind of the central plot-point of the game...

 

[taxalot]

I absolutely loved Monkey Island 2's ending. It was a surreal, David Lynch ending. It did NOT come out of the blue. What happens there has been hinted all through Monkey Island 2 : those two guys carrying the crate to Lechuck, Guybrush having problems knowing how old he is and people never believing him when he tells them, the waterfall in Phatt/Booty island which can be switched off by a mechanism, revealing the same kind of underground tunnel you find on Dinky Island. There is the skeleton dance where Guybrush whines about having been abandoned, there is Lechuck quickly confirming that when you ask him where do babies come from for a joke ("In your case, the orphanage."). And of course, there is the entirety of the last act.

The ending is pretty obvious. Guybrush has been abandoned by his parents, got adopted by Lechuck's family. The two did not get along, Guybrush runs into a park, makes up a story. And it gets even more fucked up when you add Elaine to the lot : apparently, there are lots of people in that park who have never figured out they are in a park. If Guybrush had a relationship with Elaine, then Elaine is also a kid. What's HER story ?

It is brilliant. It doesn't come from nowhere. It is hinted softly, until the very last "in your face" ending which doesn't make sense if you do not pay attention to details. Keep in mind that it comes from Ron Gilbert, but also from Tim Schafer, the guy who did Psychonauts which explore similar themes.

 

[Alex]

I absolutely loved Monkey Island 2's ending. It was a surreal, David Lynch ending. It did NOT come out of the blue. What happens there has been hinted all through Monkey Island 2 : those two guys carrying the crate to Lechuck, Guybrush having problems knowing how old he is and people never believing him when he tells them, the waterfall in Phatt/Booty island which can be switched off by a mechanism, revealing the same kind of underground tunnel you find on Dinky Island. There is the skeleton dance where Guybrush whines about having been abandoned, there is Lechuck quickly confirming that when you ask him where do babies come from for a joke ("In your case, the orphanage."). And of course, there is the entirety of the last act.

The ending is pretty obvious. Guybrush has been abandoned by his parents, got adopted by Lechuck's family. The two did not get along, Guybrush runs into a park, makes up a story. And it gets even more fucked up when you add Elaine to the lot : apparently, there are lots of people in that park who have never figured out they are in a park. If Guybrush had a relationship with Elaine, then Elaine is also a kid. What's HER story ?

It is brilliant. It doesn't come from nowhere. It is hinted softly, until the very last "in your face" ending which doesn't make sense if you do not pay attention to details. Keep in mind that it comes from Ron Gilbert, but also from Tim Schafer, the guy who did Psychonauts which explore similar themes.

Thanks for the post, taxalot! There is stuff here I hadn't noticed either, like the age thing. Now that you mention it, it is pretty interesting how tight almost everything about the game is. A lot of the conversations that you expected to be just small talk are hints to future puzzles. Even the mannerisms of the characters can be hints, like th way the guard in phatt island takes a whole lot of time examining your wanted poster, hinting you that he is not the brightest fellow, and maybe you could use that in the future somehow. And, as you mention, some other parts of it are building toward the crazy ending.

That said, I am not sure I agree with you about Guybrush being adopted. I mean, telling this to little brothers is a classic way of teasing them, and the parent's figuring in the dream sequence and the last act could simply be because, being a child, Guybrush would begin to miss them by the second game.

 

[taxalot]

That said, I am not sure I agree with you about Guybrush being adopted. I mean, telling this to little brothers is a classic way of teasing them, and the parent's figuring in the dream sequence and the last act could simply be because, being a child, Guybrush would begin to miss them by the second game.

Guybrush's parents are a real issue, and if there was a "real" sequel it would have been sorted out. We have :
-Lechuck telling him he comes from an orphanage. In an interview, Ron Gilbert said : "in one way, they are brothers. In another way, they are not.". While it's not definite proof, I believe it means they are not blood related, but still family.
-Guybrush tells the skeletons they have abandoned him, they deny it. It is possible Guybrush misinterpreted something or choose to believe something.

The weirdest thing is : the two skeletons in Dinky Island. Guybrush's parents died waiting for him, the skulls work for the Lechuck magic doll ; yet, his "other parets" are outside, and it is also possible to tell them they are not your real parents, to which they reply they love you like their child (which doesn't tell anything about being real parents).

 

[Alex]

I didn't know about all of this. Given how the rest of the game is tight, then I think you may well be right. These signs were pointing somewhere, and I wonder what Mr. Gilbert would have done once they got there. Still, I have to wonder about the bone being used to hurt LeChuck. Maybe it worked because they are brothers in a way?

 

[kaizoku]

Excellent observations taxalot

I missed much of that. Although I was very young when playing the game and my english wasn't the best.


About the ending I remember going all "wtf has just happened?!"
And then "oh, they are kids, they were just playing... the power of imagination"

 

[Wolfus]

About the ending I remember going all "wtf has just happened?!"
And then "oh, they are kids, they were just playing... the power of imagination"

Same here.

taxalot
Savant

 

[Keshik]

That's a good post, taxalot (I'd give that a brofist, but I am still unworthy of the privelege )

 

[SCO]

Yeah, it almost makes sense, except for the minor blunder of the voodoo bones working on lechuck.

 

[taxalot]

I think Ron Gilbert even said in an interview (I remember reading it on TheScummBar.Com ) that a lot of things on Monkey Island was thought to be jokes but was not, and in was in fact related to the secret or a plot point that was cut ; he definitely mentioned the anachronisms being fairly important in the story. I also took that as a clue that the game was actually set up in our current days.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The only thing that I can add to this, is that some cutscenes were cut from MI3 because of space limitations, for example the cutscene that shows the transition from the end of Chapter 5 to Chapter 6, or why Guybrush is suddenly on a rollercoaster ride for the last part of the game.

It's possible that the intro (or some other part of the game) was also cut that would have gone into further detail about what was going on at the end of MI2.

 

[taxalot]

My souvenirs about MI3 are a bit fuzzy (I only consider MI1&2 to be the real MIs), but if I remember correctly, Ron Gilbert never explained MI2's ending to Lucas Arts, and managed to force it on them ; MI3 is just Lucas Arts interpretation. They did a very good job, but there are still some inconsistencies :
if Big Whoop was Lechuck's trap all along, why does he spend so much effort making sure Guybrush doesn't there ?

 

[jfrisby]

Ron wrote a nice piece today on his blog.
"If I Made Another Monkey Island..."
http://grumpygamer.com/5777333

I used to write Ron at his [guessed] Humongous games email in the `90s, and been around for several of his appearances in MI-related IRC chats and things. He's said quite a few different things through the years. It's nice to hear him speculating, even if it's mostly about maintaining his legacy/name at this point -- and saying piles of things that I like to hear, with bullet-points.

I hate all the non-Ron games, which feel entirely like one long continuation of the shitty fever-dream-sitcom he was parodying at the end of MI2. It's nice he at least says he would piss all over those people.

 

[felipepepe]

Don't be mean, Curse of Monkey island was great.

 

[keppj0nes]

I remember seeing a youtube video where Ron said he had written a real pitch or outline of ME3 but he had lost it or didn't have it anymore.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Don't be mean, Curse of Monkey island was great.

It was good for what it was, a reboot without actually rebooting the series. More of a retcon, I suppose.

I was twelve when it came out and while I enjoyed it a lot I had some complaints, all of which can be summed as "too silly". Monkey 1 and 2 weren't exactly grimdark serious or anything but there were limits to the silliness. Curse was a cartoon, not just in the art style, but in tone as well. I never considered it or the rest of the series part of the "Monkey Island canon". True story. I am a fucking dork and still am.

Also I fucking hope this is Gilbert's way of testing the waters. He better have at least three desk drawers filled with drafts for a Monkey Island 3. Or else he had better surprise me with three fucking DESKS worth of Monkey Island 3 drafts.

 

[felipepepe]

Don't be mean, Curse of Monkey island was great.

Monkey 1 and 2 weren't exactly grimdark serious or anything but there were limits to the silliness. Curse was a cartoon, not just in the art style, but in tone as well.

Someone needs to replay Monkey Island...

 

[Alex]

God damn it, I wished I hadn't read that. Now I am excited about a game that will probably never exist... What are the chances of Disney actually selling the rights to the series back to Ron?

 

[Jaesun]

Ron Gilbert ‏@grumpygamer37s
My post this morning confirmed what I only suspect before: people like Monkey Island. Interesting data point. Interesting.

 

[trustno1code]

 

[lophiaspis]

Ron Gilbert wishes he could make a game as good as MI3. Most overrated designer after Sid Meier.