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"I don’t know if I will ever get to make another Monkey Island. I always envisioned the game as a trilogy and I really hope I do, but I don’t know if it will ev

"I don’t know if I will ever get to make another Monkey Island. I always envisioned the game as a trilogy and I really hope I do, but I don’t know if it will ever happen. Monkey Island is now owned by Disney and they haven't shown any desire to sell me the IP. I don’t know if I could make Monkey Island 3a without complete control over what I was making and the only way to do that is to own it. Disney: Call me." I wonder if anyone high up in Disney could be persuaded to give Ron Gilbert enough control to make MI3a. Would surely boost their brand and create a community of grateful fans. If selling the IP is a no-no, maybe there's another way.

Toenex 11y ago
I guess he could propose a game to Disney and see if they bite. From his blog (the title of which includes the phrase "bitter ramblings") Ron appears opposed to working on MI3 unless given full control first. However, I would think his best course would be something like a kickstarter campaign which might demonstrate to Disney the kind of market MI3 could have.
- misnome 11y ago
  From the article: > Please don’t suggest I do a Kickstarter to get the money, that’s not possible without Disney first agreeing to sell it and they haven’t done that.
  - Toenex 11y ago
    Yes that is what I meant by 'appears opposed'. However, I wonder if he wrote that because even he realises that he will need to do more than just ask if he really wants to do MI3.
    - hnal943 11y ago
      He has written about it at length: http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland There's no way to force Disney to sell. There's no reason for Ron to do a MI game that he didn't have creative control of, since it still wouldn't be his vision. There's just no good way to solve the problem at this point.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
zizee 11y ago
I find it interesting that Ron doesn't consider "The Curse of Monkey Island" part of the trilogy. Anyone know the back-story there?
- toyg 11y ago
  Wikipedia says "Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert parted ways with the series after Monkey Island 2, and the new project leaders were Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern, both of whom had previously worked on Full Throttle (the interface of the game was adopted almost entirely)."
  - moomin 11y ago
    Curse was actually a pretty good game, mind you.
- on_and_off 11y ago
  MI 1 & 2 support several lectures of the story. Due to Guybrush inability to explain his real age and various weird occurrences, it can be read as a little kid snooping around a theme park. It explains why he has to think that hard before giving his age, why a tshirt would be a treasure given after vanquishing a sword-master, why some areas are closed off with modern looking out of order signs, etc. It can also be read as a pirate in a weird weird world. IIRC, the evil laugh of Le-Chuck and his read eyes were added just before the game shipped against Gilbert (and others) wishes. Curse and subsequent games completely disregard this and quickly brush it off as another trick of LeChuck. This side of the story telling is then totally absent from the various MI sequels (I don't think there was much involvement from the original team in any of the sequels, Gilbert was briefly consulted for the last episodic game but that's it). So if Gilbert were to make a new MI game, he would naturally like to take the story where he left it.
  - foldr 11y ago
    The thing is that whatever Gilbert thinks about it, the ending of MI2 sucked. MI2 was genuinely scary in places (http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Screaming_Chair http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Screaming_Chair), and the revelation that it was all a daydream just made everything you've done up to that point feel completely pointless. This put the writers of Curse in a difficult position, and although their solution was a bit awkward, I can't really see that they could have gone forward any other way.
toyg 11y ago
There is no other way. MI is too close to the Pirates of the Caribbeans franchise to let anyone run wild with it. Disney will keep it as buried as possible, and strictly under control. Ron is publicly begging for it (and not even for the first time) because all other avenues have failed. It's easy to predict nothing will change as long as Johnny Depp is alive and working.
- hdivider 11y ago
  I understand your thinking. Yet I am still asking if there is another way, because in my experience, it's so easy to slap 'impossible' on something. Fell into this trap myself. HN isn't exactly a community of people who accept conventional wisdom. Wouldn't it be nice if, say, we figured out some way to attack this, connected with the right person to handle it, and take the idea somewhere? If not for Monkey Island, consider it an exercise in hacking supposed impossibilities. Anyone got something? What kind of conditions would compel Disney to un-bury the IP and listen to suggestions?
- lobster_johnson 11y ago
  Related bit of trivia: MI was heavily inspired by Tim Powers' novel "On Stranger Tides" (which is a classic piece of secret history, involving Blackbeard, the Fountain of Youth, and of course zombie pirates). For the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they bought the rights to the novel -- but pretty much the only thing they kept from the book was the title and the Blackbeard character. Everything else has been changed, for the worse. (So much worse.) So Disney's two pirate franchises are related, in a weird way.
  - WorldMaker 11y ago
    Pirates of the Caribbean movies heavily borrowed from "On Stranger Tides" from the very first movie, so it was only fair that they eventually actually licensed the book, even if only to mostly just use the (fantastic) title, because they'd already picked so much of the book apart. Also, further mutual inspiration trivia between the two franchises: Ron's never made it a secret that Monkey Island was also directly inspired by the original Disney Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. (The influence of which can be felt strongly throughout, but which most directly manifests itself in the complicated and controversial MI2 ending.)
brink2death 11y ago
Why "3a" and not just 3? The Curse of Monkey Island, while being the third game released, was never officially called Monkey Island 3.
SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
His current Kickstarter project, Thimbleweed Park, looks very similar in tone, humour and gameplay. I really have high hopes for it. Maybe if it's successful it will prove that there is still a market for "retro" adventure games and help give Disney a prod in the right direction. That was certainly my hope when I backed it, anyway...
- DanBC 11y ago
  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimbleweed-park-a-new-classic-point-and-click-adv https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimble... http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/ http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/
- hnal943 11y ago
  I hope you're right. However, I think Broken Age that even in the best possible conditions, there's just no real market for classic adventure games beyond the fanatics willing to kickstart it out of nostalgia (like me). At least, there's no market large enough that would make Disney reconsider its position.

Toenex 11y ago

I guess he could propose a game to Disney and see if they bite. From his blog (the title of which includes the phrase "bitter ramblings") Ron appears opposed to working on MI3 unless given full control first. However, I would think his best course would be something like a kickstarter campaign which might demonstrate to Disney the kind of market MI3 could have.

misnome 11y ago
From the article: > Please don’t suggest I do a Kickstarter to get the money, that’s not possible without Disney first agreeing to sell it and they haven’t done that.
- Toenex 11y ago
  Yes that is what I meant by 'appears opposed'. However, I wonder if he wrote that because even he realises that he will need to do more than just ask if he really wants to do MI3.
  - hnal943 11y ago
    He has written about it at length: http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland There's no way to force Disney to sell. There's no reason for Ron to do a MI game that he didn't have creative control of, since it still wouldn't be his vision. There's just no good way to solve the problem at this point.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

zizee 11y ago

I find it interesting that Ron doesn't consider "The Curse of Monkey Island" part of the trilogy. Anyone know the back-story there?

toyg 11y ago
Wikipedia says "Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert parted ways with the series after Monkey Island 2, and the new project leaders were Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern, both of whom had previously worked on Full Throttle (the interface of the game was adopted almost entirely)."
- moomin 11y ago
  Curse was actually a pretty good game, mind you.
on_and_off 11y ago
MI 1 & 2 support several lectures of the story. Due to Guybrush inability to explain his real age and various weird occurrences, it can be read as a little kid snooping around a theme park. It explains why he has to think that hard before giving his age, why a tshirt would be a treasure given after vanquishing a sword-master, why some areas are closed off with modern looking out of order signs, etc. It can also be read as a pirate in a weird weird world. IIRC, the evil laugh of Le-Chuck and his read eyes were added just before the game shipped against Gilbert (and others) wishes. Curse and subsequent games completely disregard this and quickly brush it off as another trick of LeChuck. This side of the story telling is then totally absent from the various MI sequels (I don't think there was much involvement from the original team in any of the sequels, Gilbert was briefly consulted for the last episodic game but that's it). So if Gilbert were to make a new MI game, he would naturally like to take the story where he left it.
- foldr 11y ago
  The thing is that whatever Gilbert thinks about it, the ending of MI2 sucked. MI2 was genuinely scary in places (http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Screaming_Chair http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Screaming_Chair), and the revelation that it was all a daydream just made everything you've done up to that point feel completely pointless. This put the writers of Curse in a difficult position, and although their solution was a bit awkward, I can't really see that they could have gone forward any other way.

toyg 11y ago

There is no other way. MI is too close to the Pirates of the Caribbeans franchise to let anyone run wild with it. Disney will keep it as buried as possible, and strictly under control. Ron is publicly begging for it (and not even for the first time) because all other avenues have failed. It's easy to predict nothing will change as long as Johnny Depp is alive and working.

hdivider 11y ago
I understand your thinking. Yet I am still asking if there is another way, because in my experience, it's so easy to slap 'impossible' on something. Fell into this trap myself. HN isn't exactly a community of people who accept conventional wisdom. Wouldn't it be nice if, say, we figured out some way to attack this, connected with the right person to handle it, and take the idea somewhere? If not for Monkey Island, consider it an exercise in hacking supposed impossibilities. Anyone got something? What kind of conditions would compel Disney to un-bury the IP and listen to suggestions?
lobster_johnson 11y ago
Related bit of trivia: MI was heavily inspired by Tim Powers' novel "On Stranger Tides" (which is a classic piece of secret history, involving Blackbeard, the Fountain of Youth, and of course zombie pirates). For the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they bought the rights to the novel -- but pretty much the only thing they kept from the book was the title and the Blackbeard character. Everything else has been changed, for the worse. (So much worse.) So Disney's two pirate franchises are related, in a weird way.
- WorldMaker 11y ago
  Pirates of the Caribbean movies heavily borrowed from "On Stranger Tides" from the very first movie, so it was only fair that they eventually actually licensed the book, even if only to mostly just use the (fantastic) title, because they'd already picked so much of the book apart. Also, further mutual inspiration trivia between the two franchises: Ron's never made it a secret that Monkey Island was also directly inspired by the original Disney Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. (The influence of which can be felt strongly throughout, but which most directly manifests itself in the complicated and controversial MI2 ending.)

brink2death 11y ago

Why "3a" and not just 3? The Curse of Monkey Island, while being the third game released, was never officially called Monkey Island 3.

SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago

His current Kickstarter project, Thimbleweed Park, looks very similar in tone, humour and gameplay. I really have high hopes for it. Maybe if it's successful it will prove that there is still a market for "retro" adventure games and help give Disney a prod in the right direction. That was certainly my hope when I backed it, anyway...

DanBC 11y ago
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimbleweed-park-a-new-classic-point-and-click-adv https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimble... http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/ http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/
hnal943 11y ago
I hope you're right. However, I think Broken Age that even in the best possible conditions, there's just no real market for classic adventure games beyond the fanatics willing to kickstart it out of nostalgia (like me). At least, there's no market large enough that would make Disney reconsider its position.