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

by zizee 11y ago

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.
  - dasboth 11y ago
    I agree, while I wouldn't say it outright sucked, it was a bit disappointing. In fact, when I played it as a child I literally had no idea what was going on. I guess it was doubly confusing for me because Curse was the first Monkey Island game I played! Perhaps that's why I don't think too hard about it, I love all of the games and readily overlook the inconsistencies in the story.
WorldMaker 11y ago
Ron left LucasArts before Curse of Monkey Island and it was made without his consent or original design plans by essentially and entirely new and different design team. To be fair to the Curse design team, it sounds like Ron's vision for his Monkey Island 3 has never really existed outside of his head and he didn't leave them any/many notes to even be able to attempt to end the trilogy with whatever story Ron may have envisioned. Ron also had mostly made it clear that he doesn't like that LucasArts continued the IP without his consent, as it was his baby, but that's the wonderful world of work for hire for you.

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

by 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.
- dasboth 11y ago
  I agree, while I wouldn't say it outright sucked, it was a bit disappointing. In fact, when I played it as a child I literally had no idea what was going on. I guess it was doubly confusing for me because Curse was the first Monkey Island game I played! Perhaps that's why I don't think too hard about it, I love all of the games and readily overlook the inconsistencies in the story.

WorldMaker 11y ago

Ron left LucasArts before Curse of Monkey Island and it was made without his consent or original design plans by essentially and entirely new and different design team. To be fair to the Curse design team, it sounds like Ron's vision for his Monkey Island 3 has never really existed outside of his head and he didn't leave them any/many notes to even be able to attempt to end the trilogy with whatever story Ron may have envisioned. Ron also had mostly made it clear that he doesn't like that LucasArts continued the IP without his consent, as it was his baby, but that's the wonderful world of work for hire for you.