Monkey Island 2's Ending EXPLAINED (SORT OF)
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2017
- Were you just as thrown by LeChuck's Revenge's ending as I was? Let's explore some theories on what it could mean.
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I remember dismissing the ending as a closing gag that meant little to nothing for the plot, like many cartoons that throw surprise over-the-top endings and at the beginning of the next episode nothing has ever happened. I think some part of me saw it as a cop-out through reference, but again, I didn't mind.
but it just not the ending. guybrush in both games have to prove he is adult, nobody is taking him really seriously. try shutter island perspective.
I didn't get the ending... In fact, don't thin i even go Monkey 1.. as you start by LeChuck already a ghost.. but the whole "how did he die?" springs to mind, as that wasn't even on the cards?
All will be revealed in ... Return to Monkey Island! Which will pick up the story after MI2.
Coming in 2022!
@@MarcKloos I am from the future. Return to Monkey Island makes it worse. Beware
Whether you love or hate this ending, i dont think anyone can deny this is one of the most memorable endings of a game ever. So many games I cant even remember the ending. This ending I will never forget.
I absolutely never forgot this ending or MI III.
Just finished Return to Monkey Island tonight and boy Ron Gilbert did it again.
In case anyone is wondering (which people are, because I am getting comments about it), there are no spoilers about Thimbleweed Park's ending beyond me saying it frustrated me due to having some meta elements; There's no end game footage and absolutely no story spoilers or specifics. Same things I said in my review. You won't be able to figure out anything about the end of that game based on what I said here. Carry on. :)
Thank you for another great video, PUR! :) Sadly, I had to have one of my two cats put to sleep yesterday and was feeling pretty much numb today. But,hearing your cheerful voice really helped pull me out of my funk. You seem to have a real knack for that. :) Sorry if that was a little dark, but I just wanted to let you know that you made my day. :) Keep on keepin'! (or should that be "pushin'"?) ;)
"Nihilism, the Game". I love this punchline. In my opinion it still sounds like quite a spoiler about Thimbleweed - you're actually saying XXXXXXXX - but anyway I'm just passing by to say I absolutely love your elocution. We don't share the exact interest about retrogaming or social questions, but my gosh you're doing a great job as a video maker. Congrats, and thank you.
PushingUpRoses my pants contain balls "big ones"
I said it makes you feel like what you do is pointless, I didn't say anything about the characters at all. Your sentence is more of a spoiler than what I said, so you may want to consider editing it. :) And thank you, I am glad you like my presentation. I try muh best.
Well, I'm not gonna argue about that. Commentary edited.
Are you planning on revisiting this after the events of "Return"?
I always enjoyed the theory that the first two games were Guybrush's imagination as he played out a pirate fantasy in a theme park. It explained the modern technologies in the pirating era (grog vending machines, water pump, etc.) and gave me a ton of subtle hints to reflect on. The ambiguity of it is still the best part though, because as you explained, either theory is plausible.
These games are some of my earliest memories of gaming, and I still play through them every once in a while despite remembering all the puzzles. Incredible stuff!
using the monkey to turn off the water ... i was really hoping Guybrush would just use his hands.
@@Tech-geeky en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_wrench
I like the idea that it's both a theme park AND real. People have gotten so lost in a Westworld-esque park, they're aware of outsider stuff but aren't as interested in it. Some kids probably grew up there their whole lives. I feel like that's the best way to balance the themes, but it could also involve going into a level of "serious" lore if it's outright said rather than implied. That said, the setup of the MI2 ending makes it hard not to.
@@SisterRose his reveal in new monkey island are the son of guybrush and his friend living fantasy of living the story thath tell guybrush
What about the theory that even if Guybrush was just a kid, that Chucky wasn't really Guybrush's biological brother?
The evidence:
-When you try to take a bone from Guybrush's mom's skeleton for the voodoo doll, Guybrush will instead take one from his dad. So this only proves that the person Guybrush calls Dad is related to Chucky, not necessarily to Guybrush as well.
Otherwise, you should've been able to take a bone from either skeleton. I mean this is a game that did NOT shy away from programming in a ton of optional actions.
-When you examine the quill inventory item Guybrush says "Just like the pen from Mom & Dad's wedding!"
How would he remember his parents' wedding? ....unless his mother (re-)married after he was already born...
There are even clues that suggest Guybrush himself was actually adopted.
Cuz when you ask LeChuck in the torture chamber "Where do babies come from?", he answers "In your case? The orphanage."
So maybe his real parents really DID abandon him as a baby, left him at an orphanage, where he then was adopted by his new Mom, who then married his new Dad which brought Chucky into his life. Maybe that's why they hate each other so much, they aren't real brothers and didn't grow up together.
Man, no wonder guybrush has psychological issues.
Oh wow, that’s what I call a great analysis!
I think you’re into something here!
Wow, I actually thought something similar after completing this back in 1991. I absorb every detail of everything I watch, listen to, or play.
Then where could that leave "chucky" ? Are we to believe some "stranger" follows Guybrush around all this time scaring him ?
Ya, i don't think people do that too often. Parents are parents... it would really matter i think which bone you would take...
I can see whole adoption thing, but humor takes presence... sorry. More could be added, and then that would be increase the number of what else could the facts..
@@Tech-geeky It would leave Chucky to be Guybrush's stepbrother.
and the clearest evidence is that Guybrush and Chucky looks nothing like each other.
I personally think that LeChuck put some kind of illusion on Guybrush to think that he is just some kid. And my cravings for a new Monkey Island game has not subsided thanks to both this video and Uncharted 4. I really wish Disney could either sell the the rights back to Ron Gilbert or to let Telltale make another game.
Agreed (on the Disney needs to sell the rights part). It's pretty clear that Ron Gilbert still has his ideas for his version of Monkey Island 3 and that Telltale was setting up for a sequel to their game. Ideally I would love to see both, but realistically that probably won't happen.
On a related note, it makes you wonder whether or not it's possible for someone (probably Telltale) to pick up the rights for "Sam & Max: Freelance Police" so we can finally see the game. Again, it's probably not likely, but I can dream dammit.
Steve Purcell still has the rights to Sam and Max, not Disney. Though considering that he works for Pixar now they sort of have the rights.
But Tell Tale made a monkey Island game, you can basicly see it as part 5 of the series, and it was actually quiet good
I know, I meant that I want to see a "Monkey Island 6" follow-up to "Tales of Monkey Island", since there were clearly some plot threats intentionally left hanging during the ending. Sorry for the confusion.
I know Steve Purcell has the rights to Sam & Max, but he doesn't have the rights to the unfinished game "Sam & Max: Freelance Police"; LucasArts did. Telltale tried to buy the rights from LucasArts not long after they started out, but were unable to do so, so they decided to go and create their own "Sam & Max" games instead.
Frankly, this is the commentary I need in 2017.
Monkey Island 3 actually didn't retcon anything. It went with theory no.2 and just continued the story on from there.
MI3 starts with Guybrush escaping the park, having broken the spell, then at the end he goes back and LeChuck transforms him once again into a kid. No loose ends.
I'm not saying you can't look at the first two games on their own though.
Personally, I think they pureposefully left the ending open for both interpretations, so I'm okay either way.
I remember first playing it and feeling totally weirded out by the ending, but now I love it too.
And as always, great video!! Keep it up!!
@Brian Kory I agree, except over the years I've come to accept the "it was all a dream" style endings much more. Sure, a lot of times it's cheap and only detracts from the story rather than adding to it, but when it creates a fun parallelism between two universes as it does here, I think it can work fine. And I don't think it delegitimates the "story within a story" either, I know it's hard to be invested after they shatter the fourth wall, (but that's what I'm saying, I had to learn to do that) but if you realize that it's all fictional anyway you can still suspend your disbelief with an additional meta universe between ours and the main story one. I can still be 100% invested in pirate Guybrush's story even if it's fiction for Kid Guybrush, because it's all fiction to me anyways...
@Brian Kory Oh I just found another more recent comment of mine where I explain a similar concept, one way in which you can consider both universes equally "real". These are years old so I don't expect you to find it, so I'll just copy my comment here:
After just finishing this game again for the 10th time I personally feel like both interpretations are true and not mutually exclusive.
We know the four pirates who found the treasure possibly hid it away because they thought it was something horrible. Also the Voodoo Lady says that Big Whoop is the door to another world.
So my interpretation is that the treasure is the door that connects the Monkey Island world to the "real world". That doesn't necessarily mean that the MI world is not real, but just that it's fictional to the other world.
Basically they're two parallel realities where everything that happens in the pirate world is just a kid's imagination to the real world, and when something happens in the real world that influences the kid's game (or if the kid stops playing altogether) it can be explained as a voodoo curse or maybe a magic illusion in the pirate world.
So Big Whoop is the door that lets those imaginary characters get a glimpse of the real world, a realization that can be horrifying for them.
Maybe the four pirates found Big Whoop and the same scene as this ending happened to them, finding out they "really" are four kids pretending to be pirates. And after some time the kids went to the amusement park and decided to play the same game again and found themselves in the "imagination world" again. So back in their own world the four pirates locked the treasure again never to return in the "real world". From their perspective they're not sure, like us, if what they found on the other side was real or if it was an illusion, all they know is they don't want anybody to go back because IF it was real the realization that their entire world is fictional could be catastrophic. They spent their entire life in the Caribbean, some of them building a family, Rapp Scallion opening a hot dog restaurant and so forth.
So does this mean that the 4 kids never stopped playing? No, maybe they played out the entire life of the pirates in 20 minutes and went home, maybe they stopped playing as the four pirates abandoned their life of piracy... either way the "imagination world" continued living independently.
I love how dark LeChuck's Revenge gets near the end. It's unexpected, different, kind of disturbing, and even a little bit funny. Something a lot of people don't give this series credit for (at least in reference to the first two games) is how it can balance humor with a palpable sense of atmospheric dread. A lot of that atmosphere is really lost once Gilbert left the series. I still like Curse a lot, but the series really lost its edge by the time Escape came around, and Tales took itself way too seriously by the end.
Yes, one of the best aspects of Monkey Island 2 to me is the tone shift at the end. As soon as you fall into Big Whoop, everything becomes dreamlike in a way that's much more somber than all the cartoon silliness. It's a voodoo duel but in an extremely mundane environment, and it all gets increasingly blurred. It's a cartoon character having an increasingly mundane hallucination.
It’s the Empire Strikes Back of the MI universe. Great quality and grim ending.
Nailing Stan in the coffin was one of my favorite bits of Monkey Island 2 as well. I always bought into the voodoo spell theory, especially after seeing Carnival of the Damned in the next entry, but it's nice to see the "Guybrush is a kid." theory explained.
I completely agree about the ending for Thimbleweed Park. I loved the game until towards the very end when it became clear that previous mysteries were never going to be solved (or were even important) and the character's actions were meaningless. It was very disappointing because the game was so good and had so much potential, but I felt like "Soooooo, nothing I did even really mattered?". I love Ron Gilbert's work, but sometimes it's okay to just tell a story without trying to have a surprise twist at the end or going meta.
Clearly we haven't seen the ultimate ending: Guybrush wakes up to realize that he's actually Bob Newhart and that he owns and operates a bed and breakfast in Vermont.
bubzthetroll I feel like I'm the only one who got that reference
Well that was un-expectorating
I'm certain it's a spell and honeslty, I freakin hate the "it's all just made up" theory, mostly cause you can litterally apply it to everything. Fairy odd parents = nope, there where no fairie's. Pokeomon = Nope, Ash is in a coma since episode 1. Phineas and Ferb = nope, the sister just got insane from the death of her brothers (way to put some unneeded, over the top edge to a nice and fun show... the worst about it is that people think that such a person excisted in real life and the show was made because of that... something similar with MLP... what is wrong with people?). Batman = Nope, just a little boy playing around... you know what this theory tells me? That people have no imagination. Is like when people say "they must have been on drugs when they made it". Like people are so out of imagination that they can't comprehend even the slightest bizare kind of stuff, it's actually kind of pathetic if you ask me.
toongrowner1 yeah yeah that's what I always say, I 100% agree!!
Harry Potter = magic ain't real, it's all an oppressed boy's imagination.
It's like people don't even get it! Of course Harry is an oppressed boy that dreams of magic, but then he finds that! It's like the point, to play on that wonderous element! Are you so close-minded that you can't accept magic even in a fictional world, to the point that you have to say it's fictional within the fictional world??
Your argument is not logical. I'm not saying anything about this game's ending, but to say that because you could say every story is fake that, therefore, no story was actually a child dreaming isn't a logical conclusion. Obviously a writer COULD choose to make such a story (e.g. Alice in Wonderland) so it is POSSIBLE that that is the case here; dismissing it because you don't like it is not how facts work. That said, again, I'm not arguing for any particular interpretation here.
Ye I hate the made up theory
@Crow I think it's more of a hypno spell. Making guybrush believe he is a child and that the carnival is more child friendly than it actual is in reality.
It does sort of explain it in 3... Basically Guybrush is trapped as a kid by LeChuck using voodoo at the Big Whoop Theme Park which he has to escape, which is why he is in a bumper car as he floats into the middle of the battle at the beginning.
Also when Lechuck sends him to Big Whoop later in 3 he is a kid again until he makes the curse breaking ice cone
Yes, I mention that 3 explains a bit of that. What *I* said is that the reasoning for being a kid or what really happened to his parents is not super clear.
I think it was LeChuck thought Guybrush was xchildish so he turns him into a child in the park. The parents is part of the illusion to complete the picture. however when he escapes the park the voodoo is broken hence removing the kid illusion and his parents which just completed the setup.
Alternatively it is the Carnival of the Damned. So it shows you your worst time which for Guybrush was when he was a kid as he was possibly picked on by his brother (Chuckie) and his parents never defended him. Now I am just being speculative :)
Take MI3 and later games as a spin off from MI/MI2. Ron Gilbert stated that he would never have had Elaine marry Guybrush so no point in trying to explain the ending of MI2 based on events from later games.
I remember playing Le Chuk's Revenge in 1992. I was 12, and with my friends, we spent a lot of time talking about the ending. I believed it was a spell. And when the third chapter came out, I thought that the carnival was a reference to that spell.....
I completed this on the Amiga 500 in 91 and to this very day I still think about this ending. I've been gaming since the seventies and watching the online world grow and videos games change has been an almost surreal experience for me. Great video, thank you.
LeChuck did die in the first game.
Guybrush destroyed his ghost in the first game, to be precise. But in the second game, his followers revived his body, so LeChuck is a zombie pirate instead of a ghost pirate.
Obviously the main series is pretty much the best time you can have with a rubber chicken with a hole in it without getting hauled out of Walmart by the cops, but what'd you think of Telltale's Monkey Island game?
Well now Return to Monkey Island is out there and the ending from MI2 got actually explained! It really became interesting looking back to these theories and see what was right :D
Thank you for not spoiling the game for those who haven't played yet :)
In Secret of MI, one of the pirates tells Guybrush to "speak like pirates, as that''s how they used to talk, and to play along". He even knows Guybrush's name.
It blew my mind, I think it forshadowed the ending, and it was another kid playing pirates with the child Guybrush.
Worth mentioning, I don't think Elaine's line about "I hope LeChuck hasn't cast some horrible SPELL over him or anything" was included until later releases. To my knowledge the original floppy disk version of the game doesn't have that line, but the version included on "Monkey Island Madness" (the compilation CD re-release of the first two games) does. That would make a bit of sense, considering MI Madness was released during Curse's development and it even included a playable demo of it, since Curse effectively went with the "spell" interpretation of the ending.
Still, since LeChuck/Chuckie makes that "wink" to the side just before the credits roll, it doesn't completely throw away that theory.
Yeah, back when I played it on floppies, I don't remember seeing that line from Elaine -- I thought I was crazy for years later when everyone mentioned that line but I guess everyone is playing the rerelease versions...
Curse of Monkey Island picks up from the idea that it's all a curse, since it has Guybrush floating in a bumper car from the fairground in LeChuck's Revenge. I like that.
_Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man_
I hear people say 3 should be disowned for the change in creators but I think 3 is the overall best one. But I'm one of the seemingly rare few who also liked 4 and didn't mind the Grim engine.
Gilbert admires the people that stuff that went into the other 3 but not how he envisioned it
3 was probably the best didn't care much for 4, the controls ruined it. Would love to see another Monkey Island
@@redmd9772 what about 5 though?
Ah, when I was a kid I made all my friends play this game and we'd talk about the ending for hours. I always loved the mystery and duality of it, and how both ways of seeing it makes sense. I liked your take on it, and I fear I wouldn't because I am such a snob about that ending, so well done. :)
There's a few things worth mentioning, that you didn't. As for the ending I know Dave Grossman was a bit responsible for it being that way. I know he wanted that kind of dual crazy ending and took Ron Gilbert out on dinner to convince him that was the way to do it. He referenced Flight Of The Concord as it supposedly has a similiar type of ending(I haven't seen it yet, although I want to). Ron Gilbert agreed.
One point to support that he was a kid. There's also the theory of the "E-ticket"(Guybrush finds this at the end of MI2), and I think thats a reference to Disneyland(where you get an "e-ticket") and supposedly people speculate Ron Gilbert connects the universe to the Pirates Of Carribean ride. Ron Gilbert has said many times the games was partially inspired by that ride. There's obvious references throughout the games(like the Walt-dog in the prison puzzle at Phatt Island, etc).
There's also the part I find suspicious at Wally. There's a little dollhouse there, and Guybrush says his sister had the same one when she was a kid. I always found that part to hint at something.
A point to support he was not a kid all the time. Well, Ron Gilbert did plan out a whole Monkey Island 3 game before leaving LucasArts. There was an idea and a lot of plans for a whole new game. He has also said even lately he'd love to make the Monkey Island he never made if he could get the rights(that is in limbo now that Disney bought the rights of George Lucas work, including LucasArts but disbanded it. In a fair world Ron should get them). In a way if there ever was to be a continuation I can't see how he could make it with Guybrush just being a child through the whole game. It makes little sense. I think he'd have to keep the universe "real" in some kind of sense. There had to be more to tell. So I sort of still feel the universe was real in a way, and it was all a spell.
But both theories work, and thats what I think is so cool. Ron Gilbert has also said he gets mails daily about someone complaining or loving the ending. Its controversial and still talked about, so it made an effect... and I think thats amazing personally.
So what do you think now?
I assume there is a reason Elaine says SPELL in capitals. Leaving it open ended for sequels.
Ooh. I like that idea of Elaine being an unseen child. That's one that never occurred to me.
As for me, my first experience with Monkey Island was with the playable demo of Curse, so MI2's twist ending didn't throw me off when I got to play it. Although, the plot twist regarding Herman Toothrot in MI4 DID put me off thanks to inconsistencies with the earlier games, which amusingly enough can be explained away thanks to the plot twist regarding the Voodoo Lady in the next game.
Man, the Monkey Island games sure do love their plot twists, don't they?
Maybe I mean explain why brothers are fighting over the same girl but Id be a little upset if it does all turn out to be a childs imagination
What was the voodoo lady plot twist again?
I'm 45 now and I played this game with a friend when we were about 16 and laughed so much... I have my own theory about the ending and it's quite different from the ones suggested in this video. I played the game a long time ago so can't remember everything 100 percent, but I'm pretty sure it is mentioned in the game how the 'Big Whoop' is the most valuable treasure known to men or something similar. My take is that going back to childhood is the actual treasure. Lots of people look back at those memories when you're a kid and wish you could go back to those days where everything was fun and games and you had very little responsibilities. Youth itself is something that mankind obsesses with, because it is going to go away and it is impossible to keep no matter how hard you try. In the particular case of Guybrush this is more significant because he didn't have any parents, but after finding the 'Big Whoop', he was a kid again with a family and the ending takes place in an amusement park of all places, which is your favorite place when you're a child. Anyways please tell me what you think.
I've just finished this game (again, for the third or fourth time), and I've come to watch some theories about this intriguing ending. I do believe it's a spell cast by LeChuck. That'd make more sense, especially looking for the other games to come in sequence.
Thanks for the great video!
One of the things said in the first Monkey Island game is "It's pirate lingo. This is how they talked back then. Play along, Guybrush." Most of the characters are acting like theme park staff... Putting on a show for you, and you alone. I easily accept the ending to monkey Island 2 because I actually used to go outside and pretend to be a pirate with friends and grew up watching the Goonies and Popeye. It's a common explanation for lots of shows movies and stories. Look up The Tommy Westphall universe, Commando cigarettes and Morley cigarettes. It's also also a popular theory for "SPOILER": for a show called....................................................................
Twin Peaks, there are several "Meta" theories for that show.
When I first played LeChuck's Revenge I didn't like the ending because it seemed to make everything else in the game meaningless. Now that you have explained it. I recognize that it is a very clever ending. However, it seems like the game designers were trying to have it both ways with this ending. If there hadn't been any more sequels, then they could have said "It was just little boys playing make believe all along so who cares that the story won't be continued?" If there had been more sequels they could have said "Didn't you see Chuckie looking at the screen like he was possessed? Or Elaine wondering aloud if Guybrush was under a spell? Of course the adventure was real and the ending to the second game was just LeChuck casting a spell on Guybrush to make him think that it wasn't." Its too open ended and non-committal for my taste.
I love the fact you didn't defend Guy Brush' s terrible actions.
Well. Yanno. He isn't the most upstanding citizen. ;)
He'd go to hell SOLELY for his treatment of Wally alone. xD
Man, I felt *bad* abusing Wally like that.
We should all be glad that at least he's not on Rufus' level.
Keep in mind that we have to judge his actions on a curve. He is a pirate.
I concur with your statement on the ending being lackluster. When I beat, it my face was blank and I was very frustrated.
Early on, LeChuck spoke to Largo and referred to Big Whoop as a treasure, but we also hear from other characters that Big Whoop is actually a portal. I think Guybrush fell into the portal and everything in the tunnels was Guybrush being in an alternate reality.. and he was able to escape it somehow before the events of the 3rd game - after all, it could have been akin to a dream where familiar elements eventually fall away to random elements that you just accept (brother, parents corpses, the amusement park echoing the park from 1).
I doubt LeChuck was able to magic anything up, since he didn’t even understand what Big Whoop was.
Ron Gilbert's whole idea for Monkey Island was based on the idea of getting off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and exploring the pirate town. All those underground tunnels at the end of Monkey 2 are supposed to be like the underground utiladors that run under Disney World. We see the elevator that leads up to the Melee Island set. We see the dented Grog machine from Monkey 1. This would suggest that the whole adventure up to that point was phony. So the most reasonable explanation is that it's a boy with a vivid imagination exploring the pirate ride with his brother at an amusement park and pretending to be pirates.
I'm glad you brought up the Thimbleweed Park ending because I feel the same way.
I really love this video because that ending always bugged me a little. I like the spell theory a lot more than the "it was kids playing a game" one.
As any other PUR video, this was great. Can't wait for more. :)
I never underdstood why everyone tells MI3 retconned the story. I first played MI when I was a kid and never believed in the they are real brothers, the fact Elaine is there at the end, and chucky's glowing eyes spells it out.. but to the point again, what did MI3 retcon? Lechuck emprisoned Guybrush at the end of MI2 in his carnival of the damned and at the start of MI3 he escaped in a bumper car. We don't see how he escaped but he did. What exactly did MI3 "change" from the story?
I would think Guybrush is about 17 years old. So boy and kid are quite normal to use, particular at sea.
albajos1976 of course. Or take the opposite of it, most people DONT call him boy. So you can’t have it both ways. She’s looking too far into one random character’s dialogue.
@The Fonz PUR didn't mention the most obvious clue, the fact that the bartender refused to serve him alcohol without id, and when he gets a library card and she asks him his name, one of the options is "Ninet --uh--, twenty-one". So he is probably 19.
17 year old wannabe pirate? He never seems to age between all 5 games .... How freaky.
And now this ending is patched up beautifully in Return to Monkey Island 🙂
It doesn't explain what happened to Lechuck after tearing his leg apart.
@@wipidipipaku It's all an amusement park. Lechuck is just an employee like all the other characters.
During the sword fights on melee island, if you avoid fighting the other pirates by choosing non-insult dialog options, the other pirates will say something to the affect of "Come on Guybrush, play along". No adult would say that, no matter how wacky they are, only a child would. I always considered this as being the best proof that this series was all just make believe in the mind of a kid.
Laerckz I just saw that as a meta joke, the same way the islands had the trademark symbol after them. I doubt the MI2 ending gag was even thought of at that time. It was rare (pretty much unheard of) for adventure games to have sequels when MK1 was written and released. You really think they were thinking so far ahead?
The Fonz rare and unheard of sequels in adventure game at the time of MI1...?
Ehhh... Coughing... my name is Stefan mighty adventure historian and I have just some titles to say
Zork, Plantetfall, Enchanter trilogy, Digital dreams trilogy, Gnome Ranger, Kings Quest, police Quest, Space Quest and... well I think you get the point...
The Fonz I love the Fonz by the way. Heeeey
This was a fascinating watch. Thanks for the theories and explanations! The part about Elaine giving credence to the idea that it's all real caught me by surprise.
As for another actual laugh-out-loud game, I highly recommend Charles Barkley's Shut Up and Jam Gaiden. It's hysterical. :-D
i think the kids in a theme park hold water, as you get theme park rewards in the first game. With tongue and cheek (TM) in the dialog. As well as the "sword fights" are child like with clean insults and not really trying to kill anyone.
also the grogg coke machines lol.
I'd like to add that the name of the carnival which Guybrush goes to in his child form is "Big Whoop." The treasure which Guybrush seeks is the legendary Big Whoop, which suggests that the treasure is really a trap for vainglorious fools like Guybrush to be tormented. Except, after coming across information on Big Whoop from the Monkey Island wiki, Ron Gilbert had different ideas as to what the ending or Big Whoop meant, so we still don't know what he originally intended. It's more likely that LeChuck was trolling Guybrush with the whole brother/children fantasy as a last resort to put Guybrush off guard while Chuck was weak from Guybrush's voodoo attack. LeChuck seems to have powers that allow him to get past Guybrush's emotional and psychological defenses (which were probably very small to begin with), and enable him to pluck Guybrush's memories of his parents, and create false realities and memories. It's possible that the parents we see aren't Guybrush's real parents, but memories planted into his head by LeChuck. If Guybrush is this easy to manipulate, I'm surprised LeChuck didn't try this tactic earlier or more often. LeChuck's claim that he wanted revenge for Guybrush for breaking his Junior Ultra Soldier Commando Assault Vehicle seems oddly specific, yet appropriately very 90s (90s toys were very plentiful and jealously coveted in those days). If Gilbert didn't intend Big Whoop as a hellish place where LeChuck torments his enemies or foolish greedy pirates, then what was it intended to be? I still have to give credit to the ending for being as meta, humorous, and creepy as it was. It's a suitable cliff-hanger for a sequel as epic and dynamic as Monkey Island 2.
I thought it was pretty clear when Curse came out that LeChuck just cast a spell on Guybrush to turn him into a child and trap him. Big Whoop isn't treasure, it's the theme park LeChuck built on Monkey Island, connected to Dinky via a tunnel. He escapes on a bumper car (somehow) breaking the spell.
I really loved how dark 2 ended up being. I wish we could have seen Ron Gilbert's 3.
After playing "Return To", I like to think the game's great treasures are reality altering devices. Big Whoop was a weapon LeChuck used against Guybrush, which with Threepwood's victory in 2 he was able to fully overcome and escape for Curse. So the actual secret in Return To is one that grants a perfect life, where Guybrush has a family, continues pirating, and doesn't need to worry about LeChuck.
Pretty much leisure suit Larry where the first 3 solidified the story and ended on a meta note, but then continued after Al Lowe was pushed for a sequel.
Whatever the meaning of the mindfuck it is still an awesome game and forever in my top 10 adventure games.
Still enjoyin the heck outta your vids.....keep em comin darlin.
🐻😁
So there's an episode of the show Gravity Falls where the characters end up in their version of paradise. They don't want to leave, but they have to as the real world is ending and they're the only ones that can stop it.
I feel like the ending might be something similar.
LeChuck traps Guybrush in an amusement park with his parents that he thought were dead, and so Guybrush wouldn't want to leave because it's an endless amusement park and he's a childish idiot.
That was an interesting bit of theory discussion--thank you for it! ^_^
Great video, thanks. I loved this game as a kid, and still found it fabulous when I played the remastered version, and all the others too, a few years ago. One thing I think might have been worthy of quick discussion was the bit you showed right at the end: the developers' commentary. I think that could be taken as evidence towards the ending being literal. The fact that the developers were teasing about how many 'clues' there were that it *wasn't* real - numerology, Fibonacci sequence, food processing - is perhaps evidence that in fact there are no clues, it already showed what really happened, and the developers are amused at how much people want it to have a different meaning.
Or it's possible that the devs deliberately engineered two equally plausible explanations so as to give people something to wonder over, meaning neither is actually the 'correct' ending. And/or, the 'literal' ending was there to wrap up the series in case they couldn't (or decided not to) make a third game, but with the 'spell' ending left equally plausible in case they in fact could continue the series.
So Who’s Here After the Return To Monkey Island Announcement
me
I always thought that the Big Whoop treasure itself was just a big curse / made you think you were in a Theme Park, being young forever (but being stuck there).
Even the name "Big Whoop" is a wink towards the fact that the treasure is definitely not something you would want to find... "Oooh, eternal life in a mediocre Pirate Theme Park, big whoop..." ;)
*that* grog machine at 6:56 - i believe is the same grog machine by stan's used ships emporium back in melee island. :)
cool insights. i never thought about the ending that much, nor did i thought about the fan theories you mentioned here..., i just thought that during curse (mi3) and escape (mi4) - were revamped versions of the monkey island series, being that ron g. was already out of the picture... :)
well Ron Gilbert is doing a new Monkey Island now, which will pick up exactly from the ending of MI2, so we may get better answers soon :D
Wasn't the treasure of big whoop supposed to take guybrush to a different dimension, one where Lechuck couldn't harm him?
I think the real ending given in "Return" rounds it up nicely. It leaves the room open for all of the other games to have happened "somehow", but explains a lot of the silliness, the over-the-top-antics and anachronisms, as it was probably partly ad-lipped by Guybrush's son.
However, I think there are still some holes that have to be filled a little... especially regarding the ending of "Tales" and the real nature of LeChuck.
My copy didn't have voice acting but I found the text alone to be more sufficient as the characters mannerisms used my imagination to fill those blanks anyway.
But despite all that. Is Le Chuck voice acted by the late, great James Avery? I swear he sounds like uncle Phil.
Problem: Ron Gilbert actually said, that the way Monkey Island 3 tries to explain the ending of Monkey Island 2 was NOT AT ALL how he intended things to play out. So - what other possibilities could there be, if this weird weird kafkaeque ending was NEITHER a throwaway meta-joke NOR a voodoo spell?
If he said MI3 explanation is not the one he intended, then doesn't that mean it is really a child's imagination? Unless he specifically said that meta-one is also not true.
@@thenomad4123 I don't know. No one does, except for Gilbert himself. It's maddening!!! Maybe there IS another possibility, that we haven't seen yet, because we're all still thinking too much "inside the box".
I personally don't think, that it can't be just a child's imagination, simply because that would make the 3rd game stray too far from the other two. MI1 and 2 are weird pirate adventures, whereas MI3 would then just be a game, in which you play a literal kid doing kid's stuff.
i think it was the whole being a portal to hell thing ron meant.
Have this idea that the orginal monkey island 3 would of had you start as Elaine saving guybrush from le chuck then some sort of twist and you have gubrush again. Maybe a system where you use both characters, would not be the first time LucasArts did thay.
This game is pure love, my favorite game of all time, i wished that these idiots from Lucasarts had given Ron more time for this game. And had him do MI3.
I too have always cited Monkey2 as my all-time favourite game.
Well, they went bankrupt, so they really took a lot of idiotic decisions. Thanks, Ron Gilbert for Monkey Island!
HAVE I GOT SOME NEWS FOR YOU
let´s just hope some of these questions are answered later this year, I can´t wait
11:31
"He died"
*a second later*
"Destined to spend the rest of his life"
I don't think you know the difference between life and death lol.
Watching this again after Return to Monkey Island wich still left me confused LUL
It's called "LeChuck's Revenge" because LeChuck wins at the end as he casts a spell on Guybrush. He gets back on Guybrush for killing him. Just like the second Star Wars - the Empire Strikes Back. Yet more parallels with Star Wars. God I miss these games - they'll never another like them.
Where can I play all 4 of them?
*SPOILERS*|
As 13yo dumb kid, finishing the game with the help of a walkthrough (of course!), it didn't even crossed my mind that they could actually be kids. I was a 100% sure it was a spell by LeChuck that transformed them. Years later when I was playing MI 3, it hit me that they could be kids for real.
IasGR Pioupioupiou that doesn’t explain Marley at the end waiting for Guybrush though. It’s clearly a gag shock ending that was going to be resolved in the next game.
I love this videogame; Melee Island.. wow! I was a teenager
I kind of thought the close up of the spit was a pretty obvious clue - the close up tips off the player that the thick spit is green so we could figure out the blue + green drinks.
What I love about the amusement park theory is that it also gives a new meaning to some things that weren't explained in the FIRST game either. Like the fact that Guybrush starts the game by arriving on a new island though he has no boat, none are travelling at the time because of LeChuck, and he's not even a pirate yet. There's also that door in a back alley of the city that THOUSANDS of players have tried to open for months, to no avail, and which appears to be a maintenance access in the second game - which shows you that the two games are sort of PHYSICALLY connected. Ron Gilbert clearly stated in an interview that Curse of Monkey Island didn't understand what the secret of monkey island really was. He still has the explanation somewhere inside his skull, but will we ever learn it?
a gateway to a new dimension.. Guybrush IS a pirate in the 2nd one,so that makes sense. It wouldn't make sense if he had to go through all trials again.
Remember, when Guybrush digs the hole at the end he falls and knocks his head. When he wakes up, it's in that surreal, semi-subconscious world of the tunnels.
You should do a retro-review of this video in the context of Return :)
I just finished it! Can't believe the end!
I think there are enough hints in the first game that the whole experience is a theme park to warrant the second games ending to be taken at face value. When the first game began it started by a rock formation that looked a lot like a park entrance,when you win the duels you get a souvenir t-shirt, and you even go on a log ride to the vodoo priestess. I feel when you look back at the first Monkey Island with the idea that it is a theme park the whole joke comes together.
Loved this. I played the first two games a lot growing up!
Well, Ron is getting HIS MI3 so we may actually get an answer.
I personaly believe, that Le Chuck was always the grown up Chucky, but in the moment he died, he put a vodoo spell on both guys to bannish them in their past an rule over guybrush on the fair of the doomed. That is what I believe until Ron Gilbert has the chance to write Monkey Island 3A.
Before I die, I want the answer to one question: What is the Secret of Monkey Island (TM)?
Most important question in the universe.
Just a personal wish here, but is there any chance you might review the old Dungeons & Dragons/Dragonlance Gold Box PC games?
The ending also explains Elaine instantly falling in love with him in the first game.
My opinion is that this is in tread With the humor of the first Monkey Island game. At the end Guybrush Wakes up after hitting his head (beginning of game) and it has all been a dream. :)
I think the ending is only ambiguous if MI2 was supposed to be the final game. As Ron Gilbert spoke of ideas he had for a third game, it could only be that Guybrush was under a spell - otherwise what would the third game be about?
Well, it could've been about a magic amusement park that's a gateway to a world of pirates, sort of like the wardrobe from Narnia.
Could you please make a video on King's Quest Mask Of Eternity?
I know you probably hate it but i really want to hear what you think about it, that game is one of those "guilty pleasures" we all have.
Now we actually now that the one speaking on the ending is Guybrush's son recreating his dad's pirate stories
Hmm I have a theory as to why the game ended such a way (not exactly what you are saying but I'm using some of the details you found playing through the games). Maybe the sequel's ending was actually the first game's ending but Lucas Arts and publishers thought it wasn't a good idea since they always see dollar signs and wanted this to have a sequel. And maybe they had less faith in the sequel making more than the first so they gave in to the way it was supposed to go (possibly, they figured it might end on the sequel). Just thoughts but wanted to share this while watching your great vid, Roses!
Oh and by the way, congrats on having 90k subs, Roses!!!!!!! I saw the announcement on Twitter.
my take on the Story of part 3. Gilbert makes a Pan/Hook like plot where we meet Grumpy old Guybrush in his 50s. He hates his life and is at the edge of depression.. then he remembers how much fun they had as kids and that he must return to Monkey island, back to were the fun was .. back to "Child times". Thats exactly the kind of story Ron Gilbert (aka mr grumpy gamer) would pull of... And it fits perfect with the Meta Ending of part 2. Also Monkey Island is based on the disney Ride Pirates of the carabean that Gilbert liked as a kid. I guess the Big Whoop Park stands for disneyland. And Monkey Island was the Ride. Also crazy that the whole Monkey Island games ended in the possession of real Disney after they bought Lucasfilm/Lucasarts. Its the Story of Gilberts Life right there.
i got this game when it first came out, took me 6 years to complete it! (i was a kid tho)
Back when I played MI2 as a kid I held it as a horror game with some occasional funny moments. Though I didn't quite know English back then and with just PC speaker noises it's a bit different.
After the rope breaks and Guybrush falls with the chest, you can crawl around in the dark. Among the pieces of the chest, you will find the treasure: An "E" ticket! In the "good old days", Disneyland had cheap admission, but you had to pay to go on the attractions. The best rides cost an "E" ticket. Too meta for you? The most hilarious thing I've heard is that the producers of the movie series (Do I really need to say?), swear up and down they had never heard of the Monkey Island games before.
Perhaps Guybrush was trapped in something like the Matrix - not an alternate dimension, but rather an elaborate illusion.
A prison for his mind. And what better way to be imprisoned than to be convinced you're a helpless child?
The only thing I remember of the ending to Monkey Island 2 is it telling me it was over and giving me suggestions of what to do next. Like going outside. Kinda like Ferris Bueller or Deadpool.
There is a patch/mod that removes the text on the classic graphics, incase you werent aware
I kind of remember as a young teen Monkey Island II telling me to paint a yellow line down my neighbor's driveway.
I haven't gone through all the comments so this may have been mentioned already, but I do know that Ron Gilbert is down on record saying that the ending to MI2 would have been explained had he ever created the third game. Something along the lines of Guybrush being under some type of hypnosis/spell.
Still my favourite in the series, with an interesting ending to say the least. I'm with you; I prefer the "spell" explanation, and feel the stinger and LeChuck's demonic aside glance are pretty blatant clues that it's not only a plausible theory, but what is actually happening. The continuation of the series pretty much establishes it as canon as well.
While clever, the "it was all pretend" explanation is a bit of a letdown, because Monkey Island's world is so rich and entertaining. I guess it comes down to which potentially corny and cliched trope you prefer it to be (or prefer it not to be as the case may be): "it's magic", or "it's all a dream". I prefer magic myself.
Great video as always!
call me Beatrice but I prefer magic too. Trying to mix the two though...
With the announcement of Return to Monkey Island we are likely to find out the "true" ending tot he series... finally
I do remember fondly the used coffin place in the game lol and 25 years later making coffins as my profession I still love coffins lol
I can't believe I remembered that in that game from this video
What I don't get is, why does Elaine just stand there outside the hole, waiting for Guybrush? Why does she not try to get down there and help him? She just saw him take a nasty fall, with no visible means of ascent. What does she expect him to do? Fly back up?
After just finishing this game again for the 10th time I personally feel like both interpretations are true and not mutually exclusive.
We know the four pirates who found the treasure possibly hid it away because they thought it was something horrible. Also the Voodoo Lady says that Big Whoop is the door to another world.
So my interpretation is that the treasure is the door that connects the Monkey Island world to the "real world". That doesn't necessarily mean that the MI world is not real, but just that it's fictional to the other world.
Basically they're two parallel realities where everything that happens in the pirate world is just a kid's imagination to the real world, and when something happens in the real world that influences the kid's game (or if the kid stops playing altogether) it can be explained as a voodoo curse or maybe a magic illusion in the pirate world.
So Big Whoop is the door that lets those imaginary characters get a glimpse of the real world, a realization that can be horrifying for them.
Maybe the four pirates found Big Whoop and the same scene as this ending happened to them, finding out they "really" are four kids pretending to be pirates. And after some time the kids went to the amusement park and decided to play the same game again and found themselves in the "imagination world" again. So back in their own world the four pirates locked the treasure again never to return in the "real world". From their perspective they're not sure, like us, if what they found on the other side was real or if it was an illusion, all they know is they don't want anybody to go back because IF it was real the realization that their entire world is fictional could be catastrophic. They spent their entire life in the Caribbean, some of them building a family, Rapp Scallion opening a hot dog restaurant and so forth.
So does this mean that the 4 kids never stopped playing? No, maybe they played out the entire life of the pirates in 20 minutes and went home, maybe they stopped playing as the four pirates abandoned their life of piracy... either way the "imagination world" continued living independently.