What's your theory about the ending of Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck's Revenge?
Here is mine (obviously full of spoilers about the game):
I think that all anachronisms like cereal boxes, Grog machines, etc are there just for fun as well as the fourth wall breaking stuff like "pirates talked like that" and the Lucasarts phone in the jungle. An amusement park is perfectly normal in a world like this.
My theory is that Big Whoop is a portal. Maybe it travels to different times. Maybe Guybrush went back in time to when he was in his childhood and his parents were alive. That's why his parents wear pirate clothes. Big Whoop is like a time machine.
Maybe LeChuck is really his older brother which went bad when Guybrush was just a baby and left just to become a pirate. His parents never told the truth to Guybrush.
Le Chuck's plan in to go back using the Big Whoop and kill Guybrush while he is a child. After that maybe prevent himself from dying?
Just my theory. I don't believe that "all is a dream" rubbish. It would simply suck in something as brilliant as Monkey Island.
Guybrush and Lechuck are brothers. Le Chuck cast a spell on Guybrush to confuse him. Big Whoop creates a portal to another time when Guybrush was a kid.
I think that all anachronisms like cereal boxes, Grog machines, etc are there just for fun as well as the fourth wall breaking stuff like "pirates talked like that" and the Lucasarts phone in the jungle. An amusement park is perfectly normal in a world like this.
My theory is that Big Whoop is a portal. Maybe it travels to different times. Maybe Guybrush went back in time to when he was in his childhood and his parents were alive. That's why his parents wear pirate clothes. Big Whoop is like a time machine.
Maybe LeChuck is really his older brother which went bad when Guybrush was just a baby and left just to become a pirate. His parents never told the truth to Guybrush.
Le Chuck's plan in to go back using the Big Whoop and kill Guybrush while he is a child. After that maybe prevent himself from dying?
Just my theory. I don't believe that "all is a dream" rubbish. It would simply suck in something as brilliant as Monkey Island.
Guybrush and Lechuck are brothers. Le Chuck cast a spell on Guybrush to confuse him. Big Whoop creates a portal to another time when Guybrush was a kid.
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Finally!
Or maybe LeChuck just put a curse on Guybrush in the end of the game to get out of a difficult situation.
What they said.
If this is the case, LeChuck doesn't need to be Guybrush's brother, since the parent skeletons is just a part of the messed up alternative dimention.
Hey, what do you have against Curse and especially Tales? Would you like more if there were no more Monkey Island games? :-S
Of course, Guybrush being smart breaks the curse, comes back to reality and escapes from Big Whoop to drift off to Plunder Island and so the adventure continues.
So guybrush basically ends up in another dimension -ours.
Hmm.
What if this famous "ron gilbert approved MI3" was actually supposed to be set in the present world :eek: ?
Ash735: I liked the theory of the whole underground tunnels-thing being a trap, where everything is put there because LeChuck wants you to do it. Probably some kind of illusion. The question is what kind of illusion, and where it starts.
Just saying that Curse and everything beyond Curse revolves around Guybrush being brainwashed into thinking he was a child. If it was all just in his head, which is what it seems like it was going to be if Ron worked on Monkey Island 3, then we wouldn't HAVE Curse, Escape and especially Tales. Essentially the entire franchise as we know and love it wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be here talking about what happened at the end of LeChuck's Revenge.
Its obvious it wasnt all in Guybrush's imagination, you see Chuckies eyes at the end, this is telling you that Chuckie is not just a kid, also there would be no reason to add the clip of Elaine at the end if it didn't have any meaning and also saying it was all a kids imagination, is a cheat ending its just like saying it was all a dream which is a big no no in writting.
Yes, Ron Gilbert must clarify it all someday. But I'm pretty sure the "all was a dream" would be complete rubbish. I place my bets at the "spell" that Elaine mentions and something about the Big Whoop.
Thats just what i meant it would be stupid to end on "it was all a dream" kind of ending. I think it was a spell.
I believe this is the secret. it makes perfect sense going through the entire first two games even from the opening seconds. guybrush just walks in from nowhere...from where? he's a boy who just wandered off of POTC. you even hear the sword fighting pirates on the trail straight up tell you: "it's pirate speak! it's how they talked back then. c'mon guybrush play along!" the staff only door, the maintenance tunnels, all the novelty items, signs and t-shirts, the way he talks, grog machine from MI1 down in storage in MI2, the health clinic, it's all obviously amusement park stuff going through his imagination. i think it's a beautiful plot line in that it totally changes the tone of the first game too, and doesn't ruin the tale at all. it's like the end of 6th sense or something. you realize what you thought were just silly anachronisms were actually reality. simply brilliant.
though the idea that it's a curse or time machine works well to allow for sequels, but i'm not sure that is real canon. it could be, but it can't be that simple, for all of the evidence listed above. i hope ron gilbert clears it all up one day and makes the true MI3. i fear that it's just too screwed up now for that to happen.
If you belive its his imagination, what is your explination for chuckies eyes glowing, Elaine at the end of the game and the fact that he is not a kid in Curse of Monkey island.
Why did his eyes glow? It could be anything. For example, being a throw-away "Haha, the evil brother has won" and Guybrush's imagination lingering one more time.
Elaine's line could be interpreted many ways as well. The curse simply being "having to go home and leave his magical fantasy world".
I don't know what the intended meaning is, but I don't think that the whole amusement park idea was to be tossed away. I'm sure that the park was at least SOMEWHAT real. I think a lot of people balk at the idea that Guybrush could possibly be a kid because it "ruins" their interpretation of the character and his world. And I think some people attach to the world and don't feel like being dragged back to a boring reality along with their favorite oddly-named pirate.
PK, I agree with you completely, as usual.
Maybe just to mess with the viewer and definitely to leave things open to a sequel. Maybe Elaine was a little girl like guybrush who was also wrapped up in the fantasy, and she's left still imagining. Maybe the Ron Gilbert-planned sequel involved Guybrush going back into dreamland to get her. Who knows? Whatever the case, I am almost totally convinced that the amusement park is true on at least some significant level and was intended from the start of the series. How else would everything and every anachronism going back to the first moments of MI1 fit so perfectly? It's way beyond coincidence. Now, Gilbert said that there was more to it, and that no one has completely solved it, so I'm sure there is more to it on some level.
Oh one huge thing I forgot to mention: if you remember way back to the first game, talking to the voodoo lady before going to Monkey Island, she says something like "be careful! you will learn things about yourself and your world that will shake you to your core" but nothing like that ever really happened in MI1. It's obvious foreshadowing of the end of MI2, and fits perfectly with the fantasy idea. Whatever the case, there is definitely something going on with the pirate world that guybrush walks into, that's not what we assume at the beginning.
Well, it could STILL be imagniation.
Look at calvin and hobbes for instance, even when we see in the final panels what's actually going on, calvin is still in his world and convinced he's a T-Rex or whatever.
Could very possibly be the same with guybrush, he's been disturbed in his fantasy, but somehow keeps thinking his brother is evil and that Elaine is waiting for him somewhere.
I just think, because Chuckie is actually breaking the forth wall by looking at the screen when his eyes glow, because he looked at the screen i see it as being intended for the gamer, guybrush didnt see chuckies eyes glow so i dont think it is him still imagining.
Well i don't know it this theory is right or not, and i don't care so much, but still.
Yeah, these are mostly nods to the player, but they can pretty well be there just to tell you that guybrush hasn't quite stopped daydreaming yet.
After all, the player is supposed to kind of "be" guybrush when playing the game. So it could still be a way to tell you there's still stuff going on in his/your head.
Going on beyond that to even more contreversial waters you may not agree with, from my perspective, a MI3 by Ron Gilbert instead of Curse could've been a very bad thing. A lot of times when you see these secret riddled endings they don't live up to any happy, fulfilling or even logical conclusion. A bad resolution of the MI3 could've killed the series not only in terms of sequels but in terms of public opinion as well - it's legacy.
The Matrix is a prime example of this. It's amazing Curse was able to tie up as many plot holes as it did and explain it in such a satisfying way.
Curse is a stellar adventure game - one of the best if not the best of all time. It's not my favorite ever but I'm certainly glad it exists. Escape - for all the hate it gets - is a very good adventure game in a series filled with great titles. It gets a lot of hate but an excessive amount. So I'm glad Escape exists too. I've always gotten the sense that Ron's MI3 would've finished off the series for good with whatever his secret is.
And then we have Tales. Tales has a lot of promise and is helping in the modern revival of adventure games considering all the interest in Monkey Island. Beyond that it's given excellent exposure to Telltale - I'm a customer who bought all their titles simply because I became aware of them due to Monkey Island. Hell, if Ron had made MI3? We may not have gotten a MI:SE years later, the same MI:SE which is selling so well now and is yet another important cog in the industry working to revitalize the genre.
I say this as a LeChuck's Revenge fan. In fact it's my favorite adventure game ever made. But I wouldn't change things as they are to see Ron's intended third game. People act as if Ron was screwed over or never got his shot. People forget that Ron voluntarily left LucasArts of his own accord without making the third Monkey Island. In fact they even forget his original vision for Monkey Island was originally slated to be a more serious game but Dave and Tim worked so many jokes in that became what was. Ron is not God in my eyes, even though I do like and respect his work. But I don't deify the man nor accept the idea no one can make good Monkey Island games except him. I trust Chuck, Mike, Mark and Dave to make Tales. I'd trust Tim to do it.
Everyone hates the idea of Monkey Island being all the dream of a little boy. That's the apparent and most logical ending to MI2 on the surface of things - but nobody seems to want to accept it as it seems so much of a let down. How do we know Ron's third Monkey Island game with his venerated secret isn't something like this - something as dissapointing or series killing?
Beyond that how do we even know there even IS a secret and Ron isn't just pulling wool over our eyes, trying to get a third game made years later? The end of MI2 looks like it was deliberately done to make the "He's just a kid" theory look like the truth but apply wiggle room for a sequel later. It's apparently worked very well as people still talk about it today. For all we know Ron has spent the last ten years coming up with a secret. It's not a nice thing to say and I don't mean anything malicious by it, but you would have to be a fool in this world to assume the best of everybody always and none of us know Ron personally.
Really we will probably never know the secret (if one exists) and even if we figured it out Ron would never tell us - he wouldn't tell us for nine years Monkey Island lay dead and seemingly gone forever. And Ron's game probably doesn't even fit within the established storyline - his complaint on the Elaine and Guybrush marriage could mean they're sister and brother which would turn Monkey Island into an incest fest. It'd have to take place in some weird alternate timeline or itself be revealed to be a dream sequence which would just be a convoluted and messy solution.
If Ron got to make his Monkey Island game - a direct sequel or one that eliminates Curse, Escape and Tales as canon - I would be excited to play it but I would be afraid for the ramifications for the series. In any case fixating on a ending that got a canon resolution back in the nineties that we'll never be able to figure out seems silly to me. It's an interesting discussion point but at the same time it's kind of a pointless conversation.
If there was to be a LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition, do you think LucasArts would alter the ending to make it tie better with the story of Curse? Or would they alter it att all?
It feels like the ending for LeChuck's Revenge is such a perfect little thing because it's existed for so long, and I dunno wether it would attract or scare off idiots att Lucas to try and fiddle with it. Yes, it's a very pessimistic way to look at a special edition of this fantastic game, but I just felt like putting it out there, for funsies.
Also, as for my take of the ending I don't really care much about it. If anything I'll by the sulution presented in Curse, just because I love that game. You can kind of tell it's not the proper sulution seeing as it doesn't make sense with what the Voodoo Lady says in the first MI. BUT, when it all comes to the ending I think it is the question that is interesting, and not the answer. Sitting att places like this and theorizing is what makes the ending of MI2 so great, but to actually know what it means, I just think it would let a lot of people down.
I can't see them changing anything in MI2:SE. At all. I expect to see maybe the monkey shaped more like a wrench and that's about it.
The half modern items scattered around in the MI world could support this.
And who better to cast as your arch nemesis than your brother.
he created an end for the saga.
the two games adventure was a child's dream (or a child's game)that ha was playing in a amusement park with his
brother in a attraction that called "Big Whoop", how we can see in the ending scene.
It's undeniable that your hypothesis it's more fascinating but mine it's more likely.
Yours is not likely at all knowing that Ron has said multiple times that there were plans to make an MI3 in which he would reveal the secret of Monkey Island. Therefore, LeChuck's Revenge was not intended to be the last game.
Uhmm, that's not entirely true. You do have a death scene in Curse. That's what the Voodoo lady saw. Plus, you already know to take whatever the Voodoo Lady says with a grain of salt as she likes to lie and exaggerate the role she played in things (like killing LeChuck).
Besides, the Voodoo Lady completely changes her stance on Big Whoop between 2 and 3.
In the MI 2, Guybrush asks if there's any way he could escape LeChuck. She specifically tells Guybrush to continue looking for Big Whoop as it's a gateway to another world and that's the only way to escape him forever. In Curse, she yells at Guybrush and tells him he should have never gone looking for Big Whoop in the first place.
I think it's more curiosity than anything else, that people still wonder about Gilbert's MI 3. I think Curse did a good job offering a logical explanation (they could have just ret-conned it or ignored it completely, but the didn't). Escape actually caused more plot-holes than MI 2 and Curse. I don't know if I'd like to see Gilbert's MI 3 actually made any more, but I would like to know how he planned to end the series.
In fact, I still think that the MI series should end eventually, and one of the strengths of MI 1 and 2 was that Gilbert had an end in the back of his mind when making it. Sure there's in-references in the games now, but not on the level of connection between the first two games. Game series should always have an end in sight, and I think the longer MI goes on the worse for the series. As much as I love the series, it should have a last game someday, and when that is being made if any of Gilbert's original intentions are still possible in the game-world now set up they should try to incorporate them.