The International House of Mojo

I think Ron clearly stated many, many times that he loved CMI. He just criticized the choice to make Guybrush and Elaine marry at the end.
I also loved CMI and consider MI2 the be the best in the series hands down.
What I didn't like in CMI was the over the top cartoon style: it was amazing but I never thought it fit the style of the previous games.
It's a matter of taste in the end, and the fandom is mainly divided in those who imagined a more realistic style (like, say, the boxes artwork) and those who see MI as a cartoon.
Of course I agree that CMI didn't have plot holes or contradictions as EMI did. That's a fact.

I'm not saying that Ron Gilbert himself disliked MI3 onward because he wasn't involved, I'm saying that is how it appears to me when I read his criticisms and hopes for MI:3a. Monkey Island 2 was great, MI1 was great for its time. Curse was excellent, though. I think most people would agree that MI3 was good and that the series didn't start going downhill until Escape and Tales.

MI3 deals with the things that you said were not explained but leaves some of the details up to the imagination. I wouldn't say that there are incompatible plot holes. At the end of MI3 Guybrush is placed under the same spell that causes him to revert back to a younger form, which may give some indication about the childhood episode of MI2 being some kind of nightmare or spell. In fantasy worlds like Monkey Island, things like this can be explained away by mentioning some law of magic within that world which isn't completely clear to us.

It just seems like Ron Gilbert had other ideas for the direction of the story and he wants to course correct and acts as if Curse was terrible. Maybe he also didn't like the visual art style of MI3, the voice acting choices, or whatever, but I and others consider those qualities to be what makes COMI stand above MI2 in many ways even though MI2 is considered by most to be the best of the series.


I think Gilbert trying to get back and course correct after MI2 would just mess up the brand beyond what Escape and Tales of MI did. The only way to do it would be a reboot, and like I said, Disney has more than one princess world, they can have more than one pirate world.

Nope, this is all wrong. He doesn't say this because he wasn't involved, he says this because the 3rd couldn't obviously explain many things that happened in MI2.
For example, the Chuckie/Guybrush brotherhood was never explained, but the voodoo doll worked, so there actually WAS a kinship.
Or, it was never explained how Guybrush escaped from the carnival of the damned and turned back into an adult, finding himself in the middle of the ocean on a bumper car.
Or, it was never explained why Walt took Chuckie's leg and why LeChuck had both legs in CMI (at the time I thought it was for resurrecting LeChuck in a sequel or something similar).
I think CMI was great, but you can't honestly say it didn't leave you with some more questions in mind.
This is the only reason, I think, why Ron would love to continue the MI story where he left it, and not because "he had nothing to do with it".
After all, it was his own choice to leave LucasArts.
Just my two cents.

Sorry for double posting. Internet issues.

Disney has more than one princess franchise, so why couldn't they have more than one pirate franchise? Captain Hook isn't getting in the way of Captain Jack, nobody mistakes the two. Monkey Island is far from the live-action POTC films, it's got its own cartoony ghost sort of goofy haunted-mansion-like atmosphere to it. I think Monkey Island would fit right in in a Disney Adventureland and I think people are unlikely to mistake Guybrush for Will Turner, LeChuck for Barbosa etc. They've got plenty of similarities but are way different.

Why would Disney make an animated Monkey Island movie? Disney owns Pirates of the Caribbean and THAT IP is worth a $B+ and they won't allow anything to get in the way of that.

Am I the only one who doesn't want Ron Gilbert to own the rights to Monkey Island in order to make a MI3a while pretending that everything Monkey Island not created by Ron Gilbert doesn't exist?

I think plenty of fans wouldn't mind if MI4a was where it was changed and not a game that replaces Curse of MI. I loved Curse of Monkey Island as much as I loved LeChuck's Revenge, if not more. The way he seems to act as if MI2 never got a true sequel just because he had nothing to do with it bothers me as a fan of the series.

Don't get me wrong, I think Escape from Monkey Island and Tales of Monkey Island were way off the mark and I remember how disappointed I was with MI4 back when it was first published.

I'm just hoping Disney eventually does something with the Monkey Island franchise, even if it's an animated film. They'd either have to reboot it or try to move forward with a world that contains robot monkey combat.

Ron said that he would only do a new Monkey Island if he had complete control. He assumes that the only way that would happen is if he owned the IP, as he doesn't want management stepping in on the project (which is understandable).

However, he also keeps bringing up the fact that the management were hands off at LucasArts when he worked there, and that he enjoyed that environment.

If Disney were to license the Monkey Island IP to Terrible Toybox with the license stating that Terrible Toybox had complete autonomy regarding the game's development, I couldn't see Ron passing it up.

I think the point is being missed here. Ron's condition for making Monkey Island 3a is that he own the license. If enough stars align, if he gathers enough resources and is blessed with the right amount of luck, Ron could potentially license the rights to MI as Telltale did, or as Double Fine has done for the Grim and DOTT remakes.

But corporations don't sell assets. So the way Ron will occasionally say "Hey, maybe I'll make Monkey Island 3a someday" and then season that statement with, "Of course, I have this condition that can never realistically be satisfied," it kind of makes him look like a self-promoter to bring the subject up at all.

He's not about to call Disney because I'm not sure he really wants to make Monkey Island 3a. It would be a big undertaking with a lot of stress and expectations.

Of course, I wish he would.

As much as I wish that were the case, I fear it's not nearly so simple. If only Disney were so easy to negotiate with. Perhaps if you're Tim Schafer with the backing of Sony, otherwise... not so much.

"Disney: Call me."

No, he's got that backwards. He's the one who should call Disney.

I feel very old right now.