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Behind the Return to Monkey Island video
🕑 Added 2024-03-03 08:17:02 +0000 UTCHey Gang! Back again with another Patreon blog post on how the latest video, The Secret meaning of Return to Monkey Island, came together. This one was a real head scratcher for a long, long time and hopefully this illustrates a lot of why it took so damn long. Enjoy!
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The idea
I think it’s worth mentioning that, when I made my first Monkey Island video, I had no plans of ever talking about it again. It was 2020, the first major Covid year, where I was putting out as much content as I could while housebound and going through a bunch of games I hadn’t properly been through in years, resulting in my rediscovery of what the series was and realising how I actually felt about each game in that context. The video ends on a very suspensory note- recreating the feeling I had of the second game’s ending, the one I’d loved the most, that there was an interpretation yet to be discovered and that my feelings on the matter would never be resolved.
Well, turns out that was the same year they were making a new one.
In 2022 they came out with the absolutely insane announcement that there would not only be a new Monkey Island game, but one made by Ron Gilbert, something we just assumed would never take place, and almost immediately based on how people had reacted to my video and this announcement I knew exactly what I wanted to say. You saw that happen when I released my extremely timely video on the subject, discussing what I felt this game was going to be in comparison to what people seemed to assume, and that also got a very interesting set of reactions which made me feel like, whatever happened, I would definitely have something to say when the game finally released. I was mentally prepared, as a result, for a video when that game finally arrived.
The preparation overall was weirdly well served. I wasn’t exaggerating when I mentioned being on Pirates of the Caribbean the week before it’s release- it literally occurred to me on the last day of my trip, the first I’d taken since the pandemic, and I made a mental note to carry that with me once I returned home. Already I was getting messages from people who’d completed the game (one that stuck out was ‘the cat’s out of the bag!’) so I knew I needed to get into it pretty damn quick- and set aside a few days to really dive in. I went through as thoroughly as I could, I tested every bit of dialogue, I made it to the end and had a VERY strong, positive emotional reaction, and then went ahead and typed up an absolute tonne of notes.
And realised I had no clue where to begin.
Notes and iterations
The good news was that I had a lot of paragraphs very quickly drummed up based on how jazzed I was about what I saw it was saying, doing a lot of research on other people’s takes as well to see how people had taken it in the usual monkey island spaces as well anything I could find from the creators, who kept their silence for quite some time. You’ll be interested to know a lot of what was in the final video was written in that first draft at the tail end of 2022 into 2023, especially the pieces about Elaine and LeChuck specifically. I knew I had something workable pretty quickly.
However, what kept bothering me was how to set it all up. I wanted to talk about the narrative, but felt if I started at the beginning I’d end up getting side tracked into immediately discussing the ending. And every time I did that I felt like I was taking too long to get to the other points and to keep the video moving. I also knew I needed to set up my past videos in the context of all that and kept getting tongue tied every time I went ahead and did so. It was a weirdly difficult video to structure even knowing it wasn’t going to be particularly long- in fact I felt myself over-explaining and over-writing constantly, which made me feel like I really needed to step back and consider if there was a better way to write this.
On top of all that, a few things kept pushing it away from a serious deadline. I’d been working on other larger projects, first Jak and then Frasier, both of which took more attention away than I planned and lead to me further doubting how it was going to play out. Worse still, just before then, I’d watched the Zero Punctuation review, and immediately been alerted to the almost insurmountable number of fans who seem to have taken to the ending even more aggressively than the art style. These weren’t all just internet angry people either- many had convinced themselves of what they felt the game was saying who otherwise seemed as though they might have considered the alternative if suggested, ZP included. It felt so wrong that people had mischaracterised it that way, and unfortunately I got caught up in trying to deal with that as well, to try and bring the points of view together while figuring out how the hell I was going to structure it.
I just couldn’t force it all together, though I kept making attempts. In 2023 I had a full script drafted and recorded, which allowed me to start a strong basis, but was compounded on by a rent hike that priced me out of my apartment, caught up in moving and trying to finish the Frasier video after that disruption. Giving up my custom recording spot was a huge loss- I’m more comfortable with my setup now than I was but it isn’t the same, and something I’m still hoping to rectify soon. Just felt like the momentum kept getting kicked out from under me, and in the meantime people were still sending comments to the other videos which, honestly, weren’t always particularly constructive, making it seem even more difficult.
However, there were good things that came out of waiting.
Very Late editions
The first thing is that the original video I created, as well as the Sam and Max video, picked up the attention of a couple of former telltale contributors who were willing to share their thoughts on the projects. They really wanted to know what I thought of Return and had enjoyed it a lot themselves, feeling very grateful to Ron for actually bothering to include their work as part of the larger story. They’d worked under Dave Grossman as well in that time and wanted to share some perspective on what he’d done for them. It all just helped to firm up some details and the focus of the actual good the game had done, reminding me that the point I wanted to make wasn’t totally out of bounds. Jake’s excitement in talking about their desire to capture the truth of the secret- something always out of reach- really finalised how I was going to end the video from that point on.
I also made the, as it turned out, simple fix of moving everything to do with the actual secret to the middle of the video. This included the intro, and the setup of the previous games and the ending on 2 in particular, right through Ron’s manifesto. That way the first half of the video would read like a normal review with hints of getting into something more meaningful, before really getting into the philosophical discussion around the ending and what I felt it was trying to do.
A lot of what I’d written about the actual theory-work of the game at this point was what I felt was an educated guess- trying my hardest as usual to get to the root of what the designers were going for- but then something kinda wild happened. After an unexpected second trip to a Disney Park for my birthday in 2023, I’d decided to put together a video on that to mirror my 2022 trip, which again came out much later due to my other commitments. I figured in the end it’d be a good idea to start with that in January, once I finally had everything together, and then go into February with the Monkey Island video that had now been completely retooled and rewritten to something I felt more satisfied about.
And then the Noclip documentary dropped.
It felt good and bad for a lot of reasons. Good because I could finally find out what it was they were thinking, whether or not I was right about what I felt they might be doing as well as suddenly getting everyone talking about the game again after a year of nothing. But there was a pretty selfish sense of frustration that I’d taken so long that the developers had finally come out and said the things I was about to beat them to the punch on- suddenly not looking quite as clever as I thought I might!
But this is absolutely what needed to happen. It’s a fantastic documentary that says so much of what needed to be said by the people who deserved to say it all first, and having it ended up improving what I wanted to say in the video and not have me shooting in the dark for every note. I felt real good going into another final draft on the back of it, and while a few changes still arose in trying to firm up what I wanted to say by the end, I still felt like I just about got where I needed to with its help.
The result
I won’t lie to you, this one doesn’t feel quite as triumphant as some of my other recent releases. Jak felt incredibly complete and had a strong and positive reaction, Frasier was a runaway success, but my own return to this subject was always, I think, going to have a hollow ring to it, especially having sat on it for so long. The comments have been incredibly insightful and positive for the most part, but there are still a few who just didn’t quite get it or came back with the same five talking points that seemed to not engage with the video at all. From my glass half full perspective, that’s always going to feel like a loss, even knowing this business is not about changing everyone’s mind.
But I think that’s appropriate. One of the things that really changed the original feel of the video was Ron’s seeming contentment at the end of the documentary. He’d made a very divisive game and been hurt online, but he was clearly so happy and at peace with what he’d done, no regrets because he’d made exactly what he hoped to make. For as long as I tinkered on this video and happy enough I am with how it came out, in the end I don’t know that I could ever have made anything else or anything that would have made me happier. There was always one viewpoint I was coming into the process with that was going to come through by the end, and perhaps I was simply delaying the inevitable.
I never mean to take as long as I do on these projects. It’s just me, it’s just my perspective on whether or not I’ve said enough, and sadly I find it very difficult to find the confidence others seem to in just pumping out words and getting the videos out there. I am trying to get less into my head to make that happen because it really shouldn’t take this long, and because the rewards of just getting my voice heard should really take precedence now over trying to make it perfect. Every video’s a learning curve, and this feels like it taught me a lot about setting expectations for exactly that kind of thing.
And I got one really cool response from Guybrush himself. So that’s not too bad either.
One thing I will say is that I think the video is what I always wanted it to be in the very end- you’ll have noticed a reversal of the ending of the original, returning to the fairground carousel horse and going back through the eye into the world of Monkey Island. To me this is what the game was all about, finding a way back into the fiction, and after such an unresolved video, I hope that really brings closure to my thoughts on the series at last. Until they make another one, to which I will probably make a two second video that goes ‘good stuff fam.’
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Thanks for checking in and seeing how this video came together. I’ll have a little more on this on the way, but until then I’ll see you all in the next Patreon post!
- B
