Monkey Island 5

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Elia Khensamphanh

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:13:38 PM8/3/24

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Monkey Island is a series of adventure games. The first four games were produced and published by LucasArts, earlier known as Lucasfilm Games. The fifth was developed by Telltale Games with LucasArts, while the sixth was developed by Terrible Toybox with Lucasfilm Games and Devolver Digital.

The games follow the adventures of the hapless Guybrush Threepwood as he struggles to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean, defeat the plans of the evil undead pirate LeChuck and win the heart of Governor Elaine Marley. The plots often involve the mysterious Monkey Island and its secrets.

Monkey Island was created by Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman. Gilbert worked on the first two games before leaving LucasArts. Grossman and Schafer had success on other games before they both left LucasArts. The rights to Monkey Island remained with LucasArts, and the third and fourth games were created without direct involvement from the original writing staff. Grossman was the project leader of the fifth game in the series and Gilbert was involved with the first design of the game. Gilbert's studio developed the sixth game, Return to Monkey Island (2022), with Grossman assisting.

Ron Gilbert's two main inspirations for the story were Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Tim Powers' book On Stranger Tides.[1] The book was the inspiration for the story and characters, while the ride was the inspiration for the ambiance. Gilbert said in an interview that "[the POTC Ride] keeps you moving through the adventure but I've always wished I could get off and wander around, learn more about the characters, and find a way onto those pirate ships. So with The Secret of Monkey Island I wanted to create a game that had the same flavor, but where you could step off the boat and enter that whole storybook world".[2]

The series debuted in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island on the Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari ST and Macintosh platforms; the game was later ported to FM Towns and Mega-CD (1993). A remake version with updated graphics and new voiceovers was released for PlayStation Network, PC Windows, Xbox Live Arcade[3] and OS X. An iPhone version was also released on July 23, 2009.

The game starts off with the main character Guybrush Threepwood stating "I want to be a pirate!" To do so, he must prove himself to three old pirate captains. During the perilous pirate trials, he meets the beautiful governor Elaine Marley, with whom he falls in love, unaware that the ghost pirate LeChuck also has his eyes on her. When Elaine is kidnapped, Guybrush procures crew and ship to track LeChuck down, defeat him and rescue his love.

As Guybrush, with a treasure chest in hand, and Elaine hang onto ropes in a void, he tells her the story of the game. He has decided to find the greatest of all treasures, that of Big Whoop. Unwittingly he helps revive LeChuck, who is now in zombie form. Guybrush is eventually captured by his nemesis, but escapes with help from Wally and finds the treasure only to find himself dangling from a rope, as depicted at the beginning of the game. As Guybrush concludes his story, his rope breaks and he finds himself facing LeChuck, whom he finally defeats using voodoo. The surrealistic ending is open to a number of interpretations. In the manual of The Curse of Monkey Island, it is stated that Guybrush falls victim to a hex implemented by LeChuck.

Monkey Island I and II were originally released on floppy disks with text dialogue only. Entire conversations between characters would appear as written text, or as captions above their heads.The visuals of the third installment were also an improvement over the original game, using a more modern cel animation style. The Curse of Monkey Island is the only game in the series to feature this style of animation; subsequent games used three-dimensional polygon animation.

When Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley return from their honeymoon, they find that Elaine has been declared officially dead, her mansion is under a destruction order, and her position as governor is up for election. Guybrush investigates and unearths a conspiracy by LeChuck and evil real estate developer Ozzie Mandrill to use a voodoo talisman, "The Ultimate Insult", to make all pirates docile in order to turn the Caribbean into a center of tourism.

Tales of Monkey Island is the fifth installment within the series, co-developed by Telltale Games and LucasArts, with a simultaneous release both on WiiWare and PC. Unlike other installments, Tales is an episodic adventure consisting of five different episodes. The first episode was released on July 7, with the last one released on December 8, 2009.[4]

During a heated battle with his nemesis, the evil pirate LeChuck, Guybrush unwittingly unleashes an insidious pox that rapidly spreads across the Caribbean, turning pirates into zombie-like monsters. The Voodoo Lady sends Guybrush in search of a legendary sea sponge to stem the epidemic, but this seemingly straightforward quest has surprises around every corner.[5]Tales of Monkey Island was also released on PlayStation Network as a bundle for US$20.00.

With the purchase of LucasArts by the Walt Disney Company in 2012, the rights to the franchise are now property of Disney.[6] In the second half of 2010s, Disney Interactive ceased the production on gaming and transitioned to a licensing model. Gilbert wrote on Twitter that he was interested in buying the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion properties.[7] Fans of the series launched an online petition asking Disney to sell the franchise to Gilbert; by December 2021, the petition had gathered about 29,000 signatures.[8]

Return to Monkey Island, the sixth Monkey Island installment, was released on September 19, 2022 on the Nintendo Switch and Windows, coming to other formats later.[9] It is a collaboration between Gilbert's Terrible Toybox studio and Lucasfilm Games, and published by Devolver Digital.[9] A frame story in the game serves to explain and continue from the ending of LeChuck's Revenge, while the main narrative takes place after the other games in the series.[9] Ron Gilbert has expressed his desire to tell a simple and focused pirate story in the game, while also redefining the adventure game user interface and deepening the greater lore. In addition to Gilbert, Grossman returns as co-writer, with music from veteran series composers Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian, and Dominic Armato, Alexandra Boyd, and Denny Delk reprising their roles as Guybrush, Elaine, and Murray.[10][9] Jess Harnell replaces the retired Earl Boen as the voice of LeChuck.[11][12]

Stan's Used Coffins is referred to in one of the levels of the LucasArts game Outlaws. In Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Guybrush can be accessed as a playable character via a cheat code; in addition, a Monkey Island-themed secret room can be found in the game's final level.[13] Guybrush also appears in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II as a playable skin for Starkiller named "Guybrush Threepkiller".[14]

Guybrush is paid homage in the Naughty Dog video game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, where a pirate with major similarities to Guybrush is featured as one of the twelve pirate captains that founded Libertalia. Although he remains unnamed throughout the game, the resemblance is uncanny and his sigil is represented by a monkey. His portrait can be seen in the Libertalia treasury with the other founders and though his name is partly scratched out, the letters still visible spell out the truncated name "Guy Wood".[15]

Several elements from the Monkey Island series appear in Sea of Thieves as part of its June 2021 "A Pirate's Life" update. Developed in collaboration with Disney and primarily themed after Pirates of the Caribbean, multiple references to the characters and locales from the Monkey Island franchise can be found in journals by Kate Capsize scattered around the wreckage of The Headless Monkey during the update's first Tall Tale, accompanied by an original arrangement of the Monkey Island theme. According to the journals, Guybrush and Elaine Threepwood are celebrating their honeymoon somewhere upon the Sea of Thieves, while Kate perished attempting to get revenge on Guybrush for framing her.[16]

A full Monkey Island-themed expansion for the game, "The Legend of Monkey Island", was released on July 20, 2023 and spread across three monthly episodes. In the story, set between Curse and Escape, Guybrush and Elaine's honeymoon on the Sea of Thieves is interrupted by LeChuck, who traps them in a dream version of Mle Island where everyone worships Guybrush as a legendary pirate. To stop LeChuck from restoring the legendary Burning Blade and conquering the Sea of Thieves, the Pirate Lord recruits the now-revived Kate Capsize and the player pirates to enter the dreamworld and rescue Guybrush and Elaine.[17][18]

In an update to Hitman 3, a new pirate-themed map was added, which featured an Easter Egg referencing Monkey Island in the form of a gravestone in the environment reading "G Threepwood, Mighty Pirate", a clear reference to Guybrush.[19]

Shortly after Pixar, a spinout from Lucasfilm, found success with the first Toy Story film in 1995, there had been a push across Hollywood for more digitally animated films. Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), in the midst of transitioning from practical to digital effects, offered its services for producing these films to other studios. One of the first projects they tried to work on was with Universal Pictures to revive the Universal Classic Monsters line with a film called Frankenstein and the Wolfman. While several scripts and preliminary art was produced for this film, shake-ups at Universal due to the financial failure of Babe: Pig in the City led to changes in leadership for the film and ultimately its cancellation.[21]