LeChuck's Ship Scene - "Unbalanced Drama"?
Okay, since I saw that concept art of LeChuck's ship I couldn't wait to get to that part of the game and was AMAZED when I saw how great it turned out - the colors, the lighting - awesome. It set up an atmosphere that I last saw in LeChuck's Revenge, fearsome, powerful, dramatic.
So I was all in the mood and expecting some dark, dramatic evil scene there which actually did follow, but one thing I really found irritating was the dialogue between Guybrush, LeChuck and Elaine which, in my opinion, just didn't fit in there at many moments.
That whole Elaine turning into a demon scene is a shocker, even more so when she grabs that root beer bottle and sprays it at Guybrush (Dominic, again, doing a great job voice acting all that emotion into him).
So up to this point, there's nothing really to complain about, except maybe that I still found Earl's voice to be missing that punch he used to have for LeChuck's voice (different subject).
The scene in which Guybrush reappears as a Zombie though is where acting / dialogue get "unbalanced" concerning the drama of the moment:
LeChuck starts acting extremely cruel, weakening Guybrush with every punch, leaving him hardly enough strength to keep himself on his feet, let alone walk. While I kinda liked the brave comebacks Guybrush has at LeChuck, after a while I found them, say, unrealistic. We've never seen Guybrush in such a fragile, pitiful and suffering state, it just didn't match with his responses to LeChuck.
The bigger problem I had was the acting / dialogue between LeChuck and Elaine, though. To start off with, it seems that by now, LeChuck's lost all of his certain "evil, but yet gentleman" qualities. Which is: he's come down to hitting and killing women.
After Elaine leaves her demonic state and comes back to normal, she's literally battered to the ground by LeChuck (okay: after she's tried to kill him, but still). That doesn't quite go along with his deep love for her that drove him to win her heart in all those years, does it? Worse: some seconds later, he tells Guybrush that "Elaine's to be mine...to do the sewing and keep the house clean in case we have guests." Uh...no. Totally unfitting here.
Also the "Plunderbunny" / "Honey Pumpkin" dialogue between Guybrush and Elaine, which I actually find amusing most of the time, didn't really work here I think. There were a couple of more examples which I don't remember right now, though.
Don't get me wrong: There's a reason Monkey Island has been done and kept in a cartoonish style and the last thing I'd want to miss about this series is the humour that prevents the story from becoming all TOO dark. (Even I missed Murray in the finale!) But I kinda didn't like the combination of both, humour and evil, in that finale scene.
After all, there was no humour in Morgan's death scene, for instance, either, which is actually why it was appreciated so much.
Anyone feeling similar about this?
So I was all in the mood and expecting some dark, dramatic evil scene there which actually did follow, but one thing I really found irritating was the dialogue between Guybrush, LeChuck and Elaine which, in my opinion, just didn't fit in there at many moments.
That whole Elaine turning into a demon scene is a shocker, even more so when she grabs that root beer bottle and sprays it at Guybrush (Dominic, again, doing a great job voice acting all that emotion into him).
So up to this point, there's nothing really to complain about, except maybe that I still found Earl's voice to be missing that punch he used to have for LeChuck's voice (different subject).
The scene in which Guybrush reappears as a Zombie though is where acting / dialogue get "unbalanced" concerning the drama of the moment:
LeChuck starts acting extremely cruel, weakening Guybrush with every punch, leaving him hardly enough strength to keep himself on his feet, let alone walk. While I kinda liked the brave comebacks Guybrush has at LeChuck, after a while I found them, say, unrealistic. We've never seen Guybrush in such a fragile, pitiful and suffering state, it just didn't match with his responses to LeChuck.
The bigger problem I had was the acting / dialogue between LeChuck and Elaine, though. To start off with, it seems that by now, LeChuck's lost all of his certain "evil, but yet gentleman" qualities. Which is: he's come down to hitting and killing women.
After Elaine leaves her demonic state and comes back to normal, she's literally battered to the ground by LeChuck (okay: after she's tried to kill him, but still). That doesn't quite go along with his deep love for her that drove him to win her heart in all those years, does it? Worse: some seconds later, he tells Guybrush that "Elaine's to be mine...to do the sewing and keep the house clean in case we have guests." Uh...no. Totally unfitting here.
Also the "Plunderbunny" / "Honey Pumpkin" dialogue between Guybrush and Elaine, which I actually find amusing most of the time, didn't really work here I think. There were a couple of more examples which I don't remember right now, though.
Don't get me wrong: There's a reason Monkey Island has been done and kept in a cartoonish style and the last thing I'd want to miss about this series is the humour that prevents the story from becoming all TOO dark. (Even I missed Murray in the finale!) But I kinda didn't like the combination of both, humour and evil, in that finale scene.
After all, there was no humour in Morgan's death scene, for instance, either, which is actually why it was appreciated so much.
Anyone feeling similar about this?
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Guybrush's attempts at humor and cracking jokes in the face of even the most intense danger is just part of his character. He was trying and failing at this point because he was so badly beaten up.
LeChuck beating Elaine to the ground, well, she stabbed him, so what do you expect? LeChuck is hardly a gentleman, he's impatient and a brute. Sure he wants Elaine for himself but its not like at this point he's going to take being stabbed lying down, he wants Elaine even if he has to force her love. He beat Morgan down too and even killed her. (big problem with this as De singe should have been the one to kill Morgan but whatever)
The plunderbunny dialogue WAS a bit worn out, but Elaine and Guybrush were actually terrified and fighting for their lives this time so uh, well not much to say on that one.
Here's where I blame Curse. And hate Curse. And want every copy of Curse to be tracked down and smashed with a sledgehammer. LeChuck isn't SUPPOSED to be the relative teddy bear he is in that game. He's supposed to be feared, powerful, evil, brutal. Any "gentleman" quality is a taint on the original character that should be gladly thrown out.
Not really. LeChuck didn't really "love" Elaine. Generally, you don't kidnap the ones you love, or try to force them into marriage ceremonies. LeChuck wants to BE loved, sure. But he doesn't love. I don't think he knows how to.
I could have done without it, but I don't think it hurt the overall integrity of the scene at all. The two love each other, they spend a good 90% of their time together on crazy pirate adventures, unless it's Guybrush's birthday.
Nope!
Did you want to say "LeChuck"?
(and don't forgot to keep watching AFTER the credits!)
Touché.
Perhaps he was referring to the architectural movement?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
Anyway, I thought the entire sequence was done extremely well. This was easily my favorite final boss fight with LeChuck since Monkey Island 2.
I just don't understand how she knew about the ring. That's pretty much as far as her "plan" goes. She does sort of make it up as she goes along, doesn't she?
Nope! I do feel like how Mermaid does. I even said it before finishing the chapter, in another thread.
May not be unrealistic, but it certainly is emotionless.
I didn't have any problems with LeChuck though. He is a PIRATE after all, you know, manly.
Except the dialouges between Morgan and Guybrush, Caleb and some of the puzzles (though I found them really easy compared to the other episodes' puzzles), I can say that I didn't like the episode. Well, at least after Guybrush got his body back, it didn't went that good. The ending was kinda dramatic (the way Guybrush sacrifices his own life with saying 'this, is the only way' and the little playable part after that cutscene in which you kinda think this is the end of the episode, but "the ring" and the "master plan of Elaine" was a little off, if you ask me. No, ending did not satisfy me...
...aaaand then I saw the REAL ending after the credits, and now I say the episode just ROCKED. FINALLY they revealed everything (even S&MS3!!!) and I think I can't love Morgan more than now.
I liked the end ship scene (well, apart from the glitches but they were really minor) but what I thought was missing was some dramatic music. It was really slow paced music, and it didn't fit LeChucks awesome form (Badass Lechuck? MegaAwesome Lechuck? Skeleton Armor Lechuck? I dunno).
I thought the conversations were fine, but the music wasn't good enough. Still, it was a fantastic game overall. Good end to a good series, and it sets it up nicely for a sequel.
You know what, making Elaine purely evil at some point would've been so much more satisfying because it would literally explain everything.
Because right now Guybrush is sailing with a wife completely willing to turn evil, so evil that she would literally use the most painful and effective methods to kill you in any particular form. And to top it off, she's so direct she prolly do it with no monologue so you have no chance in heck to get a word in.
But it's okay, it was her masterplan. She was secretly rooting for you all along in the 10% of the time she was actually lucid.
Word.
Style was a bit Tim Burton-ish, which got me. It was SO funny at some points, I mean
But... Come on, metal is pirate-y!
Season 2 will be better, I can tell.
Truth has never spoken that well.
I'm sure I've missed something. There were a lot of dialogue options that I missed out on that explained backstory. We can probably piece it together.
Just like her husband, huh?
That's been bugging me, too. If she knew about the ring as the solution to their final problem, she also knew Guybrush had to die (but her final scene in ep4 and her first in ep5 contradict this), AND know the exact workings of the super-secret afterlife-defying voodoo spell (extremely unlikely).
Well make no mistake. This is way darker and more sinister than LeChuck's Revenge ever was. But it was great. The humor was there but more subtle, like the pot helmet, or the skeleton army wearing inner tubes.
It was more about the symbolism than the ring itself. "True love" proved to be more powerful than any voodoo, more powerful even than the forces that govern life and death.
In a way, love / marriage could be said to contain all the elements of the voodoo resurrection spell anyway - your partner is an "anchor" to keep you grounded, someone to guide the way, a source of courage in facing your fears, and is willing to make sacrifices in your name.
Hmm. LeChuck chasing Guybrush through empty tunnels, finding Guybrush's dead parents, and trying to concoct a voodoo doll to tear off LeChucks leg while LeChuck zaps you from room to room, ending in being trapped as a child in a carnival.
VS.
Well, they tie in idea, but Tales wins in presentation.
*hoping very hard for LCR:SE*
I agree with Secret Fawful, they're about matched in tone.
Oh well.
Cliché.
Oh well.
You can probably get your money back if you want.
Also, I too hope for a Special Edition of LeChuck's Revenge. I think that may be my favorite game of all time.
Ga-whooaaaaat? Who wants it?
It had that awesome Pin-up picture. Money well spent.
Maybe it is just because I am fifteen or so years older...
My issue with the sequence was how much of a sense of deja vu I got. Not only in comparison to the MI2 finale but also the Chapter 2 scene with Morgan.
So yeah- I didn't like it but not for the reasons already stated in this thread.
i think it is that... and in LCR:MI2 LeChuck appears more often and still at random times... you never know wen to expect him... in ToMI he just appears when guybrush stands near a "Rip"... that was my impression... don't know if it is true ^^
Hm...well, it was LeChuck's spell, and LeChuck has been known to gloat every so often, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that she had gotten the information directly from him during one of her many captures.
Perhaps she didn't tell him because she simply didn't want to scare him with the whole "oh, I think you might die, but do as I say anyway" plan.
Plus, how do we know Elaine isn't really an incredibly evil mastermind whose managed to elude suspicion all this time, just like the Voodoo Lady had been up until recently??? Dum dum DUM!
Well, ELaine does mention she just played along this LeChuch good guy ruse all the time. And one of the options after getting back from the Crossroads is to ask her if this was her master plan. She does as much as to affirm this. In my understanding, we're meant to think that she planned that all. Especially if we consider her giving Guybrush the ring back at Spinner Cay was so long ago... The explanation we've got is improbable, but the alternative is that she was putting her trust in dumb luck. And Guybrush's love, which could've (if not for Morgan's reassurance) been not enough.
Do weirdass things without any calculation whatsoever, so everything will be just fine!
I actually kinda liked the ending now. Good thing to know that Elaine shares the same philosophical view with Sam and Max.
I agree that the particular dialog chosen didn't exactly strengthen the scene. When LeChuck tries mentioning Morgan to Elaine I couldn't help but be bothered by the lack of reaction from Elaine, or the fact LeChuck didn't even try to elaborate on the situation to break the couple apart.
However IMO Elaine's dialog was the weakest. And the voice acting I found especially irritating, if not jarring, since it didn't matter if cannons were firing, if there was hell on earth, or if she was in a tropical paradise drinking lemonade, she always had a similar awkwardly content tone in her voice. Even when she was supposed to sound scared or worried for Guybrush in this last episode, I found the acting far less than believable. Especially in such direct comparison to Armato.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one that thought this. That missing punch use to give LeChuck his character, I still don't understand what happened to it.
Something I always liked about the original games (1-3, I ignore 4) was that no matter how bad a situation was in the game, you could still laugh in the game cause the humor had concise in timing and was witty enough to bring light to the situation. Here, I found that the comebacks had no meaning because the scene left me so distraught that my childhood hero was being tortured I couldn't find it funny. Especially since the fumbling controls made this part take 10 times longer to finish than it should have been.
I couldn't help but notice Rather_Dashings response to this, and it made me realize just how divided fans are between Monkey Island 2 and Curse of Monkey Island. I myself feel CMI was the peak of the franchise, and feel the evil but gentleman quality was much more interesting and fresh than the typical thick skulled brute portrayed in every other series you can name. I was thrown off when LeChuck hit Elaine. While yes he was being stabbed, I would have thought he would have tossed her once and have her tied up. He did it easy enough it seems in the first episode, but I guess her looking like the statue of liberty made her too much to handle in the neutralizing department.
This is where I disagree completely. This is my personal preference, but to me Monkey Island has NEVER been a game series about drama, and from the end of episode 4 onward I felt like the series was derailed into a realm that MI shouldn't be taken. Don't get me wrong, I could accept if MI had sad points and tension, but humor has always primarily defined the franchise from other games. There are few games out there that will make me literally laugh out loud anymore, and I appreciated games like Monkey Island for that. If Tell Tales wanted a game to go down this type of road "Full Throttle" would have been absolutely FANTASTIC for it. Where as MI should always be fun and entertaining, before it becomes a soap opera or and action thriller movie.
Grammer nitpick: the word is "melodrama", and "melo" refers to music, not mellowness.
Fixed it, Sorry for that, I had never heard it used in its proper context it would seem.