Mortal Kombat (2021)

[Shark_Blade]

First look pics: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/fight-first-images-from-the-new-mortal-kombat-movie-online/

Mortal Kombat is scheduled to be released in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service by Warner Bros. Pictures on April 16, 2021.

[Sumac]

Looks a bit cheap, but we'll see how it looks in a final product.

I am more worried about story: according to it, the main protagonist is some Original Character named Cole and all other characters are kind of sort of in the background.

Well, they can't make it worse than MKAn, so...

[frank_one]

Can a Mortal Kombat movie possibly be good? James Wan is producing it so there's still hope but I wouldn't bet on it. The pics look ok.

[AquaParade]

The 1995 film is still my favorite video game movie by far. It may not be high art, but it does have some really cool cinematic moments, decent choreography, a pulsing soundtrack, and is overall just a lot of fun to watch if you are into the franchise. I've always loved Mortal Kombat outside of the games, so I'm looking forward to this.

[sdp]

I just know the women will have these SJW non-classic costumes because that's the current look of the franchise. As I mentioned before both Mortal Kombat movies have aged (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-movies/) so let's hope this one is cool. MK Legends Scorpion was a retelling of the first tournament and it was good despite being from his perspective. I think it'll be hard to mess it up. And the fact that its not going to be in theaters might help it get a sequel since it won't be all about BO numbers.

[Sumac]

I just know the women will have these SJW non-classic costumes because that's the current look of the franchise. As I mentioned before both Mortal Kombat movies have aged (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-movies/) so let's hope this one is cool. MK Legends Scorpion was a retelling of the first tournament and it was good despite being from his perspective. I think it'll be hard to mess it up. And the fact that its not going to be in theaters might help it get a sequel since it won't be all about BO numbers.
Not that women in OG movie and MKAn had revealing costumes, so its kinda a moot point.

I wonder how they will calculate if movie was successful or not?
Does it mean critics would be even more important than before?

[Leo656]

Visually, it looks pretty good, so I'm definitely intrigued. But the whole "The main character is an OC and the plot revolves around them rather than anyone from the games" bit definitely reeks of the "Resident Evil" movies - which I never bothered to actually watch but have read a ton about, and I'm aware that they irritate the living hell out of game fans, for what sounds like very good reasons. So, that's kind of annoying. Why do they not feel like the in-game cast are enough? The excuse is usually some variant of "We need an Audience-Avatar character, someone the casual viewers can relate to as they go on this journey", but why can't Liu Kang or Johnny Cage be that? I don't get it.

I mean, we'll see what happens. Like two years ago the synopsis floating around was that the movie was gonna center around a couple of teenagers, so thankfully they've made some improvements since then. But this still might fall short. I really hope it's good, the world deserves a truly good MK movie. Not that the first one wasn't, but... well, the "flaws" have already been discussed to death.

[CyberCubed]

Wasn't the whole leaked script posted on reddit and people said it sounds terrible?

[AquaParade]

The original character protagonist doesn't really bother me, as I've never been invested in the particular character's story so much as I am the surface level mythology. The Sub-Zero & Scorpion rivalry can be played up a bit and other characters have interesting backgrounds, but I don't need those to be the focus.

[Sumac]

It irritates me, though, since MK have enough characters that can provide "everyman" perspective. Heck, first movie did it with Cage (albeit following original comic book, written by game's writer). And if that's not enough there are Jax, Sonya, Stryker. Even Kabal and Kobra (lol) can work.

There is a theory, that Cole will end up some significant MK character in the end (Cage or Sub-Zero Junior), but than I will be even less sure, why would they need this masquerade.

[Andrew NDB]

Yes... while I applaud the R rating (what a shocker! a Mortal Kombat movie that gets to have real Fatalities! it only took us 25 years) it is clearly very cheaply made. Like, it looks like some indie filmmakers made this with $10,000, local actors and After Effects.

Unless they're hidden in there, I'm not seeing any name actors in it. That means they're not really taking this seriously. C'mon, they need to at least have a Name for Johnny Cage or Rayden or something.

[Leo656]

Nah, I disagree. I generally (not always) hate that sh*t and find it distracting. Donner had it right when he was originally casting for Superman back in the 70s: "You can hire Dustin Hoffman and put him in a Superman costume, but people watching the movie won't see 'Superman', they'll just see Dustin Hoffman dressed up like Superman." I have similar problems with much of the MCU's star-studded casting; the performers very much outshine the characters they're playing. Like Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr. have very little in common aside from facial hair, but now Stark just plain IS Downey in everything because the movie version overshadowed everything else.

It works alright SOME of the time but I definitely don't think you ALWAYS need a "name" to sell a project. That's ultimately only for the studios to try and recoup their investment because they believe the general audience only shows up to see movies with "names" in them. Maybe that's true of the super-duper casual audience but probably not true for the kind of audience that would pay to see a Mortal Kombat movie. I think the purists and hardcores would be very annoyed by that kind of thing.

I mean, we already kind of saw that when they had Rousey "play" Sonya in MK11. People hated it and found it distracting - "That's not 'Sonya Blade', that's just Ronda Rousey kinda-sorta playing Sonya Blade." Doesn't always work.

It irritates me, though, since MK have enough characters that can provide "everyman" perspective. Heck, first movie did it with Cage (albeit following original comic book, written by game's writer). And if that's not enough there are Jax, Sonya, Stryker. Even Kabal and Kobra (lol) can work.

There is a theory, that Cole will end up some significant MK character in the end (Cage or Sub-Zero Junior), but than I will be even less sure, why would they need this masquerade.

I agree. And I really hope that theory doesn't come to pass, that would be kinda sh*tty.

[IMJ]

Can a Mortal Kombat movie possibly be good? James Wan is producing it so there's still hope but I wouldn't bet on it. The pics look ok.

The first one was considered to be very good back in the day. I remember seeing it in theaters and people were blown away by what they pulled off. And then the second one came out and it was so exciting - until you were sitting in the empty theater watching that awful sequel feeling as if someone tricked you into coming to a party that no one was going to be at. LOL!

There were some MK web films a few years back that were pretty good actually. I'm looking forward to this new flick.

[Andrew NDB]

Nah, I disagree. I generally (not always) hate that sh*t and find it distracting. Donner had it right when he was originally casting for Superman back in the 70s: "You can hire Dustin Hoffman and put him in a Superman costume, but people watching the movie won't see 'Superman', they'll just see Dustin Hoffman dressed up like Superman."

I don't mean an A-lister... but it needs some kind of star power. How about Scott Adkins for Johnny Cage? He's kind of king of B-movie action/martial arts movie. There you go -- bam, perfect Johnny Cage.

I mean, we already kind of saw that when they had Rousey "play" Sonya in MK11. People hated it and found it distracting - "That's not 'Sonya Blade', that's just Ronda Rousey kinda-sorta playing Sonya Blade."

I think that's more because while Ronda Rousey has a "certain kind of charm" (at least, to me), she definitely doesn't look like this:

https://legacy.mortalkombatonline.com/content/games/mk3/sonya/bio.gif

And fans know that.

Also, in the same game where suddenly all the female characters are "covering up," that making her more masculine and literally into Ronda Rousey was largely taken as just more PC crap.

[The Deadman]

Trailer is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYH2sLid0Zc&ab_channel=IGN

[Storm Eagle]

Trailer is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYH2sLid0Zc&ab_channel=IGN

Not bad.

Best Buy will be releasing a steelbook set with the first two movies on March 30th, which will also include a digital code.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/mortal-kombat-2-film-collection-steelbook-includes-digital-copy-blu-ray-only--best-buy/6444517.p?skuId=6444517&irclickid=3GE1SC3NcxyLU6V0MdV3iVCmUkETmvz91yZLQM0&irgwc=1&ref=198&loc=Admitad%20-%201310690&acampID=0&mpid=1310690

I might get it so I can use the digital code, but it would be nice if they were released on 4K.

[sdp]

Movie looks very hollywood for better or worse, but we've seen the original Mortal Kombat story re-told so many times I'm ok with that.
I hope it's good, reminds me of Mortal Kombat Legacy a bit, I hope we get more stuff and create a new Mortal Kombat shared universe (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-continuity/) like in the 90s

[IMJ]

Movie looks very hollywood for better or worse, but we've seen the original Mortal Kombat story re-told so many times I'm ok with that.
I hope it's good, reminds me of Mortal Kombat Legacy a bit, I hope we get more stuff and create a new Mortal Kombat shared universe (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-continuity/) like in the 90s

I feel like they took too many liberties with the ninja's costumes. Honestly, the web shorts from some time back where better than this.

[Coola Yagami]

This is gonna be cool. I don't think back in the 90s the world was ready for fatalities. You have to admit the idea of them was gorier than what the older games showed you. Back then kids played MK and we still had the 'adults shouldn't care about video games' stigma. Parents would be dragged to watch the movie with their kids and if they saw heads ripped off with glee they woulda put the kibosh on playing MK at home.


But now those kids grew up, gaming grew up, adults play MK and the fatalities of MK9-11 have gotten increasingly more violent and intense. Youtube won't even show fatalities of MK 11 unless they're black and white or done on inhuman characters with green blood. For or better or for worse we've gotten desensitized to MK by now so the world is more than ready for a R-Rated Fatality filled 'Sub-Zero stabbing someone with their frozen blood's craziness.

[ZariusTwo]

But now those kids grew up, gaming grew up, adults play MK and the fatalities of MK9-11 have gotten increasingly more violent and intense. .

Blood and gore isn't "grown up" either.

[Coola Yagami]

Blood and gore isn't "grown up" either.

No, but little kids probably shouldn't see Cassie begging for her life seconds before she's skewered and her eyeballs are yanked out and whatever else in a super-realistic fashion.

[Leo656]

Blood and gore isn't "grown up" either.

:lol: C'mon, guy.

----------

Also, looks pretty good. The only thing that jumped out as kinda crummy was the abysmal CGI on Jax's arms. Should've just glued some prosthetics on him. Otherwise, pretty good.

I feel like they took too many liberties with the ninja's costumes. Honestly, the web shorts from some time back where better than this.

Eh, I could do without Scorpion's hood, but they've each had 100 different costumes by now, anyway (including a phase where Sub-Zero looked almost exactly like Shredder, for some reason), so I'm over it.

As for the "Legacy" web series... that Raiden episode is all I want, forever. :lol: I loved that sh*t.

[ssjup81]

I still like the original Mortal Kombat movie. It wasn't bad for what it was and was close to the story and had elements from the first two games. Did it have issues...yep, most definitely, like "evil bad guy Scorpion" wasn't a bad guy, really and the fact that they didn't keep in Goro's actual fatality...but the bottom line is they pretty much kept to the story, the actors portraying the characters were good (I liked the casting), and it was overall fun to watch with a cool soundtrack which I still listen to to this day (I own the MK movie soundtrack on CD). Mortal Kombat Annihilation....doesn't exist in my mind...that fateful day in the theater its second weekend of 1997 never happened and I actually saved my $5 or $6 that day for the ticket. :P

Now, I knew of this upcoming film, but not the specifics. It looks like it'll be pretty cool and I hope that it does okay and will not only be about the gore part of the games. Character and story are a factor too. Going back to the original MK movie, with the exception of Goro, (and I did play the games at the time), I was so into the story and characters and atmosphere of the film, it didn't hit me that they didn't use a lot of gore and some of the characters didn't use their signature fatalities. My aunt pointed it out and I was like, "Hey yeah....you're right!" lol So yeah, I hope they don't make it a gore-fest just for the sake of having gore.

Having this center around an OC is a bit iffy with me and hope it doesn't come across like a fanfiction come to life. Junk like that makes me a bit nervous, especially with a video game adaptation, especially when you have a bit roster of characters to center around by this point. I guess, for me, I wouldn't want it to turn out like the Resident "Alice" series of films.

[CyberCubed]

Did they straight up replace Johnny Cage with some new fanfic self-insert character named Cole?

Whelp, that's it, I'm out. Johnny Cage was internal to the story of Mortal Kombat and the first tournament and if he's not there the movie is already ruined forever.

[Coola Yagami]

I still like the original Mortal Kombat movie. It wasn't bad for what it was and was close to the story and had elements from the first two games. Did it have issues...yep, most definitely, like "evil bad guy Scorpion" wasn't a bad guy, really and the fact that they didn't keep in Goro's actual fatality...but the bottom line is they pretty much kept to the story, the actors portraying the characters were good (I liked the casting), and it was overall fun to watch with a cool soundtrack which I still listen to to this day (I own the MK movie soundtrack on CD). Mortal Kombat Annihilation....doesn't exist in my mind...that fateful day in the theater its second weekend of 1997 never happened and I actually saved my $5 or $6 that day for the ticket. :P

Now, I knew of this upcoming film, but not the specifics. It looks like it'll be pretty cool and I hope that it does okay and will not only be about the gore part of the games. Character and story are a factor too. Going back to the original MK movie, with the exception of Goro, (and I did play the games at the time), I was so into the story and characters and atmosphere of the film, it didn't hit me that they didn't use a lot of gore and some of the characters didn't use their signature fatalities. My aunt pointed it out and I was like, "Hey yeah....you're right!" lol So yeah, I hope they don't make it a gore-fest just for the sake of having gore.

Having this center around an OC is a bit iffy with me and hope it doesn't come across like a fanfiction come to life. Junk like that makes me a bit nervous, especially with a video game adaptation, especially when you have a bit roster of characters to center around by this point. I guess, for me, I wouldn't want it to turn out like the Resident "Alice" series of films.

To be fair, Goro didn't have a Fatality til like... Ulitmate MK3 or something.

[Sumac]

Trailer doesn't look bad, surprisingly.
I don't like that it is too serious and color corrections in sucks, but it doesn't look abysmal, so it is a step in a right direction.

Actors look nice, costumes don't look bad.

My main concerns are the story (in particular this Cole guy) and fights.

To be fair, Goro didn't have a Fatality til like... Ulitmate MK3 or something.
Goro didn't had Fatalities of his own until MK Deception (which is MK6).
You can did Fatalities with him in MK4 with a cheat code, but those were finishers borrowed from other characters (Reiko and someone else).

[ssjup81]

I thought that Goro had a move where he held you by his lower arms while beating your head in with the top ones in the first game? Not a fatality but I was expecting that.

[Andrew NDB]

I thought that Goro had a move where he held you by his lower arms while beating your head in with the top ones in the first game? Not a fatality but I was expecting that.

Yeah, just have him do that but "carry it through." Until they're pulp.

[TigerClaw]

The new Goro looks great. The look of this one is better then the 1995 version which was an animatronic puppet.
I love the attention to details because he looks more terrifying.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/701920782812577862/812115980338855976/Goro.jpg?width=692&height=681

[Coola Yagami]

The new Goro looks great. The look of this one is better then the 1995 version which was an animatronic puppet.
I love the attention to details because he looks more terrifying.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/701920782812577862/812115980338855976/Goro.jpg?width=692&height=681

True, but depending on the CGI and the actors, the animatronic puppet works a bit better because he's actually THERE and the actors aren't pretending to be afraid of either a guy in a mokap suit or just thin air.

[Leo656]

Stop-Motion Goro was awesome.

[Powder]

Trailer looks OK. Not super into it, but seems adequate.

[Wildcat]

It looks great. If you’re into MK. I’m happy to see most people liked the trailer. I was sure it would get some kind of dumb criticism because everything does. There’s some obviously but that’s normal.

Goro’s design is definitely better. He’s scarier but also more game-proportionate. I mean it always looked more like 2 arms tacked on to a stretched torso. Both cool but this was one is better.

I feel like the trailer spoiled a lot of deaths though. I guess you could predict them once you’re watching but they showed a lot.

[TurtleTitan97]

Movie looks like it'll be cheesy fun. I'm in.

[Sumac]

Stop-Motion Goro was awesome.
He wasn't stop motion in the first movie, for the most part. :ohwell:

[Leo656]

Well whatever the f*ck it was, I liked it. :lol: Blew my mind when I was 12 or whatever it was.

[Coola Yagami]

Why wasn't Chun Li invited to Mortal Kombat?

[IMJ]

Well whatever the f*ck it was, I liked it. :lol: Blew my mind when I was 12 or whatever it was.

He was literally a live action puppet! :lol: Stop-motion Goro! LOl lookin' like the Krakyn from Clash of the Titans with Harry Hamlin! LMAO!

[Coola Yagami]

He was literally a live action puppet! :lol: Stop-motion Goro! LOl lookin' like the Krakyn from Clash of the Titans with Harry Hamlin! LMAO!

To be fair in the actual video game, Goro was a stop-motion clay figure.

[Sumac]

Goro was a costume worn by an actor, except for his upper part which were animatronic dolls controlled by other people.

In game, yeah, Goro was a clay figure. Who was filmed with a "blue screen" glued by a duct tape. Talking about DIY.
https://dumeegamer.com/images/specials/small/goro_02.jpg

[IMJ]

To be fair in the actual video game, Goro was a stop-motion clay figure.

Ahhhhh that's true. LOL! God I haven't played that game in years.

[Shark_Blade]

Imma need the sequel rn love the cast but I’m especially surprised that I like Keno in this, he’s a riot

The finishers are so bloody they censored it in cinema but I can tell it’s good. Can’t wait for digital release.

[CyberCubed]

The only thing that irks me so far is no Johnny Cage, as his absence is mind boggling being an original character and still important to the games to this day, but everything else looks good.

[Leo656]

Yeah, no Cage is F'n stupid. Still looks pretty good, though. I'll check it out; I'm paying for HBO Max anyway, might as well.

It mathematically can't be any worse than "Annihilation" so I feel pretty comfortable with it. :lol: We'll see.

[Coola Yagami]

Yeah, no Cage is F'n stupid. Still looks pretty good, though. I'll check it out; I'm paying for HBO Max anyway, might as well.

It mathematically can't be any worse than "Annihilation" so I feel pretty comfortable with it. :lol: We'll see.

Oh it gets better. Apparently Johnny Cage isn't in the movie because 'it doesn't make sense for a white guy to be in that role'. But like Sonya and Kano are ok? **** you. Just **** you. I'm assuming cause Sonya is a woman and Kano is a villain, but like a heroic white guy, OH WE SURE CAN'T HAVE THAT IN 2021.

Like **** you. They can't even make a good Mortal Kombat movie without their anti-white wokeness being forced in there somewhere.

[Leo656]

:roll: Oh, LORD, it really is Everywhere.

Individually, I love lots of people, even people who I disagree with on various matters. On an individual, person-to-person level, I can get along with people despite pretty strong differences of politics and philosophy. I do it every day. You're far more liberal than I am, Coola, but I still like you. You're not a f*cking nutcase, and that counts for a lot.

Collectively, though? I. F*cking. HATE. Liberals. Like, it's getting harder and harder to keep a lid on that sh*t. But when they have to smear their "woke" garbage all over the f*cking cultural landscape it's like, f*cking STOP IT already.

Oddly enough, some of my best friends are "liberals". But go figure, even Those People tend to agree with me that Sh*t Like This is pointless garbage.

"Wouldn't make sense to have a White Person in that role." :roll: F*ck off, racists.

[Coola Yagami]

:roll: Oh, LORD, it really is Everywhere.

Individually, I love lots of people, even people who I disagree with on various matters. On an individual, person-to-person level, I can get along with people despite pretty strong differences of politics and philosophy. I do it every day. You're far more liberal than I am, Coola, but I still like you. You're not a f*cking nutcase, and that counts for a lot.

Collectively, though? I. F*cking. HATE. Liberals. Like, it's getting harder and harder to keep a lid on that sh*t. But when they have to smear their "woke" garbage all over the f*cking cultural landscape it's like, f*cking STOP IT already.

Oddly enough, some of my best friends are "liberals". But go figure, even Those People tend to agree with me that Sh*t Like This is pointless garbage.

"Wouldn't make sense to have a White Person in that role." :roll: F*ck off, racists.

See the thing is, I don't go by any label or any side. I've been called leftist, but like... I don't agree with any of that SJW woke nonsense that the left is crazy about, I just don't like Orange Man.

I guess I just go by my old fashioned beliefs of trying not to be a dick, to treat people fairly, respect others, not be racist/homophobic/sexist and not play this weird game where everyone either wants to earn victim points or purposely look for things to be offended over or to create the next big hashtag movement or 'let's try to retroactively change this or that cause something 20 years ago doesn't meet modern day standards'. Like I don't even have a political side anymore because the Democrats now are NOT the Democrats I grew up with as a kid.

I just try to live by common sense and decency, labels be damned. I don't fit neatly into any box nor do I want to.

[Leo656]

All well and fair.

Movie might very well still be very good, and I won't be shocked if it is indeed pretty good. But IF that's the legit reason for no Johnny Cage, then that's Retarded with the capital R.

Just like Supergirl being Hispanic in the Flash movie because "blonde-haired blue-eyed white girls are Problematic in 2021." Same sh*t. Are we so far gone, culturally, that blonde hair and blue eyes immediately makes people jump to "Nazi" in their minds? We can't even have characters look like what they're established to look like, or have characters who exist within the fiction be a part of movies based on said fiction, because "Too Many Honkies" or some ridiculous sh*t like that. It's stupid.

Movie's probably good anyway. It's just like... Jesus, can we have ONE thing free of this kind of ass-backward "Wokester Logic"? And people wonder why I don't get excited for movies and TV shows anymore, why I expect them all to be terrible and am pleasantly surprised if they're not. Just LOOK at the kinda sh*t we're dealing with behind the scenes.

Anyway. Looking forward to seeing it on HBO Max, eventually. I'm sure we'll still get Cage in a sequel, but to leave him out of this one, the Big Important Relaunch Movie, and have some made-up scrub in there instead is just... well, these are Bad Choices, made for Bad Reasons. And that's frustrating.

[Coola Yagami]

All well and fair.

Movie might very well still be very good, and I won't be shocked if it is indeed pretty good. But IF that's the legit reason for no Johnny Cage, then that's Retarded with the capital R.

Just like Supergirl being Hispanic in the Flash movie because "blonde-haired blue-eyed white girls are Problematic in 2021." Same sh*t. Are we so far gone, culturally, that blonde hair and blue eyes immediately makes people jump to "Nazi" in their minds? We can't even have characters look like what they're established to look like, or have characters who exist within the fiction be a part of movies based on said fiction, because "Too Many Honkies" or some ridiculous sh*t like that. It's stupid.

Movie's probably good anyway. It's just like... Jesus, can we have ONE thing free of this kind of ass-backward "Wokester Logic"? And people wonder why I don't get excited for movies and TV shows anymore, why I expect them all to be terrible and am pleasantly surprised if they're not. Just LOOK at the kinda sh*t we're dealing with behind the scenes.

Anyway. Looking forward to seeing it on HBO Max, eventually. I'm sure we'll still get Cage in a sequel, but to leave him out of this one. the Big Important Relaunch Movie, and have some made-up scrub in there instead is just... well, these are Bad Choices, made for Bad Reasons. And that's frustrating.

I'll prob try to watch it in theaters, my buds are totally stoked on it. IDK, I really hate this OC character, it gives me Alice vibes from the RE movies. I hope the dude 'knows his place', so to speak. Like ultimately the real hero of MK is supposed to be Liu Kang. I'm gonna have all sorts of nerd rage if Mr OC goes all 'step aside, I got this' to Kang and takes the big bad down.

Like yeah, it sucks they replaced Cage with this OC, but at least Cage was never the big hero of MK, it was always Liu Kang. At least in the older games.

Hopefully they'll pull a bait and switch and this punk dies near the end so Liu Kang takes over. I mean they're already playing up Kano as one of the gang with the never-see-it-coming shocking twist that he's bound to betray the team.

[Shark_Blade]

For people wondering why Johnny Cage isn’t in the movie, Cole Young replaces him.

‘MORTAL KOMBAT': WHY COLE YOUNG REPLACES JOHNNY CAGE IN THE 2021 MOVIE
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/mortal-kombat-2021-preview-todd-garner-on-cole-young-johnny-cage

Lastly, one more problem Garner and his team had was the unsavory idea of a white character (like Johnny Cage) being the hero who saves everyone. (Tan is mixed-race Chinese-British.) In Mortal Kombat lore, Johnny Cage is a Hollywood star who enters the tournament to prove he isn’t a pampered, spoiled A-lister. While Cage is rarely the capital-H hero in any given Mortal Kombat game, he is always somewhere near the center bringing levity to the serious stakes.

Garner didn’t confirm the precise whereabouts of Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat (his name came up a few times during the interview) but his absence thus far suggests the filmmakers are trying something different.

“I feel like if I was getting to make a movie with a diverse cast, it felt weird to have a white actor, literally Johnny Cage, be the hero of the story,” Garner says, adding that these discussions took place at the start of the movie’s pre-production nearly seven years ago “way before Black Lives Matter” and other pushes for diversity across industries including Hollywood.

But just because people’s favorite characters aren’t in Mortal Kombat doesn’t mean they won’t ever appear onscreen. “We don’t want to disappoint the fans,” Garner says. “That being said, there’s no possible way to make a movie where everybody gets what they want.”

[sdp]

The only thing that irks me so far is no Johnny Cage, as his absence is mind boggling being an original character and still important to the games to this day, but everything else looks good.

The director confirmed they're saving him for a sequel and realize he's a very important character. I hope the new guys whole purpose is to see him get a fatality by the end of the movie. Now that would be something fresh with the whole "oh you thought he was the hero? He's dead".

[Coola Yagami]

The director confirmed they're saving him for a sequel and realize he's a very important character. I hope the new guys whole purpose is to see him get a fatality by the end of the movie. Now that would be something fresh with the whole "oh you thought he was the hero? He's dead".

They better, because if not we're gonna get Alice all over again. I'm starting to wonder if the dude played enough of the games because LIU KANG was the hero not Johnny Cage. The way he talks in the interview not only concerns me with them removing Johnny from the movie but also the OC taking Liu Kang's place.

This is starting to piss me off. Sure the Sub-Zero/Scorpion stuff looks great but gawd dammit, STICK TO THE ****IN GAME. Hell, the story should be from Liu Kang's POV, have HIM learn about the legends and stuff. I understand a fresh new take but pick the right main character. Imagine a Mario movie about Fransisco and Mario and Luigi are just kinda there.

This would be like Leo and me making a SF movie but from the perspective of some lame OC named Steven. We'll just get away with it by making sure the Akuma actor looks cool and throwing in some sweet Ryu/Ken and Chun Li/Juri fight scenes and the fans will be too busy jizzing their pants to notice.

That's basically this movie. Everyone is busting nuts over Fatalities and the Sub Zero/Scorpion stuff to care that the overall story is getting ****ed.

[Sumac]

From what I heard from people who watched this movie, story is a weakest point of it.

[sdp]

Meh, while Cage will be missed they can play with the story a bit and it can still be good. I won't judge the movie solely on that until I actually watch it. I'd be more pissed if all females have SJW clothing like MK11 but that's not a deciding factor if the movie is good or not either.

Now they just released the theme song and it's a remix of the 90s techno song and it sucks, should've gone for something more original and if they wanted techno then make something entirely new, this remix just feels soulless.
N7XvA9gOCxQ

[CyberCubed]

Sonya is white

Raiden is an Elder God but his design resembles an Asian mans. Liu Kang is Asian. Sub-zero and Scorpion are Asian.

Kano is Australian (does that count as white these days? I dunno). Johnny Cage was also the only other major white character of the original cast.

[sdp]

Sonya is white

Raiden is an Elder God but his design resembles an Asian mans. Liu Kang is Asian. Sub-zero and Scorpion are Asian.

Kano is Australian (does that count as white these days? I dunno). Johnny Cage was also the only other major white character of the original cast.

don't sweat it, it's just the usual articles meant to get a rise out of peoplewith either "WHITE GENOCIDE OMG" if someone who is not white gets a role or the opposite "OMG RACISM" if a white person gets a role. Cage seems to not have gotten in the movie because they wanted someone new, it's a lame decision but it appears to be a dumb hollywood decision not based on any real political bias no matter how hard websites are trying to say it is.

[TigerClaw]

don't sweat it, it's just the usual articles meant to get a rise out of peoplewith either "WHITE GENOCIDE OMG" if someone who is not white gets a role or the opposite "OMG RACISM" if a white person gets a role. Cage seems to not have gotten in the movie because they wanted someone new, it's a lame decision but it appears to be a dumb hollywood decision not based on any real political bias no matter how hard websites are trying to say it is.
Yeah, Those places tends to be very anti SJW and anti Woke.

[Sumac]

Remix is garbage.

[sdp]

dubstep was a mistake.

[Coola Yagami]

don't sweat it, it's just the usual articles meant to get a rise out of peoplewith either "WHITE GENOCIDE OMG" if someone who is not white gets a role or the opposite "OMG RACISM" if a white person gets a role. Cage seems to not have gotten in the movie because they wanted someone new, it's a lame decision but it appears to be a dumb hollywood decision not based on any real political bias no matter how hard websites are trying to say it is.

I mean the actual person behind the movie said so.... so um.... yeah....

[sdp]

It seems Mortal Kombat can't escape the original tournament no matter how hard they try to move away from it. After the original game and the movie the franchise continued to move on and in the early 2000's it continued to move on with the exception of Shaolin Monks which retold the events but it had been many years since the original game so it was ok.

We got the reboot and well it's ok, it's the reboot but now we have time travel in the latest games to return to that era, we just got an animated movie also re-telling the tournament. We all know the story by now.

I mean the actual person behind the movie said so.... so um.... yeah....

Really? Where? I hope you don't mean this clickbait article linked earlier:

‘MORTAL KOMBAT': WHY COLE YOUNG REPLACES JOHNNY CAGE IN THE 2021 MOVIE
https://www.inverse.com/entertainmen...ng-johnny-cage

That article takes quotes not from the director but the producer that have nothing to do with said title, just adding PR to the movie and the one quote that might seem to fit that narrative is given absolutely no context whatsoever. So just some PR being given a spin to get more clicks. There's really no evidence but be outraged by all means. I'm not saying Cole Young doesn't suck or his reasons to include him, I agree horrible idea but it's the usual hollywood "how can we get the audience to relate"

[Leo656]

Ah, yeah, the old "We're saving that stuff for the sequel!" defense.

...99% of the time when they do that sh*t, there IS no sequel and everyone just looks like idiots.

Case in point, the Green Lantern movie teasing Sinestro's heel turn in the credits stinger when he should have been the movie's villain with Parallax saved for the sequel as an escalation of stakes. Sinestro with the yellow ring is what everyone WANTED to see; WB is all like "You'll get him next time!" and then Next Time never happened.

Just Do it Right the first time and if you get sequels then good for you. It's so arrogant to just ASSUME any movie is gonna be a big enough hit to even justify doing more of them, especially nowadays.

I mean, thanks to Covid this movie (like lots of others this year) has no chance of even making its budget back anyways, so any sequel plans are very obviously up in the air. So this is an even more egregious example of counting one's chickens.

"Too many Honkies". F*ck outta here with that bullsh*t. He's a main character in the games, Cage should be a main character in the movies, Period, end of conversation. There's NO just cause for his exclusion and anything anyone says to justify it is spin.

[AquaParade]

I like Cage and I think some of their reasoning has come across weird, but I do think it’s okay to focus on less characters in the first movie. You do have to whittle some characters out, if you want to give depth to them.

Like, if Johnny Cage was my favorite character, I’d be upset, but I’m not necessarily going to fault them for picking and choosing who to focus on for the first film. I’m not even mad about Cole’s inclusion, in theory. We’ll have to see where they go with that.

[Coola Yagami]

I like Cage and I think some of their reasoning has come across weird, but I do think it’s okay to focus on less characters in the first movie. You do have to whittle some characters out, if you want to give depth to them.

Like, if Johnny Cage was my favorite character, I’d be upset, but I’m not necessarily going to fault them for picking and choosing who to focus on for the first film. I’m not even mad about Cole’s inclusion, in theory. We’ll have to see where they go with that.

That's just the thing, with 'so many characters' if they can't fit the main characters into the story then maybe don't add in made up characters. I'm sure all problems are solved if you remove Cole and have Liu Kang be the one to find out about the tournament.

I really wish there was someone onboard to put the kibosh on OC and do it right. It seems they're doing an amazing job this time and this could really be an amazing MK movie but then some numbnuts has to come along and be like 'duuuuuh, how bout we make this from the POV of a made up character?'

Like imagine making a street fighter movie, tournament and all, being as faithful to the games as possible, stellar fight scenes, fireballs, great actors that look and feel the part..... And let's make Gilbert Gottfried Bison, because reasons. We were soooo close and some dumb**** had to mess it up.

[AquaParade]

See, I think it's too early to get upset about Cole, even if it means there is no Johnny Cage. For all we know, they came up with a really fun concept that requires an original character like Cole. It would be one thing if the movie was only focused on Cole, but that doesn't look to be the case at all, as we are seeing a heavy focus on a good handful of fan-favorite characters. We were never going to get everyone's favorite in the first movie, but they've rounded up a pretty fun group of them.

How are you "sure all the problems are solved" by replacing Cole with Liu when you haven't seen the movie?

[TigerClaw]

I think the whole idea for Cole Young, Is a character who is the audience going into this for the first time.

[AquaParade]

Yeah, I'm just not all that upset that it isn't following Liu Kang story. Cole is, frankly, just as interesting to me.

Don't get me wrong, I got love for Liu, and Robin Shoe was cool in the role as well, but what does he really bring to the table that Cole can't? Not a big deal to me.

I'm just glad they are actually giving focus to Sub-Zero and Scorpion this time around. That's who most people are coming to see and they're getting fleshed out backstories from the looks of the trailers.

[Coola Yagami]

Yeah, I'm just not all that upset that it isn't following Liu Kang story. Cole is, frankly, just as interesting to me.

Don't get me wrong, I got love for Liu, and Robin Shoe was cool in the role as well, but what does he really bring to the table that Cole can't? Not a big deal to me.



The fact that Liu Kang's actually in the game? Hey Cole, Alice called. She wants her shitck back.

[AquaParade]

That’s what he brings to the table - “he was in the game”?
That’s not enough to be the protagonist in a good story.

Look, it would be one thing if this were “Cole: Mortal Kombat”, but that isn’t what the trailer implies at all. Looks like we will get a great look at a handful of fan favorite characters through the eyes of Cole. And even outside the eyes of Cole. The trailers seem to feature plenty of scenes without him.

I don’t see the need for Liu to be protagonist just because we recognize his name and red headband. He doesn’t have that deep of a story so it doesn’t feel like it’s breaking the concept of MK at all, by not featuring him as protagonist.

It’s always been about the ensemble and it’s always been about the fights. We’re gonna see Liu kick some ass, we’re going to see the backstory of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, we’re seeing other fen favorite characters. I don’t see the problem, conceptually.

[Coola Yagami]

That’s what he brings to the table - “he was in the game”?
That’s not enough to be the protagonist in a good story.

Look, it would be one thing if this were “Cole: Mortal Kombat”, but that isn’t what the trailer implies at all. Looks like we will get a great look at a handful of fan favorite characters through the eyes of Cole. And even outside the eyes of Cole. The trailers seem to feature plenty of scenes without him.

I don’t see the need for Liu to be protagonist just because we recognize his name and red headband. He doesn’t have that deep of a story so it doesn’t feel like it’s breaking the concept of MK at all, by not featuring him as protagonist.

It’s always been about the ensemble and it’s always been about the fights. We’re gonna see Liu kick some ass, we’re going to see the backstory of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, we’re seeing other fen favorite characters. I don’t see the problem, conceptually.

It's a movie called Mortal Kombat based on the game called Mortal Kombat. If you're gonna make OCs, then make your own movie/concept. The fact that we're seeing the movie through his eyes and the general concept of MK is going to be introduced to us through him is basically making the movie Cole: Mortal Kombat. He's also gonna be a fighter and he'll also take down the big bad. I mean if they're building up the movie through his eyes, storywise, it would make no sense to do all that and focus so much on him only to have Sonya or Sub-Zero save the day, you know it's gonna be him.

Liu Kang is the main character and if we're going to need a character to 'see the MK world through their eyes', it should be him. He's a shaolin monk, follow his life. We don't know much about his life before the MK stuff, well here's a good chance to show it. That's what writers are ****ing paid to do. Make him relatable and likeable. He should also have a 'wtf??' reaction the first time he sees all this stuff.

If anything, Cole should be one of the expendable side characters that dies just so they one of the good guys actually die but it's not a main character from the game that will be used in sequels.

You keep bringing up Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Well imagine if Cole's backstory and family life replacing all the Scorpion/Sub-Zero stuff. They're basically taking Liu's role and exclude Johnny Cage to make their self-insert somehow work, and then dangling Sub-Zero and Scorpion as shiny little keys for you to be too distracted to care.

It's actually annoying some people excuse this crap, similar to the people that excuse Alice in the RE movies. This is why **** like this keeps happening.

It's just annoying whenever this is discussed in some boardroom or whatever and someone says 'we should tell the story through one of the characters so we see are introduced to the world of (insert comic or game here)', who should we use? Some random OC should never ever be the correct answer.

I guess what bothers me the most is this actually looks GOOD when it comes to the Sub-Zero and Scorpion stuff (maybe just make the movie about them through their eyes), it's like so close to being perfect that they should have sent whoever came up with Cole to fetch a mop in the broom closet and just lock in there until the rest of the script was done. If it looked like a shitshow, I wouldn't have cared, but this actually looks GOOD. So why not go full throttle instead of purposely sabotaging this? If they want to squash the old 'all videogame based movies are bad' myth, maybe don't start by making the movie center around someone that isn't in the ****ing game you're adapting.

[AquaParade]

Nah, it really doesn't look like "Cole: Mortal Kombat". You're just blowing it out of proportion.

Why would I "imagine if Cole's backstory and family life replacing all the Scorpion/Sub-Zero stuff."??
So I can feign outrage? I mean, that clearly isn't the case - they look to be giving a ton of focus to these characters.

Dont you get it? Who ever the protagonist is, in the end, is just a vehicle to drive us through the tournament.
Who cares who it is? Again. It's about the ensemble and everyone getting a chance to see one of their favorite characters kick ass. Maybe they had a neat little story concept that required Cole - big deal. You're really upset that he might be the one to "save the day"? That's not the type of thing to make or break a movie for me, sorry.

I do agree that it actually looks good. That's why I'm not flipping my **** over one new character. I generally like to relax and give something a chance before I tear into it just for being a little different to the source material. I cant imagine being a filmmaker in Hollywood today, where people can't handle any type of creative change. I hope you're able to enjoy the movie despite it daring to take a few creative liberties.

[TigerClaw]

The thing you have to remember is that Mortal Kombat isn't just about a tournament. There been 11 Mortal Kombat games, and the story has gone far beyond the tournament stuff.

If you played the story mode in the recent games, There's an overarching story with all its characters, and the story mode features different chapters for each of the characters. The story isnt about one character, But it shines a spotlight in all of them and there stories intertwine with everyone else.

This movie is an ensemble piece, and we'll get there backstory as seen through the eyes of Cole Yong.

[Coola Yagami]

I cant imagine being a filmmaker in Hollywood today, where people can't handle any type of creative change. I hope you're able to enjoy the movie despite it daring to take a few creative liberties.

If you're really creative, you'd create your own story of franchise rather than try to adapt some pre-existing property. As for creative change, centering the movie through Liu Kang's eyes would be different, the last movie didn't do it that way, it is a different take. If you can't come up with a new way to make a MK story based around the first game's tournament without the main characters, the OG 7 from the first game, then don't try. Obviously you're not the right one for the job. I mean we're not talking about Rain or Striker or Skarlet, we're talking about some of the major characters here.

It's like if I was in charge of a SF movie, which took place during the OG SF2, if I HAD to make some random OC for xyz reason, I wouldn't do it at the expense of having to exclude Chun Li or Ken.

I'm sure I'll still enjoy the movie, the Sub-Zero and Scorpion stuff looks great. I'll just roll my eyes at Cole saving the day or any other odd thing they might throw in there. I mean they kinda ****ed up Mileena as well, guess they forgot she's supposed to be Kitana's TWIN sister.



The thing you have to remember is that Mortal Kombat isn't just about a tournament. There been 11 Mortal Kombat games, and the story has gone far beyond the tournament stuff.



Yeah but if you're gonna start at the beginning, you gotta have the tournament. Plus the tournament is what most everyone that has even heard of the name but doesn't play videogames knows about. A tournament where people kill each other and there's blood and stuff.

The storyline does go beyond the tournament.... but I mean.... that's what sequels are for. You can't start a potential movie series by adapting part 5 or 6 of a pre-existing franchise.

[Leo656]

Canon Characters > Made-Up Bullsh*t Characters. 100%. In a franchise where there's already like 90 friggin' characters, the last thing a movie like this needs to do is yank some rando out of their ass. That's stupid.

Also. EL-OH-EL at the whole "OC is the way the audience is introduced to the story" justification. That's nonsense. Less than five people in the entire world are going to watch this movie who aren't intimately familiar with the video game series. Nobody else gives a sh*t about goddamn Mortal Kombat.

It's a movie about a video game, made for people who played the video game. One would assume that people who've played the game already know "the story", thus there's no need for them to be "introduced" to it in a "neat, fun way" through the eyes of some made-up rando. It's just a "solution" in search of a problem that doesn't exist.

Cage isn't my favorite character either, but he 100% deserves to be in the movie over Cole because unlike Cole, Cage is actually in the f*cking games. Motherf*cking Bo' Rai Cho deserves to be in the movie before "Cole", because again, at least Bo' Ra Cho isn't a made-up bullsh*t character.

Plus... kinda hard to ignore the one guy's "Too Many White Dudes = Bad" explanation considering that... y'know... he literally said that was a big reason Cage was removed.

Movie's probably good. I sure hope so. But these are Bad Choices, and not worthy of defense.

[AquaParade]

Reviews starting to come in...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/mortal-kombat-2021-review-not-a-flawless-victory-but-certainly-victorious/amp/

And wouldn't you know it:

"The conflict between Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) takes centre stage"

[Andrew NDB]

I don't really care who they do (or don't) focus on, as long as the characters are true to the games, the story is told well, and there is lots of blood and actual Fatalities. If they can do all of those things then I'll be satisfied.

[Leo656]

Sounds pretty good. That author definitely alludes to something going on with Cage; pretty sure it's either "He's in it for two seconds at the end to tease the sequel", OR it's the oft-rumored "Cole chooses to call himself 'Johnny Cage' as a stage name" gimmick. I'm gonna say it's the former, because this author states specifically that Cole's fighting style and special moves are unique, so I doubt that Cole will turn out to be Cage. It'll be "Cage pops up at the very end and makes everyone wish he was there the whole movie", I'd put money on it.

The only thing that gives me much apprehension is the "Story is kind of ass, doesn't matter" type of comments he sprinkles into his review. Since that's exactly what all of the rave reviews for "Godzilla vs. Kong" are saying, almost word-for-word in some cases, and as we all know that movie is a colossal misfire. "You’ll even forgive the ridiculousness of the story’s plot twists, because the action leaves you satisfied" and "The story might feel secondary at times, but you can’t deny the sheer joy and madness of it all. You get sucked into the fun aspect of it, rather than question every detail" is literally word-for-word how people are talking up that other movie, and those things, in the case of GvK, are Giant F*cking Lies. So that admittedly has me a bit nervous about this one. Whenever people say "The story is secondary, but the movie is Fun", that's code for "Someone 'wrote' this 'script' by eating a bunch of Taco Bell and then dragging their leaking ass across some printer paper, then called it a 'Story' and handed it in." Every single time.

I'm looking forward to it. It'll probably be pretty good. I'm just incredibly gun-shy after Godzilla vs. Kong. I thought there was no way in hell anyone could screw that up, and the trailers looked good, but it was dreadful. I forgot people were still allowed to even make movies that bad. Trailers look good here, too, but... well, we'll see. "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" and all'a that.

F*ck it, I'mma go look for some nice juicy Spoilers to sink my teeth into.

I don't really care who they do (or don't) focus on, as long as the characters are true to the games, the story is told well, and there is lots of blood and actual Fatalities. If they can do all of those things then I'll be satisfied.

The part in bold, though... That's the thing. Like, what are the odds?

Again, the critics are saying the Exact Same Things they said about GvK. The Exact Same Things! That's terrifying!

I kinda have a bad feeling that it will look like MK, feel like MK, be bloody and gory like MK... but that the actual plot might be a pile of sh*t with atrocious dialog, just like GvK.

Last week proved that my tolerance for "Just shut your brain off!" movies is even lower than I'd ever expected. So yeah, I still have trepidations.

[Andrew NDB]

That author definitely alludes to something going on with Cage; pretty sure it's either "He's in it for two seconds at the end to tease the sequel", OR it's the oft-rumored "Cole chooses to call himself 'Johnny Cage' as a stage name" gimmick. I'm gonna say it's the former, because this author states specifically that Cole's fighting style and special moves are unique, so I doubt that Cole will turn out to be Cage. It'll be "Cage pops up at the very end and makes everyone wish he was there the whole movie", I'd put money on it.

Mayyybe. Though I'd hope they'd wait to see if this one is successful, so they can throw a little money at a "name" for Cage.

Again, doesn't need to be a BIG name, but it needs to not be "just some guy." Like, a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds kind of guy. Or a Dane Cook.


The part in bold, though... That's the thing. Like, what are the odds?

Again, the critics are saying the Exact Same Things they said about GvK. The Exact Same Things! That's terrifying!

I kinda have a bad feeling that it will look like MK, feel like MK, be bloody and gory like MK... but that the actual plot might be a pile of sh*t with atrocious dialog, just like GvK.

Mmmm... I'm mostly afraid it will be a series of "look how COOL I am" moments cut together with a lot of CGI, characters we never connect with and lots of "Let's set up the rest of the TRILOGY now!" stuff. But with bloody and real-looking Fatalities.

[Leo656]

I don't think a "name" actor has anything to do with whether or not video game movies do well, and I don't think they're in any way necessary.

I mean they had Whatsisname for the "Assassin's Creed" movie, a no-name for the "Tomb Raider" reboot, and they both had about the same general (lack of) success. Jake Gyllenhaal didn't move the needle for "Prince of Persia", either; that was supposed to be a whole series of movies, he was pretty popular at that time and people actually said the movie itself wasn't half bad, but Nobody Cared anyways. The only video game movie to ever draw seriously Big Money was the Angelina Jolie "Tomb Raider" movies, and that was 100% about the padded bra they had her wear on the posters and nothing else. "Tomb Raider" didn't draw a $435 million box office; Angelina's WonderBra drew a $435 million box office. It's very important to remember that.

It really doesn't seem to matter, otherwise. Video game movies are a niche product aimed at a niche audience, and most people avoid them because they're generally known to be "bad movies". Even if someone they recognize is on the poster, the average moviegoer automatically thinks, "Eh, but it's a video game movie, so it'll be bad even if That Guy is good in it. I'll pass."

That being said, I don't see why they'd even bother getting anyone reasonably well-known for Cage, or ANY of the characters, when it doesn't seem to make any substantial difference. Might as well save a few bucks, y'know?

[Leo656]

Found some Spoilers! I was half-right about some stuff, and one thing I... definitely hadn't expected and am not sure how I feel about it, yet.

Here's the article I found which is full of Spoilers, so click on it at your own risk:
https://goggler.my/mortal-kombat-ending-explained/

So first of all, with regard to Cage... from the article...
Mortal Kombat ends with Cole quitting his cage fighting gig and flying off to Hollywood in search of Johnny Cage!

If this reboot does well enough to warrant a sequel, then Johnny Cage will likely be one of the new Earthrealm fighters. They clearly haven’t cast the character, which is why the movie ends with the camera on a Johnny Cage movie poster where we only see him from the waist down.

Looks like you may still get your wish, Andrew. :) Guess we'll see.

As for why Cole ends up being important... I definitely didn't see THIS being the case...
So it turns out that Hanzo Hasashi didn’t really die at the beginning of this movie but was in fact trapped in the Netherrealm and waiting to exact his revenge on Bi-Han/Sub Zero for killing his family. Before the final showdown, Lord Raiden gives Hanzo’s weapon to Cole, and when he uses it on Sub Zero, the blood on the blade triggers his return from hell. Only now he’s Scorpion.


EDIT: Nevermind, I found a more detailed plot synopsis that was worded better.
Cole isn't literally Scorpion, as the other article made it sort of sound like, he basically just summons Hanzo back from Hell during the final fight with Sub-Zero and Hanzo takes the Scorpion form. I guess Cole can do that since he's his descendant.

And, of COURSE...
Not only does Cole have to help Scorpion defeat Sub-Zero, he ALSO gets to kill Goro, all by himself.
:roll::roll::roll: I know that is gonna annoy the absolute crap outta me. That really is some borderline "Alice in Resident Evil" sh*t.

Altogether does sound pretty good, though, from the plot synopsis I read. Too bad Hollywood just can't resist playing the "Let's introduce an OC and make them Way More Important than the characters who actually have a valid reason for being here" game. That's Money and Ego for ya, though.

[Sumac]

I think the whole idea for Cole Young, Is a character who is the audience going into this for the first time.
They could choose from a roster of main and secondary characters in the series. They are about 100+ of them.

I am not completely averse to their decision, unless it reaches Alice from RE movies level of dumb, but I don't like it either.

[Leo656]

So what if - Purely Hypothetically, mind you - this Cole character gets to kill off a MAJOR villain all by himself, get the lay-up to decide the victory in the final Big Fight Scene that's ostensibly between two major fan favorite characters, and essentially comes off in the end as being The Most Important Guy In The Movie?

Again... purely, 100% Hypothetical Question, honest. Just curious, like... IF any of that happened, how would you feel about it? Y'know... IF.

Nah, it really doesn't look like "Cole: Mortal Kombat". You're just blowing it out of proportion.


Yeah, turns out that it kinda is, though. That's the thing.

Like, other people get lots of focus, sure. But it's "his movie", apparently, as Coola predicted. Aside from a prologue sequence the "proper" movie begins (and ends) with him, most of the plot revolves around him, he has familial ties to a Very Important Character and is basically the entire reason the climax ends the way it does. He's the character with the most conclusive and well-defined arc and he gets the most stuff to do out of anyone. Without saying too much, even the Scorpion vs. Sub-Zero fight scene, the one thing everyone is raving about and looking forward to seeing... revolves around Guess F*cking Who. :roll: And NOT in a Small Way, either.

Having read lots and lots of Spoilers and full plot synopsis, and without giving away too much... yeah, it IS "Cole: Mortal Kombat". And no, they did not NEED to create an OC character for what he brings to this movie. In fact, I'd go so far as to say some of the things he gets to do in this movie come off a lot WORSE since he's a "fake" MK character, and would be a lot easier to swallow if it were just about ANY "real" MK character instead.

Get ready for a ton of "Oh my God... HE gets to kill ________?! That's TERRIBLE!" And it wouldn't be AS terrible, if it were anyone - literally ANY MK character at all - except for This One Made-Up Guy.

...Or Mokap. :trazz:

I'll be blunt and honest, on paper the movie itself still reads pretty good. Some of my fears were assuaged and I'm still looking forward to it a lot. Some things, I take major issues with, but it is what it is. I can safely say that if I went into this movie "cold" without Spoilers and saw some of those things happen, I would be FURIOUS. Now, having a chance to digest them first, I'm sure they won't bother me AS much. BUT, they will definitely bother some people a LOT, and I don't blame them.

But as for the fear/debate about whether or not 1. It's Cole's movie, and 2. Was That Necessary In Any Way...

1. Yes, it is.
2. No, it was not.

I mean, that doesn't in and of itself "ruin" the movie. But it's a bad choice, and it's exactly what some people were afraid they were gonna do. AS bad as Alice in the RE movies? Maybe not. Same basic problem, though; arrogant Hollywood writers who think they know better. That's really all it comes down to whenever they do this sort of thing. It's hubris, nothing more. And it shouldn't be excused nor defended. It's a bad choice, and it actively hurts the movie's plot because the choices grafted onto this character simply won't come off as natural or acceptable as they would if they had been given to a "real" MK character instead. There's just no getting around it.

Doesn't mean the movie will be bad. It simply means, they made a Bad Choice for nebulous and arrogant reasons. Cole absolutely could have been Johnny Cage, or just about any other MK character, and they'd have only needed to tweak like one or two small things and it would be the Exact Same Movie.

So yeah... they should have really just done That instead.

[Andrew NDB]

The thing is... I'm really not sure any movie right now is going to earn enough to justify sequels. Like, even if the studio knows, "Wow, these are pretty good numbers, despite the COVID situation" that doesn't mean financiers are going to be eager to get back in bed for more unless it is drawing the kind of numbers they would have expected pre-COVID.

The budget seems to be 40-50 million. So it'll need to crack 100 million domestically for sure, be it theaters and however they calculate HBO Max numbers.

[Coola Yagami]

I mean, it wasn't much of a prediction. If the trailer starts off with a character's POV and it introduces us to the world through their eyes, they're obviously gonna be the main character. We're obviously gonna follow their story arc and they're obviously gonna save the day. I can't recall offhand any story that starts out with the perspective of someone and then suddenly shift to someone else, and if they are, they are few and far between and bad writing.

The people disagreeing with me thinking Cole wouldn't take over the movie, simultaneously bumping out Cage but also taking Liu Kang's role forgot how writing works.

Having the movie follow how Cole discovers the MK Tournament and having Liu Kang or Sonya save the day is the equivalent of a Batman movie (pre-shared universe where we assume it's a Batman-solo movie) and having the Flash come in to save the day.

Or having Shawshank Redemption suddenly kill Red at the first half hour and we randomly get a new narrator and follow a new friend of Duphrene. Like no. I knew this was gonna be the Cole movie.



I just hope we don't see nonsense in sequels like Cole handing Shao Kahn his ass single-handedly. That would be Alice levels right there.

[AquaParade]

Sorry, I still think its blowing it out of proportion. Especially in regards to trashing the movie for it before seeing how it's handled.
At the end of the day, maybe I'm just less bothered by having a new character in the film. I admit I tend to get a little irked when fans of a property start crying over a few creative liberties. Especially when it's a property like Mortal Kombat - a property I've always loved, but I've never seen the story as all that important. So whatever POV we get is nearly irrelevant. It's a fighting tournament

If this thing still feels and looks like Mortal Kombat, Cole's inclusion is trivial to me, as long as we get some kick ass fights with fan fav characters.

Would it be cool to follow Liu's story instead? I guess. Doesn't feel necessary at all.

[Andrew NDB]

I guess it's somewhat smart. If they picked any one character, it would make that character more "Special" than the others, which doesn't necessarily seem right in a game series where every player has their favorite or favorites.

Plus... guess who will probably be a new DLC character in the current MK game or the next one? Cole.

[Coola Yagami]

I guess it's somewhat smart. If they picked any one character, it would make that character more "Special" than the others, which doesn't necessarily seem right in a game series where every player has their favorite or favorites.



Not really, like it or not, fighting games do have a story, especially the major ones. Characters like Liu Kang, Sonya and Johnny ARE 'more special' than say... Striker and Nightwolf.

In Street Fighter, Ryu, Ken, Chun Li and Bison are 'more special' than Rainbow Mika and Rufus.

In Tekken, basically anyone related to the Mishima bloodline is 'more special' than anyone who isn't.

Come on now. It's not rocket science. I mean we're on a ****ing Ninja Turtles forum for Pete and Laird's sake. Obviously in a TMNT movie, the Turtles, April and Splinter are 'more special' than if Mondo Gecko or Garbage Man are in it.


One of these clowns probably wanted to see themselves into Mortal Kombat and did that via Cole or whatever.

[Andrew NDB]

Not really, like it or not, fighting games do have a story, especially the major ones. Characters like Liu Kang, Sonya and Johnny ARE 'more special' than say... Striker and Nightwolf.

In Street Fighter, Ryu, Ken, Chun Li and Bison are 'more special' than Rainbow Mika and Rufus.

In Tekken, basically anyone related to the Mishima bloodline is 'more special' than anyone who isn't.

To geeks who get wrapped up in the stories and animes of Street Fighter and Tekken and all of that. To everybody else who plays it makes no difference when you're playing 3 buddies or in the old days, beating foos in the arcade.

Come on now. It's not rocket science. I mean we're on a ****ing Ninja Turtles forum for Pete and Laird's sake.

If one were to ignore Crisler's Law (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Crisler%27s%20Law), maybe.

[Leo656]

Sorry, I still think its blowing it out of proportion. Especially in regards to trashing the movie for it before seeing how it's handled.


Whatever you say, Mr. "I Refuse To Look At Spoilers". :trazz:

I'm glad I did. Very glad. At least I won't be shouting "Ahh, WHAT the F*CK?!" at my TV when Certain Things happen that absolutely shouldn't happen and yet are happening anyway. They'll still annoy me, but not AS much, since I'll have made peace with it by then.

Again, I'm not saying the movie's gonna be bad automatically. I actually think it sounds good overall, aside from "Cole could 100% be a 'real' MK guy and the movie wouldn't change in any substantial way so they should have just done That instead rather than give people things to complain about." Outside of that, it actually reads better than I expected it to.

However, YOU said, repeatedly, "I don't think it's Cole's movie and I think people are overreacting," and I'm saying, "I know everything that happens in the movie and yeah, it IS His Movie, in all the important ways." So now you're saying "Well, even if it is, it doesn't bother me," and that's your prerogative to feel that way. I'm just saying, your "prediction" was incorrect, and when all's said and done a LOT of people are going to be upset at how much "shine" this guy gets considering he's a FAKE MK character. And in my opinion, justifiably so. This rando has NO business getting to kill off (Redacted). That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!


I just hope we don't see nonsense in sequels like Cole handing Shao Kahn his ass single-handedly. That would be Alice levels right there.

Hah. Hah hah. Oh, my. :lol: Chewing through my tongue on this one. :trazz: Given who Cole gets to kill off in THIS movie... "single-handedly", no less... let's just say, I wouldn't be shocked one bit. I would have said a few days ago, "Nah, that'd be too far, they won't go there..." Now... yeah, actually I'm gonna go ahead and predict that IF they do a sequel then that's more than likely going to happen. Like maybe he won't literally beat Shao Khan all by himself, but he'll definitely get the last blow in after all the other heroes have had their asses collectively kicked. Again, this movie already establishes him very strongly as That Guy.

They obviously want their made-up guy to be Very Important and it's pretty obvious how they're going to make that work. I actually can't wait to talk about this movie with you after it's over. I do think we're both going to like it in general... but ALL your worst fears about this Cole guy are 100% true from what I've seen, and I can't wait to hear your reactions. :lol:


Plus... guess who will probably be a new DLC character in the current MK game or the next one? Cole.

Oh, 100%. I'm betting that all has a lot to do with this. Some kinda Geoff Johns thing where some writer gets royalties based on this Cole character showing up in other media. So they give him a huge push in the movie to make sure that happens and then retrofit him into the "real" MK universe so the guy who created him gets to keep cashing big checks. Definitely something like that.
-------------

Honestly, having seen all the Spoilers, I do think it's gonna be good in general. But the flip side of that is, it actually sounds good to the point that without Cole, and with a "real" MK guy in his place, it sounds pretty much like it would be "perfect". So they COULD have made it "perfect", but they CHOSE to stop one foot short of being "perfect" just so they could cram an OC in there and make him The Main Character.

I can't help it. That's annoying! If you're that close to being "perfect", WHY purposely give anyone ANYTHING to whine about? Just Be Perfect!

I'm not even mad about the guy's backstory or his arc in the movie. Not entirely. Objectively it's not "bad" material. It's just that it really COULD have been Anyone Else and it still could have been The Exact Same Movie. Maybe Johnny Cage is related to _______ instead; it'd be a retcon made up just for the movie, but still. They absolutely, 100% did not NEED to use an OC for this movie for the movie's plot to be exactly the same.

That was a choice, it was done so some Hollywood writer can "make his mark on the mythos" and automatically force this movie into being Super Important to the franchise forevermore, and it simply wasn't necessary. Ten or twenty years from now, I very strongly predict that people will be saying "That was a really good MK movie... except for whatsisname, the made-up guy. What was THAT about?"

And I just wouldn't have gone there. I simply would have stuck to the lore As It Exists so that there'd be NOTHING to pick nits over at all.

Why these movie people insist on giving people things to get mad about when they don't HAVE to is beyond me.

[Leo656]

One of these clowns probably wanted to see themselves into Mortal Kombat and did that via Cole or whatever.

They wanted to force this movie into being Super Important to the mythos. Ten years from now, even if the movie is forgotten, Cole will still be in the games and this will be his First Appearance. So the guy who created him will still be getting royalties and people will still be talking about the movie even if it was otherwise forgettable.

That's 10000% why it's Cole and not Cage. Literally NO other reason.

Cole's character could literally be Mokap and the movie's plot would be 110% the same. Some Hollywood writer just wanted to put his "stamp" on the brand. No more, no less.

People can choose to not let that bother them. That's their prerogative. It's still a poor choice, for dumb reasons.

[Coola Yagami]

Whatever you say, Mr. "I Refuse To Look At Spoilers". :trazz:

I'm glad I did. Very glad. At least I won't be shouting "Ahh, WHAT the F*CK?!" at my TV when Certain Things happen that absolutely shouldn't happen and yet are happening anyway. They'll still annoy me, but not AS much, since I'll have made peace with it by then.

Again, I'm not saying the movie's gonna be bad automatically. I actually think it sounds good overall, aside from "Cole could 100% be a 'real' MK guy and the movie wouldn't change in any substantial way so they should have just done That instead rather than give people things to complain about." Outside of that, it actually reads better than I expected it to.

However, YOU said, repeatedly, "I don't think it's Cole's movie and I think people are overreacting," and I'm saying, "I know everything that happens in the movie and yeah, it IS His Movie, in all the important ways." So now you're saying "Well, even if it is, it doesn't bother me," and that's your prerogative to feel that way. I'm just saying, your "prediction" was incorrect, and when all's said and done a LOT of people are going to be upset at how much "shine" this guy gets considering he's a FAKE MK character. And in my opinion, justifiably so. This rando has NO business getting to kill off (Redacted). That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!



Hah. Hah hah. Oh, my. :lol: Chewing through my tongue on this one. :trazz: Given who Cole gets to kill off in THIS movie... "single-handedly", no less... let's just say, I wouldn't be shocked one bit. I would have said a few days ago, "Nah, that'd be too far, they won't go there..." Now... yeah, actually I'm gonna go ahead and predict that IF they do a sequel then that's more than likely going to happen. Like maybe he won't literally beat Shao Khan all by himself, but he'll definitely get the last blow in after all the other heroes have had their asses collectively kicked. Again, this movie already establishes him very strongly as That Guy.

They obviously want their made-up guy to be Very Important and it's pretty obvious how they're going to make that work. I actually can't wait to talk about this movie with you after it's over. I do think we're both going to like it in general... but ALL your worst fears about this Cole guy are 100% true from what I've seen, and I can't wait to hear your reactions. :lol:



Oh, 100%. I'm betting that all has a lot to do with this. Some kinda Geoff Johns thing where some writer gets royalties based on this Cole character showing up in other media. So they give him a huge push in the movie to make sure that happens and then retrofit him into the "real" MK universe so the guy who created him gets to keep cashing big checks. Definitely something like that.
-------------

Honestly, having seen all the Spoilers, I do think it's gonna be good in general. But the flip side of that is, it actually sounds good to the point that without Cole, and with a "real" MK guy in his place, it sounds pretty much like it would be "perfect". So they COULD have made it "perfect", but they CHOSE to stop one foot short of being "perfect" just so they could cram an OC in there and make him The Main Character.

I can't help it. That's annoying! If you're that close to being "perfect", WHY purposely give anyone ANYTHING to whine about? Just Be Perfect!

I'm not even mad about the guy's backstory or his arc in the movie. Not entirely. Objectively it's not "bad" material. It's just that it really COULD have been Anyone Else and it still could have been The Exact Same Movie. Maybe Johnny Cage is related to _______ instead; it'd be a retcon made up just for the movie, but still. They absolutely, 100% did not NEED to use an OC for this movie for the movie's plot to be exactly the same.

That was a choice, it was done so some Hollywood writer can "make his mark on the mythos" and automatically force this movie into being Super Important to the franchise forevermore, and it simply wasn't necessary. Ten or twenty years from now, I very strongly predict that people will be saying "That was a really good MK movie... except for whatsisname, the made-up guy. What was THAT about?"

And I just wouldn't have gone there. I simply would have stuck to the lore As It Exists so that there'd be NOTHING to pick nits over at all.

Why these movie people insist on giving people things to get mad about when they don't HAVE to is beyond me.

It's like I said, you and I can cast and plan out the perfect Street Fighter movie.... and decide randomly to have Gilbert Gottfried as Bison... and just let him do Gilbert Gottfried things rather than even try to pretend to be Bison.

It's like, why go through all the trouble to make things almost perfect... then take a few steps back just to I guess... purposely give people something to complain about? Just why?

Like I said, if the movie looked like ****, I would be annoyed but I wouldn't have cared as much cause the movie looked like **** anyways... but Mortal Kombat 2021 looks SO GOOD. Why purposely shoot yourself in the foot?

Like that whole fight sequence in the uncut trailer where Sub sliced Scorp across the leg and then he freezes the blood into a blade and stabs him with it, then creates an ice wall and chucks him into it.... that was ****ing sweet and right out of the sequences the modern MK games have. Like I was so SOLD on that. Why have that look so ****in awesome and sweet.... and then **** all over it with Cole?

[Leo656]

Like that whole fight sequence in the uncut trailer where Sub sliced Scorp across the leg and then he freezes the blood into a blade and stabs him with it, then creates an ice wall and chucks him into it.... that was ****ing sweet and right out of the sequences the modern MK games have. Like I was so SOLD on that. Why have that look so ****in awesome and sweet.... and then **** all over it with Cole?

Ohhh just WAIT and see how important Cole is to THAT whole scene. :lol: I implore you to webcam your reaction as it happens in real-time. I NEED to see that!

It really is His Movie. In that everything important that happens, happens because of Cole. Even stuff he really has No Business Being Involved In because he's a FAKE MK character.

[Coola Yagami]

Ohhh just WAIT and see how important Cole is to THAT whole scene. :lol: I implore you to webcam your reaction as it happens in real-time. I NEED to see that!

It really is His Movie. In that everything important that happens, happens because of Cole. Even stuff he really has No Business Being Involved In because he's a FAKE MK character.

ay dios mio....

[AquaParade]

I just don’t think featuring Cole as a POV makes this “Cole: Mortal Kombat”.
Center the story around him, whatever. For context, I wouldn’t consider the original Mk movie to be “Liu Kang: Mortal Kombat”, just because he gets the most focus. I don’t want to get hung up on semantic though.
As long as a few other characters are done a fair amount of Justice, it’s no biggie. From what I’m hearing, Scorpion is the standout character, even if he doesn’t get the cheesy finishing move in the final battle or whatever it is people are upset about.

Either way, at the end of the day, I can’t imagine getting upset about one character and the story of a Mortal Kombat movie. This isn’t Batman. And let me be clear, that I’m not disparaging Mortal Kombat, but it’s not the hokey story that matters

Oh no, let me guess: Cole is Scorpions son from the future and the whole tournament centers around his existence, or something else dumb. I mean, are you surprised? Mortal Kombat is about “Outworld” taking over earth, but only if they win a fighting tournament. Do I care what stupid lengths they go to in order to justify the tournament? Can’t say I really do, when it comes to this franchise.

[Leo656]

I mean... maybe he's the "standout" in the sense that the Scorpion/Sub-Zero fight is the thing everyone seems to be the most impressed with. And Hanzo (rather than "Scorpion") is sort of what drives the plot.

But as for "Scorpion"... he's honestly not in it very much. Like, at all. He shows up at a pivotal moment and what he does is a Big Deal, but... I think people might be surprised and perhaps even a little let down by how little the Scorpion character actually appears in this movie. Like, if you're waiting for him to show up and do stuff, and if that's what someone goes into the movie specifically looking for... well... You might even forget that he's supposed to be in it, by the time he actually finally shows up. It's very much a "Wonder Woman in BvS" kinda deal. Which doesn't mean he won't "steal the show" in a similar way to how Diana did. I'm just saying, Scorpion Fans should temper their expectations because he doesn't honestly get a ton of stuff to do, but what he DOES get to do is Big Stuff, so that's good.

Lots and LOTS of Kano, though, so... I mean, if you like Kano, then good for you, he's all over this bitch. :lol:

Ensemble casts are tough. But it does sound like most of the characters are handled rather well, which was always going to be the hardest thing to manage. A couple of the villains sound like they're only there to get killed off and don't get jack sh*t to do otherwise, but that's pretty much unavoidable in this kind of movie.


Either way, at the end of the day, I can’t imagine getting upset about one character and the story of a Mortal Kombat movie. This isn’t Batman. And let me be clear, that I’m not disparaging Mortal Kombat, but it’s not the hokey story that matters

Oh no, let me guess: Cole is Scorpions son from the future and the whole tournament centers around his existence, or something else dumb. I mean, are you surprised? Mortal Kombat is about “Outworld” taking over earth, but only if they win a fighting tournament. Do I care what stupid lengths they go to in order to justify the tournament? Can’t say I really do, when it comes to this franchise.

- First off, this is very strange sentiment coming from you in particular. I mean, by this logic you should have LOVED "Godzilla vs. Kong". You're coming dangerously close to sounding like one of those "As long as the monkey punches the dinosaur I don't care about anything else" kinds of people that You and I both apparently despise. I'm not thrilled by this sort of "Dumb Things Can be Dumb Because Franchise Is Dumb Anyway" sort of mentality. You're usually not like that. What gives?

Like, you say you're not "disparaging" MK, but in the same breath you do kinda say "It's all stupid, anyway", which... well, it's confusing.

- I'm not honestly even sure, by this point, if you're a "fan" or not of MK. But the whole Cole thing is about respecting the audience and not insisting, as a writer, that "subverting expectations" is ever a Good Thing. Because frankly, it's usually not. I know you're generally all "Change For Change's Sake Is Awesome", but a lot of people simply don't agree.

People who are fans of the franchise would simply prefer that a "real" MK character be the movie's central protagonist, and not some made-up rando. It's simply disrespectful of the writer(s) to go against that for dumb reasons. And again, when you see the movie and how "Cole" is utilized, you're gonna have an even harder time trying to explain why it "couldn't" have just been a Real MK character in his place. It absolutely, 100% could have been Anyone Else and it wouldn't have changed anything... EXCEPT, fans now would have nothing to whine about.

WHY piss people off on purpose when you don't have to? To "troll" the audience? "Subvert expectations"? That's stupid. And it's not a choice worth defending. Willfully annoying your fanbase is Bad Business, plain and simple. Do It Right or stay home.

It's just Different for Different's Sake. And it disrespects the audience, and it's dumb. You're allowed to not care, but it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the larger number of people who DO.

- ...You're actually not all that far off on Cole. :lol: It's not exactly that, but pretty close!

[AquaParade]

Every review I read has a variation of this line...

"Fittingly, while there isn’t all that much narrative meat to it, it’s Scorpion and Sub-Zero’s tale that forms the spine of this film, from start to finish"

Not too worried about the character focus.

[sdp]

Scorpion wasn't even that important in the beginning of the franchise, Liu Kang was always meant to be the hero and that's why a boring hero like Ryu who canonically beat the boss in MK1,2&3. Scorpion didn't even make the roster for MK3, he wasn't considered essential. After that they decided to go with Sub-Zero as their "anti-hero" and face of the franchise in a way but it wasn't until the 2000's when Liu Kang was made irrelevant and Sub/Scorpion the face of the franchise and Scorpion over Sub only starting with the reboot.


The budget seems to be 40-50 million. So it'll need to crack 100 million domestically for sure, be it theaters and however they calculate HBO Max numbers.
At&t doesn't care about any of that, they care about sub numbers, even if Warner Media doesn't want to make a sequel if at&t does they will.

[Sumac]

Scorpion wasn't even that important in the beginning of the franchise, Liu Kang was always meant to be the hero and that's why a boring hero like Ryu who canonically beat the boss in MK1,2&3. Scorpion didn't even make the roster for MK3, he wasn't considered essential. After that they decided to go with Sub-Zero as their "anti-hero" and face of the franchise in a way but it wasn't until the 2000's when Liu Kang was made irrelevant and Sub/Scorpion the face of the franchise and Scorpion over Sub only starting with the reboot.
Scorpion was getting into prominence after classic games, starting with MK4, by Deadly Alliance he has become "face of the series". One of the first promo materials regrading MK5 was Scorpion render with number 5 and render where he fights Jax.

Sub-Zero was considered relevant enough to get his own game (MK Mythologies), which served as a prequel to MK4.

Even though Liu Kang was the protagonist of the series, but, I guess, even developers didn't consider him popular enough, since he was not focus of promo materials, even back in the MK3 days.

[sdp]

Scorpion was getting into prominence after classic games, starting with MK4, by Deadly Alliance he has become "face of the series". One of the first promo materials regrading MK5 was Scorpion render with number 5 and render where he fights Jax.

Sub-Zero was considered relevant enough to get his own game (MK Mythologies), which served as a prequel to MK4.

Even though Liu Kang was the protagonist of the series, but, I guess, even developers didn't consider him popular enough, since he was not focus of promo materials, even back in the MK3 days.

Liu Kang was definitely pushed as the hero of the franchise, you can see this in all the Mortal Kombat shows / movies in the 90s (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-animated/), he was also the canon winner of MK 4 IIRC. Sub Zero began the anti-hero route since MK3 when he "unmasked" and they gave him more of a backstory and scorpion was not even featured there. Heck the only reason Scorpion got a lot more attention was to have Sub-Zero have a better enemy.

MK 5 is definitely when they tried to go a different direction, they kill Liu Kang, and give more focus to Sub / Scorp but it really wasn't until MK9 reboot that they pretty much stopped caring about Sub-Zero and made it all about Scorpion, even the studio's logo is just Scorpion now. Hell we just got a re-telling of the MK 1 tournament through Scorpion's perspective like 2 years ago
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91HRKa3I1oL._SY445_.jpg

I like Scorpion but they've focused too much on him the last 11 years, they even made him an anti-hero you're supposed to cheer for instead of a tragic villain you're supposed to feel bad for but understand he's evil.

[AquaParade]

The popularity between the two of them has always been pretty split down the middle though.

I liked the color blue, and thus a lifelong fan of Sub-Zero was born when the original games came out.
Scorpion is cool too though. Ninja with a flaming skull - what more could a 90's kid want?

[Leo656]

Every review I read has a variation of this line...

"Fittingly, while there isn’t all that much narrative meat to it, it’s Scorpion and Sub-Zero’s tale that forms the spine of this film, from start to finish"

Not too worried about the character focus.

That is *technically* true. BUT. STRONG Emphasis on the "technically" part.

The rivalry between Hanzo and Sub-Zero does set the film in motion, and Sub-Zero is in it a lot. BUT, "Scorpion" is not in it very much, and his involvement is facilitated - and aided - by Cole.

Their plotline more or less starts the film and does run through the movie more than any of the other characters' plotlines... but there is not as much "Scorpion vs. Sub-Zero action" as people might think. It's basically just the Beginning and the End.

[Andrew NDB]

The popularity between the two of them has always been pretty split down the middle though.

I liked the color blue, and thus a lifelong fan of Sub-Zero was born when the original games came out.
Scorpion is cool too though. Ninja with a flaming skull - what more could a 90's kid want?

Yeah, I'd never seen an overwhelming favoritism of either Sub-Zero or Scorpion, one over the other. Seemed pretty equally used in all the arcades I always used to go and play MK 1-3 at. I want to say I think I saw more of the "old pros" using Scorpion, but I'm not too sure.

[Leo656]

Sub-Zero was always my guy. Because I'm not very good at fighting games and so he's the easiest one to play as because he's cheap as hell. :lol:

I've come to like everyone well enough over time, though. But he's always my sentimental favorite.

[Sumac]

Liu Kang was definitely pushed as the hero of the franchise, you can see this in all the Mortal Kombat shows / movies in the 90s (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-animated/), he was also the canon winner of MK 4 IIRC. Sub Zero began the anti-hero route since MK3 when he "unmasked" and they gave him more of a backstory and scorpion was not even featured there.
Liu Kang is like Guile from Street Fighter - technically it is his story (for some of the games), but he is not the most popular characters even if pushed into light. Aside from story, developers almost never pushed Liu in marketing materials.

Who was canon winner of MK4 is kind of irrelevant, since Liu was canonical winner of all previous three MK games. It doesn't really make him more prominent or popular in eyes of regular people. Not to mention this fact was established in Deadly Alliance, the same game where he was killed.

Sub-Zero Sr. was an anti-hero in MK1 and MKM. Sub-Zero Jr was moving to the goodie side, since MK2. His unmasking in MK3 was to establish personality of his own, so people could finally figure out that he is a separate character from his evil brother.

Heck the only reason Scorpion got a lot more attention was to have Sub-Zero have a better enemy.
I don't see it - Scorpion's story had nothing to do with Sub in MK3 (up until its end) and in MK4 their rivalry effectively ended. Even in MK2 Scorpion takes a vow to protect / not to harm new Sub-Zero as compensation for killing his brother.
So, ironically, their fabled rivalry pretty much never existed outside of MK1 and MK4, which was a mess.

MK 5 is definitely when they tried to go a different direction, they kill Liu Kang, and give more focus to Sub / Scorp but it really wasn't until MK9 reboot that they pretty much stopped caring about Sub-Zero and made it all about Scorpion, even the studio's logo is just Scorpion now.
NRS didn't care about Sub, so much that both, he and Scorpion were featured on the game cover and on the title screen of MK9.
:roll:

NRS generally favors Scorp, for him being the most recognizable character in MK, but saying that they don't care about Sub is not true.

[TigerClaw]

Here's a little taste of the Scorpion vs Sub-Zero fight from the new Mortal Kombat Movie.

QgRgNFDHvVk

[Slade]

Didn't feel like waiting, so I cheated and watched it today. All I will say is, Leo's basically batting a thousand. It wasn't horrible, but I wasn't blown away by it. Movie feels a bit lazy. Id give it a 7/7.5 out of 10. That might even be too generous. As far as Cole's big kill? Stupid choice. Idk, feels like there's a lot of stupid choices made here. It really could have been better.
There is set up for a sequel for whatever that's worth.

I missed a good bit of dialogue from no English subtitles and since it was cam, a chunk of scenes I couldn't see since it was too dark. So, I will def watch it again on HBO.

[TigerClaw]

It currently has a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yesterday I saw it at 60%.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mortal_kombat_2021

[Leo656]

Didn't feel like waiting, so I cheated and watched it today. All I will say is, Leo's basically batting a thousand.

I'm generally Right about 99.999% of the time, in spite of other peoples' bad opinions. :tgrin:

[Coola Yagami]

I'm generally Right about 99.999% of the time, in spite of other peoples' bad opinions. :tgrin:

*ahem*


ten characters

[Leo656]

What, you need a lozenge or somethin' buddy? :trazz:

Also, just for the record I DO expect to enjoy this movie, I just have some pretty big issues with it. But I think it should still be decent. I hope.

[Coola Yagami]

What, you need a lozenge or somethin' buddy? :trazz:

Also, just for the record I DO expect to enjoy this movie, I just have some pretty big issues with it. But I think it should still be decent. I hope.

No I mean, you weren't the ONLY one right about this movie, buddy.

[Leo656]

I never said I was! :lol: And I was only "right" in the first place because I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Spoilers. :tgrin: So it's not like I'm clairvoyant.

Oh, wait... I totally "predicted" that the ring wouldn't explode at that AEW PPV. Nevermind, I'm totally psychic! :lol:

[AquaParade]

Yeah, I think pretty much everyone called where this film would succeed and where it would fail. But it’s good to have fans.

[AquaParade]

For 7 minutes, we can all be Cybercubed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKfzjGJu5do

aka: the first 7 minutes are free to watch online.

[Allio]

Movie was ... kind of meh. Cole young is an original character right? He really just felt like someone shoehorned to have the “every man.” Action scenes were fine when cgi was involved.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I've seen a bunch of reviews and so far, as expected, EVERYBODY hates F*cking Cole. He's literally just there to take up space while the REAL (and more interesting) MK characters get pushed off to the side. As predicted. :roll:

Here's a particularly scathing review - 3 out of 10! YEESH! - that pretty much says exactly what others are saying in near-unanimous fashion, even people who liked the movie a lot more than this guy did:
https://411mania.com/movies/mortal-kombat-review/

So, there’s no tournament... It makes this movie’s premise more like a pilot for an ongoing television series than a gathering of the universe’s greatest martial artists in an epic battle for inter-dimensional supremacy.

This is commonplace in attempted blockbusters. They tend to dangle the carrot and tease the audience with the idea of what’s really desired and save it all for the next movie. The cool things are saved for the next installment that might never materialize. This movie wants to be a franchise starter, but the problem that the film spends so much time setting up future installments by neglecting the present cinematic experience at hand. So, there’s lots of obnoxious sequel-baiting in Mortal Kombat. Want to see this character? Want a tournament film? Maybe next time.


The largest problem with Mortal Kombat is the center of the movie, and there’s literally no getting around it: the protagonist Cole Young... All Cole Young does is take away valuable screen time and development from the characters the plot should feature.

Cole Young encapsulates a bigger problem for would-be Hollywood blockbusters, whether it’s video game adaptations, comic book superhero films or genre features. It has long been an execrable convention for films such as Mortal Kombat to force such cookie-cutter audience surrogate characters into their plots. The convention of a fabricated audience surrogate not only shows a complete and utter contempt for the very audience the story attempts to cater to, and more often than not serves to undercut the story.

Cole Young is the epitome of bad audience surrogate characters who are forced and contrived into a story where they don’t belong. What’s worse is that Cole Young is forced into a story based on a mythology that is littered with infinitely more interesting and compelling characters that would have served as superior protagonists. Yes, let a character serve as the window into a larger, weaving narrative that’s filled with oddball characters and concepts, but an existing character in an established mythology can just as easily serve as the window into that narrative.

(...)
Liu Kang and Kung Lao, two of the greatest heroes in the Mortal Kombat Universe, are present in the plot, but they’ve been marginalized at the price of serving the contrived journey of discovery for Cole Young... Liu Kang actually manages to be intriguing enough to describe an infinitely better premise for a new Mortal Kombat movie than the origin story of Cole Young. Ludi Lin and Max Huang are not great in the roles of Liu Kang and Kung Lao, but they do show enough that the movie probably should have been about them rather than Cole Young.


I swear to you, I did not write this review. :lol: But the fact is, even though most people who've seen the movie so far seem to like it a lot more than this guy does... they're all pretty much saying the EXACT same things he is, particularly about Cole. That's worth hearing out.

Here's a MUCH more enthusiastic and positive review... which nonetheless seems to echo almost all of the same sentiments, just not getting quite so hung up on them. Dude likes the movie, but admits to all the exact same flaws as the other guy.
GGtTL9-yks0

SO. Sounds like a real mixed bag, where individual mileage may vary greatly based on individual Wants and Expectations.

Pros:
- Scorpion, Kano, and Sub-Zero all steal the show.
- Lots of gore and Fatalities.
- Tone and presentation feels like MK.
- Some good to GREAT fight scenes.
- Some deep cuts and fanservice moments.
- Sets up a much better sequel that we hopefully will get to see.
- Even people who hate it say that it's better than "Annihilation" by a hundred miles.

Cons:
- No tournament.
- MK "rules" out the window (Bad Guys trying to kill the Good Guys before the Tournament, which pretty much ignores the established lore entirely and kind of lessens the entire point of there BEING a tournament in the first place).
- Useless "audience avatar" character takes up too much space while "real" MK characters either pushed to the side or absent entirely.
- Liu Kang and Kung Lao, the "real" stars of the mythos, are bit players in service to F*cking Cole.
- Most of Scorpion's involvement was already shown in the trailers.
- Most anyone who isn't Kano, Hanzo/Scorpion, Sub-Zero or F*cking Cole either gets very little to do OR isn't very well-acted, which stands out against the ones who steal the show.
- There's always a chance that the Much Better Sequel won't even happen, leaving this movie to ultimately be little more than a giant f*cking c*cktease. Didn't the MMPR reboot's failure teach studios to stop doing this kinda thing?
---------------

Taking it all in... I am still looking forward to it, and I do think I'm going to like it. But ALL of my fears from the Spoilers have been verified, by the fact that people who like AND hate the movie all agree on the same exact problems with it, and simply differ on to what degree those things ultimately matter.

However, another thing they all seemingly agree on is that if ALL you care about going in is blood, gore, Fatalities and fights, and could honestly not care less about the lore or the fidelity to "authentic" Mortal Kombat... you should come away well-satisfied. But if you, like me, care just as much about the mythos of MK as the mayhem - "Lore before Gore", as Jahns puts it in his review - then you very well might have some BIG problems with this movie's execution and choices, even if you like The Other Stuff a lot.

I don't plan to watch it while I'm sick, so I might have to wait until Saturday or Sunday or whenever I kick this infection. But I definitely am looking forward to seeing it as soon as possible.

Even if some parts annoy me... it CAN'T be as bad as "Godzilla vs. Kong". I hope. :lol:

[Coola Yagami]

....... There's....no.... Tournament???


THERE'S NO TOURNAMENT???


YOU ****ING IDIOTS!!!!! YOU HAD ONE JOB!!!! ONE. JOB!!!!!!

Oh **** this movie all to hell. I'll still watch it but **** it all to hell. Assuming there's a sequel there better be a tournament or I won't even bother watching the third one.

[sdp]

only the first game was a tournament, well i guess 2 in a half assed way as well. Not being a tournament can work since the games have ignored that aspect. I do think Cole if not handled correctly would be a bigger issue.


Y
- There's always a chance that the Much Better Sequel won't even happen, leaving this movie to ultimately be little more than a giant f*cking c*cktease. Didn't the MMPR reboot's failure teach studios to stop doing this kinda thing?


Power Rangers 2017 is great (https://miscrave.com/articles/power-rangers-2017/), now it did take a very different direction and I don't love all their choices but it was a fine movie. The tease with the green ranger? That was cool and a great way to do it, I definitely wouldn't have wanted him in the first movie without a set up of the original team first.

[Coola Yagami]

only the first game was a tournament, well i guess 2 in a half assed way as well.

Exactly, and where's the best way to start? At the beginning. Make the ****ing tournament, build up on the aftermath in sequels. DO THE ****ING STORY RIGHT.

[Leo656]

I wasn't even aware that was a "secret" by this point. :lol: I'd read that in some puff piece about the movie way before I ever read any Spoilers. I thought everybody knew. The director's even been talking about it, like "Yeah, this is Part 1 of 3... we hope."

But yeah, this is the "set-up" movie, a Prequel. Not "really" Mortal Kombat; because "Mortal Kombat" is what the TOURNAMENT is called - the tournament that this movie doesn't have. So right off the bat, it should have been called "Mortal Kombat Begins", or something. The entire point of this one is, "Shang Tsung figures that if he just kills everyone before they even HAVE the Tournament, Outworld wins by forfeit and gets to take over Earthrealm." So his guys just go off and try to kill everyone first. Everybody is fighting just to survive long enough to even GET to the Tournament, which is what the next movie will be about (if it happens).

Which... kinda isn't how it works. :lol: Aren't those kinda shenanigans explicitly forbidden by the Elder Gods? Wasn't that actually a PLOT POINT in the 1995 movie? ((Checks)) YEP! Raiden: "Your sideshow freaks attacked my fighters. That is expressly forbidden before the Tournament!" The very plot of this movie disregards one of the most fundamental pieces of the MK lore. OY! That's pretty cringe. I'll be blunt, I don't have a huge problem with a Prequel movie - although by default it means that title needs fixin'; you CAN'T call it "Mortal Kombat" if the Mortal Kombat Tournament never takes place! But when you get something so basic wrong right out of the gate, it kinda makes it look like you did all of your "research" on the franchise just by watching a YouTube clip of Fatalities.

And honestly... I kinda get the feeling that that's exactly what they did for this. Just like the creators of "Godzilla vs. Kong" listened very strongly to the people who said, "I just wanna see the monkey punch the dinosaur, and that's ALL I care about," I get the sense that the people who made this movie made it ONLY for the people who jizz their pants over the gore and the Fatalities, but don't care about anything else. The "So long as someone gets their spine ripped out I'm going home happy and soaked!" crowd. And I get that; it's just kinda disappointing.

Because as hard as it might be for some people to believe, a ton of MK fans DO care about the lore and want to see it represented well. Moreso even than gameplay, I feel that MK's lore and mythology is what makes some people prefer it over Street Fighter. I know that's always been the case with me; I play both, but I'm fairly crap at either so I don't have any strong character or gameplay preference. But what that guy said in the video I posted above echoes my own sentiments about MK word-for-word; it was the blood and guts that got my attention with the first game, absolutely, but what KEPT me coming back, to the point where I've played almost every game in the series despite not even being in any respect a "fighting game guy", was its awesome characters and epic, well-told (if sometimes messy) mythology. The characters, the relationships, the events, the rivalries... at some point along the way, I gradually realized that I wasn't even playing the games specifically to see the blood n' guts stuff anymore, I sincerely wanted to see where the story went next. The rest was just an awesome bonus.

And I do know that some people, maybe even a lot of people, just plain don't care at all. "So long as the characters look recognizable and Sub-Zero freeze-uppercuts someone, or someone gets cut in half, that's all they need to get right, everything else is negotiable." I get that; I just don't really agree with it. And I think it's unfairly dismissive of everything that's been established, the stuff that the "hardcores" - the people who are gonna want to watch this movie more than once - DO want to see. Yeah, get the Fatalities right, but get The Other Stuff right, too. Balance it. It's not actually all that hard. So many of this movie's "mistakes" are rather easily fixable, and that's what makes them frustrating.

I'm mostly just venting. It's not honestly all that "Make or Break" for me. I just wish that if they put the work in to get the costumes and the Fatalities so close to perfect, they could at least pay lip service to the "rules" of the universe they're adapting, and get the lore more properly respected as well as the violence. Because it would be very easy to do and it would give the "purists" a lot less to be annoyed about. That's all. Some people DO care. More than some may think.

A prequel is fine (fix that TITLE, though, dammit!). "A few changes" to the story is fine, if they're not really BIG changes. Making sure the costumes and Fatalities are near-perfect but saying "Eh, we can just wing the rest of it because nobody cares anyway"... that's not really "fine", that's reductive.

I do hope it does well, because at the end of the day it seems like the REAL MK movie we want STILL hasn't been made yet. And unless this one gets a great response, it won't be. That was kind of a bonehead movie on their end. The Good Guys spend most of this movie training to fight in a Tournament we never actually get to see them fight in. That's... yeah. :lol:

I expect the action to be great. Story... could've had another pass.

[AquaParade]

Not a great movie, but not a bad time.

As predicted, Cole didn't make or break the movie by any means. People who blame him for the film's quality most likely don't know anything about filmmaking. Yeah, he's not great, but you'd be a fool to think the film would be any better if they just left Cole out.
Like, I can understand raising an eyebrow at Cole's inclusion, but the film has such bigger things to worry about that it's trivial to get hung up on a little inclusion like Cole.

What they really need to focus on is improving the writing and atmosphere. The first film was goofy but did a fine job at balancing the seriousness of the situation while also letting us in on the joke. The exposition is clunkier here and there is little sense of dread.

The best thing about the movie is the love that pours through. The film is mediocre but not for lack of trying. They try to pay respect to all characters involved and give them their moment to shine.
Last but not least, the action was...pretty good. They need to keep shooting upwards towards the quality of "The Raid", but compared to a lot of action we see today, it wasn't half bad.

So, pretty rough overall, but still a fun time for me, as a fan of the franchise, and not completely devoid of hope in terms of a sequel. I mean, it was way better than Godzilla vs Kong, for my money.

[sdp]

Actually that explanation feels very Mortal Kombat like and I"m ok with it, starting with Mortal Kombat 2 they've pretty much come up with explanations like that.

[Leo656]

I think for it to be WORSE than "Godzilla vs. Kong", Sub-Zero would have to come out of the movie screen, freeze your penis solid, then yank it off and smash it over your head while yelling "NO SEQUEL!" :lol::lol::lol:

That's about the only way this movie could possibly be worse than "Godzilla vs. Kong".

Actually that explanation feels very Mortal Kombat like and I"m ok with it, starting with Mortal Kombat 2 they've pretty much come up with explanations like that.

Except this isn't "Mortal Kombat 2", it's "Mortal Kombat 0.5". All That Sh*t only started happening in the games AFTER all Hell literally broke loose following the Tournaments in MK1 and MK2. The bad guys lost decisively twice in a row and THEN said "F*ck yo' rules, we wilin' out now, dawg!" Before that, there were Rules. Shang Tsung and Shao Khan and whoever else CAN'T just go off and kill everyone before the Tournament even happens. That's Anarchy and Madness.

For one thing, if that was a thing they could do, one would assume they would have done it at least once during the previous nine Tournaments before THIS one. But they didn't. Because that isn't how it works!

[AquaParade]

Lmao true. I set the bar incredibly low there.

[AquaParade]

Btw, I still think the first Mortal Kombat film is better. It's honestly hard for me to pick that film apart. It's just a quaint, semi-goofy, fun time. The violence could have been turned up, but they still captured a sense of violence, consequence, and dread. Like, Sub Zero smashing one of his underlings into a Snow Cone, during the welcoming ceremony was actually pretty ominous. Always loved that bit.

At the end of the day, the world it sold me on was more believable. I can't really put my finger on how it was done though.

Yknow, I think it had a lot to do with the acting. The acting wasn't bad in the first film, all things considered.

[Leo656]

You are far from the only one I've seen/heard say that, almost in those exact words. A LOT more people than I expected are saying that, even people who think this one is pretty decent.

Turns out "Just ramp up the Blood N' Guts" isn't enough to make a "better" or "more faithful" MK movie, in and of itself. That movie got everything right except the gore; this one apparently gets the gore right, but gets a lot else wrong.

The "perfect" MK movie, therefore, is somewhere in between That One and This One.

It's kind of amazing; 30-ish years ago, "Street Fighter" came out and split the audience, with some folks saying it was "big dumb fun for what it is" and others saying that it was just plain terrible A-to-Z (except for Raul Julia, of course, who was the shining gem in that sh*tpile). Then 10-ish years ago, "Legend of Chun-Li" came out, and literally everyone said "Well it HAS to be better than the original just by showing up, right? I mean they don't even MAKE movies that bad anymore, I think it's a federal law now." And then not only was that movie NOT better than the original SF movie, it ended up being one of the all-time worst movies ever made. Given the advancements in technology and just plain common sense, that shouldn't have been possible, not even theoretically.

And now, here we are again, kind of, with Mortal Kombat. The original split the audience, with most people agreeing it was better than it had any right to be but a few people getting hung up on the gore, or lack thereof. Sequel was almost as bad as "Legend of Chun-Li" (which is like saying "Ball cancer is almost as bad as Ass cancer", but I digress). So now in 2021, we have all this technology, the MK lore is more established, they delivered on all the gory bloody sh*t the original movie "wimped out" on... everyone assumed this movie just HAD to be better than the first, and by a lot, just by showing up.

And... turns out, kinda not really?

Like, HOW does this kinda sh*t happen? Seriously.

[Coola Yagami]

Worst of all, whoever dies in this ****** prequel won't make it to the 'actual' tournament. Like you gone ahead and shot yourself in the foot man. WTF.

And also, Mr. Leo, when the trailers talk about legends about a tournament, symbols that indicate you're chosen to take part, introduce Earth's warriors for the tournament... I'M EXPECTING A MUTHA-****IN TOURNAMENT. Like that quick scene where Goro jumps in during the trailers, I'm expecting that to be taking place at the tournament.

This movie is gonna be the death of me. I absolute hate this kind of ****. Yo, let's make a movie about Soul Calibur. Who cares about the story or Soul Edge or whatever. Just throw in some cool fight scenes, make sure Cervantes looks cool. Throw in a random OC. The ignorant masses will eat it up no matter what.

Gawd dayum if I was ten years younger I'd be flipping tables over this ****. Flippin em while yelling out GET OVER HERE!!!!

[Leo656]

Not exactly. They more or less hint that some/most/all of the "dead" characters will be brought back to life in the next one.

And at least ONE of them damn well better be, because you CAN'T have the MK Tournament without... well, you'll see.

But yeah, if MK in general has taught us anything it's that "death" is flexible.

But yeah, I do think that making this movie a full-on prequel and popping certain nuts this soon was highly questionable. But at least some of that can still be walked back.

I also think that if Cole is Cage instead, nothing else about the movie changes. EXCEPT, at first you were annoying people for no substantial reason other than the fact that you can, and now you're NOT doing that. Which is really what everyone bitching about Cole is trying to say; "You can have an 'audience avatar' character to 'lead us through' the story and all that, but at least use a Real Stooge and not a Fake Shemp."

- Remember, Coola, we have a deal; when you watch it, you gotta videotape it. :lol: No f*cking way am I gonna miss your reaction to THIS f*cking thing. :trazz:

[Coola Yagami]

Not exactly. They more or less hint that some/most/all of the "dead" characters will be brought back to life in the next one.

And at least ONE of them damn well better be, because you CAN'T have the MK Tournament without... well, you'll see.

But yeah, if MK in general has taught us anything it's that "death" is flexible.

But yeah, I do think that making this movie a full-on prequel and popping certain nuts this soon was highly questionable. But at least some of that can still be walked back.

I also think that if Cole is Cage instead, nothing else about the movie changes. EXCEPT, at first you were annoying people for no substantial reason other than the fact that you can, and now you're NOT doing that. Which is really what everyone bitching about Cole is trying to say; "You can have an 'audience avatar' character to 'lead us through' the story and all that, but at least use a Real Stooge and not a Fake Shemp."

- Remember, Coola, we have a deal; when you watch it, you gotta videotape it. :lol: No f*cking way am I gonna miss your reaction to THIS f*cking thing. :trazz:

lmao like how am I supposed to know when this scene is coming up? Like near the end or something?

[Leo656]

lmao like how am I supposed to know when this scene is coming up? Like near the end or something?

I want a full minute-by-minute reaction video, sir. Nay, I demand it. The Elder Gods demand it!

I wanna see every nostril flare and forehead-vein throb. I wanna see blood vessels in your eyes start to pop. And I especially wanna see the part where you get up and throw your coffee table through the nearest wall when Cole kills Whatsisnuts. I want ALL of it.

Don't act like you ain't got the time or the means, when our last three podcasts altogther ran as long as f*cking Woodstock. :lol: THIS IS YOUR MISSION, SIR!!!

[Coola Yagami]

I want a full minute-by-minute reaction video, sir. Nay, I demand it. The Elder Gods demand it!

I wanna see every nostril flare and forehead-vein throb. I wanna see blood vessels in your eyes start to pop. And I especially wanna see the part where you get up and throw your coffee table through the nearest wall when Cole kills Whatsisnuts. I want ALL of it.

Don't act like you ain't got the time or the means, when our last three podcasts altogther ran as long as f*cking Woodstock. :lol: THIS IS YOUR MISSION, SIR!!!

ROFL.... I'll see, considering I might either see it in theaters or at a friends' house. Based on what you're saying, I might start filming whenever Sub-Zero and Scorpion finally face off.

[Leo656]

ROFL.... I'll see, considering I might either see it in theaters or at a friends' house. Based on what you're saying, I might start filming whenever Sub-Zero and Scorpion finally face off.

I think you'll have had a stroke at some point before that even happens. :lol:

[Sumac]

Aren't those kinda shenanigans explicitly forbidden by the Elder Gods? Wasn't that actually a PLOT POINT in the 1995 movie? ((Checks)) YEP! Raiden: "Your sideshow freaks attacked my fighters. That is expressly forbidden before the Tournament!" The very plot of this movie disregards one of the most fundamental pieces of the MK lore.
Technically, yes, but this rule was violated even back in MK2 canon backstory, where Shao Kahn sent his best warrior to kill Earth warriors one buy one. So it is not a new thing.

MK Conquest was basically about Kahn trying to off his enemies, before tournament (and succeeding).

[sdp]

Not to mention that the first movie's animated prequel Mortal Kombat the journey begins (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-animated/) also features fights before the movie that sets that plot pint. Man conquest was such a great show, I loved it as a kid.

So, if this gets a sequel then we'd get the tournament of MK1 with some other characters that weren't in the original MK1 like quan chi, and a third movie would adapt a hybrid of MK 2/3. That can be a solid trilogy. I wish if it wasn't going to be a 100% adaptation why not include other MK cast of characters in it, to see what they were doing back then.

The only problem with fatalities is some characters will die before they get to do cool stuff they do in the sequels and the games don't care about characters dying, they all return anyway but I'm guessing the movie wouldn't do that.

[CyberCubed]

Watched it, parts of it were pretty good (a lot of the fights, the humor with Kano), but this was basically a prequel. It's not Mortal Kombat 1, but Mortal Kombat 0. Which is fine...if they make a sequel.

I liked the new Liu Kang, Sonya, Jax and Scorpion/Sub-zero. Kung Lao was also great. Unfortunately both the new Raiden and Shang Tsung were boring and had no charisma or chemistry. A lot of the villains fell flat too. Cole Young wasn't as bad as I thought he would be, but he is basically just a OC.

The tournament and Johnny Cage won't be introduced till the next movie, but this one set the groundwork. The heroes are established as are the villains. We see Scorpion kill Bi-han, so his brother the main Sub-zero should be introduced in the next one, and Kitana most likely.

Now if only this movie did well enough to ensure a sequel, otherwise its a bit of a waste.

[Andrew NDB]

Saw it... and enjoyed it. I was worried it would be cheap and lame and maybe more interested in sequels and trilogies than anything else.

It's fine. My only real complaint is that Sub-Zero doesn't get to do his trademark fatality. I would've thought that would've been first on the list to rectify in this. Anyway, it has a good heart and good pacing and Kano is legitimately funny... the theater I was in was laughing and sometimes howling at the correct moments and all.

But yeah... all the talk throughout the movie about the Tournament... but they never actually make it to one. Not really. Obviously by design, and probably that's smart if things flow forward... every movie = 1 new tournament would be... weird. Not weird on a video game console, but weird in a movie series. Like, why even try, if Shang Tsung is just going to force another tournament in the next movie? It makes the tournament more of a big goalpost to come without making the movie itself relatively satisfying. The only "get ready for the sequel!" thing was the Johnny Cage bit, which was small and I didn't mind.

While the movie is poo, the overall "structure" alone of the original movie was better. Cleaner. Strangers getting together on a boat to an island and all. We don't need a lot of Outworld and Netherworld stuff out of the gate, I think. Though it was fairly sparing here anyway, so not much of a problem.

Definitely a budget conscious movie. They keep returning to the same sets... the dojo, the trailer, Cole's house. If you think about the movie, you can tell the order they probably shot it. Like, a couple days at the dojo, a couple days at Sonya's trailer, a day at Cole's house, a day walking around some kind of Utah-like exterior, and then probably like a week on a cave Soundstage.

But it's smartly done!

[Sumac]

and a third movie would adapt a hybrid of MK 2/3.
No, please. MKAn was more than enough.

[CyberCubed]

I honestly thought Cole Young would be the modern day Scorpion, as Hanzo Hattori's soul would then reincarnate himself in Cole's body and become Scorpion. Instead Scorpion comes back himself, and Cole is just a new character with armor as his descendant.

Besides that, the only other thing that annoyed me about the movie is making the MK cast superheroes by the passing of the birthmark. That literally made no sense, the MK cast don't get strong by that and it had ridiculous moments like it forming Jax's metal arms.

[ZariusTwo]

I'm 40 minutes in...

...This is the kind of movie I hoped and prayed it would be:D

This s*it's going to be taught in film classes on how not to do anything.

[Leo656]

I don't get it. It sounds like you're saying you wanted it to be bad. Why?

[ZariusTwo]

I don't get it. It sounds like you're saying you wanted it to be bad. Why?

I didn't want a 'bad' film, but I don't mind that it is one either. There's still a lot to love even if I would change everything about it. I feel it captures the spirit of the 90s MK movies with a bit of a 2000s era cinema blend.

It's atrocious, but fun.

[Leo656]

It's atrocious, but fun.

I confess that I've never understood this paradox. The former and the latter, to me, are natural enemies that simply can't be reconciled. I sincerely don't understand "so bad it's good" or any variant thereof.

But then, I've often been accused of being one who takes things too seriously.

[ZariusTwo]

I confess that I've never understood this paradox. The former and the latter, to me, are natural enemies that simply can't be reconciled. I sincerely don't understand "so bad it's good" or any variant thereof.

It might have something to do with the side of you that dabbles in performance art, which wrestling is a good percentage of.

I wouldn't say you're 'too serious', it's method precision.

[ZariusTwo]

Seen it all now. Started off with breakneck pacing, nothing could breath, then it settled a bit, before rushing quickly to a conclusion. Movie was far too short and a story of it's calibre demanded more

To me, it came across as "Order now and get the first 90 minutes free" and you're expecting the rest with the full purchase.


I also thought Cole would be Scorpion. Then I thought Sub Zero would straight up murder his family...why'd he keep them alive? Shang says death is just a portal, so I guess that means he'll revive everyone killed here. No emphasis was put on why Johnny Cage was so important at the end.

Kabal and Kano were the scene-stealers, every line was OTT atrocious, but they probably had a blast saying every line

[TigerClaw]

Seen it all now. Started off with breakneck pacing, nothing could breath, then it settled a bit, before rushing quickly to a conclusion. Movie was far too short and a story of it's calibre demanded more

To me, it came across as "Order now and get the first 90 minutes free" and you're expecting the rest with the full purchase.


I also thought Cole would be Scorpion. Then I thought Sub Zero would straight up murder his family...why'd he keep them alive? Shang says death is just a portal, so I guess that means he'll revive everyone killed here. No emphasis was put on why Johnny Cage was so important at the end.

Kabal and Kano were the scene-stealers, every line was OTT atrocious, but they probably had a blast saying every line
That also means that the next movie Bi-Han becomes Noob Saibot, and hopefully the other Sub-Zero shows up

[Leo656]

Seen it all now. Started off with breakneck pacing, nothing could breath, then it settled a bit, before rushing quickly to a conclusion. Movie was far too short and a story of it's calibre demanded more

To me, it came across as "Order now and get the first 90 minutes free" and you're expecting the rest with the full purchase.


I also thought Cole would be Scorpion. Then I thought Sub Zero would straight up murder his family...why'd he keep them alive? Shang says death is just a portal, so I guess that means he'll revive everyone killed here. No emphasis was put on why Johnny Cage was so important at the end.

Kabal and Kano were the scene-stealers, every line was OTT atrocious, but they probably had a blast saying every line

So how long HAVE you been a Samurai, Cameron...? ;):trazz:

I can't believe I've been posting over there for months and you never even said hello. You jackass. :lol:

[DarkFell]

Soo.. The Netflix Kombat series is a semi-dud, is it?

Here's the kicker for me: Mortal Kombat was brutal, gory, but also (blink and you'll miss it), goofy. It had the most ridiculous moves and fatalities, but, the former games made them work because the creators have a fondness for fighting games, but with some silliness added in so that the person that isn't a skilled player can still have a laugh when their fighter gets a fatality performed on them.

* I say former games because I haven't played the new games yet. However, I watched the Friendship Compilation for MK 10 and got a few good laughs from that.*

Somebody that we didn't know much about, understood a few things about the game franchise, what the fans liked, 'effing something. That's why some of us liked the mid-90's movie despite the cheesiness that was also present within a few scenes.

Why can a few directors and scriptwriters today understand that?

[sdp]

Cole Young will be added to the game canon roster, NRS already has a boner over anything Scorpion. So adding the main character of a big budget movie who is also related to scorpion? DLC for MK11 or MK12 but Cole is in.

[Leo656]

No sh*t, Sherlock. The only reason Cole even exists is so that the guy who wrote the movie can get a royalty check every time a new game comes out from now on.

[ZariusTwo]

So how long HAVE you been a Samurai, Cameron...? ;):trazz:

I can't believe I've been posting over there for months and you never even said hello. You jackass. :lol:

ROFL, sorry mate, I'd been meaning to for ages but He-Man.org is a sod to navigate at the worst of times these days.:lol:

[CyberCubed]

I think Cole might get a costume skin for Scorpion, but I don't think he'll become a full character on his own.

[IMJ]

This movie was like.... really good C-Level horrible movie material.

Hated
-the addition of Cole. Not that he was a bad character, per se; but there are always negative associations with "Hollywood additions" to existing properties. Cole was unnecessary.
-anytime at all they added that horrible kind of "movie acrobatics" like when Sonja returns with that exaggerated and nonsense flip-spin-land maneuver before she fires her energy rings. Terrible.
-the tattoo thing as a "chosen fighter". That sort of "pre-destination" is great in Star Wars (which suffered in it's absence) but not for Mortal Kombat

Loved
-that they put Cabal in the flick - that was a surprise to me. He was one of my favorite fighters in the original MK3 - especially after update #2 to that game.
-that Scorpion looked like a corpse with the mask off
-that they actually put Kung Lao's table saw fatality in the movie. That was a complete surprise
-that Jax was a legit, no-grey-area good guy

In some ways, the original Mortal Kombat flick is still a better movie. In some ways this one was a better movie. They are both about equal, although I do love how in 2021, Outworld looked like a real-time world and not a set dressing.

[CyberCubed]

One thing this movie did really well is all the game accurate moves. Liu Kang's sweep, Sub-zero and Scorpions attacks and fighting style, Liu's fireball, the fatalities, etc.

It really was great to see all these videogame attacks in a live-action movie. This is something the 1995 movie didn't really do outside a few small scenes.

[ZariusTwo]

-that they put Cabal in the flick - that was a surprise to me. He was one of my favorite fighters in the original MK3 - especially after update #2 to that game.

Also helped, with the few lines he had, he complimented Kano perfectly. Whole movie should have just been those two at times.

[IMJ]

Also helped, with the few lines he had, he complimented Kano perfectly. Whole movie should have just been those two at times.

Yeah I was surprised at how doofy Kano was a great anti-hero character for a while. Personality wise, this Kano was better, but the Kano from the original MK flick was a legit badass.

Honestly I used to be a HUGE Mortal Kombat guy in High School - the license plates to my car said "Toasty" on them - for those of you here old enough to remember. I still have those plates in my garage.

I'll probably watch the first Mortal Kombat tonight.

[ZariusTwo]

An opening weekend success

https://deadline.com/2021/04/mortal-kombat-demon-slayer-weekend-box-office-battle-1234742886/

[CyberCubed]

I think a proper sequel with Johnny Cage, an actual tournament, the "good" Sub-zero joining the cast and expanded roles for everyone else would go over well. I actually hope they get to make a sequel.

[IMJ]

I think a proper sequel with Johnny Cage, an actual tournament, the "good" Sub-zero joining the cast and expanded roles for everyone else would go over well. I actually hope they get to make a sequel.

Maybe by that time it will be okay again to have a heroic white male lead again. Because make no mistake about it - that is why they created the non-white Cole character.

[CyberCubed]

I mean Cole doesn't even look that Asian to me despite the actor in real life. He's eyes aren't Asian enough to me, not like Scorpion, Sub-zero's or Liu Kang's. He doesn't seem non-white to me.

[Andrew NDB]

They did create kind of an unnecessary layer. Liu Kang traveling around the world getting the band together would have been just as fine. You could still have Shang Tsung trying to undermine his search and Rayden coming in with the save at times to hit basically the same plot points and all.

[IMJ]

They did create kind of an unnecessary layer. Liu Kang traveling around the world getting the band together would have been just as fine. You could still have Shang Tsung trying to undermine his search and Rayden coming in with the save at times to hit basically the same plot points and all.

I mean they could've had practically the exact same story as this one even simply by stating that Cole was actually Scorpion reincarnated or something like that. It still would've been weird, but if they were set on the script it could've been almost identical to what they filmed.

But instead they created a Non-white lead with.... I dunno.... lmao....tin armor powers. And, I'm not kidding, for a second at the very end I thought he was going to say that he was going to Hollywood to be an actor under the pseudonym "Johnny Cage" or something, but then they scrolled to the poster with the nonsense reveal. Hopefully they will wipe Cole out in the beginning of the sequel similarly to how they wiped Cage out in the beginning of the original MKII movie and then we can get on without the nonsense add-ons.

Again, I thought it was a fun movie and it got me excited about Mortal Kombat again probably for the first time since MK4 dropped in arcades. But I point these things out because it's too obvious to not address, you know?

[sdp]

#coleyoungDLC is trending on twitter

https://giffiles.alphacoders.com/104/104398.gif
and Rayden


Raiden

[Andrew NDB]

Raiden

https://i.ibb.co/YhmZh2M/hqdefault.jpg

[IMJ]

#coleyoungDLC is trending on twitter

https://giffiles.alphacoders.com/104/104398.gif



Raiden

I mean I think it's a foregone conclusion that they will add that character to the upcoming games or via DLC. Isn't that kind of obvious to everyone? I'm sure there are people out there who will feel successful that some grass roots fan-campaign will "bring him to the games", but again isn't it obvious that they probably had those designs and character maps most likely ready to go once they decided on it for the movie?

I mean this is the game series that has been adding random third party characters to their games for years now. Don't think for a minute that they weren't going to do a reverse campaign for the Hollywood addition of Cole.

[Andrew NDB]

Of course. They added Robocop and Rambo... pretty sure they're going to add the brand new main character from their reboot movie. It'd be weirder if they didn't.

[ChosenOne]

I'm gonna come out and say it: Cole's wife is a more effective and less bland fighter than Cole himself. She took an axe to friggin' Goro! How badass is that?!

Also, raise your hand if you, like me, will be hearing Kano's voice in your head from now on when you read our very own Leo656's posts! :D

[Andrew NDB]

I kind of always hear Rowdy Roddy Piper's voice when I see Leo's posts.

[Sumac]

I confess that I've never understood this paradox. The former and the latter, to me, are natural enemies that simply can't be reconciled. I sincerely don't understand "so bad it's good" or any variant thereof.

But then, I've often been accused of being one who takes things too seriously.
Exactly. No need to take tings so seriously. Like, for example Batman & Robin. Its a complete crap. But it is fun crap, that can be watched with brains turned off and taking jabs at stupidity of it all. No amount of salt about its existence would erase it, so might as well just enjoy it for the crap it is. That is my philosophy.

That is unless we talk about total crap, like MK Annihilation.

-the tattoo thing as a "chosen fighter". That sort of "pre-destination" is great in Star Wars (which suffered in it's absence) but not for Mortal Kombat
Canon flirted with this idea, like this whole "descendants of Great Kung Lao" thing and Johnny Cage being from lineage bred to fight gods.

[IMJ]

Canon flirted with this idea, like this whole "descendants of Great Kung Lao" thing and Johnny Cage being from lineage bred to fight gods.

Yeah the original flick did the Liu Kang "chosen one" thing, but that's certainly better than a magically tranferring tattoo to convey Pre-destination, man.

And what's this bred to fight God's thing with Johnny Cage? Specifically what are you talking about - I have.... like... no memory of that at all whatsoever!

EDIT: Okay I just looked it up. I guess that Johnny Cage thing was from a 2011 game retcon. I fell out of the whole MK fandom after MK4 basically 100%. In between that and this new movie I'd say the only Mortal Kombat franchise stuff I picked up were those sort of pretty good fan films that Michael Jai White did. The ones with the amazing Sektor and Cyrax fights....

[ChosenOne]

That is unless we talk about total crap, like MK Annihilation.

Hey, now, Brian Thompson's Shao Kahn made that movie.

Yeah the original flick did the Liu Kang "chosen one" thing,

Oh, did it? I didn't notice. :tcool:

[IMJ]

Hey, now, Brian Thompson's Shao Kahn made that movie.



Oh, did it? I didn't notice. :tcool:

:lol::lol:

[Leo656]

ELike, for example Batman & Robin. Its a complete crap. But it is fun crap, that can be watched with brains turned off and taking jabs at stupidity of it all.

I physically cannot do this with anything. My brain never got the "Shut Yourself Off" DLC pack. I'm not saying this to be an "elitist" or anything, merely explaining. "Just shut down and enjoy" is not a "skill" everyone has in them.

With things like "Batman & Robin", I'd literally rather shoot myself. OR, more reasonably, just watch a good movie instead. :trazz:

https://i.ibb.co/YhmZh2M/hqdefault.jpg
"Raiden" is the correct and original spelling. "Rayden" was a misprint by Acclaim for the home console conversions (which regrettably carried over into the first movie). It's always been "Raiden" in the original arcade games and all of the newer games and materials beginning with MK4. The console port of "Mortal Kombat Trilogy" was the last game to carry the misprinted name.

Just because it was a mistake made more than once doesn't mean it's something to perpetuate any further, especially now that it's been corrected
"officially". To wit: The Turtle's name was "Michaelangelo" for a long time, too, but that was a mistake. Someone can easily pull up an issue of TMNTA, or a screenshot of one of the old video games, and say "See? It's Michaelangelo, NOT Michelangelo!" But they'd still be incorrect.

It's Raiden. Deal with it! :trazz:


Also, raise your hand if you, like me, will be hearing Kano's voice in your head from now on when you read our very own Leo656's posts! :D

Oh, this sounds good. :lol: I can't wait to see this thing, now.

I kind of always hear Rowdy Roddy Piper's voice when I see Leo's posts.

That's acceptable! :lol: That or Nash, obviously. :trazz: Although he says "f*ck" a lot more than I do. More than anyone on Earth, really. :lol:

Probably watch the movie tomorrow, now that I'm less sick.

[sdp]

https://i.ibb.co/YhmZh2M/hqdefault.jpg


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/35/3a/f3353a16b7ee7efc1e870e1d49883fb0.jpg

[AquaParade]

I get the "so bad, it's good" thing to an extent. Like, it can be fascinating to watch the terrible decisions that were made. It's almost like drama - "they did what??"

For me, that's not the same thing as when people say "just turn off your brain and enjoy it" in regards to a blockbuster like Kong vs Godzilla or Tranaformers.
Hell no, I can't just turn off my brain, enjoy and "stuff my face with popcorn" as some like to put it. A dumb plot doesn't compel me to snack and even if it did, it'd be no excuse.

[Leo656]

Yeah, when things go off the rails the way they did with GvK, I just get bored and can't wait for the movie to hurry up and be done.

At a certain point not even the Big Fights in that movie were enough to truly hold my interest. It was more like "Alright, this is cool, but Jesus, I don't feel like it's worth all that other crap just to get here."

At the opening credits I was like "Yeah!", and then 30 minutes in I was like "Sigh...", and then after an hour I was like "I'd rather be playing a video game, I hope this is almost over."

I can't even remember the last time I went into something fully-hard and fell out of love so quickly. The disappointment is gonna linger forever, though. It's rare that I have such a bad time watching a movie so there's no way I can forget about it. Thus why I'm still talking about it. :lol: But in my defense, YOU brought it up. :trazz:

Hopefully my MK experience won't be more of the same.

[Andrew NDB]

I get the "so bad, it's good" thing to an extent.

I never really subscribe to that. MK (2021) is "competently made, average to above average in what it is with the constraints it faced and 'good' to 'very good' in the genre of video game adaptions."

[Leo656]

I mean, "Meet the Feebles" is an entertaining disaster. So maybe I do get it. But I'd certainly not want to watch that thing more than once every 10 or 15 years.

Maybe less "So bad it's good" and more "You simply have to see this to believe it even exists."

[AquaParade]

I never really subscribe to that. MK (2021) is "competently made, average to above average in what it is with the constraints it faced and 'good' to 'very good' in the genre of video game adaptions."

I'm not saying Mortal Kombat falls into that category for me. Just generally speaking.

I think MK 2021 is a good effort. There are some bright spots, and they made the effort to be authentic as well as hiring some credible martial artists.
Story is big poo-poo though.

The action still lacks a sense of danger, despite the level of violence. Something about fights in "The Raid" leave you on the edge of the seat, breathless, and cringing for whoever seems to be losing control of the fight.

Mortal Kombat needs to find a way to capture that tension. Whether it is by making us care for the characters or some other way of upping the stakes, I'm not sure.

[Sumac]

And what's this bred to fight God's thing with Johnny Cage? Specifically what are you talking about - I have.... like... no memory of that at all whatsoever!
It was mentioned in MK (2011) for the first time to justify his abilities and use it as a crutch to explain why his daughter can beat up an Elder God without training her whole life.

In between that and this new movie I'd say the only Mortal Kombat franchise stuff I picked up were those sort of pretty good fan films that Michael Jai White did. The ones with the amazing Sektor and Cyrax fights....
They were official web-series, not fan films, though.
Though it easy to think otherwise, especially with a second season.

[IMJ]

They were official web-series, not fan films, though.
Though it easy to think otherwise, especially with a second season.

They were good man! In some ways better than this new movie... in some.

Honestly though - so far I don't think anything in MK on film beats the original flick's Liu Kang vs Reptile fight. The musical cues, the energy, Reptile just in relentless flow all while Juno Reactor just pumps that whole scene up audibly. That fight had only two detractors - the quick cut on Reptiles face where he was dizzy and then instantly stands up straight was ridiculous, and then once again the Hollywood-physics-of-awfulness when Reptile is spinning in circles as he flies out the hole in the wall when he is defeated.

But if you take away those two terrible detractors, that fight could be studied as a textbook for how to throw elbows, hands, kicks in a flow furry of just beating the $#!( out of someone.... :lol:

[AquaParade]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TNLND7Hs818

You guys remember this fan-made short film/trailer?
I expected the movie to be more like this. They reinvent the lore a bit, but still feels like Mortal Kombat should.

I mean, I could pick it apart all day, but it's ultimately more interesting to me than what we got.
Still the fight scenes matter most at the end of the day.

[TigerClaw]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TNLND7Hs818

You guys remember this fan-made short film/trailer?
I expected the movie to be more like this. They reinvent the lore a bit, but still feels like Mortal Kombat should.

I mean, I could pick it apart all day, but it's ultimately more interesting to me than what we got.
Still the fight scenes matter most at the end of the day.
It was cool, But not what I wanted Mortal Kombat to be, Because they went with a grounded approach that removed all the fantasy, and superpowers elements that makes Mortal Kombat.

Mortal Kombat is something that shouldn't be taken seriously, a game franchise known for being over the top and campy, and also funny. It needed to be that in the movies too. Doing a serious Mortal Kombat would just be too boring.

[AquaParade]

I understand where you are coming from, but I like the grounded approach for a few reasons.
It's a fresh look at the franchise, but it's also an easier sell to the audience, that allows you to sort of focus on other elements of the film, rather than waste time explaining and grounding Outworld.

Plus, there could still be room to inject a mix of fantasy and myth into the film. Like Outworld is a myth...or is it? There are pictures of Scoprion dead, so how is he alive?
Maybe don't even need the answers necessarily. Maybe that's an aspect that evolves as the franchise grows.

[IMJ]

They were official web-series, not fan films, though.
Though it easy to think otherwise, especially with a second season.

To get back to what were discussing one page back... some of these were pretty good in their own right.

Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqVcPcIfjTY) - this is the one I mentioned with Michael Jai White. Basically a director's pitch to WB for a "real world" MK flick. The Director's pitch paid off....

Mortal Kombat: Legacy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UbXDUzF_HY) - the guy who pitched WB with Rebirth went on to do this one.

Mortal Kombat Legacy: Cyrax and Sektor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxkHS5tTcuM) - this one is amazing once the robot death match starts at about 7 minutes in.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy II - Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuT1zfT_Gl8) - the casting across this one is awesome....

[Leo656]

I make it a point never to agree with TigerClaw, but I kinda have to mostly-agree here.

I think that when you make ANYthing into a live-action film, a little bit of "grounding" is necessary and expected. But there are degrees. "Rebirth", I think, took it too far. It was alright as a fan project and a curiosity piece, but I definitely wouldn't want a whole movie series in that vein. It would remove too much of what makes Mortal Kombat what it is.

"Legacy" was a bit better and more balanced. I liked most of what I saw in that. The Raiden episode is one of my favorite things having to do with MK. And yes, that one is SUPER "grounded, gritty and Real" compared to most of the other episodes, but in the end it still left no doubt that the fantastical elements of the character were still intact.

It's kinda like the problem I and a lot of others have with Nolan's Batman movies (two of them I admittedly do love): As they went on, they were SO focused on being "REAL" that they abandoned a TON of what makes the Batman character and mythology "work". That's why as much as I love a lot of that stuff, I still prefer Snyder's take featuring Affleck, which did a much better job at blending the "Real" with the "Fantastic", which in turn made for the most comics-accurate Batman that's ever been done in live action (even though he wasn't the sole focus of the films he appeared in). Nolan's take is fine for what it is, and I'm glad those movies exist, but I wouldn't argue that was "The Right Way" to do Batman.

By that same logic, I wouldn't argue that "Rebirth" was "The Right Way" to do MK, or even an approach that would warrant a whole movie or series of movies in that style. And since that franchise doesn't have the luxury of guaranteed big-budget movie reboots every few years like something like Batman does, I'd much prefer that they take advantage of their comparatively limited opportunities to adapt the material and not try and reinvent the wheel. With something like Batman, if you don't like This Movie just wait 5 years and they'll do a different one in a new flavor. MK doesn't have that luxury; if they tinker with the formula and it doesn't hit, you might never get another one and if you do it'll take 25 years to come out.

I think if you polled the vast majority of MK fans about what kind of movie they want, they'd tell you to just Do It Like The Game and not overthink it. Nobody who isn't already a fan is gonna watch it anyway, so it serves to please the hardcores first and foremost. I definitely do think a movie should be a LITTLE more grounded than the games, which are pretty over-the-top, but I don't think the whole full-blown "Chris Nolan Approach" would be very satisfying in the long run. Not for this franchise.

[sdp]

Rebirth was an awful idea but I'm glad they didn't go for that route and even the director did Legacy 1 & 2 which were pretty cool on their own right. I personally prefer Legacy 1 but Legacy 2 is alright.

[IMJ]

I make it a point never to agree with TigerClaw, but I kinda have to mostly-agree here.

Yeah... it's an instance where that Christopher Nolan approach as you so wisely put it is maybe neat to see how that would translate a bit, but once the curiosity is satiated you aren't left with much that's cool.

That Cyborg Ninja fight, though man.... woof.

[Andrew NDB]

Mortal Kombat as a movie franchise, I think, would benefit from an "easy does it" approach. Meaning, start out really grounded in part 1, keeping the weirdest things in the movie relegated to Shang Tsung, Raiden and maybe Goro. Foreshadow more but don't get into it. Then by the middle of 2 or 3 you can start bringing in the "weird" stuff... the Outworld and Netherworld and Shao Kahn and the demon stuff.

[Leo656]

I'm not sure you "get" Mortal Kombat, sir. :lol:

[AquaParade]

Mortal Kombat as a movie franchise, I think, would benefit from an "easy does it" approach. Meaning, start out really grounded in part 1, keeping the weirdest things in the movie relegated to Shang Tsung, Raiden and maybe Goro. Foreshadow more but don't get into it. Then by the middle of 2 or 3 you can start bringing in the "weird" stuff... the Outworld and Netherworld and Shao Kahn and the demon stuff.

That's sort of my feeling too. The weirder aspects give the story places to go later on, but feels like a lot to unpack for a first film.

The fan film I posted goes a bit far, but I found the concept to be exciting. Make thd characters resemble the source a bit more and bring us some grounded versions of iconic MK environments, with Raid quality fight scenes.

[Andrew NDB]

That's sort of my feeling too. The weirder aspects give the story places to go later on, but feels like a lot to unpack for a first film.

And even "too fast" in movie #2 is a problem. Look at "Annihilation." Yeah, there's the small bit about it being a HORRIBLE movie, but right away it screamed, "We're getting FULL weird, right away!"

And nobody really liked that. The guys sitting next to their girlfriends going, "OOOH! Motaro!" or whatever... you can't really make a serious movie franchise for these people.

[AquaParade]

I actually think that Rebirth idea did excite a lot of fans. You're never going to please everyone but it got people talking when it was made. I'm a lifelong fan and I'm okay with it. So I think most fans would be okay with a more grounded take. The core elements, imo, are the iconic characters, top notch fight scenes, a certain level of violence, and maybe a tournament.

Yeah, no one is crying over Motaro or even what the tournament is really about.

[Leo656]

You presume a lot.

MK is absolutely a fantasy series by design. Those elements are every bit as important as anything else to what makes it "Mortal Kombat" in the first place. Behind everything else, the entire storyline is literally about demons and sorcerers trying to take over Earth. Sure, maybe that's too "silly" or "out there" for some people, and maybe some people don't care about the story at all anyway and are only into it for the splatter, but I think it's really oversimplifying to imply that you can just have one guy rip another guy's spine out, slap a "Mortal Kombat" sticker on it, and call it a day.

It's not "Kickboxer" or "Bloodsport". Never was. Never should be.

That approach would work a lot better towards Street Fighter, where the most "comic book"-style thing about it is just that people throw fireballs. "Legend of Chun-Li" tried and failed to make a somewhat "grounded" SF movie, but I think it failed more because every singe thing about it was done poorly, more so than the more "realistic" approach itself. Trying to make a "realistic" MK would be entirely missing the point of the material.

[IMJ]

Yeah I mean all of these opinions are valid, but let's face it - Mortal Kombat isn't exactly an unknown to the larger public. It's not really like how Iron Man was super grounded in sci-fi science and slowly led audiences at large into some pretty crazy material. So whereas the I.P. Iron Man was a gateway to the insanity of the Marvel Universe; Mortal Kombat is the franchise - on it's own merits there is no gateway to it. It would be like Star Wars needing to take a movie on an alien planet with relatively normal stuff before they go out into space in the second movie. It's just not neccessary. And if you want a lot to unpack, lmao unpack friggin' Star Wars - even if it was only Episode IV back in 1977.

Mortal Kombat is easy. There's clean living on Earth where there is science and tech and a little mysticism, and there's an inverted but parallel dimension to Earth called Outworld where evil dwells through mysticism and magic and a little tech. The two periodically hold a fight contest for supremacy. The end.

[AquaParade]

You presume a lot.

MK is absolutely a fantasy series by design. Those elements are every bit as important as anything else to what makes it "Mortal Kombat" in the first place. Behind everything else, the entire storyline is literally about demons and sorcerers trying to take over Earth. Sure, maybe that's too "silly" or "out there" for some people, and maybe some people don't care about the story at all anyway and are only into it for the splatter, but I think it's really oversimplifying to imply that you can just have one guy rip another guy's spine out, slap a "Mortal Kombat" sticker on it, and call it a day.

It's not "Kickboxer" or "Bloodsport". Never was. Never should be.

That approach would work a lot better towards Street Fighter, where the most "comic book"-style thing about it is just that people throw fireballs. "Legend of Chun-Li" tried and failed to make a somewhat "grounded" SF movie, but I think it failed more because every singe thing about it was done poorly, more so than the more "realistic" approach itself. Trying to make a "realistic" MK would be entirely missing the point of the material.

I really don't presume a lot. You can see the proof here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNLND7Hs818

The whole thing made a giant splash and got people talking. They were into it, generally speaking. Again, it's not perfect (I'll reinforce that the characters should resemble the source material more closely), but yeah it def stirred excitement. I am looking at these top comments and wondering where you are coming from assuming MK fans wouldn't want this type of treatment.

"its 2020 and i am still hoping they would make this and i swear it will break records like anything !!"

"please please pay attention to this! This is the movie we want!"

"And this is still better than Mortal Kombat 2021"

These are some of the top comments, man.
Not the end all be all, but as good as an indicator as anything else and much better than just going with your gut feeling with no context to back it up.

I think it's really oversimplifying to imply that you can just have one guy rip another guy's spine out, slap a "Mortal Kombat" sticker on it, and call it a day.

Well, yeah...you oversimplified it by your use of hyperbole. You didn't even mention the iconic characters.

[Leo656]

Just because a lot of people happen to completely miss the point of what makes Mortal Kombat "Mortal Kombat" doesn't mean those people deserve to get their way.

People get excited for anything that goes against expectations, the first time they see something like that. And they often react from a place of emotion without taking any time to really think about if that would actually make sense in the big picture. That's all that is.

Again, it's not "Bloodsport". There's only so much of the more fantastical elements you can downplay or remove before it ceases to be "Mortal Kombat" and becomes something else entirely.

It's like that fan movie or trailer or whatever from a few years back about a "grounded and realistic" Power Rangers, with the original team all grown up and the Black Ranger sniffing coke and sh*t like that. That "generated excitement" too but if anyone actually did a whole entire project like that it would be f*cking godawful. That's not what that franchise IS.

Something in the vein of "Legacy" is fine. That's "grounded and realistic" enough without removing the core of what makes the franchise what it is. Anything past that is going too far.

Here's the thing: Anyone can say that they're a "fan", but if they don't like or want things like Outworld, the Netherrealm, soul-stealing sorcerers, Dragon-People, Centaurs, cyborg ninjas, acid-spitting lizard people, or people dying and being brought back to life as zombies or shadow-ninjas, or even the goddamn Tournament, then guess what? They don't actually like Mortal Kombat. They don't even understand it. They just want Gore Porn, and in service to that they'd be perfectly fine turning the franchise into something it totally is not.

"You can take out the demon-wizards and Hell portals and zombie ninjas and still call it 'Mortal Kombat', so long as someone kicks off someone's head!" No, you actually can't. That isn't how it works. It's not a "salad" without the lettuce AND the tomatoes. A big bowl of Just Lettuce is NOT a salad. And MK without fantastical elements isn't MK.

[AquaParade]

Just because a lot of people happen to completely miss the point of what makes Mortal Kombat "Mortal Kombat" doesn't mean those people deserve to get their way.

People get excited for anything that goes against expectations, the first time they see something like that. And they often react from a place of emotion without taking any time to really think about if that would actually make sense in the big picture. That's all that is.

Again, it's not "Bloodsport". There's only so much of the more fantastical elements you can downplay or remove before it ceases to be "Mortal Kombat" and becomes something else entirely.

It's like that fan movie or trailer or whatever from a few years back about a "grounded and realistic" Power Rangers, with the original team all grown up and the Black Ranger sniffing coke and sh*t like that. That "generated excitement" too but if anyone actually did a whole entire project like that it would be f*cking godawful. That's not what that franchise IS.

Something in the vein of "Legacy" is fine. That's "grounded and realistic" enough without removing the core of what makes the franchise what it is. Anything past that is going too far.

Here's the thing: Anyone can say that they're a "fan", but if they don't like or want things like Outworld, the Netherrealm, soul-stealing sorcerers, Dragon-People, Centaurs, cyborg ninjas, acid-spitting lizard people, or people dying and being brought back to life as zombies or shadow-ninjas, then guess what? They don't actually like Mortal Kombat. They don't even understand it. They just want Gore Porn, and in service to that they'd be perfectly fine turning the franchise into something it totally is not.

"You can take out the demon-wizards and Hell portals and zombie ninjas and still call it 'Mortal Kombat', so long as someone kicks off someone's head!" No, you actually can't. That isn't how it works.

I think this is a weak argument. I also feel like it moves the goal post.
You started off saying that I was wrong in presuming that fans would accept a take similar to Rebirth. I think I've given sufficient evidence to refute that and back up the fact that fans would get behind something like Rebirth.

But now you're just saying that the fans who like that idea don't know what they want, and if they left a positive comment, it must simply be handwaved as an "emotional response" to seeing something different.
Sorry, but what a joke of a stance that is.
At least give people the dignity of their own opinion, without trying to tell them that their preference is an invalid emotional response. What a cop out.
And really, this is such a non-sense argument, I should just drop it there, but I'm compelled to point out that many of those comments we are discussing are of people saying "I still want this!". So how long is that emotional response allowed to last until it is considered a valid opinion? Rhetorical question.

Or further, you're saying even if they know what they want, they don't "deserve to get their way". I mean, whatever. I'm not getting into a debate over which fans "deserve" to get their way with a movie. And I'm not touching your argument regarding the makings of a "true Mortal Kombat fan" with a ten foot pole. All I know is I've loved Mortal Kombat all my life, from games, to cartoons, to Halloween costumes, and I'd be down for a grounded take like the one we are discussing. That ends that right there.

The Power Ranger comparison is a strawman argument though. Grounding the Power Rangers by having them do coke isn't comparable to grounding Mortal Kombat. It's a way bigger stretch and you know that. You're exercising a lot of exaggeration today to reinforce your opinions.

Sounds like for you, the bottom line is

A. You know what's best for MK

B. You set the requirements for being a true Mortal Kombat fan (cringe)

And here's the kicker....

C. Fans who share the opinion which contradicts yours, are simply having an "emotional response" that isn't actually worthy of consideration. Talk about taking your ball and going home.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I know better than most people about a lot of things. So? When you're Right all the f*cking time you don't have to be polite about it.

What I said was about what "works" or would be appropriate for the MK franchise, and how far you can bend the premise before it becomes something else entirely. You're arguing in favor of breaking the premise just so it would be "more realistic". Missing the point. Bad Opinions.

I get that you want it to be "grounded". And maybe other people want that too. Fine. They're wrong. They can want what they want, they're still missing the entire point of things.

The Power Rangers thing is entirely relevant to the conversation because it's literally the same thing. You're pleading for someone to take something that on its face is overly-fantastical by design and make it "real" just so you and a bunch of other people who can't handle the fact that not everything SHOULD be "Real" would have a better time with it.

You can put a cat in the oven but that don't make it a goddamn biscuit. And "grounded, realistic Mortal Kombat" isn't Mortal Kombat anymore.

[AquaParade]

Well, **** man. I didn't know it was this easy.

*Ahem*...

No, you're wrong.

Furthermore, your opinion is simply an "emotional response".

-- Okay, I could get used to this.

[Leo656]

That only works when I do it. By default you have to actually know what you're talking about first.

[AquaParade]

It's whatever man. I just can't with the whole "your opinion is simply an emotional response" thing.
When you try to invalidate or inform where other's opinions are coming from, it really is no different than plugging your ears and repeating "I'm right, you're wrong!".
You said I was wrong in my presumption, I showed you the evidence, you then said that all of those opinions are invalid because reasons. Classic.

Agree to disagree.

[Leo656]

Some people like black licorice.

Those people are Wrong.

And frankly, should be shot in the face because their bad opinions befoul the very air we breathe.

[AquaParade]

Yeah.

I totally proved you wrong though. And everyone saw.

nanner, nanner, nanner. :P

[Coola Yagami]

It wasn't so difficult to get it right.

Remove Cole. Make Liu Kang the focus character. You don't need Scorpion to have some reincarnated guy, Scorpion is Scorpion, we don't need Cole. AND PUT ****IN JOHNNY CAGE IN THERE

Make the tournament. Just do it. No tournament, no movie. You want what happens next, that's that what the sequel is for.

Save the plot of MK3 for the sequel since MK2's was pretty much a rehash. Just don't do what Anhillation did, don't try to cram MK2, 3 and 4's plot all in one movie.

Also don't make Mileena black unless you go want to go all the way with a black Kitana. THEY'RE TWINS, YOU MORONS.

[AquaParade]

Either way they treat the next Mortal Kombat, there is one tricky thing they will have to balance: death & consequence.

They have to find a way to make death meaningful in a world where some of the fan's favorite characters are reincarnated. Noob-Saibot being the obvious example.

Other films have to strike this balance too, but for Mortal Kombat, I think it is especially crucial.
Mortal Kombat is so focused on action, tension, death... Half of the potential fun of the movies should be in clinging to your chair, not knowing if your favorite character is going to make it out of the tournament alive.

I find that to be sort of crucial to a movie centering around a tournament. You need that feeling of escalation - seeing characters drop off the board and wondering who will rise to the top. There is a formula there, but it's a fun, dynamic formula.

I mean, guys, this is a reason you can't just take everything from the games, or strictly follow the storyline of the games. Think about it: In the games, nearly every character comes back in each sequel!
There is absolutely no tension in watching Goro and Johnny Cage fight, if you automatically know they will both survive and be in the next four movies.

I just enforce this because many people don't seem to understand the basic principle that it's sometimes best to veer away slightly from the source material, in order to best serve it in a new medium.

Oh, Jesus. :roll: You've never once "proved me wrong" about anything in the history of this place, you've only ever proved that you're an obstinate assclown who likes to get my goat. :lol: Dumbass.

I mean, look who I'm arguing with: A guy who loves a "Joker" movie that has nothing to so with the Joker, and a "Watchmen" TV show that has nothing to do with Watchmen. :lol: I shouldn't even be wasting my time with someone so consistently ignorant. But I confess, your constant and incessant need to get the last word on any topic provokes a response and I keep getting suckered into your nonsense even though I know better.

But no, you're not "right" and never were. You just do this super-annoying thing where you argue insistently in circles to try and reinforce provably bad opinions.
----------------
Sounds like an invalid, emotional response.

I'm actually gonna watch this movie today, finally, so I look forward to having some more thoughts to share on That and less to do with these ridiculous and insipid circle-jerk "debates".

*Pretends to be on topic*

[Leo656]

Yeah.

I totally proved you wrong though. And everyone saw.

nanner, nanner, nanner. :P

Oh, Jesus. :roll: You've never once "proved me wrong" about anything in the history of this place, you've only ever proved that you're an obstinate assclown who likes to get my goat. :lol: Dumbass.

I mean, look who I'm arguing with: A guy who loves a "Joker" movie that has nothing to so with the Joker, and a "Watchmen" TV show that has nothing to do with Watchmen. :lol: I shouldn't even be wasting my time with someone so consistently ignorant. But I confess, your constant and incessant need to get the last word on any topic provokes a response and I keep getting suckered into your nonsense even though I know better.

But no, you're not "right" and never were. You just do this super-annoying thing where you argue insistently in circles to try and reinforce provably bad opinions.
----------------

I'm actually gonna watch this movie today, finally, so I look forward to having some more thoughts to share on That and less to do with these ridiculous and insipid circle-jerk "debates".

[IMJ]

Yeah, I know better than most people about a lot of things. So? When you're Right all the f*cking time you don't have to be polite about it.

I think you are actually quietly acknowledging me on these forums in particular with this because you wish this was you.

:o
:lol:
:P

Well, **** man. I didn't know it was this easy.

*Ahem*...

No, you're wrong.

Furthermore, your opinion is simply an "emotional response".

-- Okay, I could get used to this.

Again, I'm fine with the opinion of wanting a Nolan reinvention. But arguing that there is any reason for it outside of curiosity is.... you know... phony justification. It would be like Star Wars needing to take a first movie on a single planet with relatively normal stuff before they go out into space in the second movie. It's just not necessary. And if you want a lot to unpack, lmao unpack friggin' Star Wars - even if it was only Episode IV back in 1977.

[AquaParade]

Again, I'm fine with the opinion of wanting a Nolan reinvention. But arguing that there is any reason for it outside of curiosity is.... you know... phony justification.

How do you mean it is "phony justification"?

I don't understand the notion of "the only reason to make a movie like that is because you are curious." I mean, it depends on what perspective you are coming from.

There's really no reason to make any adaption other than curiosity then, right? I mean, Chrisopher Nolan should have just stuck to the Bob Kane version of Batman, but good thing he was curious I guess because we got The Dark Knight.

[Leo656]

I think you are actually quietly acknowledging me on these forums in particular with this because you wish this was you.

:o
:lol:
:P


You're actually a nice guy in general, though. Whereas some people insist on being obtuse because it amuses them. That isn't you.

[AquaParade]

You're actually a nice guy in general, though. Whereas some people insist on being obtuse because it amuses them. That isn't you.

I mean, we were having an actual conversation until you looked at the link I provided and cited that every fan opinion on Youtube was an invalid, emotional response to seeing something fresh. That when they say they like what they see, they don't really know what they are talking about.

And yeah, when you bs like that, I'll play the game right back with you.

You're starting to flare up by bringing Watchmen and Joker into this like it actually matters. Poking to see what will get you a response.
I mean, it's just weird to try and single someone out who liked Joker and Watchmen. No one has to like them, but they are both award-winning projects, so to call someone out for liking them is just....tone-deaf. I get that you don't like those movies and maybe you think I am a weird, ignorant fool for liking them? I don't know. That's fine I guess.

[IMJ]

You're actually a nice guy in general, though. Whereas some people insist on being obtuse because it amuses them. That isn't you.

That was nice, man. And true. 8)

How do you mean it is "phony justification"?

I don't understand the notion of "the only reason to make a movie like that is because you are curious." I mean, it depends on what perspective you are coming from.

There's really no reason to make any adaption other than curiosity then, right? I mean, Chrisopher Nolan should have just stuck to the Bob Kane version of Batman, but good thing he was curious I guess because we got The Dark Knight.

Well... a better reason to make a film isn't curiosity as much as because a solid story fits the framework of an intellectual property. :)

[AquaParade]

Well... a better reason to make a film isn't curiosity as much as because a solid story fits the framework of an intellectual property. :)

What? You could say that the Rebirth framework fits Mortal Kombat just as well as the Dark Knight framework fits Batman.

Both are just adaptions with a few creative choices and pivots applied, conceptually speaking. It's just that one maybe appeals to you personally and the other doesn't.

It feels like you've sort of come out of nowhere with a special rule for MK, in which no creative liberty is prudent, but would only serve to "satisfy curiosity". I mean...what?

It's just not true. Sometimes you take creative liberties in order to better serve a story in a new medium. And sometimes you do it simply in the act of creating something.

Again, I ask, was Christopher Nolan just satisfying curiosity? What is the difference in theory?

[IMJ]

It feels like you've sort of come out of nowhere with a special rule for MK, in which no creative liberty is prudent, but would only serve to "satisfy curiosity". I mean...what?

And I've got to be honest - it sounds like you're digging in deep to argue semantics as a method to not let go of your position - a position which appears to be "making a movie out of curiosity for it's framing is more sound than making a movie whereby the story tenets fit the intellectual property".

I'm just saying... it feels a lot like that, man.

Again, I ask, was Christopher Nolan just satisfying curiosity? What is the difference in theory?

Because he didn't do the movie curiously saying "I'll try this and I wonder if it will work out?"
He made the movie saying that his vision for Batman was that it was a property that could work being set in a real-time world.

[AquaParade]

And I've got to be honest - it sounds like you're digging in deep to argue semantics as a method to not let go of your position - a position which appears to be "making a movie out of curiosity for it's framing is more sound than making a movie whereby the story tenets fit the intellectual property".

I'm just saying... it feels a lot like that, man.



Because he didn't do the movie curiously saying "I'll try this and I wonder if it will work out?"
He made the movie saying that his vision for Batman was that it was a property that could work being set in a real-time world.

No, see you are implying that the only purpose to make a film like Rebirth (roughly speaking) would be to satisfy curiosity. That is your argument, not mine, remember?

My argument is that the framework would make for a really cool film that fans are eager to see. It is literally no different than Nolan - Batman line of thinking, speaking conceptually. Same exact notion of “I think this is a cool way to present the material.”

You’re implying the only reason to make an adaption in that way would be to “satisfy curiosity.” That’s the part that doesn’t hold water to me. You’re applying that to Mortal Kombat but not to any other creative adaption.

It’s not about digging heels in or semantics. You’ve just created special circumstances for Mk.

[Leo656]

Finally saw the movie. Pretty good! I assume everyone has seen it by now so I'm not gonna bother Spoiler tagging anything.

- Yeah, Cole sucks. Just, everything. :lol: I laughed so hard when Raiden kicked him out. I'm like "DAMN, son, look who got sent home early from Mortal Kombat school... for SUCKING!" :lol:

He also has the exact same f*cking super-powers as Guy Gardner when he was "Warrior" in the 90s. :lol: Terrible!

Seriously, swap Cole out for Cage and it's the EXACT Same Movie. Except that the ONE annoying part is no longer there to annoy anyone, and now your movie has one less degree of separation from the source material. You could even make Cage half-Asian, that wouldn't have been a problem. As it is, too much of the movie focuses on him considering he's a Made-Up Rando. Even during the Sub-Zero/Scorpion fight, they keep interrupting THAT - the thing we've waited to see for the whole movie and actually care about - to show F*cking Cole instead, and it's like I... Don't... CARE!

- Needed more Goro. Especially since he only got one scene and got killed by F*cking COLE. Before the Tournament even happens. The Tournament Champion gets killed by Some Rando before the Tournament even happens. :roll: That pissed me off more than anything in the movie (and frankly very few things did bother me, but that was the biggest thing by a mile). As is, Goro looked great, came off like a bad-ass, but in the end the most memorable thing he got to do was pop his arm back in, and then die. For such an integral character there should have been a lot more. A LOT more. I'm sure Shang Tsung will resurrect him for the sequel, but this could've been handled better.

- Could've used more Scorpion, too, even allowing for the storyline reasons why he was sidelined until the end. It made sense, it just feels a bit "off" to see so little of him considering he's pretty much the series mascot. He was really well-done, except for the fact that he would've probably gotten re-killed by Sub-Zero if it wasn't for - you guessed it - F*cking Cole. Otherwise, what we did get to see was very good.

- Movie needed about 15-20 more minutes so that more characters - especially the villains - had more room to breathe. Most of the villains really only showed up, scowled a lot, and then got killed. Kabal got to run his mouth a lot, at least, but even he got very little to do otherwise. I mean, I get it, ensemble casts are always tough, but the bad guys felt like fodder, especially with how easily they were dispatched overall. No wonder Shang Tsung tried to sabotage the Tournament!

- On the heroes side, would've liked to see more Liu Kang and Kung Lao. What we did get was good, but again, could've used more of Them and less... well, You Know.

- Kano was a riot. Pretty much stole the movie. Or at least he had the most personality out of everyone, and didn't play the part as if he were doing community theater like a few of the other actors did.

- Liked Sonya. Pretty hot, pretty bad-ass. No complaints here.

- Liu Kang can... only speak in... bursts... of dialog... that are three... or so... syllables. With a lot... of dramatic... pauses. :lol:

- Lots of good Fatalities. The general violence level was on-point.

- The "Arcana" thing was kind of "eh", but not really altogether bad as a way to explain why the "regular" people would end up getting super-powers. Just kind of silly how it was executed, it more or less came off like "I get really pissed off and now I get super-powers". Especially since Sonya just automatically gets hers as soon as she gets the mark, and everyone else had to struggle and "unlock" theirs. But again, as a general way to give an explanation to something like that, like "How can these normal people throw fireballs and junk", it was fine.

- Lots of great Sub-Zero action. That's my guy so I was very pleased to see how much attention he got, especially compared to everyone else considering most everyone else was just a sketch. He definitely should have checked to make sure Jax was dead, though. I'm like "C'mon, Bi-Han... don't be such a Noob!" :lol: HAH! "Noob!" Don't be such a... ha ha haaaaa... that's good sh*t.

- The overall tone, feel, and execution was good. Definitely "felt" like MK, while still being a bit more "grounded" than the games. I honestly feel like you go any more "real" than this, though, and you've tilted it too far the other way. But this was good.

- As far as being a prequel instead of focusing on the Tournament as is proper, this was a good way to do it. Hopefully the second movie will actually get more into the meat.

- Hopefully Cage will be involved early on in the sequel, and they won't spend 40 minutes of the plot on the others trying to find and recruit him. That would be terrible. Bring him in during the first five minutes, say all the "recruitment" happened offscreen between movies, and spend the bulk of MK2 on the actual MK Tournament. We got the prequel stuff out of the way, and it was done well, but let's not c*cktease any more than is necessary.

- Shang Tsung 100% needed a Sinister Asian Goatee.

Overall, I liked it more than I thought I might even though the things I knew would annoy me, did. But the things that were good were better than I thought they'd be. Hopefully they'll get to do the second one, and it won't take another 20 years to get to it.

I mean, we were having an actual conversation until you looked at the link I provided and cited that every fan opinion on Youtube was an invalid, emotional response to seeing something fresh. That when they say they like what they see, they don't really know what they are talking about.

And yeah, when you bs like that, I'll play the game right back with you.

You're starting to flare up by bringing Watchmen and Joker into this like it actually matters. Poking to see what will get you a response.
I mean, it's just weird to try and single someone out who liked Joker and Watchmen. No one has to like them, but they are both award-winning projects, so to call someone out for liking them is just....tone-deaf. I get that you don't like those movies and maybe you think I am a weird, ignorant fool for liking them? I don't know. That's fine I guess.

- Again, Black Licorice. People can say "I like this!", mean it sincerely, and still be completely wrong on the subject. Where they over-step is in asking for anyone else to share in or be force-fed their Black Licorice. And I don't have to indulge them in their Wrong-ness. That's not my job, my job is simply to explain to them why they're Wrong.

- You misread me as usual. Here's the nicest way I can explain this, and I really am trying to just explain and not be a dick: I don't ever say things hoping that you'll reply to them. More often than not, when I see that you're the most recent poster in any thread, I roll my eyes because I know I'm about to read something that's going to give me heartburn. I don't invite that willingly, make no mistake about that. If you sincerely think I say things to provoke a response from you, you're simply wrong. Again, not being a dick, Just Explaining.

- Anyway, to clarify: It's not that I "don't like" those things. Point of fact, I actually bought "Joker" today when I was out shopping, since the Blu-ray was on sale for $12. SO HUH. Shows what you know! :trazz:

No, I bring them up NOT to speak anything of their quality, or my opinion thereof. I bring them up because you have this consistent gimmick of being all, "I Really Like A Thing Best When It Has NOTHING To Do With The Thing It's Based On" and I'm entering those things into evidence of that in order to establish a pattern of behavior. They go right along with your "I'd like Mortal Kombat better if it was a lot more like 'The Raid' and a lot LESS like Actual Mortal Kombat" opinion.

Point being, your track record shows that the less resemblance to the source material A Thing has, the more you're in love with it. That's your prerogative, but maybe don't go around trying to tell people who want things played proper that THEY'RE the ones who are wrong, or they might just push back. You can say all day long "I'd like Mortal Kombat better if it had nothing to do with Mortal Kombat except the character names", and other people can agree with you, but it definitely doesn't make You or Them "right".


My argument is that the framework would make for a really cool film that fans are eager to see.

FAKE fans. Fake fans don't need or deserve their tastes catered to. REAL Mortal Kombat fans want to see things that are... y'know... actually like Mortal Kombat. Not just a bunch of character names in a scenario that otherwise has NOTHING to do with Mortal Kombat.

Fake Fans don't get to insist their taste should take precedent over that of Real Fans. Not about Anything. That can be "Elitist" or whatever else anyone wants to say. Doesn't matter. If a person says, "I'd like this thing better if it were more 'In Name Only' and even less like the source material", they're a Fake Fan. Period.

[IMJ]

No, see you are implying that the only purpose to make a film like Rebirth (roughly speaking) would be to satisfy curiosity. That is your argument, not mine, remember?

There's really no reason to make any adaption other than curiosity then, right? I mean, Chrisopher Nolan should have just stuck to the Bob Kane version of Batman, but good thing he was curious I guess because we got The Dark Knight.

I made the argument that the only reason to make a film like Rebirth would be to satisfy curiosity because there is no other reason - a real world MK does not fit the story narrative. I did not make the argument that making a film out of curiosity is a sound way to make films. And that was my point.

1) Making a movie out of curiosity as to whether it would work or not is not a good reason to make a Hollywood flick.
2) The only reason to make Mortal Kombat Rebirth would be out of some curiosity as to how the characters could adapt to a real-world only narrative, which is against the grain of the MK thesis.

Given 1 & 2, err go, Mortal Kombat Rebirth would only be made as a curiosity and not a solid premise based on the Property and therefore is not a good reason to make the movie.

I delivered my point almost like Socratic logic there. At this point, any more verbal judo or head math is on you, dude.

[Leo656]

I like you, let's go bowling.

....Do bowling alleys still exist? :lol:

[AquaParade]

[QUOTE]Finally saw the movie. Pretty good! I assume everyone has seen it by now so I'm not gonna bother Spoiler tagging anything.

- Yeah, Cole sucks. Just, everything. :lol: I laughed so hard when Raiden kicked him out. I'm like "DAMN, son, look who got sent home early from Mortal Kombat school... for SUCKING!" :lol:

True. I appreciated them sending him home. Keep it real.

[B]Seriously, swap Cole out for Cage and it's the EXACT Same Movie.

Exactly my point all along. Cole doesn't make or break the movie. He's just an avatar thrown into the mix. He could have been Johnny Cage and it would not have improved the film one iota. I guess people could have gotten like two little endorphins from being able to call him Johnny Cage and been satisfied with that if their standards are incredibly low. The issue was with the script and execution.


- Needed more Goro. Especially since he only got one scene and got killed by F*cking COLE. Before the Tournament even happens. The Tournament Champion gets killed by Some Rando before the Tournament even happens. :roll: That pissed me off more than anything in the movie (and frankly very few things did bother me, but that was the biggest thing by a mile). As is, Goro looked great, came off like a bad-ass, but in the end the most memorable thing he got to do was pop his arm back in, and then die. For such an integral character there should have been a lot more. A LOT more. I'm sure Shang Tsung will resurrect him for the sequel, but this could've been handled better.

Agreed. And the bolded is probably right. Which annoys me more. As I was posting above, I really think they'll need to work hard to make death feel earned in this universe. I don't want them following the game storyline because then we have every character being resurrected every time, which is a total joke.
They may as well move onto Goro's cousin or whatever. Goro now looks like a tool and bringing him back is going to add another notch to the "can't really die" score. I say we cut our losses.


- Could've used more Scorpion, too, even allowing for the storyline reasons why he was sidelined until the end. It made sense, it just feels a bit "off" to see so little of him considering he's pretty much the series mascot. He was really well-done, except for the fact that he would've probably gotten re-killed by Sub-Zero if it wasn't for - you guessed it - F*cking Cole. Otherwise, what we did get to see was very good.

Yeah, I expected more Scorpion, but between him and Sub-Zero, I was pretty satisfied with the runtime they got. A lot of characters to balance.

- Movie needed about 15-20 more minutes so that more characters - especially the villains - had more room to breathe. Most of the villains really only showed up, scowled a lot, and then got killed. Kabal got to run his mouth a lot, at least, but even he got very little to do otherwise. I mean, I get it, ensemble casts are always tough, but the bad guys felt like fodder, especially with how easily they were dispatched overall. No wonder Shang Tsung tried to sabotage the Tournament!

Agreed. There are fairly strong rumors going around that WB chopped this one up. It's possible there was more development in there. But again, as you say, ensemble cast does make it tricky. So many characters to serve in this franchise.

- Kano was a riot. Pretty much stole the movie. Or at least he had the most personality out of everyone, and didn't play the part as if he were doing community theater like a few of the other actors did.


Kano was great fun to watch and essentially filled the role of Johnny Cage here. Agreed.

- Lots of good Fatalities. The general violence level was on-point.

Violence on point. Unfortunately some of the action had way more cuts than I was expecting. Still, some good choreography.

- The "Arcana" thing was kind of "eh", but not really altogether bad as a way to explain why the "regular" people would end up getting super-powers. Just kind of silly how it was executed, it more or less came off like "I get really pissed off and now I get super-powers". Especially since Sonya just automatically gets hers as soon as she gets the mark, and everyone else had to struggle and "unlock" theirs. But again, as a general way to give an explanation to something like that, like "How can these normal people throw fireballs and junk", it was fine.

I really did not gel with the "Arcana" thing. And honestly, I was forgetting they'd even have to tackle that aspect until we got to it. Really felt like we were watching Power Rangers when this **** came up. Great example of something that works absolutely fine in the games but becomes a pain to translate into live action.
It's one of the reasons I like the "grounded" idea. No, I do not want to get rid of all the powers. I rather they just keep the mystical elements more mysterious. I'm at a bit of a loss here, because it's corny as hell the way they did it, but you have to allow some of the humanoid characters to have their powers. What is Sub-Zero without ice manipulation?


- Lots of great Sub-Zero action. That's my guy so I was very pleased to see how much attention he got, especially compared to everyone else considering most everyone else was just a sketch. He definitely should have checked to make sure Jax was dead, though. I'm like "C'mon, Bi-Han... don't be such a Noob!" :lol: HAH! "Noob!" Don't be such a... ha ha haaaaa... that's good sh*t.

Bi-Han was easily the highlight for me as well. In fact, the beginning and ending of the movie are probably the two parts I'd go back and watch.

- The overall tone, feel, and execution was good. Definitely "felt" like MK, while still being a bit more "grounded" than the games. I honestly feel like you go any more "real" than this, though, and you've tilted it too far the other way. But this was good.

Obviously I disagree here. When Sub-Zero showed up in Outworld, the corniness began to go off the charts and never really stopped from there. It was awful looking and didn't feel real.
Again, it felt like they went over to Lord Zed's evil Power Ranger universe or some crap. I could easily do without seeing Outworld so explicitly. Find a way to honor the iconic levels either on earth, or in a way that doesn't take us out of the movie. I don't want the Outworld element gone, I just want it to be way more subtle.
That and the Arcana **** did nothing but hurt the movie for me.
I'm still a "real" fan though, I promise :P

[AquaParade]

- Again, Black Licorice. People can say "I like this!", mean it sincerely, and still be completely wrong on the subject. Where they over-step is in asking for anyone else to share in or be force-fed their Black Licorice. And I don't have to indulge them in their Wrong-ness. That's not my job, my job is simply to explain to them why they're Wrong.


- You misread me as usual. Here's the nicest way I can explain this, and I really am trying to just explain and not be a dick: I don't ever say things hoping that you'll reply to them. More often than not, when I see that you're the most recent poster in any thread, I roll my eyes because I know I'm about to read something that's going to give me heartburn. I don't invite that willingly, make no mistake about that. If you sincerely think I say things to provoke a response from you, you're simply wrong. Again, not being a dick, Just Explaining.


Oh, sure. But again, calling Joker and Watchmen Black Licorice is just a poor analogy. It is the kind of analogy that makes it seem like you live under a rock.
It's more Joker and Watchmen are pizza, which most people celebrate, except you. And liking pizza is subjective, so I forgive you. But it was just bewildering for you to post "this guy likes Joker and Watchmen! Ha, what a joke!"
And you bringing up those two movies was completely random to the topic at hand. It was a weak attempt at "you like these things, so obviously you have terrible taste", which doesn't even hold water, given those two projects are widely acclaimed.

Look, you aren't as subtle as you might think you are, is the bottom line.

And I know you sometimes hate when I post in the same thread as you, because I will call you on statements I disagree with, and I will back those statements up with facts.
And that's typically when you take your ball and go home.

If there is one thing I've learned about you on this forum, it's that you don't like when people disagree with you. Especially when they back up their reasoning and put you in a corner where you actually have to back up what you are saying.

Sorry, I'm really not trying to be a dick, but I am going to call it like it is.


- Anyway, to clarify: It's not that I "don't like" those things. Point of fact, I actually bought "Joker" today when I was out shopping, since the Blu-ray was on sale for $12. SO HUH. Shows what you know! :trazz:


Oh...then...your prior post is even more bewildering than it was before. I hope you enjoy the blu ray.

No, I bring them up NOT to speak anything of their quality, or my opinion thereof. I bring them up because you have this consistent gimmick of being all, "I Really Like A Thing Best When It Has NOTHING To Do With The Thing It's Based On" and I'm entering those things into evidence of that in order to establish a pattern of behavior. They go right along with your "I'd like Mortal Kombat better if it was a lot more like 'The Raid' and a lot LESS like Actual Mortal Kombat" opinion.

Oh, but that's hyperbole when you say Joker and Watchmen have "nothing to do with the thing it's based on."
Pure hyperbole. Along with Mortal Kombat and the Joker, I'd also like to see a "grounded" version of your posts.

Um, yeah this recent Mortal Kombat movie would have been better off being more like The Raid for sure. It should definitely take influence from the Raid and combine it with the Mortal Kombat DNA to make something awesome. See, when you wipe away the hyperbole, it isn't so crazy.


Point being, your track record shows that the less resemblance to the source material A Thing has, the more you're in love with it. That's your prerogative, but maybe don't go around trying to tell people who want things played proper that THEY'RE the ones who are wrong, or they might just push back. You can say all day long "I'd like Mortal Kombat better if it had nothing to do with Mortal Kombat except the character names", and other people can agree with you, but it definitely doesn't make You or Them "right".

Hyperbole alert. Hyperbole alert.

btw, I didn't tell anyone they were "wrong".

FAKE fans. Fake fans don't need or deserve their tastes catered to. REAL Mortal Kombat fans want to see things that are... y'know... actually like Mortal Kombat. Not just a bunch of character names in a scenario that otherwise has NOTHING to do with Mortal Kombat.

You're wrong.

Simply put: You don't decide what makes a fan.
The material does. The source material speaks to the fan, and whatever about that source material speaks to the fan, is what creates the fan. It's not for you to decide what elements qualify. It's nothing more than an attempt for you to claim ownership over the franchise and the conversation.

Wanting to take creative liberties from the source material doesn't mean you don't appreciate the source material. The issue is you are only speaking in extremes.
Look how much hyperbole is in your post. Everything is "all or nothing". If I say I want MK to have fight scenes like The Raid, you turn it into "You want MK to just be The Raid with Mortal Kombat names!!!"

And lastly, if you weren't Sub-Zero two Halloweens in a row, and didn't buy the Strategy guide for his awful game, when you didn't even own the game itself, I don't want you telling me I'm not a true fan. I mean, you are sure to keep saying it now, but I'll just remind you that it's bologna.

Regarding my "track record" showing that I like stuff that veers from the source material, that is true. I love reinterpretation. That's how we got The Dark Knight Returns, That's how we got The Dark Knight, that's how we got plenty of awesome works of art.

And I also love stuff that is faithful to the material. I probably love a lot of the same movies and comics that you do!
Fact is, I love a lot of stuff. I just don't get my panties in a twist when creative liberties are taken. I like it all.


Fake Fans don't get to insist their taste should take precedent over that of Real Fans. Not about Anything. That can be "Elitist" or whatever else anyone wants to say. Doesn't matter. If a person says, "I'd like this thing better if it were more 'In Name Only' and even less like the source material", they're a Fake Fan. Period.

Hyperbole alert. Hyperbole alert.

Look at all this ****:

"I Really Like A Thing Best When It Has NOTHING To Do With The Thing It's Based On."

"I'd like Mortal Kombat better if it had nothing to do with Mortal Kombat except the character names"

"I'd like this thing better if it were more 'In Name Only' and even less like the source material"

"I Really Like A Thing Best When It Has NOTHING To Do With The Thing It's Based On"

Hyperbole shouldn't be abused like this, man lol. We all use hyperbole to help emphasize a point sometimes, but when you're pushing back and using this much hyperbole, it's just disingenuous and muddles whatever point you are trying to make. And it appears that your argument is reliant on hyperbole.

[AquaParade]

I made the argument that the only reason to make a film like Rebirth would be to satisfy curiosity because there is no other reason - a real world MK does not fit the story narrative. I did not make the argument that making a film out of curiosity is a sound way to make films. And that was my point.


I'm so glad you just said the bolded. Because it contradicts what you said in your previous post:

it sounds like you're digging in deep to argue semantics as a method to not let go of your position - a position which appears to be "making a movie out of curiosity for it's framing is more sound than making a movie whereby the story tenets fit the intellectual property".

See? You said I was digging in my heels on the point that this type of film would only "serve to satisfy curiosity", but it's actually the exact opposite of what I am saying.
You are putting the words in my mouth that "the only reason to do this is to satisfy curiosity" and then telling me that isn't a good reason. But...I never said that was the reason. You did! :lol:

It sounds like you don't like the idea of a grounded MK. I respect that, but your posts aren't making logical sense.

1) Making a movie out of curiosity as to whether it would work or not is not a good reason to make a Hollywood flick.
2) The only reason to make Mortal Kombat Rebirth would be out of some curiosity as to how the characters could adapt to a real-world only narrative, which is against the grain of the MK thesis.

No one in the history of this forum has ever argued point #1. You just keep saying it to a wall. No one ever said "they should fund a grounded MK to satisfy my curiosity". That's a strawman argument. Let's acknowledge that we are discussing what we think would be a fun and prudent future for the franchise.

Point #2 - No, I disagree. Obviously. (even though you claimed this was my argument in your last post)
It's not against the grain of the "MK thesis" lol. Tell that to Chris Nolan or Frank Miller when they are reinventing something. It's perfectly okay to take something and make a few changes for the big screen. A shift in medium often calls for it. The only discrepancy is how much you change.
Go ahead and follow the MK videogame storylines for 10 movies if you want. Enjoy seeing Johnny Cage resurrected 12 freakin times and see how much tension is in each fight.

You just don't like the idea. Again, that's fine. But as you can see online, most fans actually do like the idea. Don't argue that unless you can provide more than just your own personal opinion, because I've done the work to at least cite the Rebirth video and the hugely positive fan reaction it received. I'm at least citing my sources, so please don't shoot from the hip.


Given 1 & 2, err go, Mortal Kombat Rebirth would only be made as a curiosity and not a solid premise based on the Property and therefore is not a good reason to make the movie.

Nah. You could say that about any Hollywood adaption. "It only serves to satisfy curiosity". Legit one of the weirdest arguments I've heard lately.

Making MK exactly like the games only "serves to satisfy the curiosity". Even more so, really, because we've already seen the games...in the games. Why put it all up on screen for any reason other than to satisfy curiosity?
See how that works?
Ugh, stupid argument no matter what side of the fence you are on. I digress.


I delivered my point almost like Socratic logic there. At this point, any more verbal judo or head math is on you, dude.

Cringe. Dude, your posts barely make sense.

[IMJ]

:lol:
Holy $#!( man. :lol::lol:

[AquaParade]

I may have just thrown my hat in the ring for longest post, though I'm pretty sure Leo still has me beat.

But yeah, I'm thorough.

Your portion is pretty manageable though. Feel free to reply.

[IMJ]

I may have just thrown my hat in the ring for longest post, though I'm pretty sure Leo still has me beat.

But yeah, I'm thorough.

Your portion is pretty manageable though. Feel free to reply.

HAHAH You are saying that things like simple statements "don't make sense" when they are perfectly aligned. You are relying on semantics and circular logic. It's a completely disingenuous, one-sided conversation. There is no conversation with someone who, even when presented with a three step socratic phrasing still insists on relying on saying "this makes no sense" instead of addressing the logic itself.

I can't tell if you are being willfully obtuse and grasping onto a nonsense point over a nonsense topic, or if you are feeling so cornered that you have to double down on something that was originally nothing more than "Mortal Kombat is a fantasy franchise that wouldn't work well when "Christopher Nolan'd into the real world".

When you even out or take your meds or whatever it is, go back and read the pyre you've built on this one, brother. The circular patterns and semantics you are relying on in this particular thread read like a schizophrenic's nightmare, man. LMAO Holy **** man. :lol:

[Sumac]

"Raiden" is the correct and original spelling. "Rayden" was a misprint by Acclaim for the home console conversions (which regrettably carried over into the first movie). It's always been "Raiden" in the original arcade games and all of the newer games and materials beginning with MK4. The console port of "Mortal Kombat Trilogy" was the last game to carry the misprinted name.
It was not a mistake, but a deliberate change to avoid lawsuit from SNK, who released fighting game Fatal Fury in 1991, which had character called "Raiden".

[Leo656]

It was not a mistake, but a deliberate change to avoid lawsuit from SNK, who released fighting game Fatal Fury in 1991, which had character called "Raiden".

Ah really? Neat. Never heard that one before. Makes sense, though. I'd always read that it was "a mistake" so I never bothered looking deeper into it. Seemed reasonable enough to assume they would make that mistake, considering what a sh*tty and slipshod company Acclaim was. But yeah, that makes more sense.

Either way, "Raiden" is the proper spelling and anyone who insists on spelling it "Rayden" in 2021 is being obstinate on purpose. :trazz:

[Andrew NDB]

Ryan Reynolds for Johnny Cage?

https://screenrant.com/ryan-reynolds-mortal-kombat-johnny-cage-rumor-reaction/

[Leo656]

I doubt they could afford him. Then again, he did that Pikachu movie so maybe he just takes whatever jobs tickle his fancy.

A lot of dumb people want The Miz to play Cage, so as far as I'm concerned Reynolds can do it so long as it keeps That F*cking Guy from getting it.

[Andrew NDB]

They could afford him if he's like the only "name" they get for MK2. And I think there probably exists a misconception with Reynolds batting down movie offers left and right... I don't think that's really a thing. If you want Ryan Reynolds in your movie, you're really only looking for a very, very specific kind of guy and his delivery is always in a very, very specific way.

[Coola Yagami]

They could afford him if he's like the only "name" they get for MK2. And I think there probably exists a misconception with Reynolds batting down movie offers left and right... I don't think that's really a thing. If you want Ryan Reynolds in your movie, you're really only looking for a very, very specific kind of guy and his delivery is always in a very, very specific way.

I'd much rather they get The Mizz. He's literally Johnny Cage, or at least his WWE persona is. Just give him some martial arts training and we got it.

[Andrew NDB]

I'd much rather they get The Mizz. He's literally Johnny Cage, or at least his WWE persona is. Just give him some martial arts training and we got it.

I mean... he could do it, I guess. But if they held out a whole movie to wait and cast Johnny Cage, they'd really only be doing that to bank on getting a name. i.e., someone like Reynolds. Like if they were just going to cast The Mizz (or someone like him), they might as well have just paid him $50 to show up at the end of the first movie, right? His casting wouldn't be a "WHOA!!!!" to anyone like it would be with Reynolds so there wouldn't be any point in holding it back a movie.

[Sumac]

I'd prefer some charismatic actor who also can fight, but they just get some famous guy and pretend he is a super martial artist.

[IMJ]

I guess the real question for the sequel will be whether or not Johnny Cage gets top billing and is the central character, which is doubtful. They will most likely continue the Cole thing as the central narrative.

But to be honest, again my hope is that they unceremoniously kill off Cole in the beginning. It would actually be a funny nod to the original MK2 and Cage's fate.... :lol:

[Coola Yagami]

I mean... he could do it, I guess. But if they held out a whole movie to wait and cast Johnny Cage, they'd really only be doing that to bank on getting a name. i.e., someone like Reynolds. Like if they were just going to cast The Mizz (or someone like him), they might as well have just paid him $50 to show up at the end of the first movie, right? His casting wouldn't be a "WHOA!!!!" to anyone like it would be with Reynolds so there wouldn't be any point in holding it back a movie.

Cage was literally left out because 'too many white people' not because they were saving him as a huge reveal for the sequel. His character was never meant to be any more or less grandiose than Liu Kang or Sonya, other than Liu Kang winning in the end of course. He's just a character that is flat out supposed to be there, like you'd expect Mikey in a TMNT movie or Luigi in a Mario movie.

It might be some 'big name', it might be the Mizz, but it could also be Joe-Shmoe McUnknown just for the sake of tossing Cage in there out of some sort of teeth-gnashing obligation just to shut us up.

I would not be surprised if they killed him off in the sequel to be honest.

"There, we had Johnny Whiteboy in the movie. Are you nerds happy now???"

[IMJ]

That's exactly right, and was also my initial reaction as to the creation and addition of "Cole". Basically to add anything other than a white male into the mix.

[Leo656]

I don't see why they couldn't just have a half-Asian Johnny Cage then if it was so damn important to "diversify" the cast. I don't think anyone would have complained very much.

The most annoying thing about Cole - aside from the fact that "sucking" is literally his defining trait for the whole movie until he suddenly takes a level in Bad-Ass as soon as the plot demands it - is that he could literally be swapped out for Cage and the movie would be exactly the same. Maybe you'd trim the family subplot but that's no huge loss. You could even still have him be Scorpion's descendant if you really wanted; it's a retcon but it's not like the movie doesn't retcon a bunch of other stuff anyways.

[CyberCubed]

Ryan Renolds is nearly 50, he's way too old to be playing Johnny Cage.

Johnny should be around 25-30 or so.

[Coola Yagami]

Ryan Renolds is nearly 50, he's way too old to be playing Johnny Cage.

Johnny should be around 25-30 or so.

I mean Deadpool isn't nearing 50?

[Coola Yagami]

I don't see why they couldn't just have a half-Asian Johnny Cage then if it was so damn important to "diversify" the cast. I don't think anyone would have complained very much.

The most annoying thing about Cole - aside from the fact that "sucking" is literally his defining trait for the whole movie until he suddenly takes a level in Bad-Ass as soon as the plot demands it - is that he could literally be swapped out for Cage and the movie would be exactly the same. Maybe you'd trim the family subplot but that's no huge loss. You could even still have him be Scorpion's descendant if you really wanted; it's a retcon but it's not like the movie doesn't retcon a bunch of other stuff anyways.

Honestly I'd complain a bit about that too, just like how Mileena is black but I bet you anything Kitana won't also be black, but it still would be better than not having him in there at all.

However, Johnny's deal is he's an actor and a real life martial artist, but people think all his fights are fake, so he enters the tournament to prove he can really fight and it's not just wire-fu or whatever. If you make him half-Asian you kinda fall into the 'so you're saying since he's Asian, he HAS to know martial arts' stereotype category.... Worst case scenario, you might even fall into 'what's the matta? Not Asian enough bro?"

[IMJ]

I mean Deadpool isn't nearing 50?

Deadpool wears a mask and otherwise has a pizza face. He is ageless as long as his girlfriend looks young and hot and... well... Monica B has that covered probably forever.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

He's still fit as f**k for being 50! He's only 6 years older than me, and I'm still in good shape. Walk four miles a day and everything, don't ya know. Can do that, AND work a fast-paced, physically demanding job for 9 hours a day, on my feet. If I can do that, Ryan can still play Cage, or Deadpool, who whoever else the f**k he wants.

[CyberCubed]

No, the rule of thumb is when you start a new movie franchise that could go on a number of years due to potential sequels, you cast actors who are relatively young (and by that I mean 25-35 or so) for most of the leads so they don't look ancient by the time we get 3-4+ movies if the franchise is successful.

Casting a guy who is pushing 50 for Johnny Cage just doesn't fit, especially if MK becomes a successful movie franchise. We don't want "60 year old man Cage" fighting alongside Sonya...who I don't know how old the actress is, but I can't imagine her being older than her early 30's.

EDIT: Looked her up and she was born in 1986...so she's around 33-34.

[IMJ]

He's still fit as f**k for being 50! He's only 6 years older than me, and I'm still in good shape. Walk four miles a day and everything, don't ya know. Can do that, AND work a fast-paced, physically demanding job for 9 hours a day, on my feet. If I can do that, Ryan can still play Cage, or Deadpool, who whoever else the f**k he wants.

As a point of discussion - and you are right, he's in great shape - but I can never help but wonder what kind of shape I'd be in if I worked in that industry, regardless of age. People being paid to have meal planning and the financial resources to have your day spent on a workout regime so that you can go acquire more financial resources, etc.

But that's neither here nor there.

I guess another point on this is that, given this movies very C-Lister cast (not a knock, just the facts), Reynolds might be completely out of place in this movie and overshadow it completely. But even so, I don't see him as Johnny Cage - not awful fan casting by any means, but they need to stick to their casting levels already or the whole thing could be set askew. It's not like this began as a frat pack casting flick anyway...

[Andrew NDB]

He's 50 but doesn't look 50, and could easily pass for 30-35ish. I think age-wise he's about what you'd want if you want to sell the "washed up action movie star," like Van Damme was about 10 years ago. Washed up and aged out but still able to kick ass. And "washed up action movie star" really isn't a thing anymore in 2021 like it was back in 1995. There isn't, like, new "washed up action movie stars" today that are in their 20s anymore because Hollywood stopped making action movie stars a thing a long time ago. The "washed up action movie stars" are from bygone eras like the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s... these guys are all in their 60s and 70s now. Even casting a 50 year old as that archetype nowadays is pushing it.

Plus if the idea is to just cheaply pump one out every 1.5 years, Reynolds would be fine to keep around. Johnny Cage grows "old" in the games, anyway (by 11, he's got gray hair and an adult daughter). About the martial arts, I'm pretty sure between Blade 3, X-Men Origins, Deadpool 1 and 2 and probably other things, he's been sent to "martial arts camp" more times than a lot of actual martial artists out there. And I'd definitely want an actor in the role. Just look at the Rocky movies. Can anyone honestly say the "villains" from the point in time Stallone started only casting actual boxers (beginning with Rocky 5 and going onward) vs. beforehand when he was casting actors were more memorable or even helped the movies by going that route? 80% of the appeal of Cage is his ability to talk trash humorously.

And who says Cage even has to survive to make it into a lot of them, if they keep going?

[Leo656]

I do kind of agree with IMJ, though, that casting a "Big Name" guy like Ryan Reynolds as Johnny Cage would be rather distracting, considering that everyone else in the entire cast looks and acts like they got cribbed from some local theater group. Like I'm not exactly knocking them but the cast of this movie is pretty far from "A-List". Reynolds would stand out, like, a lot; maybe not in a good way, either.

He wouldn't be "bad" at it, I don't think, but it would definitely be a "One of these things is not like the others" type of situation. I think it would automatically turn the entire thing into a "Ryan Reynolds project" by default and he would possibly overpower the entire affair just on account of who he is. Not even necessarily his fault, or anything, just... look at what he'd be working with, y'know? At times it would come off like he was in a completely different movie than everyone else, just because they can't perform at his level and the disparity would be super noticeable.

He'd probably play it well, but I think he's a little too "big" for the scale and style of this project. If they have to go with a "name", he's probably the best possible choice, but part of me would really prefer to see them commit to what they've established and cast another semi-unknown, just to be consistent with the rest of the cast. An A-Lister slumming it with a bunch of nobodies would be super-weird. If they'd gone with a more established cast of actors from the beginning, then yeah, he'd fit right in there. As it is, I'm not sure he'd mesh well.

I guess it could work, if they went kinda "meta" with it. But then that might end up being a little too "cutesy" and "wink-wink", what with the "Big Name Star slumming it with a bunch of nobodies" thing. I'unno.

[Andrew NDB]

Nothing says they couldn't round out MK2's cast with at least a couple of other relative "names."

Like for Shao Kahn, maybe some Game of Thrones alumni (or god, you'll hate this but... Cena?). Jessica Henwick for Kitana. And so on. Not TOO expensive names but names within their reach if they get another 20-30 million to throw around, plus names that would make Reynolds stand out a little less from the others.

[Leo656]

I don't think it's even a question of money, just that mixing Good Actors with... less-good actors would make the entire thing feel very jarring and inconsistent, to the point where it might not even be worth it.

Like, let's just go ahead and say it plain, nobody in this movie is a "good" actor. But at least the entire cast is consistent in their "not-goodness". That helps the movie, in its own odd way. Everyone, for better or worse, is on the same level.

If they start adding "names", it might definitely get more eyes on the product but it will also shine a light on just how amateurish everyone else is, and you don't really wanna do that.

[Andrew NDB]

We can talk about what's a good idea or not a good idea or to what extent... but I think the intent so far from TPTB is to definitely to cast a Reynolds equivalent guy for the part. Period. Maybe they have a plan to balance the scales beyond that or maybe they don't, but that much seems fairly clear.

Plus it makes sense. As you and others admit... the movie we got is essentially Mortal Kombat 0. If it's successful or profitable... they can grow things how they might've initially with a proper Mortal Kombat 1 with the first true tournament and all.

[CyberCubed]

I'm pretty sure Johnny Cage and Kitana will be treated like major characters in the sequel, they're the only two "big" characters that were missing. Cage/Sonya and Liu Kang/Kitana along with Sub-zero will probably be the main plots with the tournament. No idea what they'll do with Cole, but he'll probably still be there.

Given we have Mileena we'll probably get the backstory between her and Kitana next time, illusions to Shao Khan, while the final will be Liu Kang or Sub-zero/Scorpion beating Shang Tsung.

Also get the feeling everyone who died will be revived in the next movie, like Kano and Goro especially. They're just going to say Shang Tsung restored their souls and their bodies so they can have fatalities over and over again but still keep the characters around.

[Coola Yagami]

I do see what you mean. Without other big name stars to balance him out, if you add Ryan Reynolds among all these noobs, it basically becomes a Ryan Reynolds movie. Like now he will be the main character, now he will save the day and make everyone look like chumps, and the movie is gonna more or less go by his sense of humor.

And that goes against the original complaint (which I hope these Hollywood idiots understand, because usually they misunderstand and miss the point completely). The point isn't that Johnny was supposed to be the main character. The point was that he's supposed to be there. Liu Kang is the main character, the hero, we should see his story with Johnny and Sonya as back up. Cole has no place anywhere in there.

In other words, it would be like replacing Sonya with some OC named Vanessa. Even if the roles were the same.... the complaint would still be 'where the **** is Sonya and who is this OC?'. And you can't say 'but but but Mortal Kombat HAS to have Sonya', well like it or not, Mortal Kombat also HAS to have Johnny Cage.

[IMJ]

I do see what you mean. Without other big name stars to balance him out, if you add Ryan Reynolds among all these noobs, it basically becomes a Ryan Reynolds movie. Like now he will be the main character, now he will save the day and make everyone look like chumps, and the movie is gonna more or less go by his sense of humor.

Without using the quote button I'm assuming you are talking about what I was saying above, but either way yeah. Nice way to encapsulate it.