Mortal Kombat

I've always joked that that stomp Bruce Lee does to that mook early in Enter the Dragon should be one of Liu Kang's fatalities and they actually made it so in Shaolin Monks.

Edited by Hashil on May 15th 2019 at 10:47:24 AM

Ah, right. Thanks for clearing that up.

And issue is that the franshine have pretty much out grown the tournament aspect(and for the better I said, it is a problem with fighting games in general), so I dont know how intersting will be going back to that.

Tournaments are a fun and easy way to set up a bunch of one-on-one fights. Plus there's always intrigue going on in the background. There's still plenty of material to mine from that setup.

If the movie does go the tournament route, I hope they apply more attention to detail to how matches are set up.

Shut up and take my money.

I actually hope they forego tournaments. Mortal Kombat is basically an Artifact Title. The titular Mortal Kombat Tournament was only really a thing in a couple of the games.

We already got a really good movie about the Mortal Kombat Tournament. There are so many other things that a film could be about.

• Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm in violation of the Elder Gods' rules (Annihilation was supposed to be this but it sucked).
• The Elder God Shinnok is released from Hell by his minions' machinations and declares war against the heavens.
• Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, the respective Dragons of Shao Kahn and Shinnok, betray all sides with an unexpected Deadly Alliance and bring the realms to their knees.
• The Dragon King Onaga, ancient ruler of Outworld before Shao Kahn, seeks to merge all of existence into a single cosmic entity (think Evangelion).
• A pair of demigods raised by dragons, one good and one evil, compete with one another for the throne of their parents' kingdom.
• To prevent the end of all things, Raiden travels back in time to change history and finally bring about the death of Shao Kahn.
• Twenty years into the future, the next generation of heroes joins forces with the next generation of Outworld warriors to prevent Shinnok's rise.
• Kronika, eldritch goddess of time itself, seeks to reset time itself. To stop her, our heroes must confront her army of heroes and villains alike, all swayed to her side with promises of a better history.

There's a lot in Mortal Kombat that has nothing to do with Tournaments. I hope instead of remaking the 1995 film, they just run with some of the other plotlines.

If I had to pick a direction, I'd say to start at the Kombat Kids. Keep Broad Strokes continuity with the 1995 film, ignoring Annihilation. Introduce Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs, Kung Jin, and Takeda Takahashi to be the new protagonists twenty years after Liu Kang won the Mortal Kombat Tournament.

From there, they can merge in adaptations of Shinnok, the Deadly Alliance, Kronika, etc. while keeping the story driven by these exciting new protagonists.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 15th 2019 at 1:40:25 PM

So I know Street Fighter is often the go-to game franchise for MK to cross over with but there are two other games I'd like to propose for crossovers: Soul Calibur and Killer Instinct.

Soul Calibur

• Both are fighting games that don't focus on fighting tournament. At least, MK hasn't been about the tournament since MK 2.

• Overarching plots across games (the pursuit of the two Soul Swords for Soul Calibur, the fight for protection of the realms for Mortal Kombat).

• Both have characters using weapons in their fighting styles. This wasn't initially the case with MK but it's become more prevalent since MK 4. Virtually every character fights with some kind of weapon now.

Killer Instinct

• Both came out in the 90s.

• Both started out as being about a tournament but that was focused on less as time went on.

• Many of KI characters can be seen as equivalents to MK characters. Jago to Liu Kang, Orchid to Cassie Cage, Kan-Ra to Quan Chi, Glacius to Sub-Zero, Fulgore to Sektor/Cyrax etc.

Like Capcom with Street Fighter, I doubt Bandai Namco will allow a gory franchise like Mortal Kombat to crossover with the Soul series.

Also MKX and SC 5 introduced a shitton of newcomers along with or in place of old faces.

The difference is MKX didn't make an utter pig's ear of it.

Honestly the only Japanese fighting that I see crossing over in any capacity is Samurai Shodown, mostly because those games aren't a stranger to MK style finishers even if they're less graphic about it.

We have a release date: March 2, 2021.

It's funny 'cause Soul Calibur has the same over-the-top fighting as Mortal Kombat, where like half of the attacks are unapologetically lethal but then the characters just get back up and keep fighting. Siegfried, for instance, has multiple attacks that impale people on his giant f*ckoff buster sword.

It's just not gory, is the difference.

Put Friendships in it.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 18th 2019 at 6:06:42 AM

See, they fit. MK 11 even gave us MK's own Zasalamel in form of Geras.

Would anyone be interested in the Great Kung Lao being a playable character in a future game?

As long as he’s not like he was in Mortal Kombat: Conquest where he was kind of a moron.

I would have been interested in him being a playable character in this game. Netherrealm missed a lot of opportunities when they introduced time travel as a major plot device and then only used it to bring in a handful of doppelgangers.

Doppelgangers strictly from within this timeline, as well; no timeline jumping allowed.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 20th 2019 at 8:27:32 AM

Makes you curious if there were other noteworthy warriors in the other tournaments Earthrealm lost.

Speaking of missed opportunities, I wish they had Robin Shou reprise his role as Liu Kang.

Edited by windleopard on May 20th 2019 at 11:22:41 AM

I don't. But that's because I've listened to Ronda Rousey try to voice Sonya.

I don't really have an opinion on the controversy surrounding her. It's really complicated and as a cisgendered dude, I'm not sure I have the right set of experiences to really weigh in on either side of it.

But I do have an opinion on her voice acting and that opinion is that her performance is awful as Sonya Blade. As is often the case with celebrity casting, Rousey is not an experienced voice actor and it shows.

Voice acting, despite what the industry might think, is a skilled labor experience. You can't just walk in off the street and be believable as Batman's voice. Even if you've played Batman in a live-action film! Because they're very different skillsets! If you aren't skilled at emoting vocally, specifically, then your voice acting isn't going to be very good.

Rousey's Sonya sounds exactly like I would expect from any celebrity that walks in and tries their hand at voice acting for the first time. It sounds like an amateur performer reading words off a script.

I loved Robin Shou's performance in the film. But celebrity voice casting is a plague. We need to let actual voice actors voice characters, and let the celebrities keep doing what they're good at.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 20th 2019 at 12:53:25 PM

Shou has a voice role in Sleeping Dogs at least. Plus moving from screen acting to voice acting worked pretty good for Freddie Prinze Jnr. Mostly because he wasn't plain terrible.

Rhonda's case is that she isn't a great actress to begin with. It's really noticeable next to Erica Lindbeck and it doesn't help that she has some really emotional moments during the first chapter. Funny enough though, her voice fits Sonya perfectly and if she was better actress, it would have been perfect casting.

So, how do you imagine some of the Earthrealm defenders that were defeated in the past to be?

I'd imagine some of them were friends with the Great Kung Lao and entered the tournament to avenge his death. My head canon is two of them were Siro and Taja, the GKL's companions from MK: Conquest. Their backstories are pretty much the same as the t.v. show, Siro being a disgraced guard and Taja being an ex-thief.

There are likely some who entered the tournament for glory like Johnny Cage initially did. And some just looking for a fight. I like to think one of Kenshi's ancestors fought in the tournament.

So are Smoke and Rain the only ninjas who haven't been shown unmasked?

Chameleon hasn't had his face reveal yet either. Well not technically speaking