Mortal Kombat (2021)

Some info as provided by Entertainment Weekly.

• Lewis Tan is playing an original character named Cole.
• An early shot will have Scorpion's kunai being used as a gardening tool by his wife as a reference to ninja weapons starting out as gardening tools.
• Both Jax and Cole have a birthmark in the shape of the Mortal Kombat logo.
• Fatalities will be featured.

The Fatality I'm crossing my fingers for.

Original lead character has me squirming admittedly.

Immediate Red Flag at "Original Lead Character"

Most massive of red flags.

• Squirms* Where is Kitana,?

and Good, I’m not the only one.

It’s especially galling and dumb because the description of this original lead character could have easily been swapped with Johnny Cage and had far fewer issues. Hell, if the idea is the guy is down on his luck as a fighter and an actor, that was Mickey Rourke and Tony Danza. That fits Cage well.

Edited by Beatman1 on Jan 15th 2021 at 2:56:58 PM

I'm kinda perplexed about the 'birthmark' thing. Did they mean 'tattoo' instead? Because birthmarks don't work that way. I guess you could explain them as 'magic' in this setting, but it's just such a lame setup for a thing so small and which doesn't even need to exist in the first place.

Are those marks of the chosen or anything? Because AFAIK Jax wasn't that kind of character type.

Edited by AmazingSpiderHam on Jan 15th 2021 at 12:01:15 PM

Also, the game havem ove away from the tournament a long time ago, I fear they are going to make it a big thing for some reason.

Starting the reboot with the tournament is fine, and then you move on.

Cole Turner is the reddest of red flags, because there was no reason for an OC. At all. Was the fear that they didn’t want to Race Lift Johnny Cage or that the idea of Cage being a washed up actor and fighter would be too much of a stretch? (Again, several IRL actors have been both). Because those changes are peanuts compared to an original main character.

Hell, if you don't want a white protagonist MK has plenty of those, from the Asians like Liu Kang and Kung Lao to Afroamericans like Jax. Or a fantasy world female protagonist like Kitana.

Edited by AmazingSpiderHam on Jan 16th 2021 at 7:17:15 AM

It certainly wasn't a stretch for the version of Johnny that was used in Mortal Kombat: Legacy.

As I stated elsewhere, this Cole guy seems to be an amalgamation of Johnny and Liu; he's a professional fighter who isn't clued into all the weird stuff like Johnny but is also an Asian fighter and (possible chosen one) like Kang. It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted either Johnny or Liu Kang to be the main lead as both could potentially backfire^note Liu Kang is considered one of the more boring heroes by some in the fandom while using Johnny as the main lead would get some backlash for replacing the main hero who was Chinese so they decided to make Cole to get a "best of both worlds scenario".

I'm still holding out hope he will be a Canon Character All Along. Besides, we're at least very likely to get some cool fight scenes from him since he's played by Lewis Tan.

Edited by windleopard on Jan 16th 2021 at 8:11:52 AM

Is weird the whole white protagonist because generely speaking MK only got like two white protagonist in their titles: Taven and Cassie(and she was more of a ensamble team anyway).

I hope Cole's an amnesiac that used to be a canon character such as, say, Erron Black.

La'Ron Readus offers his theory that Cole Young is actually Kuai Liang.

It's also Rated R for blood and gore as well as language much like the original and modern games.

Kano was Greg Russo's favorite character to write.

New poster.◊

Enter Mileena.

So far, it seems like there is no Johnny, really.

Ah toothy flower of my heart.

This random OC makes even less sense, particularly as the games have made Johnny and Cassie more of a focus in the new timeline. Was someone at the studio asking to cast The Miz as Cage and the director got around it by making an OC?

Still holding onto the theory that he's Kuai Liang.

Still no Kitana so if Mileena actually gonna be good or not crazy for evil sake?

Here's the trailer, now in Red Band for extra Fatalities -

Cole having the same tattoo as Sub Zero does lend some credence to the theory he's Kuai Lang, while the murderous assassin working for Shang Tsung is Bi-Han.