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Mortal Kombat (2021)

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miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#326: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:21:05 AM

They all got ported to the main comics as well though btw..

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Blueace Surrounded by weirdoes from The End Of the World Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Surrounded by weirdoes
#327: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:30:03 AM

So, going back to a previous point, is Cole hated or it's just incredible apathy? And we can assume he will never make it to the games, right?

Wake me up at your own risk.
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#328: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:30:51 AM

Anyway, the point is that Cole was the bad way to do an Original Generation character (which unfortunately, tends to be the way it often happens).

I did like his wife and his kid oddly enough.

One Strip! One Strip!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#329: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:34:11 AM

[up][up] My personals feeling towards Cole are mainly apathy. The hate doesn't come from who he is but what he represents: the removal of focus from canon characters, many of whom have story arcs that could easily have served the needs of the film.

I was more disappointed. I expected him to get possessed by Hanzo and turn into Scorpion or something, but nope, he just gets some generic powers. It's a huge missed opportunity.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 29th 2021 at 1:41:12 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#330: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:40:23 AM

If this movie's YMMV page is to be believed, then Cole's own wife is more liked than him.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#331: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:43:37 AM

Cole's wife is a supporting character. She's better than a lot of action movie spouses in that she has agency and manages to avoid being Stuffed into the Fridge, but there's nothing particularly exciting about her personality. It feels like she's liked for being an exception to the rule, as if we've been conditioned to relate to helpless love interests through Stockholm Syndrome and are desperate to find someone, anyone who shows a hint of being something more.

You know what would have made a great subversion of the stock tropes that Cole represents? Have him die and transfer his mark to her, then she gets superpowers.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 29th 2021 at 1:44:27 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#332: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:52:14 AM

[up] Yeah, but now instead we'd have two canon foreigners for fans to hate instead of one.

Plus, I think after TLJ "subverting expectations" might be as well be dirty word.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#333: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:56:02 AM

Whatever; I think that TLJ's attempts to subvert tropes are the highlight of the sequel trilogy, with TFA being painfully formulaic and TROS being incoherent. That's not saying a lot given what we have to compare it to, but it's something.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that Cole's heroic archetype be subverted just for the sake of it, but because audiences relate to his wife better as a character.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 29th 2021 at 1:56:43 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#334: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:56:48 AM

The only way to subvert expectations with Cole that would work is if he died and his mark went to a canon character. Which I expect will be more and more likely in a sequel where that occurs with him and Johnny Cage.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#335: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:57:12 AM

granted, that would just run into other issues like having another stuffed in freeze, having a asina men die just a generic white woman can step in and the same issue of regular dude facing in mortal kombat.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#336: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:57:29 AM

For the record, I do like TLJ, flaws and all. I was really more playing devil's advocate.

Honestly, I don't think Cole needs to die. Just have him retire to take care of his family.

That too.[down]

Edited by windleopard on Apr 29th 2021 at 10:58:30 AM

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#337: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:57:48 AM

[up][up][up] Yeah, but then we have Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome, another hated cliché.

[up][up] Cole dying (for example, to Goro) wouldn't be fridging by any conceivable definition of the term.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 29th 2021 at 1:58:41 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
lbssb The sleepiest good boi Since: Jun, 2020 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
The sleepiest good boi
#338: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:58:34 AM

[up]It wouldn't really be a problem if everyone is already calling for this character to die.

Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon
Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#339: Apr 29th 2021 at 10:59:43 AM

[up]x3 - True, but the damage is lesser than him staying there. You invited the problem in, the issue is minimizing the damage that will occur getting him out.

Edited by Beatman1 on Apr 29th 2021 at 2:00:01 PM

EmeraldSource Since: Jan, 2021
#340: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:01:11 AM

Ahsoka is not an original character, she was a new character inserted into an established franchise and continuity. You take such terms too far and absolutely any character not part of the first installment or made by the original creator is an original character, like anything past Star Trek The Next Generation.

I personally don't have much aggression towards fictional characters in general, the best I can do is acknowledge other people perceive a character as The Scrappy. I was annoyed with Cole in that he was given importance without earning it, the movie has a protagonist issue where it doesn't know who's viewpoint we are supposed to identify with. Sonya earns her place in the story because it establishes she doesn't have the dragon mark and thus she literally has to fight for that position. Cole hits This Loser Is You so hard that everything from his ancestry to his arcana is not earned by his choices but given by the plot.

Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.
lbssb The sleepiest good boi Since: Jun, 2020 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
The sleepiest good boi
#341: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:01:48 AM

Maybe they could find a way to technically still keep him around, just not as a main character. Like, he gets cyberized by the Lin Kuei or something.

Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#342: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:02:31 AM

Well, it'd be a dick move to kill him off considering it would leave his wife and kid without a husband/father.

But on the other hand, there's no way to transfer the mark off him but to do that, unless he's somehow revived afterwards (thus creating a loophole).

That, and everyone dislikes him, so him dying would probably be better....outside of the killing a minority character off in favour of a white man issue, even if Johnny is a canon character who should have been there in the first place.

....man, this thing is complicated.

One Strip! One Strip!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#343: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:03:01 AM

My feeling is that the right time to pull a protagonist switcheroo would be in the first film. Now there's an expectation that Cole will stick around and audience members who (somehow) got invested in his character would be disappointed if he got kicked out the window. It's essentially the writers admitting that they screwed up and pulling out a saving throw.

There's also a problem in that Johnny Cage literally murdering the protagonist to acquire his mark would not be an heroic act. Maybe he's conveniently nearby when Cole dies or something and it's passed on Green Lantern style, but that's not how the established rules say the marks work.

Whatever. It's a stupid action movie; it's not meant to be overanalyzed, but the writers put themselves into this mess by introducing an OC, so they're responsible for getting out of it.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#344: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:03:23 AM

If you kick cole then you wasted him and whatever you can get out of him, which is a issue on is own, he is here, do something with it rather thant saying "now suddenly he die and everything is like it should", comic books do that all the time and I hate for it.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#345: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:03:41 AM

Just give it to kuai Lang ?

Edited by miraculous on Apr 29th 2021 at 11:04:26 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
lbssb The sleepiest good boi Since: Jun, 2020 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
The sleepiest good boi
#346: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:03:54 AM

You could probably mitigate the racial issue by replacing him with Kuai Liang as well as Johnny. Maybe also Kitana (who'd probably be played by Mileena's actress). Hell, throw in Jade as an extra black (?) character while you're at it. Or Nightwolf since he already has a cameo here.

Edited by lbssb on Apr 29th 2021 at 11:10:21 AM

Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon
miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#347: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:04:44 AM

Bash Brothers . I'm game

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#348: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:05:57 AM

I wouldn't be so ambivalent about Cole if, as noted above, he weren't such a bland, useless character. This Loser Is You is an apt way to put it. Hollywood needs to get over this habit of having the Chosen One protagonist be a blitheringly inane dipshit. (See also the recently released Oddworld: Soulstorm.)

Hey, since we know the dragon mark is passed down by bloodline, wouldn't that mean his daughter has it? There's a narrative opportunity.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 29th 2021 at 2:07:19 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#349: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:06:48 AM

I mean, cole already wraped canon around: hanzo vengance was lessen because he didnt lost his daughter, he didnt stick around as specter of vengance and he cant learn to be something else, meaning he cant restore the shirai ryu.

they should just let hanzo and cole merge and have cole build that.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#350: Apr 29th 2021 at 11:07:30 AM

[up][up]Still runs into it being an original character. The entire Turner family at this point is expendable. The only way it might work is if the family dies, and Cole somehow joins with Hanzo...somehow and becomes the new Scorpion, which could have an interesting idea of the generations of this clan cursed to have the same fate.

Edited by Beatman1 on Apr 29th 2021 at 2:08:40 PM


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