Mortal Kombat (2021)

I would believe effects would have advanced by this point though.

MK 2 was over 2 decades ago.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 20th 2021 at 7:22:58 AM

What merch is that, if I may ask? Do you have a link, by any chance? (I'm interested to get a hint of what they might do with her.)

Thankfully the trailer makes it clear that they've fixed a number of the bigger problems with the early drafts.

The opening sequence, depicting the death of Sub-Zero's family, was shown to the press. Those saw it believe it implies that Cole Young is Scorpion's son.

Closest that Scorpion ever had to a living son in-game was Takeda, and that was mostly because he raised the child as a favor to Kenshi. If Cole ends up being a version of Takeda, I'm not sure how to take that. It immediately fixes the OC problem at least.

Edited by Beatman1 on Mar 17th 2021 at 11:30:45 AM

The older 2016 draft of the script straight up had Cole turning out to be Scorpion himself. The 2017 and 2018 drafts changed it and made him Scorpion's son.

Huh that could be it & huh Cole’s been a consistent presence in these scripts.

New Mortal Kombat Movie Producers Had Five Key Demands to Get the Movie Right

While it's great that they wanted a diverse cast, it's strange that this had to be a demand. The heroes of Mortal Kombat have been racially diverse since the second game.

Also, as pointed out in the comment section, Johnny was never the hero of any game. That was his daughter.

Edited by windleopard on Mar 17th 2021 at 11:31:00 AM

Meh... as a member of the General Moviegoing Public^tm who is unfamiliar with the games it makes sense to me. It's sad but not strange that diversity was a demand; you know at least one studio would've tried to bust out the white paint. (Funny that article mentions Centineo when apparently everyone except Netflix wanted to whitewash To all the Boys.)

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 17th 2021 at 11:53:44 AM

I mean, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade are the only white Americans in the first couple of games, then the white Australian Kano (even though that's a retcon). After that you have Stryker and MUCH later in the timeline Cassie. The games have always been highly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, with a number of masked or otherworldly characters that doesn't really matter the background of the actors playing them.

So it's not a bad thing to be thinking multi-cultural, but the franchise is intentionally multi-cultural from the ground up anyway.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Mar 17th 2021 at 11:09:01 AM

So this guy actively stumped to keep out Johnny Cage?

I’m annoyed. He’s one of the heroes, but rarely is he the main hero. He’s either helping someone, and the one time the Cages were the main focus, it was his daughter who was the main hero. He essentially got rid of one of the most popular characters in the game for no good reason.

The only thing I’m worried about is that the movie’s going to be too serious since Johnny’s not going to be in this.

Who’s gonna do the crotch shot?

Apparently Kano will be providing the levity.

Kano is a snake that'll jump ship at some point. The heroes need a funny guy.

So, you're telling me that a 90's movie, who wasn't trying to deliberately add diversity to it's cast, included Cage without making him the hero or giving him focus, but you couldn't?

Way to miss the point of Johnny Cage being his best as a support character.

The irony is that Johnny was originally supposed to be the main character of the MK franchise. Mortal Kombat was originally conceived as an action game starring a character based on and portrayed by Jean-Claude Van Damme. After Van Damme dropped out of the project, they re-worked it into what we know it as today.

And it's fine, that he wasn't the main character, but he was part of the Power Trio, the Roeper to Liu's Lee and Sonya's Williams. You can have characters like that and not have them overshadow or make the Asian leads redundant. Eliminating isn't the answer.

I'm just hoping that I don't watch the film and go "You know what this needed? Johnny."

Edited by Beatman1 on Mar 18th 2021 at 9:37:19 AM

I expect to.

Between the OC protagonist, Johnny being snubbed, and Mileena's teeth, I expect to watch the movie and think, "The effects and the actors do a great job of bringing these characters and stories to life on the big screen, but the creative choices leave something to be desired."

The trailer was super good, but everything we learn about the film seems to just reveal another crack below the surface. I'm expecting somewhere around the quality of "Milla Jovovich presents Milla Jovovich featuring Resident Evil".

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 18th 2021 at 6:48:19 AM

This may be... displeasing to you.

Mortal Kombat's Director Wanted to Ground His Gory New Adaptation.

Personally, I think this might be the real reason Johnny isn't in the movie. Or at least, is a more believable reason than not wanting Johnny because he didn't want him to be the main hero (which could be avoided by writing him as The Lancer or comic relief).

Which, mind you, is basically what he was in the 90's film: The comic relief The Lancer. Liu Kang was the main hero through and through.

Yup, my point exactly.

Everything that the director says makes me less and less enthused for the film. Yeah, the 1995 movie had problems, the self-censorship, the fact that it was rather blatant about cribbing notes from Enter the Dragon, but this crosses the line into "pretentious" territory.

I Mean this is mortal kombat. It's not supposed to be taken 100 percent seriously.

I'm speculating, but I wonder whether the creators of this movie didn't exclude Johnny Cage because they feared that, if they went into negotiations with a white American heroic character present, studio execs would push for that character to become the protagonist.

Now, they have Kano—but Kano's Australian, and likely at least somewhat shady. He might thus be less attractive to studio execs as a potential replacement protagonist.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 18th 2021 at 7:35:23 PM