New Mortal Kombat flick?

[BitVyper]

So Reptile is a Harlequin Baby that not only somehow survived for thirty years with a debilitating physical illness that modern science can't treat

Just looking at wiki, treatment is apparently a lot better now, with the oldest survivor being twenty six at the moment.

They rewrite Link as a grizzled off the beat detective, and Zelda as the president's daughter. Ganon is a South American terrorist that kidnapped her. The triforce is actually a codename for a nuclear weapon.

I'm having a hard time seeing how this wouldn't be awesome. Can Impa be the chief of police who makes Link turn in his badge?

Edit: I mean, it's about a million times better than the "FFVII but with Link" hoax.

[Magus]

Well at least Sub-Zero is now apparently a robot. Unless that's an oxygen mask because, like, he has to breath icy air or his lungs will catch on fire because he's incredibly sensitive to high temperatures like Mr. Freeze. Also he likes to rape children.

[Bells]

A Cyborg ninja assassin that has super low internal body temperature, and can cause you to die from Hypothermia just by punching you repeatedly and also don't have a heat signature, making him even harder to spot.

I know it's stupid, but there is margin where stupid and awesome can co-exist!

[Magus]

I thought it was pretty cool when he chopped off Scorpion's arms and legs, disemboweled him, and murdered his family while he drowned in a river, before one of the Elder Gods gave him a chance at revenge by returning him to life to seek vengeance. But hey that's just me and some good old fashioned video game novelization reading (by Jeff Rovin).

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Personally, I'm just taking a wait & see attitude. This isn't something that looks like a must see, but might be worth renting. Or maybe as more enfolds, I might actually look forward to this.

As far as the lack of mysticism, well it is called Mortal Kombat. The whole mortal element is kinda implied. Plus, the movie isn't necessarily devoid of mysticism, just the Kombatants.

SWB
- Of course, if this does turn out to be a game. That would be interesting. Having a MK game with movie-level cutscenes would certainly be interesting. If you throw in a return to realistic looking playable characters, that might be interesting.

[tacticslion]

Nonsie, I hear your objections, and Krylo's right: the bad science is awful.

The thing is? This is probably far, far more acceptable to the majority of the movie-going public. Stupid as it is, it seems that bad (read: "non-") science is more likely to generate views than out-and-out magic, as the latter is more strongly identified with EPIC works like Lord of the Rings, or NERD stuff like Dungeons and Dragons (the movie, too). Action flicks with magic probably don't have much of a chance. I'm not saying that it's right, just that this is what it seems to me, as a reason for them doing this.

Plus, as has been mentioned it's so far a downplay of the mystical elements, not a complete rejection of them. We really don't know how this will turn out, though it certainly seems devoid of mystacism so far. It's quite possible they'd end up going for the more literal 'spiritual' world (literally means "unseen" world) to try to both up the creepiness factor of such stuff and cut down on special effects budget (which they seem to be spending on actors instead?).

As far as what they've done so far: it seems that Johnny Cage is dead. But again, this could be deceptive - we don't know what spiritual elements they're going to put (if any) and, hey, we don't know what other Maciavellian plot twists they're going to pull ("it was really his stunt double, gasp"!). We don't know. It could very easily be crap. I'm not expecting anything resembling a masterpiece: this is a videogame movie, after all, and those have a history of not ending well. But there's been a lot of "man everything they're doing sucks!" with the given reason of "they changed everything important!" which doesn't make sense. I mean, the magic elements which were just an excuse for the violence in the first place.

And the whole grim-dark-blargh thing: really? This really bothers you guys that much? MORTAL KOMBAT going "gritty", when originally that was exactly how it billed itself (compared to Street Fighter) seriously upsets you guys? I mean, I think - mysticism aside - this trailer is far, far closer to the original "core" of the game idea than anything they've put out since: that of over-the-top, gory violence done in semi-comprehensible ways. That was always the essence of Mortal Kombat - it's what set it apart from the other (usually better) fighters out there. The fantasy elements were always just a window dressing so they could have excuses to launch occasional fireballs and come up with creative ways to disembowel people. Street Fighter was usually far more High Fantasy (in terms of 'magic' powers of the participents) than MK, outside of the gods themselves.

Anyhoo, I'm done. I'd say we can't expect a masterpiece of any kind (although I could be wrong), but honestly, outside of (from what I've heard) the Prince of Persia, this seems like it could be one of the better video game adaptations to have come along. Did they change stuff? Yeah. Is it unrealistic? Yeah. Is it more accessible to the 'common' movie viewer? Probably. This, combined with the word "reboot", as Bells mentioned, makes these sorts of changes seem more acceptible to me. I dunno. I'll admit, I've never been a big MK fan. But this certainly seems to hold the spirit of the original games more than either of the movies did.

[Magus]

I'm not really against the grim-darkness, it just seems a little forced. Frankly reptilian cannibals aren't really scary to me, and you don't automatically make them so by showing them in dim lighting and so on, you can't force them to seem grim-dark just with moodlighting and scary music. There's a certain style and tone to the trailer which can be a turn-off even if you don't mind grim-darkness and think it's appropriate to the series.

I thought it was cooler when Scorpion speared that guy through the throat, honestly. Everything else was kind of underwhelming. At least they appear to be trying in their attempt to make this movie, though...I've already seen worse adaptations than this would probably end up being if it's a movie.

You know what they should do is make it self-aware and make it like Punisher: War Zone, I"d love it then. The movie should be aware of it "grim darkness" and play to that. It'll be much more entertaining than a straight adaptation.

[Kim]

This is probably far, far more acceptable to the majority of the movie-going public.

This implies I give a damn what the "majority of the movie-going public" thinks. I don't. Remotely. The Transformers movies did well. I found the first painful to watch, and I'm not even a Transformers fan.

[Bells]

So far i haven't heard any props to the whole Johnny cage / Baraka fight in the trailer. And it's a damn shame. I thought it was quite a cool looking little brawl and also better than any fight in any Mortal Kombat movie.

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by NonCon

This implies I give a damn what the "majority of the movie-going public" thinks. I don't. Remotely. The Transformers movies did well. I found the first painful to watch, and I'm not even a Transformers fan.

Really it implied that you do about anything. Looking at your new avatar makes me pretty sure you hate everything that exists anyway, so...

(note: I don't actually like Transformers movie)

Originally Posted by Bells

So far i haven't heard any props to the whole Johnny cage / Baraka fight in the trailer. And it's a damn shame. I thought it was quite a cool looking little brawl and also better than any fight in any Mortal Kombat movie.

Okay: props! There!

... what you want specifics? Fine: I did think it looked quite good, and the way Baraka used his blades works very well with the original intent of the game (the "fatality"). Really, that's one of the things that made me wonder if it was faked - the entire fight looked like an action movie fight should, and especially since they were talking about a retired action movie star...

As far as Baraka himself goes, to me, if he put the things in his arms in the first place I'd expect him to use them more, but then again, I always wondered why he didn't simply spear people in the old games. Using them as defensive 'shields' and offensive weapons is a fairly good idea, though it'd probably be a better one for most opponents to just go in swinging the things like mad. Of course, then again, he is mad (and insane too!), so you can probably 'justify' his behavior (to a point) with that.

Finally, and with this I'm done, 'cause I'm not really a fan anyway, as far as the 'horror' factor goes, I don't think of it as 'scary' so much as 'gorey' and 'disgusting', which is pretty much what MK was all about: gorey ways of inflicting death on others.

This brings me to another point: the very idea of sequels to the game were nonsense - in order to win the first time, everyone would have had to die (except for that one character you played as). They couldn't viably reappear later (although MK sometimes tried to get around this, by 'reincarnating' some and having other siblings take up the mantle for others). Still, such a thing would necessitate restarting every once in a while anyway, and if they just republished the exact same thing, it would be boring. I recognize that, as fans of the original or whatever, you'd like it to be like the 'old style', but that nostalgia, it just didn't work in this case.

Oh, and krylo:
Actually, it takes place in the soviet era, and the triforce would be a series of nazi-era uber weapons controlled by a computer program that was shattered into fragments across the globe (by the president's daughter, natch') that Link and Ganon would be in a race to gather first. Link would then learn how to wield a sword as he fought Ganon's thugs and enforcers (called "pigs") and gain a special one called the 'master sword' which is really a hacking tool (get it?) that would allow him to "hack" into the main control system of Ganon's reconstituted triforce of 'power' (a space station! in space!) and defeat it once and for all, leaving it falling to earth in flames! Ganon, however, would send a text to Link's iphone two years later...

EDIT: the sequel would take place sixty years later in the far-flung future of 2015 (they have flying cars and hoverboards then), wherein Link was a grizzled ancient retired detective who had saved the world from environmental collapse by erecting a giant, ugly, orange energy shield with the triforce of wisdom, right? Well, then he learns (from Zelda the third) that it really is okay up there now, and so he goes on a madcap adventure (resurrecting Mr. Tingle, his staunch ally from the first film) and discovering that he (and Tingle and Ganon) are really aliens from another world sent here eons ago! And he's immortal! By the end, he regains his (relative) youth, and 'ascends' into space with/without Zelda the third (his love interest, actually a descendant of a cousin of Zelda from the first movie who died of Melanoma four years after it ended), depending on the version you watch!