I don't expect him to speak out against the negative reaction, 'cause he's getting his movie and I'm sure that's all that matters to him at this point.

Yeah, he did say that the budget was smaller than for the first season. I guess that explains why Johnny Cage was decked from head to toe in Alpinestars gear.

Personally I was disappointed in Cage in MKL2. He was too much of coward, that was very unusual for his character. While I understand that it is more realistic, it left a sour taste in my mouth. And the worst thing is that aside from that he didn't had good fight scenes, aside from minor skirmish with Liu Kang, which was good, but not enough to justify Cage presence in the series. The same goes for Stryker. He was even less relevant to the story, then Cage. Though, I liked their actors in the first MKL much better. Especially Stryker.


Yeah, I liked Kenshi portrayal, but his story left much to be desired. And the worst thing is that Ermac was Ermac in name only. His "green snakes" didn't helped either.


I don't think so. MKL1 & 2 was overall better then MKAn. Much better character presentation and general atmosphere. It didn't look as cheap and haphazard as Annihilation. Two main problems were dialogues and fights. If those two will be improved I will be very optimistic about new MK movie.

This shit sucked ! There's a few kool things about it.

I like the bad and drunk Liu Kang wearing hood :D I hated Liu till now.
Also I like the return of the original Shang Tsung, but it was more like cameo and that sucked as the whole movie did. The first season was great!

I liked the "battle royale" concept where they just run into each other and fight from there. Worked well in "The Hunger Games" and "Battle Royale."

Raiden: "Welcome to the tournament"

...in case anyone missed that I'll reiterate.

WELCOME TO THE TOURNAMENT

Okay. So how is a battle royale through random run-ins anything like a tournament? I cannot respect that "concept" when it is completely and utterly contradicted with the above quoted statement.

Perhaps Raiden is misinformed? He's been quite the idiot lately, so I suppose that's the only explanation.... but how many other times was Mortal Kombat referenced as a tournament in the entire season 2?

The only way I can accept random run-in fights is if this was based on Mortal Kombat 3 and there is an all-out invasion going on. Dare I say Annihilation? Didn't work out well then. Didn't work out well this time either.

I don't expect a movie like Blood Sport again... but c'mon!

Random picspam, courtesy of an on-a-whim Google search:



This is the guy who played Ermac in MK Legacy (Kim Do Nguyen).

I tell you, if Ermac had looked even half as sexy as this shot, his fight with Kenshi would've been the highlight of the entire series, let alone the second season. Makes his atrocious outfit in the show all the more criminal.

Another Raiden hater confirmed.

That's not insulting, if that was your pathetic intention. I've had a lot of respect for Raiden up until MK2011. So if that makes me a "Raiden hater" (excuse me while I cry over that remark) then so be it.

It was already explained many-many times, that Raiden wasn't that bad in MK9 and you still beating the old horse. Now that's pathetic.

"Explained" by who? Not that it matters, of course.

Raiden being "that bad" or not is an opinion, not a fact. If some one feels a character was portrayed unfavorably in a game they have a right to that opinion, as "hater" or not. That doesn't make it pathetic.

I can't recall any of the arguments about whether or not Raiden was an idiot in MK9 ending favorably for him in the court of public opinion.

At best, people were willing to concede that even though most of the dumb mistakes he makes are the result of how bad his intel is and that he did his best, there were some foolish choices that there's no defense for. For example, not knowing the strength of his own lightning when zapping Liu Kang. How does a GOD use his powers wrong by ACCIDENT?
And really, no amount of "greater good" can justify trying to sell the souls of friends who trust and have faith in you to protect them to Hell without their consent. You do something like that, you don't get to live it down. Especially when just a scene or two beforehand, we see how Raiden really deals with desperation and it basically involved looking like a crazy person, spacing out in the middle of conversation, throwing a tantrum, it.wasn't exactly the picture of strong leadership. Liu thinking he's lost his mind was pretty justifiable in that moment.
Nobody wants to be protected by a god who doesn't know how to handle stress and buckles like a belt when the pressure's on, man.

Yeah, tell that to yourself. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a day, when reality will come in agreement with your point of view...
Nah.


Oh, crud. Here we go...now we will be nagged to the brim with personal dellusions and interpreatations about CANON!!

Allright, let' show starts and fireworks explode.

About Liu's death, it was explained (many times) that Raiden's attack and Liu's mixed and created explosion. It wasn't particularly clever move of the writers, but it wasn't something that Raiden expected and was not result of his stupidity.

About Raiden and souls and hells: it was many times stated, explained, that Raiden was seriously humanized by writers in MK9. He was not infallible and wise god as in previous games. He was faulty and very human. Hence his disperation to do anything it takes to complete his mission. It is very human reaction, but as stubborn fanboy of the old canon you still cling to portrayal of the pre-MK9 Raiden, when it obvious to pretty much everyone who can see, was not in effect in MK9. His character was rewritten, its obvious and using old measurements in his case is simply not applicable. You can dislike it, but hating character for what he clearly was not meant to be, is like judging horror movie because it is not a comedy one, when it was never meant to be the former.

Personally I like human Raiden much more. For once MK had interesting character, unlike previous protagonists, which mostly were only nominally interesting, but without much of a character beyond generic archetypes.

Your description of "human Raiden" is basically confirming for me that you agree he acted like a moron compared to his former self. Thank you and good day; you saved me from arguing my point any further.

Yeah....No. I prefer to see my favorite characters NOT suffer the fate of Ned Beatty in Deliverance at the hands of their own creators. I'd like to see them respected and portrayed the way I remember them instead of this "Change for the sake of change" bullshit that's gradually taken over the entertainment industry. I'm fine with change....As long as it makes sense and doesn't make me wanna dropkick a kitten.

Gee...Well, if being human and faulty is being "moron" for you...I wonder how you can watch something-anything, that has actual human characters with faults and not bunch of semi-developed sterotypes. You must be boiling with rage at all their actions.


Nostalgia shouldn't cloud one's judgement and logical thinking. Some stuff will change with the time - it's the way how things are. It's inevitable, especially when it comes down to the "soft reboots" and the like.

HAHAHAHA!

You are missing the point. By a long shot.
Let me break it down for you.

I said compared to his former self. Read it over.

If a god acts like a human, he's a moron.

Humans are morons compared to gods. Like the Greek gods who were designed, from the start, to have human qualities. Despite that, even they were, a lot of the times, "smarter" than humans.

Gods have always been more wise. I ...ah FUCK IT... I don't need to repeat what razorsedge already said. If you didn't get it by now, then it's your loss.



It's not nice to laugh at people, sai.

I have understood what you was talking about. However, you still couldn't understand what I was talking about. Why I am not surprised.

Let me break it down for you:

Raiden WAS NOT written in the MK9 as his past-self. He was written pretty much as human and not as infallible god. What's so hard to understand about that? And now you hate him for being something that he never was intended to be in MK9 in the first place.

And no, if god act like human it doesn't make him "moron". It makes him more well rounded character, if anything. Especially when it comes to the setting like MK, where most of the characters are more or less defined stereotypes.

A human who's been alive for millions of years would still have intelligence and wisdom proportional to that amount of life experience.

If Liu Kang's own fire is what killed him, then why did the devs deliberately put a texture on his model of veiny, zig-zagging scars like the kind people who have been struck by lightning have in real life, rather than making his wounds look like a burn victim a'la Kabal or Freddy Krueger?

And how would Raiden not know that using his lightning on someone in the middle of an energy or chi attack would turn their own power against them, if he's been fighting and shooting lightning at people since humans were cavemen?
You say MK9 Raiden was acting like a human. I say I can name a dozen humans in leadership positions in fiction who don't space out or panic when they're under pressure and losing ground, who are way better written characters. Maybe Raiden isn't an "idiot", but he IS a BAD choice for a team leader. His behavior shows he's not mentally fit to command other people in war.
My main problem with Raiden isn't him as a god (although not acting like one is an issue), it's him as a leader of men. If you can't handle stress, you don't belong in the captain's chair. And if somehow, people do let you have that chair even if you don't deserve it, If those people put their lives (and apparently, their souls) in your hands and you deliberately attempt to BETRAY that trust, that's unforgivable. That is a morally evil act.

Here goes...now you making assumption based on the textures...Great!! Just great. What I was talking about diggin to deep, when there is no reason to do so?
You like parody of Nicholas Cage characters: my dog has that weird bump in a shape of moon, hence secrets of the humanity contained in the mountain on the north-west. Waht?!


Miscalculation on his part. He never was in such desperate situation like in MK9, so he was under a lot of stress. Beings who under a lot of pressure prone to making mistakes.


I, maybe, tiny bit agree with you, that his desperation was overplayed, but on the other hand it made him more interesting, rather than infallible being who always knows what to do. After so much time it was boring. Personally, I prefer more defined characters rather than infallible stereotypes. The ones you can empathize with. With preMK9 Raiden it was hard to do as he was "default wise mentor-god" character, with not much to go by. On the other hand I am not fan of fantasy, so my idea of a good character could a bit different from yours. Not to mean it as insult, but in fantasy, characters could be simple stereotypes. I prefer MK to be something more, hence my liking of the new Raiden.

That's one of my problems with MK9 right there, the false drama. The ILLUSION that the stress Raiden was under was even fucking justified. It wasn't.
First of all, the game tells us he's trying to "prevent Armageddon", but not a damn thing he does has anything to do with what caused Armageddon, it's all just about stopping *Shao Kahn* in specific from winning. What if someone worse like Shinnok or Quan Chi or Onaga beats Blaze now instead? What if Kahn comes back from the fucking dead and is present for Armageddon anyway? Raiden has achieved NOTHING certain, except follow the orders of a future version of himself who was not exactly in his right mind.
Secondly, the dude was letting the state of disrepair of A PIECE OF JEWELRY dictate his mood and mission in complete spite of what was ACTUALLY happening around him at any given time.

The war with Shinnok in MK4's backstory was easily more desperate than any fucking thing happening in MK9 and I bet he never tried to sell any of his followers' souls to Hell to win during that shit.

Raiden was panicking at times when they WON, like after they shut down the soulnado. Things didn't start going to hell until HE decided "Hey, how about me and the only good fighter take off so I can beg mommy and daddy to solve my problems for me and leave the lot of you Sonya-Tier losers defenseless?"

(Oh, and who found their hideout? That's right, the Lin Kuei, who almost certainly did it by homing in on their robot buddy, who would never have been a robot if Raiden had done his ACTUAL OFFICIAL JOB of enforcing the RULES OF THE TOURNAMENT back when a bunch of cyborgs interfered in an official match just as the Earthrealm competitor was about to win...yeah, don't gimme that shit about him being afraid of what Kahn will do if he jumps in, the entire fucking reason he's in attendance at all is to uphold the rules. Kahn wouldn't do shit if he just SAID "Hey, no, those outsiders are attacking one of my fighters, that's forbidden.")

The only thing that was ever really making Raiden stress out and act like he was slowly losing his mind was the IDEA that "If we don't kill Shao Kahn, he'll win Armageddon"...except Armageddon happens YEARS after MK1 thru 3, so there was plenty of fucking time to solve that problem and the worst case scenario AT THE ACTUAL TIME was the risk of Kahn conquering Earth, which was no risk at all because Raiden KNOWS Liu Kang can beat Kahn, he just doesn't want to LET him.

Look, if you have a situation where two bad things are going to happen, you deal with the one that's happening now FIRST, and THEN you worry about the future hypothetical one.

You let Liu Kang save Earthrealm, THEN you worry about chasing Kahn back to Outworld and slaying him while he's still weakened or something like that, THAT would be the fucking smart strategy.

Or maybe he should have confirmed the goddamn kill after Liu put a hole in the dude's chest the first time, instead of letting his men drag him off to be healed and assuming "Oh hey, my medallion cracked again even though I just witnessed the guy I'm supposed to stop die...I'm sure there's nothing shady about that at all. Nope, he must be totally dead for reals."

I'm a flawed human being with only 29 years of life experience and I just came up with both of those ideas off the top of my goddamn head, stream-of-consciousness as I was typing, and they're both better than ANYTHING Raiden says or does over a 6 hour long plot (which in reality was probably days or weeks long with a lot of downtime-type stuff happening off-camera)

And just for the record, I find neither this Raiden, nor the one that existed previously, an interesting character in any way, shape, or form. The only Raiden I've ever liked is the Chris Lambert/Jeffrey Meek live action Raiden with the sense of humor and the "I'm not going to give you the answer or do it for you, I'm going to give you a hard time until you figure it out yourself" teaching method. That Raiden had a personality. He displayed a variety of emotions, often, while still acting like someone with a lot of wisdom and experience who knows what the fuck he's supposed to be doing. MK9 Raiden is still the same bland exposition-machine the games always had before, the only difference now is he's just REALLY bad at his job and the only emotions he seems to be capable of are fear and the occasional empty platitude of remorse.

I also think your perception of genre-fiction is skewed if you think one-dimensional and two-dimensional characters are any more common or less common in fantasy stuff compared to other shows/movies/games. There's just as many shallow, underdeveloped characters in cop dramas and horror movies and sci-fi and westerns and cartoons and action flicks and everything else under the sun as there are in fantasy and the same with 3-dimensional, fleshed out figures. Also, didn't you defend the one-dimensional, clichéd sadist doctor character I hated in Raiden's Legacy episode? If you think I like "simple stereotypes", you're not really paying attention to the things I say very much.

And there are lots of negative personality traits a protagonist can have that don't require them to look like an inexperienced buffoon.

As an aside, please tell me you're just trying to get my goat with the part about the scars. I know you're an intelligent man, so it should be obvious to you that the texture on dying Liu Kang is unique. No one would model something so distinctive and different from every other wound texture in the entire game unless it was on purpose. For once, look it up instead of arguing, lightning is what leaves that sort of branching veiny scars.

Actually he had a good reason for this, because he knew what will happen, if he won't be able to prevent Kahn's victory. And no matter what decisions he made, no matter how much Kahn efforts were delayed, it didn't help. Quite a good reason for a PANIC.

We don't know anything about his war with Shinnok in the new timeline. Besides, even, if it was generally the same, it's still could be assumed, that this conflict was rather straightforward and no time travel sheningians were involved.

His panic after soulnado destruction was justified - it still hadn't solved his main problem with prophecy and the time was running out. And his decision to seek help from Elder Gods was also completely justified: he was in dire situation where, as it was already evident, every possible move led to even worse consequences. Who else, but Elder Gods could provide their help, in seemingly hopeless situation? It was tottaly logical move and I don't see what was wrong with it. The only mistake was that he took Liu Kang with himself. But nobody expected Level99!Sindel appearing and massacring everyone.

You judging character from the point of view of observer who already knows outcome of the story, which is wrong, because Raiden hadn't had luxury of knowing what exactly will happen and what he should do to prevent Kahn's victory. Also your position seemingly biased, because of your obsession with MK story and attempts to find flaws in any possible corner of MK9 story because it violates your vision of the MK'verse, which is pretty much is simplistic fanboism.

I'll give you shit and then some, because that's what I do, when I stumble upon fanboys. Kahn was in his realm. His domain. He could do whatever he wanted and bend rules as he please as was prooved with Kung Lao's murder. If Raiden opened his mouth, most likely Kahn said to him to shut up and that's that. It was hopeless situation where Raiden was mostly helpless.

I take it Raiden decided to stop Kahn as soon as possible, because, after witnessing his decisions actually changing things, it have become obvious that future is not fixed (aside from end of the world outcome) and anything could happened. Besides, Kahn's survival previously led directly to the Shinnok's invasion-Deadly Alliance-Raiden's corruption cycle, which, I guess, wasn't very pleasant thing for Raiden. It was sensible to prevent those events at fast as possible.

What?! But for Raiden End of the World wasn't hypothetical situation, damn it! It had happened. He have seen it with his own eyes! He was killed by Kahn! How in the hell it was hypothetical, if it did happened for him already? He had knowledge of it from himself. And for him it was a definite future, which didn't look avertable despite his efforts. There is, right here, obvious reason for panic and desperation. Once again you look at the situation not from the point of the in-story character, but as outside observer, who already knows everything about story. And once again I remind, that Raiden didn't have that knowledge. His situation was similar to attempt find a way in dark labyrynth where seemingly every way lead to the dead end. Literally.

Yeah. I can already see this: Raiden jumps in the crowd of Kahn's hencmen screaming: "I want to check his pulse!!" Reaction of his henchmen is quite predictable. Besides, it was obvious that Kahn was mortally wounded, if not dead. If it was not for Quan Chi Kahn would have certainly died, but its hard to take into account something like this. But of course you'll find another reason to blame Raiden, like "god of blunder should've killed Quan Chi because he should have know, that he could revive Kahn". But with such reasoning you can blame Raiden for anything, that went wrong in MK'verse, like rebellion of Shinnok or Kahn's initial rise for power (i.e. any events that were outside of Raiden's control). Which is r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s.

It's quite noticeable, that you've created this..."ideas" while typing. I created my arguments also, while I was typing. I guess it only fitting, that the efforts, which I spent to refute them is adequate to the efforts you have spent to create them. Ha-ha.

We have very different understating of how human characters work, I guess. For me Raiden was quite human and had range beyong "fear and remorse". In the eye of the beholder. I don't mean he was perfect portrayal, but it wasn't limited to the "panic". For once he had actual emotions, which was pleasant development after "default mentor". Note: I didn't expected MK9 deliver high class drama, but its story mode, was quite much better than I expected. Guess, not having high expectations helps a lot.

I understand that there's a lot one / two-dimensional characters in any fiction, fantasy or otherwise. However, in realistic setting it is generally expected to make characters more developed, while fantasy setting can get away with just stereotypes in some cases.

I afree with you and don't consider Raiden in MK9 being a moron.

So, fucking what, if Liu's skin looks like he was roasted by lightning? What exactly it has to do with my previous point? How does it disaproves it? Liu and Raiden's power mixed and Liu was burnt. That's it. How he looks after the accident is quite irrelevant, unless you can give me exact technomagical details on how Raiden's lightning works with diagrams and measurements. Also, while you at, please, provide me formulas on how chi works in MK'verse and whose chi was stronger in that particular situation: Liu's or Raiden's?
I am pretty sure, if you don't want to continue this rather strange and somewhat embarassing and hopeless (for you) argument you would drop this point.

Except my whole point is time was NOT running out.

During his first flash, at the beginning of story mode, Raiden had a long series of MORE VISIONS between Kahn invading and Kahn winning Armageddon. Even if he couldn't remember the content of those brief flashes, he saw enough to realize the invasion wasn't the end of the story. His exact words to Liu Kang are that if they don't kill him now, "He will return, bringing Armageddon."

He will return. Meaning he will go away and come back again. Meaning the fight on the rooftop is NOT Armageddon, they have TIME until Armageddon occurs.

That's enough information to arrive at the logical conclusion "If we fail here, if I let this stupid medallion break, we still have some time to try again. If I let Liu Kang at least beat him and save Earth, it'll let some of the pressure off because that pyramid thing where he crushes my head might be a week from now or a year from now, but it isn't going to happen an hour from now, or tomorrow, we can chase him back to Outworld and finish him off while he's wounded and I already know the Elder Gods will be cool with it because they told me to my face that the only time they'll get involved is if there's a merger of realms happening."

Instead of using LOGIC, though, instead of ever calming down and thinking things out, he decided to let the stupid medallion rush him all the time.

You say my argument is based on knowledge of how the story ends or "simplistic fanboyism". That's because you're arguing from a position of "I already want to believe everything Razor says will be wrong...now how can I prove it?" If you step into Raiden's shoes and walk yourself through every decision he makes, using the knowledge HE had each time, I think you'll find that he FREQUENTLY ignores/forgets about shit he knows and makes a move that a smart person would not have made in the same situation.

My arguments are what a rational person would do if they analyzed the situation they were in and all the information they have and then formed a logical plan.

For example, he allows Sonya and Jax to split up from the group IMMEDIATELY after Johnny Cage has JUST reminded him that ANY one of them could be the "he" who "must win". He also saves Smoke because Smoke could be the "he", but does not even consider the possibility that Sub-Zero could be the "he" who "must win" when he chooses not to save him out of fear of Shao Kahn's reprisal. If "He must win" is Raiden's PRIMARY mission, if he believes not protecting this "he" will lead to the END OF THE UNIVERSE, and you say that panicking over trying to fulfill that mission later in the story is completely justified, then what the fuck sense does it make for him to NOT keep any of these people under his protection?

Further, your assumption that Shao Kahn would just tell him to shut up and Raiden would be helpless when Sub-Zero was captured is wrong because at THAT time in the story, Shao Kahn still feared the Elder Gods might actually do something to him if he were to violate the rules of the tournament. He had not yet been convinced by Quan Chi that the Elder Gods are unwilling or unable to lift a finger if he does whatever he likes, like invading. Kahn's belief would give Raiden the authority to stand up and enforce the rules, because THAT IS RAIDEN'S ACTUAL JOB. And normally, Raiden would KNOW his real job is to make sure the rules are followed and everything is on the up-and-up on behalf of the Elder Gods, and believes the Elders will back him up if he attempts to prevent anything untoward, but in MK9, he simply FORGETS to do anything related to the actual reason he attends the goddamn tournaments once he starts getting obsessed/sidetracked with his visions instead...which is pretty much right away, because he doesn't say a single goddamn word about all the times Shang cheats during the first tournament either, like letting someone who's already been fuckin' beaten in the tournament (Cyrax, by Scorpion) fight and eliminate one of his fighters (Johnny Cage) or putting people in two-on-one matches, and we all know he's not the least bit afraid of Shang Tsung, so that's obviously not the reason he's not doing his fucking job.

You use Kung Lao's murder as an example that Kahn can do whatever he wants and Raiden can't stop him, but you forget that immediately after Kung Lao died, Raiden was about to ATTACK Shao Kahn, and only stopped because Liu Kang got to Kahn first. So how afraid of the emperor can he fucking be?

The end of the world WAS hypothetical, whether Raiden saw it happen or not, because it HASN'T happened yet. There's obviously MORE THAN ONE WAY to change the future, as Raiden was well aware. He himself talked about the dangers of causing butterfly effects, and throughout the story, caused several and witnessed the consequences, which shows he understands full well that the future in his visions isn't certain and can be dicked with in all kinds of ways. Plus he has no ACTUAL guarantee that his visions are real, or that they are to be trusted. When he first starts receiving them during the MK1 tournament, he admits out loud that he doesn't know for sure what they are and what they mean, yet as the story goes on, he becomes more and more dogmatic and obsessed that they and his stupid cracking medallion are the ONLY thing he should be listening to. Frankly, even though as a member of the audience, I know that his visions are real, I still agree with Liu Kang's assessment that his behavior by the end of the game was delusional and insane. Raiden stopped thinking about anything and just let all of his actions be decided by whatever the first reaction to the medallion that popped into his head was. That's not "human", or "relateable", that's "stupid".



Had nothing to do with it. Kahn's dead and Shinnok's invasion is going to happen again anyway.



Apparently so. Because last time I checked, human beings are capable of more than just acting blindly on emotion. We have the capacity to think before we act, to rationalize and analyze, to solve complex problems with logic and reason.

Raiden rushing to poor spur-of-the-moment decisions based on emotions like fear and panic doesn't make him more like a human, it just makes him a bad leader.

There are a million flaws a character can have to make them "more human". "Stupid" and "Afraid" are the WRONG ones to give to a character who's supposed to be the planner and leader, unless you specifically WANT to depict him as a fuck-up who makes things worse, which apparently IS what NRS wanted, but I think they way overshot the mark.

Y'know how people always say Batman is the most human superhero, because he has no powers? Y'know how Lex Luthor has no powers and yet he's Superman's greatest foe? What do these two guys have in common? INTELLIGENCE. They use their brains to succeed.
And as I already pointed out, the Lambert/Meek Raiden showed a far greater and more relateable range of emotion and humanity than MK9 Raiden does, without ever appearing incompetent at his job.
MK9 Raiden has flaws, but they don't make him a better character, because he doesn't have any POSITIVE traits to balance those flaws and make him likeable and heroic. When he's not panicking or fucking something up, he's just as bland as in any other game.


My point is simply this:

It makes no sense for a man's own power, or chi, or whatever you want to call it, to harm him. Liu Kang can light his hands on fire and not get burnt any other time, but someone else hits him with something and suddenly that same fire hurts him? I just don't buy it.

Combine that reasoning with the fact that he has lightning scars and NOT fire scars.

The onus is on you to prove you're right in GUESSING that Liu's power mixed with Raiden's and the lightning alone isn't what killed him.

Guys, we're getting way off topic here...

That's true. I apologize for that.

I wonder if anyone but me sees the irony that the argument started because Sumac said the subject was "explained" long ago and my and blacksaibot disagreeing with him proves otherwise.
Perhaps it's time to admit the simple fact that opinions are not going to be swayed this way and let the matter drop, eh?