Excellent analysis. It would be a wise move for Midway to state the trailor as non-cannon. Because I don't really wanna see how they explain that...Lol...Kitana can't run...hehe...There is the other possibility that the shots we seen were 5 seconds of a 2 minute intro that shows everyone and explains everything but we won't know for a while.

The IGN video confirmed that this is the actual intro and not a teaser (at least, in my mind!) The guy talking during the IGN video says that the story will be explained in the intro and then more of the smaller details will be explained through Konquest. While he's saying this, the scene is the very same as the teaser, the big battle with all the warriors. 85% confirmed in my mind that this is cannon.
Those are interesting thoughts, Tgrant. If I am right, and this is the intro, I wonder how they'll explain those sworn rivals fighting side by side. I have a gut feeling that this game may be a terrible blow to the MK storyline. I hope I'm wrong.

I liked your analysis. I too played, and replayed, the vid to get a better understanding of what he was really saying and I have to say you forgot one thing. Yes the Tournament is a way for the natives of any realm to protect themselves from outside invasion but it is also a way for the outsiders to earn their way into a realm for invasion or what ever they desire.
The Elder Gods probably forsaw the tournmaent falling into the hands of the corupt (like it did) and forsaw the out come. think about it...
Shang gains control and a greater power is need to restore balance....Liu Kang.
Then the one up, Shao Kahn, and he's defeated.
One up, Shinnok...defeated. And so on up to Onaga.
Remember they said the fury of Kombat would destroy the realms. Each victory each action is countered by something more powerful until armageddon.
Every one has their theories about what's going to happen, me personally, I think Onaga was defeated and the One Being, Blaze, has taken his place. I also think the Kamidogu are not at the center of the story anymore. They were the weapons of the Gods, I think the One Being has his own tricks and maybe the war is it...you never know.
About the summoning, I thought about this too but at this time there really is no way of telling. Maybe it has something to do with Konquest? Maybe the One Being and the Elder Gods have chosen (or protected) there own warriors to combat each other. It's all speculation but isn't this fun. I'm way more hyped about this game the MKD

I think it is very early.
Maybe this trailer isn't even canon storywise.
Kitana doesn't know how to run that's hilarious.... yet Nightwolf is even funnier when seen from far behind: he runs with both tomahawks raised and looks like he runs like a girl

No... IGN didn't say it was the actual intro... besides I'm a bit bothered by the whole "tournament" thing... how can there be a tournament? Guys the fact of the matter is that it's a teaser and is not meant to be anaylized, it's just to generate excitement. Sorry to burst your bubble.

I think this was a great analysis to read, however, you *are* reading a bit too much into the lines and things we saw. Let me answer your thread point by point because you definitely need some answers and I thought it was fun to read:
* About the “Long ago...” Elder gods bit:
I thought exactly the same thing, however it comes to no surprise that they could had foresaw the creation of MK would mean the destruction of the realms during the early events of Mk3 AND even Mk2. I wouldnt read too much into that line, but it is an interesting fact to note. I mean, its more then highly possible that quote ment that they realized this during Mk2, Mk3 and even Mk1 (knowing abouts Tsungs dirty tricks and corruption).
While I seriously doubt there will be any retcons concerning the Elder gods position in the storyline, it is highly possible, but not because of that statement. Let me give you a special from “Desperate Housewifes” as an example. The narrator (not the woman who killed herself) said, “4 woman were brought together....something”, something along those lines clearly stated that they practically never knew eachother or that they weren’t close friends, but the murder of Alice made them all get together to share the grief and by doing so, discovering a secret and a way to unsolved it, etc. See the huge mistake of that simple line?
Sometimes this type narrations aren’t really ment to give any huge hints about the story, the idea is to cover the “main/general idea”, not serve it to you in a plate as official.
* “Every warrior has been summoned”:
Now I too agree this might be a hint that screams: “Prepare for a huge load of resurrections fellows”, BUT, it could simply be an elegant for of speech that simply tell us that the mk developing team itself, has decided to bring back everysingle character. Its simply an elegant way to say: “Everyone is back!”.
I wouldn’t read too much into those lines either, but take note that Im not pushing away the possibility that the story might be centered about a huge resurrection thing, etc.
* About the whole “Champion thing”:
Again, this is reading way too much into the lines. I for one see this as “elegant text”, it’s a must for this kind of things, to write and present a well written text that sounds diplomatic/eloquent/important. Its like everything we see in the commercials or even during the promotion of the past Mk Games:
- “Who will be the greatest Mk champion ever? Play the game to find out! (for Mk3-Mk4)”
- “By playing Mk you will determinate who the greatest champion is!”
- etc etc
Im not sure if you got the idea. Its just eloquent text. Who knows, the trailer COULD actually be what you suspect it means, but I doubt it, to me, it sounds like one of the simple rules of promotion/publicity and merchandise. In order to sell this kind of stuff you need more then just impressive pics and vids, a good narrator and eloquent words often do the trick.
I also doubt the realms will end and that everything will be destroyed. But you have a point about Liu Kang, but that only means something if the trailers text is actually the “official story words” if you know what I mean. I see it as eloquent text, but everything is possible.
This battle doesn’t necessarily mean the ultimate destruction, I don’t see why you think the victory of the champion or champions will lead to eternal death. If the good guys actually win (and the fusion of the kamidogu is stopped) then there is hope, I doubt their victory would mean our death because it would be kind of illogical.
And speaking of death, Mk is all about life AND death, never mind Raydens wise words in the first film, and dead characters have been important in the past, I don’t see why (assuming they all have been actually resurrected) they wont be important now. Mileena was back and is super important now, Scorpion, Sindel, Cage (though retconned), etc, were also important to the story. BUT you have a point, I don’t doubt there might be some silly character brought back from beyond with a story that has no real importance for the mk events, however, that wont necessarily be because he/she was resurrected.
By now you, me and everyone should get used to the idea that resurrections are inevitable in the story, and as much as we hate it, its there. Mk is not all about life, its much more. Actually, its not that bad considering its your fave character the one that is brought back, the problem is the way its explainned. Its not deep.
* About Onaga not being there and everyone fighting:
Well, ---assuming--- THIS is the actual INTRO of the game, you have to take into consideration that we have only seen like 5-10 seconds of that battle. Im pretty sure that if a group of black dragons, special forces and red dragons suddenly crossed each others path at the same time they wouldn’t say: “Hey, lets find Onaga and kill him first before we kill one another”.
If that’s the intro there might or might not be an explanation of how and why everyone (evil) suddenly found everyone (good), and they are fighting against each other. Scorpion would first worry about Quan Chi if he spots him first before actually seeing Onaga. From the looks of this Onaga is no where to be seen yet, maybe he will make a ----wow--- appearance later after everyone fights their main enemies or everyone at the same time. Then maybe everyone or a few will charge against him.
Who knows? By the looks of this, it might not be the intro and just a teaser like the Baraka VS Mileena fight. Remember all the speculation back then? And in the end it was all answered, it had a story and a point. Again, we have only seen 5-10 seconds of that, if it’s the intro, there will be much more. God knows where are the rest of the warriors, maybe on a mission? You say you didn’t see Tanya, well, she might be along side the others we didn’t see as well. Maybe back in the rows? Maybe Onaga is fighting some of the elder gods while they fight down there?, etc etc etc.
* The “Final Tournament”:
You are reading way too much into the lines. Mk3, Mk4, MKDA and MKD definitely didn’t look like tournaments, yet they are still called tournaments because that’s what Mk has always been know for, Mortal Kombat, the tournament of tournaments. I believe Mk3 was not a tournament yet it says the heroes accepted Kahns challenge or something, for the past publicity and promotions of Mk4, MKDA and MKD the word “tournament” was used a lot, so why not again? I don’t see why that should be a problem or a detail to worry about. Its just part of the text, of MK, and of the promotion of the game. Mk3 and Mk4 could had been tournaments, I don’t know, but MKDA and MKD weren’t, and they were still called tournaments.
* About the Pyramid:
Good stuff, yes, so far its all speculation, nothing more.
* About MK8:
Like I said, the victory of the good guys (assuming they win) does NOT mean the ultimate destruction of everything, why would it? And if Onaga won, who knows what other life might be formed because of him? I mean, there are just a LOT of possibilities and things that can be explained, done and developed with just a touch of creativity here and imagination there.
Well, that was a rather huge post, lol. I think I have posted and answered everything you talked about.
Very cool thread Tgrant, just don’t look too deep into the teaser, its not worth it. So far we don’t even know for sure what that means or is, and a lot of creative answers can be given to all of us in the end when we get the complete intro/teaser. So far, we have seen nothing.

my opinion: mka could either make or break the m k series. ever since mk1 the plot has been a huge part of the game, and as the game evolved, the game was less fatality and more plot. nnow, no other 1-on-1 fighting game out there has more plot than mk, but this is also the most confusing plot; every game they introduce as many non-canon things as there is canon. and every game they try to fix the plot holes, only creating bigger ones.
i have no doubt that mka will attempt to finish the whole mk plot up until now, but, and a big but, it was a DUMBASS move bringing everyone back. jamming charecters into a game to make it better does not work. the plot was literally absent from mkt, and that game is barely even mentioned among mk fans. not a bad one, but because of the abcense of plot, it has no meaning now. the same could go for mka.
queve, about the "mk3-mkd not toournaments": thing, mk3 and mkda actually were tournaments, of sorts. after most of the earth warriors were dead, and only the chosen ones remained, kahn challenged them to fight him. mkda was a tournament too. dont you remember, in li mei's bio/story/whatever it talks about how quan chi would free her village if she won the tournament, and she was enslaved into a dragon king infantryman instead. mk4 was all out war, however, and mkd, most of the people never even saw each other.
as for the people fighting alongside each other, tgrant, that HAD to be show. if anything, the people would rather fight each other than the good people, at least on the evil side. if that would happen, mka would be a failure. any game that could screw up that badly on the intro would suck ass, no matter how many "create-a-things' they have. mka is simply put, a rushed project. the chances of recreating the success of mkd are slim, with what ive seen so far.
tgrant, onaga not being in the battle scene means nothing. didnt he have his minions do all the work for him, while he collected the kamidogu? why would he risk death, when he could fuse the kamidogu and kill them all? even though the teaser is not canon (hopefully) there are some grains of truth in it. was onaga ever known as a fighter? not that i know of. his absence only helps the canon-ness of the plot, at least for me.
also, you talked about a pyramid? new level, definatly, important plot twist...maybe. maybe this is where blaze turns big, since he was known as a traveller (i think), his travells might bring him to that obviously , magic imbued pyramid. maybe he finds out who he is. blaze is no longer a stupid bonus charecter. he's important now.
well, im bored with this marathon typing. im gonna finish. peace.

I think you are too serious in this analysis. This is just a trailer, not the final product. What the narrator says could not take as the true history of the game yet. I believe that even Ed Boon or Vogel does not know how the story will be. The teaser was just to cause some shock, as it did for everyone.

After taking quick glances at some posts (I don't have the time to fully read them at the moment and reply to them), I thought Id' best just post that I am aware that this is just a teaser and not the overall story / intro / ending etc. I know that there are people out there who are taking it very seriously though and this thread is mainly for them so as to put across why they shouldn't be taking it so seriously. I can't have made that very clear, so my apologies for that.
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I think it is safe to say that boon and company dont really care that much about how believable and accurrate the new story lines are to the older games. at this point they just want to move out of this current story line, so they can restart and they wont have to hear people gripe about story line issuses, and which characters will be in each game. The story really shouldnt be taken that serious, id much rather see better game play. When discussing fighting games with fellow gamers, Mk is laughable to most, I'm sick of defending a game series that cant hold up in the game play catagory with other fighters.

The line about the elder gods........ When the realms were created, the elder gods were created... they realized they could not interfer in the happenings of the inhabitants of the realms, however they also realized the natural order of existence is gain power and terriotry. Thus they created mortal kombat, to protect realms from tyranical rule.
However by doing this, they also realized that this would eventually destroy the very fabric of exsistence... in other words, they could not get involved, however they realized mortal kombat was only a temporary fix to a larger problem. There fore they devised a last ditch effort to protect exsistence, should anyone ever truly be able to dominate and manipulate the tournoment.
I believe there is no one single character that "was the one being" or that will become "the one being"... the one being is merely a metaphor to describe absolute power, thus absorbing all reality into itself... therefore the one being is simply the one who finally dominates mortal kombat.
I think armaggedon will largely focus on describing a set of events that has been unfolding since the very begging of mortal kombat, revolving around a character that has been manipulating everything, and using deception to devert focus away from his conquest.... I think the story will revolve around shinnok manipulating the events, and how the other forces of evil were ultimatley his pawns in a greater game of domination.
Ever since his apperance in MK, shinnok has had the potential to hold the most power over any other character. He created the amulet.... which is attatched to the kamidogu... created by the elder gods. I think onaga was just another pawn in shinnoks ultimate plot to solidify himself as ruler surpreme, onaga was nothing more than a pawn...
Fusing the kamidogu with the amulet did not create the one being, it merly merged all exsistence into one realm, allowing ALL characters to co-exsists and allow SHINNOK to be removed of his chains in the netherrealm to regain his amulet... I think it's all about shinnok and his amulet finally comming full circle. note: the above paragraphs contain alot of speculation and should not be taken as cannon, however I think it's what could possibly be the plot of MKA.

‘Long ago, the gods foresaw that the fury of Mortal Kombat would lead to the destruction of the realms.’
I'm willing to bet it's a case of serious forgetfulness. This disappoints me more than anything else mentioned in the trailer. I feel these days like I've got a full understanding of how the MK plot is written, and I don't like what's happening. It feels like they look at the game's last known events to ensure some small amount of canoncicty, and ignore everything before that. This reeks of it.
The only way this can be explained in terms of plot is if by "destruction of the realms" they mean the invasion of realms through Mortal Kombat. Remember, MK isn't only about giving the citizens of any given realm an opportunity to keep invaders out - it also gives invaders a chance to find their way in.
'Final Tournament'
This is yet another example of that same innattentive garbage - I've heard MK3 and MK4 being referred to as tourneys, when they were wars. MKDA had a tournament, but that was just a part of Li Mei's story angle. There hasn't been a tournament since MKII - and if the plotline abortion known as MK:SM is to be believed, that's under question. >_<
‘Every warrior has been summoned to face this final challenge.’
I'd say summoned as in "fate has led them here", not necessarily summoned by any particular individual. Each character has their reasons for being around.
Armageddon will pit every warrior against each other to determine the greatest Champion.
I don't think this is meant in a plot-related sense. IMO, this can be dismissed as 'fourth-wall breaking' text. Let the players determine for themselves who's got the easiest infinites the strongest character.
Yes, I'm grasping at straws. But I'm happy that way. Sort of.

Thanks for the replies everyone.
I can safely say I agree with everything you're all saying and there's no need to elaborate on anything. Everyone has raised good points.
Let's just hope that the story isn't messed up and no retcons occur.

I pretty much agree with your observations, Ty. I can see retcon all over this thing. It's been a while since I really cared too much about MK's story though.
What killed it for me was MK4 and seeing how many endings from MK3/UMK3 were whisked away with, "Well, that really never happened." I always wanted to know who the fuck classic Subby really was. And of course, Ermac was supposed to "return as an unstoppable force in MK4." What happened to that shit, I ask. Then there was the whole Human Smoke thing not being cannon, which really pissed me off because we all know that Human Smoke > Robot Smoke.
Don't even get me started on some of the MK4/Gold endings. Reiko anyone?
edit: Oh, and who really gives a flying fuck about how many Oscars resurrected Johnny Cage has won?

I think retcons will occur. The story of Mortal Kombat is so big and bold, that retcons will occur. take Scorpion and Quan Chi for instance...
Everyone in this site knows stuff about the story, but I think no one actually knows everything. Reading previous posts and threads i noticed that a post (story wise) always followed another post by fixing mistakes that a previous post made.
To make this useless story simpler, everyone forgets a few things story wise that someone else does know. I think this goes on over at Midway too. remember that there are 60+ caracters and equally story lines. Mistakes are bound to happen.
I hope the Midway team can help us ot to tie all these loose ends and story retcons up, and finish this story line up with a deacend ending.

perhaps the story of Armageddon will not be a continuation of the other stories starting at the end of Deception.... Maybe Armageddon will span the entire MK history, starting with MK1. The inclusion of all the characters will give the chance to fully explain the full MK story, explain every characters involvment and end!
Armageddon will "tye up loose ends".... Ed Boon

all interesting stuff here, but please, let's not forget one thing....boon and co. love fucking with the fans(no further evident then the redundent fight night things...hey, it's cool that they take the time out, but they just sit there and give b.s. answers and giggle more than anything else). so as of right now i'm taking this with a grain of salt untill i have the game in my console

Chaos makes a VERY good point there that I never really thought of. Maybe MKA will just be souly based on the entire event long process of EVERY MK GAME.
Thus why every character is in it.
Even the dead ones.
They're in it...
Possibly because maybe during MKA...
THEY HAVEN'T DIED YET...
Maybe MKA is BEFORE their deaths...
And goes on to EXPLAIN their defeats during their endings...
reguardless of if they won the tournament or not...
Maybe...just maybe...during a characters ending...they're going die...reguardless of being the winner of the so called "tournament." They're gonna die anyway. Because what killed them in the past, was inevitably, what was MEANT to kill them.
This game could very well be be:
MK 1, 2, 3, 4, Deadly Alliance, and Deception...
All in one big final game. Just to make sense of EVERYTHING that has EVER happened with EVERYONE...plus, closing storylines, for those that weren't meant to die.
"One final battle" might not mean future...it just might mean "final game" for all we know. This could very well take place over the course of every single tournament. Thus, why dead characters, are not dead...yet...

You've read way to much into this...I can tell you this because I did the same with the Deception trailer and basically everything was just for show. The MK team doesnt exactly care much about a story anymore. that died with Tobias left. Its sad really, cause it was the reason I enjoyed MK so much. It would just take wayyyyy to much time to do an FMV intro where all the guidlines for the story was followed. Period, there is no other reason. Insted of being a 5 min intro it would have to be roughly 30 mins to make everything right. Believe me.
You cant ever please everyone, people wanted all the charcater back and now they will get that...This game is the excuse to actually now kill off alot of characters once and for all. Start over fresh with a new story and a new fighters.
Maybe MK8 will only have 7 characters to select from. :P
Dont even listen to the trailer...remember the Deception one? "A sinister force hides in the shadows, using the trust blah blah.." yeah, all BS, its call advertising. they have to make the game sound interesting and bigger than it is. :)
My 2 cents.

MKDs seemed realy rushed, but MKDA IMO has the best storyline of the entire franchise. I just hope this ga,es story is good and serves its purpose, now for this trailer, I agree with everybody else, its just a teaser and nothing more

Motaro is not in 27 seconds of the video he is at 26 seconds right before 27 seconds hits; you see Kabal running and right behinde him is Mavado, to mavados far left before the scene switches by a milliesecond (pause like crazy) you will see shang tsung with MOTARO right next to him!! remember 26.9 seconds slow it down if you have to, in WMP10 (windows Media Player) go to the arrow on the top left below the now playing button, go to enhansments and play speed control speed from there.
Chuck Norris doesnt shave; he kicks himself in the face. The only thing that can cut Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.

Arg
This chuck norris thing is stupid and getting old.
And i wanna seee a pic of Motaro.

Tell me how to take a pic out of my WMP, and i will show him to you
Chuck Norris always knows the EXACT location of Carmen SanDiego.
(forgot old Chuck)

Actualy that's probably very common, especialy in the real world. Like why bother eating healthy and exersizing if I'm just going to die anyway? Huh? It's inevitable right? So, Your saying my life is 'pointless' so I'll just go hang myself in the closet right now. Bye.
But you have a good point everywhere else.