Yeah I believe animation was the idea from the outset. Who who even suggested live action?

Anyway, there are plenty of ways you could tell a story in the MK Universe without fucking the canon or without telling the same story that we've heard a million times. The beauty of MK is the story is rich but also leaves a lot open. Plenty of unexplored territory there.

The way I see this going down is:

1. We gather story suggestions and go with the one most people seem to like. We probably won't get everyone to agree on one overall story idea, but that's how collaboration works. And that's also why we have step two.

2. The person with the original idea makes a rough draft script. Nothing huge, ten, maybe fifteen pages. We get our story people to all read and all make tweaks to the dialogue, pacing, direction, whatever. The point of a media project is everyone has input. This is not one persons project, it is all of ours and we all need to collaborate and compromise on things if we don't agree.

And that's just the first part. I'm not going into the animation process yet, because frankly I've never animated anything. But I have done this story process before on short films and it works.

Right now we just got to get the story straight and move along from there because that's the starting point.

Here are a few, off the top of my head:
-The Hunt: Assassinate Sub-Zero. A story focused on Sub-Zero and Smoke, with Sektor and Cyrax pursuing them. We bring up Smoke's capture and transformation, Cyrax's reprogramming, Smoke's capture by Shao Kahn's forces, then flash forward to Sektor killing the Lin Kuei Grandmaster and taking the Dragon Amulet, with Sub-Zero coming in and challenging him for control of the amulet and the Lin Kuei.
-Final Battle for Earthrealm. Liu Kang and Kung Lao facing off against Shao Kahn at the eleventh hour.
-Becoming a Monster: The Story of Bi-Han. Sub-Zero's death at the hands of Scorpion, followed by his unfortunate time in the Netherealm, dealing with Shinnok and Quan Chi, who are ever so thrilled to have him visiting again.
-Zebron the Conqueror. A group of rodeo clowns decide they want a better future beyond their humble, Texan upbringings and make their way to Las Vegas to become best Cirque du Soleil performers known to man. Also, they have Zebra-like bodies and are the only survivors when Shao Kahn invades Nevada. Ultimately, Zebron, the leader of the troupe, beat him to death with flaming bowling pins.
God, I love the MK Mythos!
Edit: With all that being said, clearly I'm only looking at the previous canon for inspiration instead of the current because, well, Story Mode showed us everything that happened. There isn't much for us to expand on, compared to the original canon, which has a few holes that can be plugged, or just some great story ideas that were only mentioned for two or three sentences in the endings/Konquest modes.

I like the idea of showing how the original Sub-zero makes the transformation to Noob Saibot in the Netherrealm.