Mortal Kombat: Education
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posted06/28/2006 01:24 AM (UTC)by
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Armaggon
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10/02/2005 09:11 PM (UTC)
Mortal Kombat was adapted into two major motion pictures, Mortal Kombat (1995), and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997). Both films were not screened for critics prior to theatrical release, and had a poor critical reception at the time they were released, but the first movie was a major financial success, eventually grossing $70 million in the U.S. (and over $125 million worldwide) while jumpstarting the Hollywood careers of Paul W. S. Anderson and Robin Shou, among others. Unfortunately, that momentum did not carry over into Annihilation, which received a colder reception from critics and viewers alike, and took in only $30 million (less than half of its domestic gross) in the U.S. Although it is very unlikely, a third movie, Mortal Kombat: Devastation, is said to be in production as confirmed officially, and with rumors of its release going back to late 2005, may finally be released by the end of 2007.

The franchise also sparked two TV series, the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and the 1998-1999 live-action Mortal Kombat: Conquest. Neither series ran for more than one season (despite the popularity of Conquest). In 1995, an animated prequel to the first movie, titled Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, was released straight to home video.

There have been several graphic novels based off Mortal Kombat. There were official MK and MKII comic books, the latter of which was written by Tobias. Both were advertised in the attract modes on early versions of the first two MK games. Meanwhile, in 1994, Malibu Comics launched an official MK comic book series, spawning two six-issue series ("Blood and Thunder" and "Battlewave"), along with several miniseries, and one-shot character issues, until production ended in August 1995.

Brady Games also produced a trading card game based off Mortal Kombat called Mortal Kombat Kard Game in 1994.

Jeff Rovin penned a non-canon Mortal Kombat novel, which was published in June 1995 in order to coincide with the release of the movie.

[edit]
Contributing cultural material
The Mortal Kombat mythology borrows heavily from multiple sources, primarily (but not limited to) Asian cultures, religions and martial arts. Examples include the following:

Raiden, who is the God of Thunder in Mortal Kombat, takes his name from the Japanese Raiden (meaning "thunder and lightning"), which is the name of a demon-god in Japanese mythology. The Japanese Raiden is usually depicted as a man-beast with sharp teeth, long hair and a large drum for making thunder. The Mortal Kombat Raiden's trademark glowing eyes and straw hat, however, appear to have been inspired by the Three Storms in the film Big Trouble in Little China. In the early console releases and associated media, he was also named Rayden.
Fujin (Mortal Kombat 4) is named after the Japanese wind god Fuujin.
Other characters have no direct counterparts in mythology, though their names are derived from Asiatic languages:
Shujinko (Mortal Kombat: Deception) is from the Japanese shujinkou (meaning "protagonist").
Damashi (Mortal Kombat: Deception) is from the Japanese damashi (meaning "deception").
Hotaru (Mortal Kombat: Deception) is from the Japanese hotaru (meaning "firefly").
Kenshi (Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and Mortal Kombat: Deception) is from the Japanese kenshi (meaning "swordsman").
The White Lotus Society to which Liu Kang belonged may or may not have been named after to the secret White Lotus Society which existed in China during the Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. A white lotus is traditionally symbolic of death.
The Lin Kuei ninja clan that Sub-Zero hails from is an allusion to the real-life myths of a Lin Kuei assassin guild in the mountains of China, who may or may not have been taught the ways of mysticism by mountain and forest spirits and demons such as the Tengu. Rumor has it that representatives of the historical Lin Kuei traveled to Japan to teach the locals the art of what would eventually be known as ninjutsu, a tale that is mimicked by Takeda's departure from the Mortal Kombat Lin Kuei to set up his own ninja clan in Japan, the Shirai Ryu.
Kano's Black Dragon clan may be based loosely on the historical Black Dragon Society.
Moloch shares his name with the ancient Middle Eastern deity Moloch
Shang Tsung as a name is an actual expression for "temple elder". Deriving this from the fact that Chinese mysticism often entwined spirituality and magic, this may be a reference to Shang Tsung's actual call as a sorcerer.
Sheeva's name can be recognized, as based on the Hindu god, Shiva, both of which have four arms.
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Zentile
06/25/2006 06:26 PM (UTC)
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Cool. You should put this on wikipedia, where we can also find:

Life
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Life (disambiguation) and Living (disambiguation).

Look up life, living in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Life is a multi-faceted concept that may refer to the ongoing process of which living things are a part of the period between fertilisation or mitosis and death.

Defining the concept of life

How can one tell when an entity is alive? It would be relatively straightforward to offer a practical set of guidelines if one's only concern were life on Earth as we know it (see biosphere), but as soon as one considers questions about life's origins on Earth, or the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or the concept of artificial life, it becomes clear that the question is fundamentally difficult and comparable in many respects to the problem of defining intelligence.

Exceptions to the conventional definition

It is important to note that life is a definition that applies primarily at the level of species, so even though many individuals of any given species do not reproduce, possibly because they belong to specialized Sterile castes (such as ant workers), these are still considered forms of life. One could say that the property of life is inherited; hence, sterile hybrid species such as the mule are considered life although not themselves capable of reproduction. It is also worth noting that non-reproducing individuals may still help the spread of their genes through such mechanisms as kin selection.

For similar reasons, viruses and aberrant prion proteins are often considered replicators rather than forms of life, a distinction warranted because they cannot reproduce without very specialized substrates such as host cells or proteins, respectively. However, most forms of life rely on foods produced by other species, or at least the specific chemistry of Earth's environment.

Some individuals contest such definitions of life on philosophical grounds, and offer the following as examples of life: viruses which reproduce; flames which "grow"; certain computer software programs which are programmed to mutate and evolve; future software programs which may evince (even high-order) behavior; machines which can move; and some forms of proto-life consisting of metabolizing cells without the ability to reproduce.

Still, most scientists would not call such phenomena expressive of life. Generally all six characteristics are required for a population to be considered a life form.
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Goroliath
06/25/2006 07:01 PM (UTC)
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Is this a video game you're planning? "Mortal Kombat: Education", featuring Shujinko's annoyingly raspy voice reciting occurrences of Mortal Kombat's history, Grampa Simpson-style.

Too rich, Zentile. Hahaha.

Also, this thread = pointless. Expect closure.
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ThePredator151
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The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Experience
- Lead Graphic Designer - Mortal Kombat Online -


:G-play

:Story

:F-Design

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:Get Sig

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:#LegendaryArts

06/25/2006 07:56 PM (UTC)
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Good to put all this together. I didn't know about any book to coinside with the movie or any MK releases straight to video. So excellent. dude
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JediRaiden22
06/27/2006 03:43 AM (UTC)
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Dude, you Avatar is HUGE!!!
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ThePredator151
Avatar
About Me
The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Experience
- Lead Graphic Designer - Mortal Kombat Online -


:G-play

:Story

:F-Design

:Cutout

:Get Sig

:Raiden

:Fans [1] [2]

:#LegendaryArts

06/28/2006 01:24 AM (UTC)
0
Thank You for noticing.

Heh heh,


*pun*


Get it?

Ha ha!!
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Susan Roberts
07/23/2021 09:09 AM (UTC)
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It's amazing! It really should be on wiki!

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