This is not a deep question, but did you have fun watching it, and did you see it in a theater or HBO Max? I saw it in theaters and the crowd energy was off the charts so I walked out feeling pretty good about it. Then all the reviews started to make me second guess myself. I did have a fun experience watching it. I think the og is better. I give it a modest 7/10. It could be way better, but it had its moments.

If the studio does keep the green light on the sequel and we have high hopes of a Johnny Cage inspired like movie, who would you like to see play Johnny Cage and why? A lot of fans have thrown out names like Ryan Reynolds, Chris Pratt, Keanu Reeves to name a select few. Scott Adtkins and WWE's Mike Mizanin have expressed their interests too. The funniest one I heard was Van Damme. Who would you like and why?

2nd question revolves around Goro. If the 2nd film becomes the Tournament from the original game, with Goro now dead what do you suppose will now happen to his role in the story of the original Tournament which may become the sequel to this film?

Scott,

Great to hear from you!

First, I actually first watched it a camrip at home so I could more or less feel how similar it was to the 2018 script draft so I could mentally prepare for fan responses. But after that my first experience was a first showing at 1-ish in a theater. Only 6 people were there 2 couples and 2 individual guys. So I didn't get to experience the crowd energy. Did I have fun watching it? Yes I think it's a fun movie and it tries and encapsulates this new timeline well. I'm with you about the reviews but I also knew in advance this was a pre-tournament film and I think the negative reviews come from the fact WB never marketed the film as pre-tournament. In fact all the marketing and even the synopsis pointed to there being a tournament. The OG can't be beat for a various reasons: 1). There was no alternate timeline stuff they only had to contend to why all the original playables from MK1 return in MKII 2) The techno soundtrack was very upbeat and it stuck to us 3) The Internet wasn't as blossomed as it is today so leaks and opinions weren't as common as is today, and so on. 7/10 is fair and I agree it could have been better. I even think they could have pulled off the 2018 script 100% had they marketed the film as pre-tournament, i.e. "You've seen MK but you haven't seen how the 10th tournament got started," simple stuff like that.

Good questions. I meant to say I won't give my opinions because at this point everyone's opinion is valid and speculative so nobody's opinion outweighs the other because we don't have any physical evidence of a sequel like I did with the leaked scripts.

However, I will answer your questions and my answers here are solely my opinion. My original choice would have been The Miz because he shares the same conceitedness as Cage. But then I thought more about it and realized it wouldn't work if it's true they want an A-Lister. He isn't A-List material and frankly him being associated with a PG-13 product like WWE wouldn't fly with the WWE. Scott Adkins is also not A-list material so he wouldn't work. The only palatable choice right now is Ryan Reynolds or Chris Pratt because they are A-Listers. I feel Ryan Reynolds has the better look for Johnny Cage and the better star power. But I am also unaware who their contracts are with and if they would even be allowed to work for Warner Bros. They are also both too old to go along with the Cassie Cage backstory.

As for Goro, WB has pinned themselves in a corner. Unless they explain Shang Tsung bringing back Goro without making him a zombie, they'd either be best to ignore he died in the first place and hope we accept that Shang can bring people back from the dead, somehow mix Quan Chi to this picture, or something cheesy like the real Goro comes in and says his brother was always jealous of him, blah blah and stood in for him and now he's here to defend his title, etc. No matter the route they go with this the fan base overall probably won't like it too much.

Thank you for answering my first question. I took like the Ryan Reynolds choice but as you said and much like a lot of top actors contracts with studios and other things can get in the way. I cannot remember where the Van Damme thing was I read but I laughed because we know how old Van Damme is now, yet his real life now could sort of fit in with Cage. I guess everyone even after all of these long years are still pulling for Van Damme. LOL

I should also add because I see people repeat alot of lines from the first film like " It has begun" and "A handful of people are gonna save the world".

The reason why there are many of us fanboys who like to hear tacky stuff like that repeated is because the 90s did it so well with remixing these quotes with remixes of Techno Syndrome. So hearing these lines to a beat made them more memorable to us.

Thankfully they retained a little of that spirit in the new 2021 remix but only adding generic game quotes and repeating the character name breakdown. Its not as popping as the 90s techno beats thats for sure.

When I saw the film I really didn't like the design of Reiko in the film. I guess I like seeing him with the face design he had in the games and from Konquest. I do wish Nathan Jones would have been Kahn but can't beat that dead but back to the main topic. Reiko's design as I mentioned in the film I didn't really like seeing. Mileena's was another one that really to me was a bad decision as well. Those two really were ones I didn't like from how the makers decided to do with the character designs. Did you dislike any of the costumes, makeup or designs of any of the characters of how they appeared in the film? What I mean is were there any while watching it you looked at the design and said to yourself they could have been done differently. What were you favorite ones?

My favorite would be Reptile so far. They made Reptile's design work very well for the film. My daughter watched it and she liked Nitara's design. My wife was a Kano fan and like Lawson's performance but she liked the eye piece he had in the game.

Did Kano make you "roflmao" in this film?

I honestly think Kano was one of the MVPs next to Sub-Zero. He had me dying of laughter.

Here are my favorite costumes and least favorite. I list these as such based on their similarity to the games. I have a couple that are middle ground as well. Not in any order.

Best:

• Kung Lao
• Kabal
• Jax
• Sub-Zero
• Goro

OK:

• Liu Kang (because he has several but also looks like Ryu in one of them)
• Mileena
• Sonya Blade
• Nitara
• Raiden
• Kano

No:

• Cole Young
• Scorpion
• Shang Tsung
• Reiko
• Reptile (although he is a beautifully well-done creature, he should have also transformed into a ninja)

What do you think was the biggest mistake that the studio made? Personally, I think they committed practical blasphemy by giving Sonya and Kano (who was written like he was originally supposed to have been Johnny Cage, especially with all the pop culture references and comedic role) a relationship that was almost friendly, like Kano hasn't been her nemesis since the first game.

The dragon insignia "birthmarks" that linked the characters to the tournament are a distant second. That was cheesy and unnecessary. Because he wasn't actively guiding characters through the tournament and his role was reduced as a result of the existence of the birthmarks, Raiden seemed like a completely useless character outside of whispering through dialogue and making the odd appearance (with that shitty "lightning" effect on his eyes) just to remind everyone that the writers didn't forget to shoehorn him into the script. At one point, I completely forgot that he was a character, and then he popped in to disrupt Shang Tsung during some forgettable scene.

There's a storyline that exists in the source material, being the games. They could have kept the core plot, introduced their generic, uninteresting hero character, and made subtle changes here and there. Where I feel they made their biggest mistakes was with taking so many liberties with the story and character relationships, with casting being a close second. Kano seemed to have been thrown in as a last-minute replacement for Johnny Cage because they couldn't find a suitable actor for the role (and for the love of God, I hope they don't cast the Miz; the guy is not an actor to any respectable degree). I could go on for days about the Kano/Sonya relationship.

I gave the movie a 5/10, which I consider generous given the lack of respect that they showed to the source material. I could beat this movie to pieces in a brutally honest, ego-blistering review. But, being a parent, I don't have the time these days. So, I'll take part in things like this for the time being.

LOL at the reference to Reptile as a ninja. I like that pun. My daughter kind of liked Reptile and Nitara.

As I mentioned I didn't like the film but there are small things here and there I did think they did a nice nod to the series in one way shape or form. As you mentioned Sub-Zero's costume. It resembles the MK11 DLC we got for Kuai Liang not too long ago. The only thing I though looked funny on Goro was his face. Other than that he looked pretty decent.

Honestly, I think the biggest mistake they made about this film was to depart from the 2018 script draft and rehash the Scorpion/Sub-Zero prologue. I'd been fine if they had just added that scene instead of replacing the original opening but instead they removed the original opening, which focused more on how Mortal Kombat came about. I felt the 2018 script had a lot of good merits and in order to make it work all they needed to do was face, dead-on, the fact this was a pre-tournament, pre-MK1 film and then market it as such. Catering to fans helped in the long-run in terms of getting asses in the seats and tickets sold but it the movie wasn't really about Scorpion and Sub-Zero's rivalry so much as it was Sub-Zero hunting down not only Scorpion's bloodline but the rest of the MK champions as well. Are we going to get another piece of media rehashing the beginnings of Scorpion/Sub-Zero? Will we ever get media again that actually doesn't repeat itself and can be linear? I mean, Annihilation's not well-loved by many people, but it least kept the continuation and didn't have to rehash the rivalry. Scorpion's Revenge already done that and now this movie did. Now this movie is falsely marketing itself because, as I said, you technically only get one actual scene with Scorpion as Scorpion and that's his fight with Sub-Zero.

As for the Sonya/Kano relationship, it doesn't make sense. The original lore Sonya is after Kano because he killed her partner. They actually did put that in the movie but didn't specify that the guy who's throat Kano slit was actually her partner, we have to think about it for a minute (for teh record, Kano kills her partner in the movie also by slitting his throat "eat to ear" as he told her right before their fight). I figured she'd want to kill him not kidnap him.

For some reason they gave him an overbite where the bottom of his jaw protrudes further than his upper mouth.