@ Crow - Well its a pretty bad explanation. No offence.

- Jax has bionic arms which give him unnatural strength and powers such as the ground slam and the shock waves. Makes sence.

- Raiden is the God of thunder and not a mere mortal, hence his electricity powers. Makes sence.

- Sub-Zero is a cryomancer and has his supernatural powers from his ancestors and has been trained in the secret art of the Lin Kuei. Makes sence.

- Scorpion had no superhuman powers when he was alive and got them after dying, going to hell and being revived by Quan Chi as a dead man. Makes sence.

And so forth....

Recently I read that Sonya's magical ring projectiles apparently come out of her wristbands or something. So there seems to be a logical (to a certain extent) explanation for most of the characters, mainly due to the fact that they are not ordinary humans or make use of certain technologies and such. If your explanation for Cage is "its a video game" or "he's always had them", it makes little sence.

Johnny Cage's MK1 bio says he trained with "great masters from around the world" before he decided to go into showbiz. That's why he has chi powers.
In fact, y'know how in the movie, his reason for attending the tourney was to prove he doesn't use stunt doubles? Yeah, that's not quite true in the games. In the games, it was to prove he doesn't use special effects.
Johnny's gimmick has always kinda been that he has a great destiny as a powerful hero and he's only like one step away from enlightenment, but he's held back by his douchey "never take anything seriously" personality and ego. He'd just rather be rich and famous.

Ok cool, that explains it I guess. Thanks.

After double checking that I think your right. I forgot about him, plus i had thought Mavado had a red alternate that looked the same.

Cage isn't the only regular human being in the game though. Jax had his ground pound in MK2, with predates his bionic arms. He could also throw energy in that game. Liu Kang has always had fantastic powers without the use of gadgetry or sorcery as well.

As I was saying though, Razor went more in-depth... Cage's "thing" is that he's this actor who can perform stunts without the use of doubles, props or special effects.

Yeah thats what I wanted to know as it was unclear to me.

As for things like Jax being able to throw projectiles in MK2 without the bionic arms, I think the MK team made lots of mistakes or implemented lots of elements in the past games they had no real explanation for since the story wasn't as important as it is nowadays, I would say. As the stories for characters have evolved with every new MK game, they have tried to explain certain things that were unclear or made no sence in the past. Hence my question about Cage's chi blasts.

I brought this up in another thread, but...

I dunno if you've ever seen the Animatrix? It's a collection of anime short stories set in The Matrix. One of them is about a track and field runner who's trying to set a 100 meter dash record. The plot of the short is basically that he pushes himself so hard, he actually goes faster than a human body "should" be able to, and even though he's tearing his leg muscles to shreds, he's able to ignore it and keep running, because, y'know, the Matrix is fake and the laws of nature can be ignored. Realizing this causes him to briefly wake up from the Matrix.

That's sort of how I think Jax gained chi powers.

He's "The strongest man in the world". I figure he trained so hard that he reached an impossible level of human achievement and unlocked the spiritual power within.

See, the idea of chi is it's an energy everyone has inside them, normal people just have no idea to use it.

cage is one of the chosen warriors of earth to defend its realm. one would expect him to have supernatural powers. he could easily be using his chi, a common theme in magical martial arts movies, to fuel his energy attacks.

all 5 new pics look incredible! no complaints at all. the energy explosion from cage's green ball attack is particular impressive. as for the people on the bridge, people should not look too deep in to it. if memory serves, kahn's arena and the pit have random character models as background placeholders for now.

Dude, it was confirmed by Ed Boon and John Tobias themselves that Sonya's "magical energy attacks" are part of her Chi powers and magic abilities which make her special. There's even a thread about this information around (I'll try to find it). Same goes for characters like Johnny, Liu, and Jax.

There's obviously something special in all the "Chosen warriors", and almost all of them have "magical" abilities and "magical" attributes that don't need any kind of "logical human explanation".

Sonya not only defies gravity and fly, she also creates deadly fire attacks, poisonous mists, energy rings, etc.

Jax has always had Chi attacks, same with Liu Kang and same with Johnny Cage (who also defies gravity), etc.

EDIT: I found it! It is all official legitimate content, information, and quotes from the creators in "The Official MK3 Book" published by EGM Masters. Quite the Kollectors item with super awesome rare art.

Sadly, most of the pictures I uploaded containing some fan facts and trivia for each of the characters are no longer available. Maybe one day I will rescan and post everything back.

Here you go:

What you didn't know about MK1, MK2, and MK3 (special pics included)

Enjoy!

I'd be interested to see that if you can find it.

Because there's a scene in MKA where immediately after shooting a yeti in the head with a pink blast, Sonya is shown pressing buttons on her glove like she just used a weapon and is turning it off or changing the settings or something.

Yay! I found my thread. This one took me a long time to post.

It is all official legitimate content, information, and quotes from the creators in "The Official MK3 Book" published by EGM Masters. Quite the Kollectors item with super awesome rare art.

Sadly, most of the pictures I uploaded containing some fan facts and trivia for each of the characters are no longer available. Maybe one day I will rescan and post everything back.

Here you go:

What you didn't know about MK1, MK2, and MK3 (special pics included)

Enjoy!

why is JC always getteng beat up man. Give him a break.

Okay then. But that was written in MK3 so we would seem to be dealing with a retcon. I mean, the scene in Armageddon is what it is. It wouldn't be the only move where they've changed how it works. How Kitana does the Square Wave is different now, Reptile's force ball looks like a bubble of slime instead of an energy blast, etc.

* Sonyas inner strength allows her to focus her bodys energies into rings of force. (This also clears the doubt of whether she had any Special Forces weapon in her wrist to do the rings)

OK, so she does have supernatural powers? I would say they changed it over the years as the wristbands made more sence? I certainly prefer the wristband weapon explanation.

Does it even need to be elaborated on? I have a tough time believing any specific thoughts went into the nature of most of the special moves of the early games. They were functional gimmicks.

Personally, I'd much rather that belated clarification, too.
I certainly don't need every character to be explicitly in touch with mythic energies to produce their special moves, especially when it isn't in keeping with their character. Science as a man-made parallel to magic is a great trope of the fiction, and something MK has been able to add to it's Hong Kong-inspirations reasonably successfully. Jax, Sonya, and the Lin Kuei cyborgs are pretty significant pieces. There's no reason to resist (or to distance a character like Jax from that central concept).

Johnny Cage is, or at least was, founded in the old traditions of martial arts. That's his hook and that should be pretty okay, too.

I just rewatched that cutscene.

Didn't the OIA guys have wrist communicators in MKvsDC? Maybe she was messing with hers. Or maybe it has something to do with the tracker she placed on Taven before.

Or maybe it's just a retcon,and we're arguing over nothing. :/ I hate resorting to that argument,but I somehow doubt the MK team gave it any thought. They probably didn't even notice that they retconned something there.

don't know if anyone has noticed this but Cage seems to have gotten a fade now. look at Razor's signature then compare it to the new screen shots. this could very well explain why we haven't seen a render of ol' Johnny yet. perhaps more disturbing though is that he's starting to look more like this guy.

That scene in Armageddon can be more than just one single thing.

I'm not going to say it isn't possible, however, I am going to say nothing proves that the "Chi" story has been completely disregarded for characters like Sonya, Jax, Liu, and Johnny Cage simply because it still makes sense and it's part of who and what they've been since day one.

In MKvsDC it is clearly stated that Liu Kang (for example) has this when he interacts with Sonya (regarding Flash).

Sonya's energy blast in MKA instantly kills the beast. Was this one of her magic Fatalities or a high-tech weapon attack? It actually takes Taven forever to defeat this monster and she did it in the blink of an eye.

She could had just as easily killed the beast with her inner powers and then she is shown putting on or shutting off a code regarding Taven (she was tracking him, remember?). Or she could had simply be sending a message to her SF team regarding their location or that she found Taven.

When I first saw it, to me it just looked like a way of telling us she managed to track down Taven and a cool way to show off her "Special Forces Authority". It didn't even occur to me that her attack came from a code she placed on her wrist-band. On the other hand, it could had just been a very special High-tech attack code (like how Cyrax does with his new net fatality).

The fact is we don't know for sure because they don't show this, but, say that even if it was a very special code to instantly kill the enemy, she still retains her other special magical abilities like her Kiss of Death (she creates and uses fire apparently), her Poisonous Toxic mist, her energy rings, and her bicycle kicks. She never does any kind of code or gives us the idea that this is thanks to her SF technology. Her Fatalities in MKDA-MKvsDC and her Kiss of Death move are all from her, not her wristband. And look at the way she performs her energy rings in MK3 (her entire body super glows).



Yes, as far as we know she has supernatural powers. And I like that better than the wristband high tech weapon, actually.



Fair opinion, but then again, Sonya, Jax, Johnny, and Liu Kang are the main Earth Chosen Wariors for various reasons, so, them controlling their Chi energies better than regular humans isn't far fetched for any of them at all. They are meant to be "special" in that way.



Exactly my thoughts.



Agreed.

My signature is a screencap from the very first trailer. But we noticed as early as E3 that Johnny's hair had been made more detailed.

I'd change my sig to use a more recent pic, but I have yet to see a decent shot of Johnny doing his intro that isn't set in the Deadpool stage where everything's lit with that yellowish-green color.

....you're one of those obsessive compulsive types, aren't you?

I don't think it has to be an either/or situation.
RazorsEdge701 already noted that the principle of chi is that it exists in all things. It's reasonable that there might be some underlying purity or internal strength that comes from that aspect, but it doesn't have to be to a literal or supernatural degree. They can just be great fighters, good at what they do. I don't think we need to discount good old fashioned grit, skill and determination in Mortal Kombat just because there's always been a limit to playable character slots.

Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao trained for it. Jax, Sonya, and Stryker trained for it too. The operative "it" just happens to be a bit more direct, and maybe a little less enlightened. An archetypal attitude, a classic staple of the genre!

Yeah, Johnny (thankfully) looks soooo much better. The first time I saw his model I was so upset at how "poor" it looked. The hair made him look so ugly.

Now he looks super sexy and like the super star we all love.



LOL, like me.

I love Razors sig even though that Johnny pic is not my favorite (because the model was really bad when the trailer first came out). I'm so glad he's been improved.

Well here's the thing: you're lumping all the Earth characters into the same boat there. Liu is a monk. He's trained his whole life with people who are all about chi. Johnny trained with the same sorts of people.

Sonya and Jax don't have origin stories like that. They're just...somehow naturally talented. Jax at least has his "world's strongest man" training to fill in the "how did he unlock his potential?" question. But Sonya, Jax, and Kano have something the martial-arts-origin characters don't have: access to advanced weaponry. I think their moves should reflect that more. That's why I prefer Jax's missiles to his Guile Sonic Boom thing, and why I wish Kano's knives were lightsabers like in MK1 and 3 instead of metal like they have been since the series went 3D. I just think the art direction should take more advantage of what makes each character unique.

And remember that Sonya wasn't even invited to MK1, she was a trespasser on the island. So technically she was never considered one of the greatest fighters in the world, this is a life she stumbled into. Sure, the movie and some trading card said Shang invited Kano so he could deliberately lure her to the tournament, but those are non-canon.

So the interpretation I prefer is that Sonya wasn't powered at first, more like Stryker, and she started out with tech and human limitations, and only gained magical/chi attacks like her Kiss of Death or the Vertical Bike Kick after she met Liu and Raiden at the island and began learning from them because that's what she needed to do to survive against all the other powered people. The way I see her, she didn't start out a chosen one, she became a chosen one after meeting Raiden and discovering all the secrets and magic.



That's 'cause it was a headshot. Whether it was chi or a laser doesn't really matter when it's a headshot. Blowing something's brains out is blowing out their brains either way.

A little off topic, but since Sonya came up in the discussion;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386939/

Sonya & Smoke confirmed? Just saw this but didn't want to create a whole thread for it.