this is a great idea and thought you guys were taking phone calls with other users.(cause of the length)

maybe you guys might do a Skype or something cause the voices do get mixed up a bit.

Overall nice job though.

I finally got to listen to this, really enjoyed it.

I had difficulties, mostly early on, in recognizing who's talking, Shadaloo or Temp, as their voices sound kind of similar. Later on, I started recognizing them by the way they talk.
Like some others have said before me, I too expected Razor's voice to sound completely different. I think I expected a much darker/angrier voice.
His voice actually slightly reminds me of 16bit's voice. What do you think, Temp?

The thing I liked the most were the positive words on Fujin during the Raiden part of conversation. That really brought a smile to my face and a lovely warm feeling around my heart. Here's hoping he makes it as part of the starting roster in MKX.

I would also prefer if the variations didn't impact the costumes like they do at the moment. I really dislike Quan Chi's glowing collar, that's the one that hurts my eyes the most. Kano's tech lights in yellow and green, yeah, not too sure on that either. Would definitely prefer just a logo under the life bar.

Agree with everyone else that Johnny was at his best in MK2011. Looking forward to this particular part of the podcast in future episodes, especially when some of my favorite characters get to be talked about.

Good stuff guys, cheers!





EDIT: Oh yeah... I can't remember if it was Shadaloo or Temp (or both), but I share the same fear for Shinnok. Would love to see him grow, would love to see him do great stuff. But Quan Chi...

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Finally started listening to these. I really enjoyed these detailed, insightful breakdowns, and the way you guys see the potential in characters who don't get a lot of respect.

Some thoughts about Johnny Cage: Somebody mentioned that his new "descendant of a Mediterranean cult" angle was sort of unnecessary to make his character work. And I totally agree with that notion, but for a different reason. Back in MK1, Johnny Cage's original story was that he is "A martial arts superstar trained by great masters from around the world, [who] uses his talents on the big screen." This strikes me as a much more interesting and realistic angle than the Unknowing Warrior for the Gods version, for a few reasons.

For one, you can draw out a fairly strong, consistent, and character-driven story for how Johnny got his powers. Imagine Johnny first breaking out into the Hollywood action scene, but the market is oversaturated with classic movie icons and dozens of other no-name guys who are all trying to make it big. He has nothing original to bring to the table, and changing his name from Carlton to Cage isn't enough to boost his popularity. And so, Johnny decides that he needs a gimmick. He travels around the globe learning from the world's great masters, just so he can sell himself as the "real deal."

But along his travels, Johnny encounters one master who shows him that mystical powers really do exist. He learns to harness his chi in the form of "shadow" powers, which he believes are the perfect gimmick to rocket him into the action movie spotlight. Johnny returns to Hollywood to take the action scene by storm, because no one has ever seen the kinds of things that he can do. But a question always hangs over his reputation: Are his abilities actually real like he says they are, or are his real-life "superpowers" just a big promotional stunt organized by the studios to sell tickets? Did he really travel around the world learning from mystics? Do those mystics even exist?

And so Johnny decides to participate in the next Mortal Kombat tournament (which he heard about in rumors on his travels) to prove he's not a phony. He believes that the tournament is nothing more than a UFC-style, no-holds-barred global deathmatch, and with his newfound powers he can win the whole thing with no problem. It is only after he is already committed that he discovers that there are real gods and demons and sorcerers and monsters involved, and that the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance. Suddenly he is cast into a battle where he once again feels out of his league, and he handles the pressure the only way he knows how: with a quip and a million-dollar smile.

From this angle he can still be a cocky showoff, since he only ever considered using his powers as a gimmick to launch him to superstardom. And he can still be a disbelieving fish-out-of-water when he discovers what the tournament actually is. But he also has a strong work ethic (learning to harness your chi over a six-month training montage can't be easy) and as he slowly discovers that the world around him is much bigger than he thought it was, he can decide to use his powers to serve a greater purpose. And also cash in on the movie rights, because why the hell not? And he can still train Cassie in the same discipline that he learned, without the shadow powers having to be an inherited trait.

Compare this to the story he has now: He was born with superpowers, and came from a long family line of people with superpowers, and no one ever thought it was strange, and somehow he never knew anything about this very central part of his family history. Maybe his parents died and he was adopted? Even so, why would he never seek out answers to the origin of his power? If he had these powers all this time, why is it so hard for him to accept that there is magic in the world? His disbelief would make a lot more sense if he had only recently taken a gentle step into the rabbit hole, and then plunged headlong into a hidden world he never knew existed and doesn't understand.

And when he does come to accept what's happening and throws in his chip to help in the fight, it would carry a lot more weight if he had trained hard to learn these skills for the wrong reasons and now gained the maturity to do what's right (which is what the original games seemed to be all about). Instead, we see "the right guy for the job" just randomly blunder into a situation where his mystery powers happen to be useful. Pretty much like Jackie Chan in... well, almost every classic Jackie Chan movie.

Anyway. That's my two cents.

It seems more likely to me that Johnny would have started in martial arts in his youth (which is where he learned the mystical stuff), done the pro tourney circuit and won championships and such, THEN gotten famous and become a movie star. I'm fairly certain that's how guys like Bruce Lee, JCVD, and Chuck Norris all did it.
BOTH origin stories can be true, though. Just because you're born with more power than other people doesn't mean you know how to use it. You still have to train.
For example, the backstory of the Sub-Zeros specifies that even though they are born Cryomancers and have the natural POTENTIAL to use ice magic, they didn't know HOW until the Lin Kuei trained them. They couldn't make ice before then.
Johnny is likely the same case, he didn't throw plasma straight out of the womb, it's a power that didn't manifest until he trained in martial arts and learned how to harness his inner-energy. It's just that his inner energy is exceptionally powerful - so powerful that in his arcade ending we find out he hasn't even been using most of it, the true depth unexpectedly awakens, he loses control of it, and has to train even harder in the Realm of Order.
Johnny's abilities do need some sort of special explanation, because he doesn't just throw ordinary fireball chi...he does the exact same moves Nightwolf and Shao Kahn do. And Nightwolf and Shao Kahn both get their powers from the souls of the dead. So there ought to be something up with Johnny's green shadow energy (which suspiciously turns red when he wants to do extra damage).

The last segment about Johnny Cage was really good keep them coming guys.

Can I call for dragon points for this man?

I've more or less kind of seen Johnny as - forgive the DBZ comparison - kind of the Krilin or Yamcha of MK. Ordinary guy who became one of the best in the world using nothing but what he developed from what he was taught. And while it's true that his skills parallel Nightwolf and Kahn's, and an explanation for them doesn't hurt, I've just never really thought we needed one. I don't ever really remember seeing much of any speculation about how he did what he did, up through Armageddon. We all just kind of took it for granted he was that good.

God, now I'm remembering the craziest batshit rumor from the really early MK3 days. Based on observations of his moves, "Nightwolf" was a front, and it was really just Johnny in disguise trying to keep a low profile, having run away from Hollywood...

I mainly want one because I think the potential is there for a possibly huge although admittedly very weird twist.

See..."cult" is a word you only use for groups who worship DARK gods, gods you're not allowed to pray to in public.

What kind of Greek god would have a cult? Perhaps...Hades?

Who in the MKU, where Zeus/Thor/Haokah/Raiden are all the same guy, would be another name for Shinnok.

So the souls Johnny draws on to do his Nightwolf/Kahn-style moves could be from Hell and he's unknowingly the Anti-Chosen One. (The powers being evil would certainly explain the whole turn red and do more damage thing...)
That might be a little too crazy for a character like Johnny, but I think it's eerie how easily it fits as an explanation for certain things, and it could add a lot more meat to a Shinnok-invasion story, especially as Johnny is the kind of hero who would go "Nah, I reject that destiny, too dark for me. I'm gonna take this power the bad guy gave me and kick his ass with it, while grinning like an idiot." (Plus it would go well with the fact that Shinnok also used Johnny as a pawn in Armageddon)

Just because you're good at fighting doesn't mean you'll make it in Hollywood, though. Hundreds of no-name dudes starring in direct-to-dollar-store-movie-bin films have tried. My proposal is that he did all the conventional training and it wasn't enough, so he traveled around the world learning the Secret Techniques of the Old Masters to build up a Hollywood-worthy mystique.





I think we can still have Johnny be unknowingly tapping into dark arts without changing his original story from the first several games.

It is known that Shinnok and Onaga have the power to create avatars of themselves that can freely traverse the realms, and Shinnok used his clone to participate in the battle of Armageddon even though he remained imprisoned in the Netherrealm. It could have been Shinnok in disguise who taught Johnny his powers in the first place, thinking that this shallow, egocentric, wisecracking blowhard would make a useful, weak-minded pawn for his future machinations.

Johnny can still be tapping into powers that are beyond his control. He can still reject the destiny he was intended to fulfill. He can still train Cassie to use the same skills. None of this requires Johnny to be born with hidden powers. The whole Mediterranean cult thing takes away Johnny's everyman status, which has always been his main selling point: he is just a movie star who happened to wander into a hidden world of magic and monsters.

The idea that his training unlocked his own hidden potential is interesting, but somehow it just doesn't feel like Johnny Cage.

I guess I never saw Johnny as having an "everyman status" like you did.

He's one of the top seven greatest fighters in the entire world. He's also a millionaire who's won at least one Oscar. I don't know what it feels like to be rich, famous, and rewarded for my creative talents, do you? And anyone who can use their chi is not normal. Even Stryker, who doesn't have any magic or chi powers and is the Batman of the MK universe, is still a "chosen one" hand picked by the gods to help save the world because of his potential, which makes him inherently more special than a normal human being.
There ARE no ordinary people in Mortal Kombat. Ordinary people are NPCs. Ordinary people are corpses in MK3 who had their souls stolen before they even knew they were being invaded. Ordinary people don't get to participate. They wouldn't stand a chance. And I like MK that way..

I suppose "everyman" wasn't the right word to get my point across. Johnny obviously isn't a man-on-the-street like you or me. But regardless, his money and fame are irrelevant to my point, and the fact that no one is "normal" in Mortal Kombat is kind of a given, isn't it?

The main thrust of my argument is that, to me, Johnny came across stronger as a martial arts superstar who learned his magic by training with masters around the world, rather than simply having "unlocked" his natural superpowers. His appeal throughout the original games and the first movie was that he worked hard to master his skills and no one believes he's for real, and changing his story to say it was inside him all along kind of undermines that aspect of his character. I like that Johnny earned it.

Plus, I think the whole discovering-the-secret-powers-you-were-born-with angle is a bit overplayed at this point; that seems to be what a LOT of popular stories are about these days. Learning secret techniques from an old master, on the other hand, is more of a classic kung fu movie trope, and is much closer to Johnny's original character inspirations.

It's mostly a matter of personal taste, I suppose. The Secret Divine Warrior angle can technically work without creating any major plot holes or logical faults. I just think it's an unnecessary additional layer to his backstory, and I generally prefer the classic Cage.

I dunno, the characters born with their powers because their parents or ancestors were magic too has never bothered me because those characters DID still have to put in the same work to train and become the best at martial arts as anyone else would, they didn't just gain abilities spontaneously without working hard for them as a kid like Superman or Spider-Man.

Besides...no matter who a character is, no matter how hard they train, no matter how special their ancestors were, no one in the franchise who isn't a god will ever be more powerful than Liu Kang, who doesn't have inherited ancestor magic.

I kinda enjoy the humbling nature of "this franchise has one big hero and everybody else can do whatever they want, but at the end of the day, THIS is the man, you're just supporting cast, so sit down, shut up, and let him win. And god help you if he's dead or not around."

I found it to be very informative and think you guys are doing great job kind of see more quality's in characters that I wouldn't really think about because I play everyone but only really focus on a select few so its really interesting and different. keep up the good work guys.