#mortalkombat Anthony and Hanako are joined by their good friend Nick to discuss the second film of the recently rebooted video game series. Earth's heroes prepare to fight for the fate of their world as Mortal Kombat approaches.
Find Nick on the Alienating Ourselves Podcast , where he and co-host Todd take a look back at the sci-fi series Alien Nation.
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What's up hybrids? Welcome back to another episode
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of the Phantom Hybrid Podcast. This is Hanukkah and I am here
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with Anthony and we have a guest for the first time on the
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podcast. It how I don't know how this is
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just your first time, but he's on our panels.
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He does convention stuff with us.
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You guys see him all the time. Officially, we are welcoming
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Nick to the Phantom Hybrid Podcast.
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Welcome, Nick. It is.
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It's so great to be here. And this is really the fruition
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of like several years of pretending friendship and
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weaseling my way into people's lives just with a Machiavellian
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scheme to get on a podcast. And finally, you know, unless
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they started over, I'm in. There's no taking it out.
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I'm in the whole thing. So yes, finally paid off.
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Try to play it cool. Ha ha.
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And if if Mike's Michelle listens to this, yes, I'm I'm
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comfortable with being called a stalker.
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I did earn that. So yes, following along until I
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get in. So I guess.
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That's OK. We love Stalker Nick, if that's
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what you want to be called. But welcome, welcome, welcome.
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And we are going to talk about Mortal Kombat 2.
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It's been quite a while since we've done a movie review.
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I can't even remember the last movie review we did because
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we've we've planned on it. There were some things we
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planned on watching, but the problem with having six people
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on a podcast team is everybody's schedule does not match up.
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So it gets kind of difficult, but we're going to do it.
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We're going to talk about Mortal Kombat 2.
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We may throw some Mortal Kombat 1 discussion in here.
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And by Mortal Kombat 1, I mean the version of the movie that
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was rebooted in 2021 during the pandemic.
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Mortal Kombat 2 that just came out a few weeks ago is the
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continuation of that. So let's get started with this.
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OK, so we got to talk about a little bit about Mortal Kombat 1
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first, because all of us, I think have played some version
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of the game, probably some more than others.
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I am one of those people. I played like the early, early
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90s version of the game and I haven't played it since maybe
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the beginning of the 2000s. So I'm only a, a a casual fan of
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it, but I know enough about the Lord to keep up with what's
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going on in the film, right, Anthony and Nick, you want to
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give a little bit of your backgrounds on Mortal Kombat
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before we get into the movie talk?
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More than I do Anthony, so I'll go.
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I played a bunch of Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 and then took a
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break from it and felt Deadly Alliance.
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But I I played mostly. I'm a Nintendo person, which
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means all of our blood was edited out in the original
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release. I didn't know better.
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I got the Genesis version eventually and as so we were
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learning special moves in the basement.
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We were figuring it out and it was a lot of fun.
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But yes, I, I've, I have played it recently.
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I have a set up here. So Eli and I, my kid, we've
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played Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 within the last year quite a
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bit. But yeah, there there isn't as
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much of a drive to do the hard work of studying all the
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finishing moves and doing it over and over until you get it
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right. I think I'm more of a Street
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Fighter two person at heart with the play control, but the
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gruesomeness was fun. OK, what about you?
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I played. I played it originally on the
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Sega Genesis system, the original bloody version, which
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was awesome with my cousins sitting around the den playing
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each other. I used to mop the floor with
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Scorpion. Getting over here was great and
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I've played it off and on through the years.
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I think last year I forgot the PS5I played Mortal Kombat 10,
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which was fun. And a few days ago, well after
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the a few days ago, Michelle wanted to play Mortal Kombat
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again and the only free version that I can get was Mortal Kombat
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1, which is the I think the sequel sort of to Mortal Kombat
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10. It was, it was, it was a little
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fun. I I it's been a while since I
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played Mortal Kombat 10, so I forgot that the difference
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between Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat is, I think our
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friend Carlos will tell us street fighters button matching.
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Like, you can get away with this button matching.
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You can't really do that in Mortal Kombat.
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You actually have to do like, for real, seriously focusing on
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the combos. Yeah, because I've tried the
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button matching with Michelle and it didn't really work out to
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will for me. But you know, once I figured it
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out, I was like, OK, I got it now she was done.
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It might be like Guitar Hero and Rockstar where you learn a
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certain play control and then you try to go to the other one
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and you're like, this feels terrible.
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And Mortal Kombat had a dodge button, a block button.
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And Street Fighter is just like stopping on a bike.
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You just push away. But yes, you could you could get
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very good at a few combos on there.
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But yeah, it's. Yeah, I was playing.
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I kept trying to block and I kept pressing back.
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I kept pressing back and she was kicking my butt and I was like,
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why am I not blocking? Oh, I'm playing you like Street
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Fighter. There's a specific button, you
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have to press the block one second.
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But they won so many points for that imagery that it was like,
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you know, it just dominated after Street Fighter because it
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looks so cool. Yeah.
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So yeah, this is great. Figuring out the finishes is is
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where the challenge is, so. Right, right.
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And I think that was also that was one of the best parts of of
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of the movie, at least the second movie.
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But before we get into the second movie, let's talk a
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little bit about the first movie because it's it's very
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interesting. I went to.
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So the first movie came out during the pandemic and it was I
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think 2021. So the, I think like the bad
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part of the pandemic was kind of over, but we were still kind of,
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you know, the movie theaters were still releasing everything
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straight to streaming. We were still doing the, the
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social distancing type thing. So I sat in the house and
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watched it with my son because that was, you know, that was a
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thing that we used to do when he was younger, you know, watch
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the, the Mortal Kombat movies. And like I said, I'm, I'm
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interested in the, the world. I just, I'm not a game.
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I don't have the time to be a gamer because I don't have space
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in my life to get addicted to anything else.
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So we keep that part just firmly on the side.
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But I watched the movie and I was interested in it because
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when you watch the trailers, the trailers look good.
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The trailers look good. The, the, the CGI and all of the
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action, the fight scenes, you're like, OK, this is going to be a
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good movie. And then I watched the movie and
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I felt so disconnected. Like it didn't feel like Mortal
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Kombat to me. And I think it was because of
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the character, the main character they had in the first
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movie, which is Cole Young, played by Lewis Tan, that I was
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like, I don't know. I just, we had a hard time
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connecting with the movie. And then the story just didn't
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really grab me. And I was just, I don't know, it
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was just something about watching that first movie and I
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was like, I'm interested. But yeah, so it was like I, I
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had AI had a really hard time connecting with that story and
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with that character. But when they announced Mortal
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Kombat 2, I was still interested.
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I was like, OK, I didn't really care for the first one.
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I'm still going to watch the second one just because I want
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to see what they do with the story.
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And when I went to go see the second one with you guys, it I
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felt like the flow was better, the story was better, the acting
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was better than the first one, but it also made me understand
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the first one better. Did you guys feel like that?
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If it's part of a set, and I mean, I think people have told
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me that before for movies that failed and they didn't make a
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sequel, it's like, well, you gotta understand this is like
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gonna be a trilogy. So they're like building up.
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And it's so yeah, I, I see that. But if you do build up a
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character like Cole, and all of us are digging the iconography.
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So we're like, who's this guy and why are we spending so much
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time with it? It's like, hey, Cole, there's
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Liu Kang and there's Kung Lao. Like, oh, we should talk to them
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or no, focus on Cole, get to know his family.
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Like, why? So yeah, that was an interesting
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choice. But yeah, I I think it was
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better in the context, Yeah. For me, it was like this movie
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kind of fixed the fact that they had coal in the first one.
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It didn't make it easy to understand.
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It's like, yeah, we messed up. Sorry, guys.
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Here you go. Here, here, here's what you
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want. Because we all know the favorite
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characters are the main characters.
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Like, why did you have this movie and you just create a new
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character? I think we talked about this.
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I could have just watched the movie with just Scorpion and Sub
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Zero that that could have been Mortal Kombat 1 and then you
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could have gone into this one. I I, I didn't really understand
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the choice at the time. And they kind of made the movie
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sort of block because then it became sort of like just just
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this invitation of a Mortal Kombat movie when your main
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characters are not spending hardly any time on the screen.
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And then you kill off Kung Lao and you're like, what are we
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doing? Yeah.
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Yeah, so it's like like what Nick said, I think for me, if
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they had done both movies together, like if that combined
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it into one movie, the 1st 2 movies, it would have made more
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sense. But like you, Anthony, I was
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watching the first movie. Like who is this character Cole
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Young and why do we care about him?
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Like I'm here to see a Mortal Kombat movie.
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So when you introduce him, it's like, OK, he's going to be, you
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know, part of of the Mortal Kombat.
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I'm thinking he's going to be like a throwaway character,
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right? But then we find out later on in
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the movie, he's actually be like descendant of Scorpion, who is,
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you know, he was a warrior who was in constant battle with a
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character named Behind who turns out to be sub zero and behind
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kills Scorpions family. His name is Hanzo Hisashi in the
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movie kills his wife and child. And then there's a there's a
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baby that has been hidden and this is the this is the child
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that basically Cole is descended from.
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So they don't really go into a whole lot of that at the
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beginning of the movie. We just have this character.
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He has this kind of like, I don't know, Rocky or Creed type
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story where he's just washed up fighter or it kind of reminded
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me of Daredevil's father. You know, he's kind of like this
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washed up fighter who's just, you know, fighting to make
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money, to take care of his family.
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And then all of a sudden he's approached by these people
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about, hey, you have this tattoo.
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You're one of the you're 1 of Earth's warriors.
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You got to come fight in Mortal Kombat.
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He's like, the fuck, what are you talking about?
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And it's like it felt like there was so much missing, like as far
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as character development, as far as story development in the
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first one that I think they got right in the second one.
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And I think Nick, was it you that told me that part of the
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difference is that they had the video game writers writing on
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the second movie, whereas they didn't have them on the 1st.
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I'm not the one who said it, but it wouldn't surprise me.
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And the writers did change. The director did not change, but
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the writers did. Actually, I was talking about
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I'm there in the theater because we were all kind of agreeing
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that we like the second one a lot more.
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And I'm trying to look up what changed because it's the same
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director. So yeah, they, they switched out
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directors and I was seeing the other things that director had
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done. I'm like, oh, but yeah, that I
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guess the idea with Cole is that like, hey, you can be, this
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character represents you coming into the Mortal Kombat universe
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and, and, you know, you have somebody that's new for you or
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something. And it didn't really mesh at
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all. We're all just trying to figure
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out why we're spending time on this guy when we're introducing
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characters like Sonya or just Kung Loud's just over there.
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And these are interesting guys, but they're sidelined.
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So yes, it, it was strange. And yeah, the, the writing team
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changed for the second movie, and I'm guessing they kind of
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figured that out. But it was sometimes in
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Hollywood, you'll have like a credit and they will say, yeah,
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go for it. You know, this is a video game
00:14:02
movie. No worries.
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It's hard to tell sometimes on IMDb because the fact that
00:14:09
Tobias and Boone helped create the characters means they may be
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listed in writing credits. So I'm not exactly sure how much
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they actually wrote. OK.
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OK, but Jeremy Slater, who is the writer for two we discovered
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wrote like Umbrella Academy and Godzilla X Kong and Moon Knight
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and the Exorcist if y'all like that.
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So he's he's got a little bit more, I think of a pedigree than
00:14:36
what they had going for the first movie.
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OK, yeah. And I mean the you could tell
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the writing was different. I mean, even even with the
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characters just their their growth from movie 1 to movie 2
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that the way they it's like you can see bits and pieces of the
00:14:55
personalities of the characters, but I don't think you really saw
00:14:58
them shine until the 2nd movie like in the first movie because
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the movie focused so much on Cole.
00:15:04
Let yes, we got who did we get? We got Jax, we got Sonya, we got
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Kung Lao, we got Liu Kang, we got Shang Sung, we got Raiden.
00:15:13
I was not really impressed with any of those characters in the
00:15:16
first movie. It was really kind of like, OK,
00:15:21
so are they bringing like a new set of characters?
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I didn't know if that's what this reboot was supposed to do,
00:15:27
if they were supposed to bring new characters in.
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Again, I haven't played the game in 20, almost 30 years.
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So it's kind of like, OK, were they were there new characters
00:15:37
that are now more popular that they're bringing in?
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That's kind of what I thought. And then when we watched the
00:15:42
second movie, I was like, oh, no, this is so much better.
00:15:45
It's like you felt, I feel like you felt the power of the
00:15:50
characters more in this one, or you felt their commitment to to
00:15:54
who they were supposed to be. It's it's almost as if they they
00:15:58
took the criticism from one and wrote 2.
00:16:04
Like, I guess nobody will like Cole, so we got to write him out
00:16:08
and we have to make all the other characters more like they
00:16:12
are supposed to be like from the game where people expect because
00:16:18
as as as flawed as the first Mortal Kombat movie was, you
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know, way back, I don't remember what the year that was. 95I.
00:16:30
Think as flawed as that was, those characters were true to
00:16:33
the characters in the game and it feels like they sort of went
00:16:37
back to that, which is what we want to see.
00:16:40
Like we're not expecting some fantastical, great Oscar worthy
00:16:45
movie. We want to see a Mortal Kombat
00:16:47
movie. We want to see Sub zero and and
00:16:50
and and Scorpion go at it. You know, we want to see Tung
00:16:55
Lao throw the hat and shred people.
00:16:58
That's what we want to see. You know, don't give us the the
00:17:03
I don't know what they were doing in the first one, but they
00:17:06
were all like echoes of their video game characters.
00:17:10
Yes, I I didn't want to say surface level because they did
00:17:13
kind of go in depth with Jax and Sonia, but they were still just
00:17:18
sort of echoes of what they were.
00:17:20
And this video, this movie was more, it felt more true, like
00:17:25
you said, more true to where their characters were.
00:17:28
On the idea that the plot of the first movie is really the bad
00:17:32
guys trying to cheat before the tournament and that's really
00:17:35
carrying it. And you have your one character
00:17:39
study in the sub 0 scorpion relationship and we get to know
00:17:43
their background and it's deep. And then you have a coal story
00:17:47
back, get to know it and it's deep.
00:17:49
And you have sort of Sonja and Jax are just around being good,
00:17:53
but they aren't. We don't know them that deeply.
00:17:56
So then with two, they're like, OK, we nailed it with Scorpion
00:18:00
and Sub Zero and those actors are great.
00:18:02
Now we're going to focus instead of on this new character, Cole,
00:18:06
we're going to focus on Cortana and get deep into her back
00:18:09
story. And it it it was good for
00:18:12
setting the stakes for the tournament.
00:18:14
That was kind of a clever choice.
00:18:17
But yeah, that's I can't say why they would go with a a new
00:18:22
character like that in the first movie.
00:18:24
But yes, I'm glad they picked somebody established.
00:18:28
But then they make a character and you're not used in the game
00:18:31
now. Like, why did you do?
00:18:34
Why didn't you do? Yeah, you.
00:18:36
Didn't. Capitalize on the fact that you
00:18:38
created a character and you didn't just.
00:18:41
He was going to be huge. It was.
00:18:44
Right, But you know, it could it could have to do with what you
00:18:47
said earlier, Anthony, as far as like we all felt like why why
00:18:53
should we care about this character?
00:18:54
And I think a lot of people felt that at least the the
00:18:57
discussions that I've had because it won, it was very hard
00:19:00
for me to even find people who watched the first one.
00:19:04
I was like, wait, you didn't watch?
00:19:05
And they were like, no, I didn't want to watch it.
00:19:07
You know, a lot of people have been burned by video game movies
00:19:11
by, you know, them not being true to the game or them being
00:19:14
fan service or them just not looking good or not.
00:19:18
You know, there's so many different reasons why people
00:19:22
kind of shield away from it. And then it's like, if you don't
00:19:26
like the movie because you don't like that character, I don't
00:19:29
think you would put that character in the game except for
00:19:31
the fact that people will probably want to kill that
00:19:34
character. And I don't want to say that
00:19:36
it's it's that I don't want to say I hated the character.
00:19:40
I didn't. And I don't like Lewis Tan did
00:19:45
the best with what they gave him.
00:19:47
But it was like the way, again, the way I think the way that
00:19:51
they introduced that character, it was just kind of like, this
00:19:55
is supposed to be Mortal Kombat and you use the first movie to
00:19:58
kind of set up what was going to happen in Mortal Kombat.
00:20:01
But we didn't really get Mortal Kombat.
00:20:04
And that just felt kind of deceptive to me.
00:20:07
When they really didn't try that hard to, I don't think sell it.
00:20:11
Like that thing happened where they weren't sure about the
00:20:13
product they came up with, so they decided to save $20 million
00:20:17
on advertising or something. So the people like me that they
00:20:19
might have gotten to go see it. It was another one of those
00:20:23
franchises that had already been deluded and kind of wandered off
00:20:28
course. So it was like they had had
00:20:31
Mortal Kombat Conquest the series and Mortal Kombat Legacy
00:20:36
the series and a bunch of. Yeah, I didn't even know about
00:20:39
any of that. I happened to look at that when
00:20:41
I when I went to HBO Max to look at, you know, to rewatch the
00:20:45
first one. And I was like, what's all this
00:20:47
stuff here? Like, Oh well.
00:20:51
And that's, you know, it's the kind of thing that if you wanted
00:20:54
to, even if they're misfires and you could try and bring in some
00:20:59
characters and build some sort of legacy connection.
00:21:04
Even if it's missteps like Elektra and Deadpool, where it's
00:21:08
like, even if everybody didn't like this, we can still build
00:21:11
from that. But instead it felt like when
00:21:13
2021 came, they had already rebooted.
00:21:16
This would make like the 4th or 5th time.
00:21:19
So yeah, it was like, I didn't see it until we had this
00:21:22
discussion about going to C2 and I'm like, guess I'll check it
00:21:26
out. What is is?
00:21:28
It's like someone looked at me and said, well, OK, everybody
00:21:32
knows Mortal Kombat is Liu Kang's story.
00:21:36
He is the main character of Mortal Kombat, period.
00:21:40
He is the descendant of Kung Lao, if I'm not mistaken.
00:21:44
And they looked at that and they said, what if we have take
00:21:47
another one of the iconic characters and give him a
00:21:49
descendant and make it sort of about him where they should have
00:21:56
just stuck with the original story with Lou Kane being Kung
00:22:01
Lao's descendant and just go with that.
00:22:03
But they didn't want to do that. They wanted to come.
00:22:06
And you know, OK, I'm not trying to get on the soapbox.
00:22:09
I'm going to pull it out, but I'm not going to get on it.
00:22:12
Yes, you are. Yes, you are.
00:22:13
We always talk about how writers always want to do their own
00:22:19
thing, especially when it comes to adaptation or existing
00:22:26
property. They don't want to do what
00:22:30
already exist, they want to put their own stuff in it.
00:22:34
Then when it came, that sort of feels like what happened with
00:22:37
the first movie is I, I want to create a new character because
00:22:42
I'm writing this and I want it to be my story.
00:22:45
I want it to be my thing instead of just going through what
00:22:48
you've got. It's a Mortal Kombat movie.
00:22:52
People want to see fatalities. That's it.
00:22:55
They're not expecting anything else other than vicious, violent
00:23:00
or rich. We want to see Mortal Kombat.
00:23:02
That's what you want to see. The story is whatever.
00:23:06
Yeah, but at least, you know, you did get the really good
00:23:11
stuff with Sub Zero and Scorpion.
00:23:14
That was really good. That's what makes the movie
00:23:17
tolerable to watch. But the Cole Young stuff really
00:23:22
makes it kind of like, what are we doing?
00:23:25
Like get him off the screen, go back to 7, Zero and Scorpion.
00:23:30
That's what we want to see. Yeah, yeah.
00:23:34
And you know, this is something I think we have a discussion
00:23:38
about all the time when it comes to adaptations.
00:23:41
Like the whole reason why you're doing this particular property
00:23:45
is because it's a well known property.
00:23:48
It's a well liked property, It's a well loved property.
00:23:51
It has a built in fan base. So I don't understand, like I
00:23:56
understand the part about wanting to put your own spin on
00:23:59
it, but why would you take something that's so fundamental
00:24:02
to what people love about it and then change it and then expect
00:24:06
people to like it? It's like you had a good story
00:24:09
there. That's why we liked it.
00:24:10
What is the problem with you just bringing that story on and
00:24:14
and making it come to life? You know, like you said in the
00:24:18
first movie, The Sub Zero and Scorpion stuff that was great.
00:24:24
The back story at the beginning, the fight at the end, even the
00:24:28
way he couldn't, the way Scorpion kind of connects with
00:24:32
Cole at the end because that is his descendant.
00:24:35
That made sense. But all of the stuff in the
00:24:38
middle with Cole having the visions and, you know, also, I
00:24:44
think the whole storyline with Cole was just kind of
00:24:46
unbelievable because you had this guy who's told that he's a
00:24:50
descendant of such and such. And then you find out later in
00:24:53
the movie that he's an orphan. He's like, I'm just an orphan
00:24:56
from Chicago. And they're like, well, you're
00:24:58
the descendant of such and such and such and such.
00:25:00
And This is why you are going to be in Mortal Kombat, whatever.
00:25:03
And he never asked any questions like you don't have any.
00:25:08
You don't have any curiosity about this family, this branch
00:25:11
of your family. You don't ask anything else
00:25:14
about Will. How did this start?
00:25:16
How did my you? You don't ask anything.
00:25:20
And that's why I feel like the the character development for
00:25:24
him was lacking because I'm sorry if if, if I got people
00:25:29
coming to me from other dimensions telling me that
00:25:32
because of a tattoo I have, I have to go fight in this life or
00:25:36
death battle and the whole of humanity may be at stake.
00:25:42
I'm going to want a little more information.
00:25:45
But maybe that's just me. But I'm just, you know, I don't
00:25:51
know, it just, it just made it seem very weird.
00:25:55
Comic book Catherine on YouTube says that Cole was introduced,
00:25:58
He was mandated by the studio and the producers because they
00:26:03
wanted to get an audience that wasn't familiar with Mortal
00:26:06
Kombat as well. So he's supposed to be the
00:26:08
person wandering into this world saying what is it now and
00:26:11
represent us. That's not saying that, but they
00:26:15
didn't. Even.
00:26:16
Do. That right, They didn't even do
00:26:18
that right. They didn't even do that right
00:26:20
and I'm sorry, with something as iconic as Mortal Kombat, even if
00:26:26
you are not a Mortal Kombat person, 9 times out of 10 you're
00:26:32
going to know the basics. You know, it's just, it's just
00:26:36
like. No, I, I have now.
00:26:39
I don't know. And I like this one.
00:26:40
I just thought of it. It's like doing the Super Mario
00:26:45
Brothers movie and creating a third brother, Stefan, you know?
00:26:54
Please tell me they didn't do that.
00:26:56
No, but I'm saying that is what it's like.
00:26:58
You, you, you're like, Oh well, we want to appeal to people who
00:27:03
aren't familiar with the, the mortal, you know, with the Super
00:27:07
Mario Brothers universe and Nintendo.
00:27:11
So we're going to create a third character, 1/3 brother, you
00:27:14
know, 'cause it doesn't say 2 Mario Brothers and it says Super
00:27:18
Mario Brothers. So here's the third one.
00:27:20
And that way we'll attract more. How does that work?
00:27:24
Like the people who aren't familiar with it, they're going
00:27:27
to go because you have a new brother named Stefan.
00:27:31
Like how does creating another character named Cole Young going
00:27:37
to invite people who know nothing about Mortal Kombat when
00:27:40
the title of your movie is Mortal Kombat?
00:27:42
It's Mortal Kombat, yeah. Which, you know, segwaying into
00:27:46
what they got right with the second movie that we just saw is
00:27:51
they actually leaned into the characters who they are.
00:27:55
We learn about Cortana, you know, even though we all know
00:27:58
Cortana now we know Cortana. And I forgot about her mother.
00:28:05
I forgot. I I hated playing against her.
00:28:07
I forgot about. Her.
00:28:10
Yeah, you know, like whip her hair in.
00:28:12
Hey, I forgot about her and then having new say bot like all of
00:28:18
the things that we know about motor comeback here it is in the
00:28:22
movie. I don't know.
00:28:25
I know they, I had heard they were saying how like the first
00:28:29
movie was supposed to sort of establish the universe.
00:28:32
The second movie is the tournament and usually the
00:28:35
rules. And the third movie is going to
00:28:38
be Liu Kang's journey in trying to find Kung Lao.
00:28:42
I get that. But you didn't need Cole Young,
00:28:45
the first movie to establish the the universe.
00:28:48
Yeah, it's, it's already been established.
00:28:51
Or you could have. You could have done a better
00:28:53
job. You could have given him a
00:28:54
little bit, maybe another 10-15 minutes and some decent back
00:29:01
story or some like some yeah. It just it just felt disjointed.
00:29:08
Because it doesn't really make any sense now with the third
00:29:13
movie, because in the first movie, you didn't really focus
00:29:16
on the the burden that Loot King has, knowing that he really is
00:29:21
supposed to be the one. And that was that was a heavy
00:29:27
burden for him. That was something he was trying
00:29:30
to live with and and reconcile that.
00:29:33
It's a lot of pressure for him. Like his ancestor was the last
00:29:37
one to win and now he has to do it.
00:29:40
And this that would have made, and I know that's what they did
00:29:44
in the original movie, but they could have done, they could have
00:29:49
done it so much better than just having Cole Young because at no
00:29:52
point were we ever convinced that Cole Young was going to be
00:29:56
the one to the tournament. Even when they got together in a
00:30:00
group, everyone's like, well, that's that's Liu Kang.
00:30:04
I guess he's supposed to be the one that's going to win this
00:30:06
thing for us, right? Yeah.
00:30:08
That's him over there. Hey everybody.
00:30:11
He's like, hey, that's how he is during the whole movie.
00:30:13
Hey, I'm. I'm still here.
00:30:15
Hey, I'm, I'm still here. Oh, I'm, I'm still here.
00:30:20
Yeah. Really.
00:30:22
Yeah, And even with the second movie, I feel like like we got a
00:30:25
little bit more of his presence, but I also still feel like it
00:30:29
didn't, it didn't focus. On it still, it still really
00:30:32
gave him to sort of like a tertiary character.
00:30:36
He's the secondary. He's like a tertiary character.
00:30:39
And now we're supposed to go into this third movie where he's
00:30:42
the one that's doing the big thing.
00:30:44
And I'm, I'm kind of afraid for where that movie is going to go.
00:30:48
But, you know, maybe. Maybe they feel like 1995 did
00:30:53
the Liu Kang hero story and they want to try and do something
00:30:57
new, and if they just do the Liu Kang hero story, people will
00:31:01
feel like it's just telling the same story there.
00:31:04
Are three freaking Mortal Kombat games.
00:31:07
I'm just saying it's like there's a parade.
00:31:09
So when you play Mortal Kombat and you have a favorite, maybe
00:31:13
they win this time. It's just like, Oh my gosh, I'm
00:31:16
taking noob all the way and like you can't do that.
00:31:19
No, because if you play the campaign, Luke Payne always
00:31:22
wins. So I mean, that's how he goes.
00:31:24
Whichever game you're playing, he just wins in the campaign.
00:31:28
That's just the way the game is made.
00:31:31
It's like, oh, we're going to do a Harry Potter game, but Luda
00:31:34
Lovgans saves the day? Come on guys, it's not how.
00:31:37
It's supposed to Harry Potter for a reason.
00:31:39
Yeah, yeah, I get you. I get you.
00:31:42
But I I do feel like the third movie if I don't.
00:31:46
And I don't even know if they've been greenlit for a third movie,
00:31:50
but if they have been, that's probably going to be his full
00:31:54
story. Oh, and they still changed it
00:31:56
because he didn't even win the tournament, Cortana did.
00:32:01
Yeah. But he looked us at the audience
00:32:04
in the eye and he said, I know what y'all are thinking.
00:32:08
It's not that time, all right? This is the way we're.
00:32:11
Talking, yeah, he, he literally did say it's not my time yet, so
00:32:15
yeah, yeah. So what?
00:32:17
What do we? And Johnny Cage didn't even win
00:32:19
the tournament. Like you, you still got what you
00:32:22
wanted, so you still could have done what you needed in the
00:32:25
first movie, because the first movie wasn't even the
00:32:27
tournament. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:31
It says that the screenwriter Jeremy Slater has finished the
00:32:33
script for Mortal Kombat 3, but the studio has not officially
00:32:37
greenlit it yet. They're waiting to see about box
00:32:40
office and streaming numbers for two.
00:32:42
And the box office numbers seem to be doing pretty OK for them.
00:32:49
I think opening weekend they did maybe 60 million and I think
00:32:54
they, I want to say there was like a $39 million budget or
00:32:58
something. I don't know.
00:32:59
I, I don't really pay attention to those kinds of numbers, but
00:33:03
they seem to be doing OK. So hopefully that we will get a
00:33:06
third move because I am interested in seeing how they
00:33:08
close it out and like I said. The question is, are they going
00:33:12
to have enough? Man, you can't Carl Urban back.
00:33:14
That's that's going to be the question.
00:33:16
Well, I mean, Carl Urban, like the boys is ending.
00:33:20
He's he's got some time on his hands.
00:33:22
He you know, they might can get him back.
00:33:26
Time's money and are they going to have enough money for his
00:33:29
time? Yeah, but you know, with the
00:33:34
second movie, since we are talking about Johnny Cage, I
00:33:38
will say this, the characters were a lot more enjoyable in
00:33:42
this one. You know, and I understand the
00:33:45
first movie there was a lot of doom and gloom.
00:33:47
They were trying to prevent Shank Zoom from like cheating
00:33:53
his ass off, which you know, resulted in a death or whatever,
00:33:58
but which I'm still irritated about that death.
00:34:03
But we got to see the character come back.
00:34:05
We got to see Cone loud come back in this one and he was so
00:34:08
much better in this one. Not that he was bad in the first
00:34:11
one, but I don't know something about him being a darker version
00:34:16
of his character. Everything about him was just,
00:34:21
it was, I don't know, it was so much better.
00:34:24
Like the fight scenes, the way he looked, the way he carried
00:34:27
himself, the banter between him and Liu Kang when they were when
00:34:32
they were fighting. It was just, that was one of the
00:34:35
best parts of the movie to me. Was Kung Laos coming, coming
00:34:38
back, you know? Yeah, with his evil Captain
00:34:41
America Frisbee shield at. Listen.
00:34:44
That's that was, I mean, I don't know if you have so many good
00:34:47
guys like Sonia and Jax and Kung Lao and Liu Kang standing
00:34:52
around, they can be kind of dull unless you give them something
00:34:55
fun to do. So making him this evil zombie
00:34:58
dark side version of Kung Lao was interesting.
00:35:01
And he wasn't just a zombie. He they had him talking.
00:35:04
He's like kind of there. That was creepy.
00:35:07
So yeah. Well done.
00:35:09
And that scene was on one of the stages.
00:35:11
They like, really use the stages from the games.
00:35:14
So you see it and you're just like, oh, we're just here, OK.
00:35:17
Cool. That was, I think one of the
00:35:19
best, best scenes of the movie for me.
00:35:22
It was it, it really did kind of, it almost felt like you
00:35:26
weren't playing the game. And I think that's kind of the
00:35:29
general feeling I got with most of the movie.
00:35:32
It did feel like you were playing the game, you know, with
00:35:37
the background and the settings and the fight with Sonia and
00:35:41
Sandell, they, they were stressing me out because I was
00:35:44
expecting those spikes. I was like no, my, my, my skin
00:35:49
was crawling. I was like this is too much,
00:35:50
y'all playing too much, That's too close.
00:35:53
And then when Sandell finally got impaled on one of the
00:35:56
spikes, that was just. But yeah, it it felt like you
00:36:01
could be sitting there playing the game.
00:36:03
Well, that sounded like that. That talk between Liu Kang and
00:36:06
Kung Lao felt like a cinematic from the later games.
00:36:10
Or it's like, you know, I have to stop you and it's like you
00:36:13
won't be able to. And then but then he like
00:36:15
brutally murders him, which is very game.
00:36:18
It's like, OK, I'm going to stop you, bro.
00:36:20
And he's like, bro, do it. Oh, but the thing.
00:36:22
Is I think we were all shocked at that.
00:36:25
Like those of us who have played the game know how violent the
00:36:31
deaths can be. But I think Anthony was the one
00:36:33
who was saying he was like, why did he?
00:36:35
Because I think what, what was it?
00:36:37
He? He's going to take a hit.
00:36:40
He like, braced himself to take his head off and we're all like.
00:36:43
His hands, his fists stopped glowing, so it's like he was
00:36:46
going to let himself be hit. And we're just like you, really
00:36:51
about to let him just just kill you.
00:36:54
What are you doing? They was like, oh, OK, so when?
00:36:58
He grabbed the arms. It still took me a split second
00:37:02
and then when I saw the the hat on the I said, Oh, this is no, I
00:37:07
can't like I literally I couldn't watch that scene.
00:37:10
I was like, Nope, The the the the audio is bad enough.
00:37:13
I don't need to watch the video visual visual but.
00:37:17
I haven't taken teenage boys yet to see it my kid, but I told him
00:37:20
when I saw it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you guys
00:37:23
are going to really enjoy this because it is very exactly what
00:37:27
you're into. But yeah, I do.
00:37:29
I do have a nitpick though about the movie as much as I enjoyed
00:37:34
it. What?
00:37:35
So OK, so in the beginning, when Johnny Cage we see what is it
00:37:42
Cage fear your and Cage fear whatever the movie clip and you
00:37:48
can tell it's pretty bad. Like the stunts are bad.
00:37:51
The guys are throwing punches. It it's like watching, you know,
00:37:55
revenge. Well, whatever.
00:37:58
I was about to mention some Star Trek movie where they were
00:38:00
missing hits, Star Wars movie where they were missing hits and
00:38:05
people were taking falls and diving and like, you know, he's
00:38:10
swinging at someone and he, the guy clearly missed him by like 4
00:38:13
inches. Oh, yeah.
00:38:16
He turned to. I was like, yeah, this is, this
00:38:18
is great cheesy 80s action movie, right?
00:38:22
It was supposed to be. But then later when Karl Urban
00:38:27
starts fighting and you actually see the difference between him
00:38:32
and the stuntman and like, Oh my God.
00:38:35
I did notice that it was like there was like a quick facial.
00:38:40
There there was a there was a lot of it.
00:38:42
Like I know it's hard to find martial artists.
00:38:44
What is HE64? They're martial artists Better
00:38:48
than Fluid and his size. Yeah, no, you can see the height
00:38:55
difference going from, you know, he's tiring over Molina.
00:38:59
Then they cut to a fight and they're either the same height
00:39:03
or shorter than her and then they cut back and he's tall
00:39:07
again. I'm like, I know it was
00:39:10
difficult, but they could have done a better job.
00:39:13
They really could have. It was, it was just really,
00:39:16
really obvious and. Oh wait, you said.
00:39:18
Melinda you. Mean when he was, I mean, I said
00:39:21
Melinda. I mean Cortana.
00:39:22
OK. But the the first movie, yeah,
00:39:26
the let's not talk about that. But anyway, I don't know, I, I
00:39:33
feel like they could have done a better job with trying to fool
00:39:37
us that Karl Urban can actually do that stuff.
00:39:42
But the size difference it was, it was just too obvious for me.
00:39:47
Like, I wasn't looking for it. But then I started.
00:39:51
So I was like, oh. See, I didn't need to pay
00:39:54
attention to that part because I was laughing so hard at just
00:40:01
Johnny Cage's whole his whole demeanor.
00:40:06
His whole attitude, the just being.
00:40:09
Oh, he Carl Urban has it. He he got it.
00:40:12
He got it. He nailed it.
00:40:14
The over the topness and and it was, it was so hilarious to me
00:40:20
that whole scene with him and Baraka, because I I don't know
00:40:24
what I remember of Baraka from the from the games.
00:40:28
I don't remember that. I don't remember him being like
00:40:32
that. So.
00:40:33
He looks exactly that silly. It is very hard to translate.
00:40:36
Was late in the live action and they just went for it and you
00:40:40
guys go. I was impressed.
00:40:41
But but, but everyone else looked so good and all the other
00:40:46
stunts were so good. And then his stunts were not so
00:40:51
good. It was, it was, you know, it
00:40:54
took me. Out of it was a a an intentional
00:40:57
choice. No, I don't think.
00:40:59
I don't think Later in the movie in the beginning, yes, you know
00:41:04
when he when clearly the woman shoots the bazooka downward the.
00:41:11
Split. Oh, and it goes up to the
00:41:12
helicopter. To the helicopter, clearly I get
00:41:16
it. That didn't bother me.
00:41:18
But later in the movie when he is fighting everybody, No, it,
00:41:24
it, no, it's not the same. No, it's it's I I would delight
00:41:31
towards you better. When he's your comedy relief,
00:41:35
that's hilarious. So it's like he is funny, but
00:41:38
it's like if you want a silly character to the side and you
00:41:41
choose Karl Irving, this giant brick of a man, he's just and he
00:41:46
is funny, but it's like, so that was the tone of the movie.
00:41:49
And he fights like first thing and loses immediately and he's
00:41:53
still around. He's like, well, I mean, I'll do
00:41:55
what I can guys. And you're like, well, he what
00:41:57
is he even still doing here? But they do find stuff for him
00:42:00
to do. So it's like that was, I think I
00:42:03
would have given this movie a passing grade just on Karl Urban
00:42:07
and the bit that he does. But the fact that they figured
00:42:11
out that Kano was really funny from the first movie too, and
00:42:14
they brought him to also be ridiculous, so you got these two
00:42:19
crazy guys with accents was great.
00:42:22
It was it was cool how sometimes when he was talking to Kano, his
00:42:26
accent would come out just a little bit.
00:42:28
Yeah, you would hear it just. A little bit, yeah.
00:42:33
Yeah, but yeah, you know, I think like I said, his, his
00:42:40
fight scenes, I didn't notice the discrepancy because I was so
00:42:43
busy laughing just at him in general, just because.
00:42:47
OK, so we all know Karl Urban from a lot of different things,
00:42:52
lot of different things. But for some reason watching
00:42:56
this I just had Butcher stuck in my head and.
00:43:00
Yeah, I heard. Butcher and I was just like, I
00:43:05
can't see Butcher being this ridiculous, but even when he was
00:43:09
talking as Johnny Cage, I was hearing Butcher in my head and
00:43:14
that just made it even more funny to me.
00:43:17
Like, but then you get the scene towards the end where he's in
00:43:23
purgatory or hell and he's in the midst of this fight with
00:43:27
Scorpion and Sub Zero and and and Noob Cybi and and who else
00:43:32
was down there? Cano.
00:43:35
Was it those four? Because.
00:43:38
Somebody. But it's like, you have this.
00:43:44
It was so funny because you have this person who is just a
00:43:47
regular human who is just an actor who is, you know, as he
00:43:52
says, a washed up martial artist.
00:43:54
And he's in one of the biggest fight sequences in the film.
00:43:59
And half the time he's running around like, I don't even know
00:44:03
what the hell I'm doing here. But OK, I'm going to give it my
00:44:06
best shot. And it's like, I don't know, his
00:44:09
character made the whole film just so much more enjoyable on
00:44:15
top of all the other stuff that I really wanted to see.
00:44:18
Like we got to see Mortal Kombat, we got to see the
00:44:21
diamonds in the sky that kind of blinked out as your your
00:44:24
champions died, or we got to see all of that.
00:44:28
And it was it was great. But Karl Irving, I think was
00:44:32
probably maybe the best part of the movie for me just just for
00:44:38
the sheer ridiculousness of of what his character was and who
00:44:42
he was supposed to be, you know? When that thing where you can
00:44:46
take the serious and you can enjoy it and then it's not all
00:44:50
Karl Urban like making every scene silly, but then he is
00:44:53
around and he's he's being taking it very seriously, but
00:44:57
he's just a silly character. So yeah, that was fun.
00:45:00
It lightened. Up.
00:45:03
If it was all just sustained fighting, like the awesome scene
00:45:06
with Liu Kang and Kung Lao and just they just awesome, awesome,
00:45:10
awesome, it would have gotten tiring.
00:45:12
You have to have some of the weird bits over the side to OK,
00:45:17
look, if you watch all of John Wick 4 without taking a break,
00:45:24
the last 30 minutes is great, but you're so tired that I don't
00:45:28
think you appreciate. I think you need to pause, step
00:45:31
outside. So I feel like you just take a
00:45:34
little bit of a pause. Yes, it was just like 5 set
00:45:37
pieces. I need to have some kind of
00:45:39
background discussion. I like how they, I like how they
00:45:44
story wise sort of did a, they had two characters they had to
00:45:50
focus on Cortana and Johnny Cage and just sort of had the
00:45:54
parallel character development. I thought that was that was much
00:45:59
better than what they did in the first movie.
00:46:02
It was, it was because even you, you sort of get their stories,
00:46:08
their development. They both get a climax and they
00:46:12
both get a resolution and it's really cool to see that.
00:46:16
Yeah. When you have a parade of
00:46:18
characters to get to, it can be impossible.
00:46:21
And somehow they found time to have me care about Jade.
00:46:25
And I'm like, I really like this.
00:46:26
I'm buying this sister thing you guys are selling, and it's
00:46:29
really, how do you cram that in? But yeah, they did well.
00:46:32
So, and they they, they balanced it very well.
00:46:35
It's like, I think one of the things about this film is, is
00:46:40
the balance, because you do have a lot of characters that you're
00:46:44
focusing on and you got to find some way to tell all the
00:46:49
stories. And I think that was part of the
00:46:51
problem with the first one, because you didn't really get to
00:46:53
do that that much. And this one, I felt like they
00:46:59
did really good. Like, like we said, they they
00:47:02
did the Cortana story. We got the background with her
00:47:06
and Jade, even in a couple of sentences that you know, like,
00:47:09
Oh yeah, you know, y'all found me.
00:47:12
I was basically on the streets. You took me in.
00:47:15
You treated me like a sister instead of like a bodyguard.
00:47:18
And you know, it's like with those two actresses too, though,
00:47:24
what they put into it, it made you care about that relationship
00:47:30
and, and, and what happens to those characters.
00:47:35
I think the thing that I didn't really care for in the story,
00:47:39
and I think part of it has to do with the casting is the whole
00:47:45
Shang Soon and Raiden thing, because I love those actors
00:47:51
outside of this this story, but I don't really care for them as
00:47:57
the characters that they're playing in this story,
00:47:59
especially the the rating character.
00:48:01
I just I mean, Christopher Lambert was not Asian, but he
00:48:07
was it's something, it was something about his delivery as
00:48:12
Raiden. Like he was very he was very
00:48:16
gruff, but he had a you can still see his humor.
00:48:21
And also when he was pissed and he raised his voice, you felt
00:48:26
it. And there was a moment in this
00:48:30
film, I think it was this one, where Raiden says enough and I
00:48:35
was just sitting there like, is this supposed to scare me into
00:48:38
submission? No, I think it was the first
00:48:40
movie when Shane Soon had invaded and he yells out enough
00:48:47
and I was like you. Weren't feeling.
00:48:51
It it didn't feel threatening enough for it to be rated.
00:48:58
And I just I don't know that it kind of carried out carried on
00:49:01
with the second film. I don't know something about
00:49:04
those two castings just well, OK, I will say this.
00:49:09
There's only one Shang zoom for me and that's that's him.
00:49:18
From. That's the only Shane soon for
00:49:21
me, Just his, his attitude, the way he enunciates his words,
00:49:26
just his whole demeanor. And I think that's kind of hard
00:49:30
to live up to. So I, I don't know.
00:49:33
But something about the way that those two characters were in
00:49:36
this film, even though we didn't see Raiden a lot because he's
00:49:39
literally sitting there. His essence has been stolen.
00:49:42
We don't get a lot of him, but still it's just kind of like, I
00:49:47
don't know, I just. Well, as an elder God, you kind
00:49:50
of want him to be sort of intimidating and imposing in
00:49:55
every scene he's in. And he's just not that.
00:49:59
But I think he's he's supposed to be sort of like holding back
00:50:05
everything because he is so powerful.
00:50:07
OK, I think that's, I would like to think that would be the
00:50:11
point. But I I see what you're saying.
00:50:13
He's he's not intimidating or he's not scary or frightening
00:50:19
and and he should be, but in he's really not in the movies.
00:50:24
I mean, he's from the movies. He's not.
00:50:27
They might have been just a couple characters too many in
00:50:30
the juggling characters. So Shao Khan is the big bad and
00:50:34
Sheng Sung. There's also the necromancer
00:50:37
running around. So Sheng Sung, you're kind of
00:50:39
not sure what you're supposed to even do with him.
00:50:42
So and Raiden is difficult because Raiden is super powerful
00:50:45
but also ineffectual. He can do anything and he can't
00:50:48
do anything. So they had to kind of sideline
00:50:51
him like Professor Xavier in maybe X-Men one where it's like
00:50:57
we got to get this guy over to the side.
00:50:59
He's not dead, y'all, He's just over here.
00:51:01
So we could move on with the action, but.
00:51:04
And they also kind of did that with with Liu Kang too, because
00:51:08
to be honest with you, he would beat anyone he fought except
00:51:12
from, you know, Shao Khan is not a clear victory.
00:51:15
But you couldn't put him up against anyone else because he
00:51:19
he'd mop the floor with them. Right.
00:51:21
Wait, who? Who killed him in this movie?
00:51:24
I forgot. Eventually, it was Cortana.
00:51:29
Spoiler alert. No in the movie.
00:51:31
Luke. He was shot Khan.
00:51:34
OK, that OK. OK.
00:51:36
Yeah, he he stabbed him with the butt of the yes.
00:51:39
That's right. OK.
00:51:41
Impaled him, but I don't think he was dead though.
00:51:45
I don't think so either. I don't think that's why.
00:51:47
That's why I did the quotes because he was he was fighting
00:51:51
and it's like at the moment that he was impaled, that's when he
00:51:56
had his aha moment. Like, OK, look, I'm not even
00:51:59
supposed to be here right now. I have a bigger mission.
00:52:03
So, yeah, Deuces and and he just kind of he had a a pretty death,
00:52:09
if you will, you know, where he just kind of, you know, phased
00:52:14
out. I don't know if that's what you
00:52:16
want to call it, but yeah, it was just kind of like, OK, but
00:52:22
the but but I mean, some of the other deaths, I mean the other
00:52:25
fatalities, OK, as much as we talked about Cole Young, he did
00:52:28
not deserve to go out the way he did.
00:52:32
That was horrible. Like.
00:52:35
I didn't like fighting like a God Mode bad guy is sort of, I
00:52:41
don't know. Yeah, he was out.
00:52:43
He takes. A little bit of the mystery out
00:52:45
of it where we're just like, oh, well, we're just going to watch
00:52:48
him slowly beat him to death. But yeah, I like that they threw
00:52:50
in the poison pool. It was a nice thing, but it was
00:52:54
also like, that's just cold. I mean, we got to know this
00:52:57
guy's family. Are you?
00:52:58
Did you guys think this through? Right.
00:53:00
I mean like you literally decapitate him by the the like
00:53:07
it is Mortal Kombat. I get it the the deaths are
00:53:10
bloody, but y'all have? Y'all have.
00:53:16
They didn't really have to do them like that, but I guess they
00:53:18
want to get rid of the character because they established that
00:53:22
you can lose and not be killed. Yeah, he literally could have
00:53:27
just hit him with the hammer and knocked him into the wall and he
00:53:29
was knocked out. Even the match will be over.
00:53:32
Yeah, but of course. You can go home to his his wife
00:53:36
and kid and and be all right. But yeah, but I guess they also
00:53:40
have to kind of show that it was no holds barred.
00:53:43
Like, OK, anybody can die. Which, you know, I had.
00:53:48
To wait, now it's it's Mortal Kombat.
00:53:50
We, I know, and that's the thing, you know, we, we were
00:53:53
talking earlier about the fact that they brought Cole's
00:53:56
character in because you want to bring in other people who are
00:53:59
not familiar with Mortal Kombat. So I guess that was kind of like
00:54:03
one of those things where if you're coming in and you don't
00:54:06
know anything about Mortal Kombat, you don't know anything
00:54:09
about the lore. You know, you could go into this
00:54:13
whole thing thinking, OK, you know what, the good guys are
00:54:16
going to prevail because that's what kind of what you want to
00:54:19
see with hero movies and with video game movies.
00:54:22
Like you want to see the good guys win and the bad guys lose.
00:54:25
And one thing that this particular movie did show you is
00:54:30
that the good guys will not always win.
00:54:34
You know, you had Cole who was just like literally half his
00:54:40
body was gone from a hammer blow and then you have to like add
00:54:46
insult to injury by throwing him into a pool of acid.
00:54:50
That's just horrible. And then later on you get the
00:54:54
whole thing with Jax, Like the Jax one, when I looked at I was
00:54:58
like, OK, are we really going to pull this dude's arms off again?
00:55:02
Like, I know that's I know that's video game still.
00:55:05
It was kind of like, are we really going to go there again?
00:55:09
But then when he when he actually, like, killed him, I
00:55:11
was like, Yep. OK, well, at least they're not
00:55:14
playing it safe. At least they're showing us.
00:55:16
Yeah, your favorite characters can die in this.
00:55:20
It's a it's a moot point. We have a necromancer walking
00:55:23
around. We can bring everybody back.
00:55:25
This is true and and this is apparently what they're going to
00:55:29
try to do in the third movie because they're their bodies are
00:55:33
gone, but their souls are still alive.
00:55:35
So what they're going to try to do is bring the souls back.
00:55:38
So there is a good chance that we will see Jax again.
00:55:40
There's a good chance we will see.
00:55:43
Hung Lao. Oh again?
00:55:46
But I mean there were other characters who also died.
00:55:49
Did sub zero behind didn't die though right?
00:55:55
They were both in hell. Yeah, he died and he was changed
00:55:59
into, he brought him back, his new Sabah.
00:56:01
OK, OK, so. I want to, I want to remind
00:56:06
everybody at home that I was the one in the theatre who was like,
00:56:08
so who is this? Is he like smoke or something?
00:56:11
And you're just like, Nope, Nope.
00:56:12
I bought. It's obvious.
00:56:13
Nick, come on. I'm like, OK, all right, sure.
00:56:18
And you were right. But it's just.
00:56:19
Yeah. It's not stated anywhere.
00:56:21
It's just. Well, yeah.
00:56:22
Like, duh, that's but. Yes.
00:56:28
Yeah. Was that me, Nick, that said
00:56:31
that to you? Yes.
00:56:33
Well, I'm embellishing the duh and the eye roll and the, you
00:56:36
know. He's over exaggerated but you
00:56:39
were like. Maybe a little bit, but you
00:56:41
know, Anthony does sort of A and that's just it.
00:56:45
Yeah, say. Yeah, this really.
00:56:48
You just pulled my day, right? That was.
00:56:51
You knew that was. No, no, yeah.
00:56:53
I was like, who is who is the because I I know some of the
00:56:57
people I couldn't have named Quan Chi.
00:56:59
I never liked him when he showed up.
00:57:01
I don't like his look, but but like, I know Noob Saibot.
00:57:05
I know Smoke and I know Cyrax and I know you know.
00:57:10
So I'm like, oh, is it this one? Is it this one?
00:57:12
And you know? No, no, I just like that you
00:57:16
were right. I like that you knew even though
00:57:18
they didn't say it. So if if anybody sees this or
00:57:22
hears us and hasn't seen the movie it's score, it's sub zero
00:57:26
except dead and all in a black palette and not using sub 0
00:57:33
powers but using shadow powers. So obviously that's ice in Hill.
00:57:39
Yeah, yeah, no. I would think that would be a
00:57:42
bit difficult. But yeah, he's making copies of
00:57:46
himself and jumping it out of shafts.
00:57:47
Low, low wise, you know, Scorpion uses a lot of fire and
00:57:52
that sort of since zero lost to that already.
00:57:57
So that would be kind of pointless for him to go up
00:57:59
against him again using ice powers.
00:58:02
Yeah, it wouldn't work for you. But you do have a necromancer
00:58:06
walking around. So yeah, nobody is safe, but
00:58:08
nobody is truly dead. Except I think, I think he needs
00:58:12
their body, which is maybe why they got rid of cold they did.
00:58:18
Like you think cold is completely.
00:58:20
Done. Not only did we obliterate his
00:58:22
head, we dumped him in the pool of acid.
00:58:25
He is not coming back. Y'all.
00:58:27
So y'all are OK y'all. Y'all are good you know we we
00:58:31
fixed that problem and is not coming back.
00:58:35
If the audience is clamor for Cole to return, all right, it's
00:58:39
all out the way. You know, the tattoos that were
00:58:41
so important in the first movie that we're not talking about in
00:58:44
the second movie. So, yeah.
00:58:46
Do you know the rules of necromancy?
00:58:48
You know? And they didn't make it clear
00:58:51
that John the Cage found his. What is it I want to say?
00:58:54
I can't want to say. Oh, his superpower, Yeah, was.
00:58:58
That cheap? Toe.
00:59:01
But then they chose the the shadow kick, which is an odd
00:59:05
choice for his, but you know, they gave the glow, which was
00:59:11
kind of cool, so. OK, favorite part of the movie?
00:59:19
You go 1st. I have a list.
00:59:22
Well look, start with your list while Anthony is thinking
00:59:25
because Anthony is like. OK, it's easy.
00:59:29
They had me by the heartstrings 'cause they used the song, the
00:59:34
first one did not use the song. And I don't know if you can,
00:59:37
this was the the Mortal Kombat by the Immortals was, I don't
00:59:42
know, it was based on releasing the games to home market like in
00:59:45
the 90s and they didn't realize that they had created something
00:59:48
truly magical. So Mortal Kombat 2 has that
00:59:54
ridiculous fighting techno dance mix.
00:59:58
And you can go, and no matter what sporting event and whatever
01:00:02
sport you go to, you're going to hear it.
01:00:05
Yeah, that is true. If the band is playing it, a
01:00:09
band is playing it or is playing through the speakers, you could
01:00:12
be at a cricket match and you're going to hear Mortal Kombat
01:00:17
being played. It is an iconic the classics
01:00:21
aren't that and Final Countdown are the 2 songs that you're
01:00:25
going to get as a sport to do that.
01:00:27
Yeah, yeah. That's one of my many favorites.
01:00:31
What do you all got? I'm going to go with Scorpion in
01:00:38
the get over here. It's never old.
01:00:42
It never. It's never going to be old.
01:00:44
And is it was it just me or did it sound like they used the
01:00:48
actual like video game audio the.
01:00:53
Trivia says that was Tobias Boone doing it like he does,
01:00:59
which makes no sense. And it was perfect.
01:01:02
So we all wanted it to be like the video game, and they just
01:01:04
did it. I know I am mad that in Mortal
01:01:07
Kombat 1, when he says it, it is not that loud and it's not that
01:01:12
dramatic and it's very annoying. It's like, get over here.
01:01:17
I'm like, that sucks. It's kind of like rain is
01:01:20
enough, like it's supposed to have a certain oomph to it.
01:01:27
Yeah, yeah. But we'll just we'll just blame
01:01:30
that on, you know, freshman, you know, vibes or whatever.
01:01:36
With the first one, for me, I think it it has to be the fight
01:01:43
scenes, just because I'm a person who loves choreography in
01:01:51
any form, whether it's dance, whether it's fight, it has to
01:01:56
look believable even when it's not believable.
01:02:00
And I think they got a lot of that right in this film.
01:02:06
Between the Liu Kang and Kung Lao fight scene, the fight
01:02:11
scene, even even the fight scene with Johnny Cage and Barack.
01:02:14
It was like, do I really believe Karl Urban is doing this stuff?
01:02:19
No. But does it look good and does
01:02:21
it look believable? Yeah.
01:02:23
Like it's it's very well choreographed.
01:02:26
And also the fight scene in Hell, that was like one of the
01:02:30
better fight scenes that I've seen.
01:02:34
Because you're not just they they made use of all the space
01:02:40
you know you've got. It is.
01:02:42
It's kind of like the fight in which one was it, Infinity War,
01:02:49
where they're on the ship and you've got all these different
01:02:53
levels and you're fighting on all these different levels and
01:02:56
you're using all of the space. And the whole thing with Noob
01:03:00
Cybot kind of going from here to there back up to here, down to
01:03:04
here, and you're fighting multiple people and it's just
01:03:06
all looks so good. But it also looks very
01:03:12
believable. Like, yeah, I I can believe that
01:03:15
they're sitting down the hill just kind of, you know, going
01:03:19
around the paces with each other.
01:03:20
It it just looked really good. It it really didn't feel like a
01:03:25
video game movie, like a good video game movie.
01:03:29
You know, we we have a friend, Carlos, who hates video game
01:03:32
adaptations because he says they never get it right.
01:03:35
And I really feel like this film got it right.
01:03:40
And they also improved upon what they didn't get it right in the
01:03:43
first one. It's like they really listened
01:03:44
to people and said, OK, you know what?
01:03:46
We can make this better, let's make this better.
01:03:49
And they did it. Well, they kind of know, they
01:03:52
kind of know what it is and they took themselves just seriously
01:03:56
enough, but not too seriously, you know, and that and that was
01:04:00
good. Another one of my favourites was
01:04:03
anytime Liu Kang was fighting, he he was sold like I was sold
01:04:11
on on whatever he was doing and it just it all looked amazing.
01:04:16
And the effects, all of the effects were really good.
01:04:21
I didn't think piano used his laser IMF, but he was one of my
01:04:27
favourites. Like he's to me, he was more
01:04:31
like the audience watching what was happening more so than coal.
01:04:37
Yeah, yeah, like. What?
01:04:39
What are we doing here? Can I just give my money and go?
01:04:42
Right. Well, but also that he's like,
01:04:45
you think I'm nuts? I mean, have you seen what out
01:04:47
world is like? Like, I want to still be able to
01:04:50
go to bars and stuff. Why would I ever?
01:04:52
So yeah, if I love, I love when movie characters say the things
01:04:56
that the audience would yell. So it's like, yeah, of course
01:04:59
I'm not going to side with these guys.
01:05:01
Are you crazy? I mean, yeah, you see.
01:05:03
What they did to entry, like really?
01:05:05
Yeah, really want that to happen.
01:05:06
No, I don't. Were you disappointed that Kano
01:05:09
didn't have a metal face at any point?
01:05:12
I feel like in the games later he just has the eye.
01:05:14
I'm. Thinking the game, but I didn't.
01:05:16
Play those games. No, he still he still has a
01:05:18
metal plate. OK, well, I like that he gets
01:05:22
the replacement eye rolled across the floor and he has to
01:05:25
think about that. But then he's likes it.
01:05:27
So he's like immediately hey, do the other one, do the we're
01:05:30
like, wow, you just got a new eye.
01:05:34
But yes, I think. Was I think they cheaped out on
01:05:36
me face for that. We're like, we don't have to do
01:05:38
it, so let's not do it. Yeah.
01:05:41
Because there there will be literally something they'd have
01:05:44
to do every frame that he's in, so.
01:05:48
Oh, oh, I see what you're saying.
01:05:49
Well, and it might look, you know, maybe it's one of those
01:05:51
things where they tried like they did something and they're
01:05:54
like, let's look at this, let's shoot some.
01:05:56
And they're like. Yeah, and it probably didn't
01:05:57
look right. Yeah, that's why they gave him
01:05:59
the organic eye and just so he could just be himself and we
01:06:03
don't have to worry about that. Yeah.
01:06:05
But when you said Hanukkah about fight choreography, there are
01:06:08
movies that come out today that they make it through the
01:06:12
production process and they have fight choreography that looks
01:06:15
like if you took a video camera and me and Anthony to a parking
01:06:18
lot and told us to make some crap up and, you know, you shot
01:06:21
it really close. I don't know, like Matrix
01:06:26
Resurrections I think did this a little bit where you're just
01:06:29
like the bar is so high that when you see people who are just
01:06:33
now I'm going to spit on this pole and now I'm going to push
01:06:36
you and then punch. And he's like, guys, you got to
01:06:38
get a professional choreographer you.
01:06:40
Can't just do these things. So yes, it it made a noticeable
01:06:44
difference. Yeah, that's like the lightsaber
01:06:45
fighting in the in the later Jedi movie Star Wars.
01:06:48
I don't. Know what you're talking about,
01:06:49
man, I don't know what you're talking about.
01:06:51
Those are solid all the way through.
01:06:54
I think I, I, I can't mention the fight scenes without
01:06:58
mentioning also the fight between Jade and Jax because you
01:07:05
know, for for Jax to be this big, huge talking guy and for
01:07:10
Jade to be this kind of small, petite person and for them to
01:07:14
fight and be so equally like dangerous to each other.
01:07:24
And then also just the the the funny parts about Jax, like once
01:07:28
he realized that Jay's Jay can actually kick his ass, he's
01:07:31
like, he's like so interested. He was like, Hey, how you doing
01:07:36
like that little bit of humor in the midst of that.
01:07:40
But just also just seeing those two because I've also been fans
01:07:44
of those two people, Tati Gabrielle and and McCabe Bruce.
01:07:48
I've been fans of them for a long time.
01:07:50
Watch them and loads of different stuff.
01:07:53
I've seen Tati fight before in other shows and she is just
01:07:58
amazing. So just to kind of see them get
01:08:01
to be able to do that, it was that was great.
01:08:04
I I loved it. Well, I like I mentioned the
01:08:06
sister dynamic, but I really like that when Jade is saying
01:08:11
she has this loyalty and this oath that Cortana does not even
01:08:15
try and talk her into doing the right thing.
01:08:17
She like kind of gives her a look which it's like they've
01:08:20
never made a bargain. She's just like, you know, I
01:08:23
think Jade's says you've always treated me like a sister and you
01:08:25
didn't have to. So when she's caught red handed,
01:08:28
Cortana just sort of walks away. Like, look, you've got to do
01:08:31
what you've got to do. And then when she double crosses
01:08:34
her, she's like, wow, like wow. But that's it.
01:08:37
They don't they don't try and do any of the cliched things where
01:08:41
it's like, you know, don't tell anybody.
01:08:43
And I I can't believe you do this.
01:08:45
It's just like. Yeah, 'cause when she took
01:08:49
those, when she took the fans from Cortana, like I was like
01:08:53
disrespectful. Oh, excuse me?
01:08:56
You just took, you gave that to her as a gift and now you're
01:08:59
taking a bath. You're horrible.
01:09:01
But. Yeah, I had AI had a flashback
01:09:04
to Civil War when Cap was like, when Tony was like that.
01:09:10
That's not your shield. That's my dad's shield.
01:09:12
Yeah, give me that. Give me that shield back that
01:09:14
belongs to my daddy. He just drops it on the floor
01:09:17
and walks away. Yeah.
01:09:19
That is the most trifling Steve has ever been, like connected
01:09:23
with him. But like, you know what, Keith?
01:09:25
Dance. Yeah, I think.
01:09:26
He was. He was just tired, man.
01:09:29
Mind you, I could have killed you, but here, take the seal.
01:09:33
Take the So yeah, fans. But I think we go away and we
01:09:37
come back, characters come back and they see Cortana tied to a
01:09:39
fountain and they're like, oh, OK, there was a shift there.
01:09:44
So yeah. But I, I very much got Thanos
01:09:49
and Gamora vibes from, from that whole, that whole reveal of the,
01:09:54
you know, and, and even just the whole background of the story
01:09:57
because he literally kills her father in front of her and then
01:10:01
forces her to be his daughter, you know, and did whatever it
01:10:06
was he did to her mother to make her mother be like, Oh yeah, he
01:10:10
showed me the ways of the world. I'm like, girl, it ain't that
01:10:12
good. I I trust and believe that you
01:10:15
ain't looking all that great, but but yeah, it it.
01:10:24
There were some definitely copied notes there.
01:10:26
I mean, I think there were some other Avengers parallels that
01:10:30
were really obvious while I was watching it that I can't think
01:10:32
of now, but that is a good one. I think there were some some
01:10:35
Infinity Gauntlet kind of things.
01:10:37
But yeah, it's, it didn't matter, I guess because the
01:10:40
execution was fun and because it was so distinctively mortal
01:10:44
combat that you're like, oh, I see what you're doing there.
01:10:46
But, well, no, I mean, it's like Kung Lao's hat.
01:10:49
It's like, you know, he didn't steal that from Steve.
01:10:54
He was throwing his hat for a long time.
01:10:56
But to a modern viewing audience, it's like you're doing
01:10:59
some of the shield stuff, OK, It doesn't matter.
01:11:02
It's very Mortal Kombat. But I mean, it's it's like one
01:11:05
of those things that you see in those types of movies where
01:11:08
there's a video game movie or a hero movie, you always there
01:11:14
always certain types of tropes that will be revisited and just
01:11:18
kind of changed a little bit. So it didn't bother me as much
01:11:21
that that was kind of there because it's kind of like it
01:11:25
works for the story, especially for this particular story.
01:11:28
You have this overlord who is literally trying to take over
01:11:33
all of these different dimensions and how's he going to
01:11:37
do that? He's going to do that through
01:11:39
murder and mayhem and and, you know, just.
01:11:43
Beating. Yeah, yeah.
01:11:46
So it's kind of like, OK, it works, But I mean, we got to see
01:11:51
a very strong female character come out of it because she
01:11:54
really was, like, even as a child.
01:11:57
Everybody else is bowing down to him, and she's walking up to
01:12:00
him, looking at him like, fuck, I ain't scared of you like it.
01:12:05
It gave a strong background for her character, for her story to
01:12:08
see so that you can understand why she made the decisions that
01:12:13
she made. You know, as far as going behind
01:12:15
his back, working with Raiden, trying to, you know, basically
01:12:20
say, OK, you know what? Maybe I can't make any changes
01:12:23
or do anything in public, but I can at least work behind the
01:12:28
scenes to try to make things better or to try to make things
01:12:31
fair. At least give give the other
01:12:33
team a shot. But then of course, you know,
01:12:35
they still ratings essence and it just becomes difficult and
01:12:40
then people are getting their whole torsos smushed to death
01:12:43
with a hammer. I just want to.
01:12:46
It still hurts. I just want to say for the
01:12:47
record that even in the games, some of the games and and and
01:12:53
the series movie series, the elder gods are trash.
01:12:57
I just want to say that they're trash.
01:13:00
You say reading, even reading is sometimes can be trash too but
01:13:05
the the elder gods are trash but.
01:13:07
Isn't that the case in most stories?
01:13:10
Yeah, because they don't get it. They don't.
01:13:12
They don't understand humanity or life in general.
01:13:18
You know when when you're immortal, you know that changes
01:13:21
your perspective on things. Yeah, and I.
01:13:25
And I mean all powerful. Even the people that we think
01:13:28
are quote UN quote good when we look at their motives and what
01:13:31
they do is kind of like maybe not so much, you know,
01:13:35
Dumbledore comes to mind, you know, and and the things that
01:13:38
he. Like, I guess this is this is,
01:13:42
you know, neither here nor there, but like, why even set
01:13:48
this system up where you can just say, yeah, y'all just don't
01:13:51
invade each other. You avoid the whole problem.
01:13:54
You avoid the whole situation. We don't have to have mortal
01:13:57
combat because. You know why?
01:13:58
Because people are greedy and they want more than what they
01:14:03
have. Right, but if the elder guys
01:14:05
said y'all just don't do it and enforce it, it'd be good, you
01:14:11
know? When they set up the system,
01:14:15
there were teams that had armies and there were teams that were
01:14:18
very pacifistic, but they had really good fighters.
01:14:21
And he was just trying to say, screw you armies.
01:14:23
People who want to invade, you have to have a good fighter.
01:14:26
They're like, Dang it, it was a good the other.
01:14:29
My other suggestion is that the Elder Gods just really like
01:14:32
watching MMA or something. So like, you know, it would be
01:14:35
sweet. You know, you got to win a
01:14:38
fight. That's too easy.
01:14:41
Yeah, yeah, you said ten in a row.
01:14:44
Well, what if you just made it 100 in a row and just call it a
01:14:47
day? That's a lot of fighting.
01:14:51
That's a lot of death because you got to think about it.
01:14:53
In their minds, the victories are when the other person is
01:14:57
dead. Because really in that kind of
01:15:01
realm, in that kind of world, how many people are really going
01:15:04
to do what Cortana did and be like, OK, I kicked your ass, now
01:15:07
you can go home. Not a lot of them are going to
01:15:09
do that because there's there's infinitely more monsters and
01:15:15
other beings in that world than there are the human characters,
01:15:19
right? So yeah.
01:15:22
But I think also too, with the whole, the whole elder God's
01:15:25
thing, it, it's so interesting because they tell the warriors
01:15:30
like, OK, yes, you have this mark, you're going to fight in
01:15:34
Mortal Kombat. But when the person is basically
01:15:36
like, I don't want to do this, you give them the impression
01:15:40
that you're giving them free will.
01:15:41
Like, oh, you don't want to do this.
01:15:42
OK, we're going to let you go home and sit on a bar and drink.
01:15:45
And then the minute something happens, whoosh, they're pulled
01:15:49
into this world and they have to fight anyway.
01:15:52
Yeah, 'cause Raven says that. I suck.
01:15:55
Raven's like, well, you know, you can stay home if you want
01:15:59
to, but when it's time to fight, begin to decide whether you're
01:16:03
going to fight or not. It was really nice.
01:16:05
They threw that line in. Yeah, that was a small line and
01:16:08
it was really great. They were like, they can call
01:16:10
you anyways, like, yeah, I'll see you guys because then they
01:16:13
we at home would have been like, hey, but yeah, it's like we told
01:16:16
you, man. And if Raiden.
01:16:18
Yeah, I do. If Raiden wasn't bending the
01:16:20
rules anyway, if he wasn't been in the rules, you wouldn't know
01:16:24
what the Hell's going on. Yeah, you just show up.
01:16:27
What am I doing here? And you're in the middle of you
01:16:30
know, it's time to fight. Yeah, but I mean, you can't
01:16:33
really blame him either because of Shane soon is going to be out
01:16:36
here like cheating and trying to go kill champions before you
01:16:40
even get to Mortal Kombat. Then yeah, you know what?
01:16:43
Maybe we can do a little something on our side too.
01:16:45
It's kind of like you got to even the playing field,
01:16:48
unfortunately. It's tough when cheating is part
01:16:50
of the game. It's really hard for us rule
01:16:53
followers when it's like, and that's the Wizarding World does
01:16:57
this too, where you assume that you live in a world where
01:17:00
everybody cheats all the time. So it's like the people who are
01:17:03
rule followers are not good people.
01:17:05
They're saps, man. Come on.
01:17:07
So it's like, oh, you got to cheat a little bit.
01:17:10
They're cheating terribly. Yeah, this will always bring up
01:17:14
Davy Eddings, his books The Melorian and The Bill Garriad.
01:17:17
Because Bill Graf, the sorcerer, he's a good guy, but he cheats.
01:17:22
Like from the day one you meet him, he cheats through all the
01:17:28
11 books and he will tell you I'm cheating.
01:17:31
Why are you doing this? Well, I'm setting it up so we
01:17:33
can win. Like, why are you having him
01:17:37
fighting him? Well, I'm going to make his bow
01:17:40
indestructible, but that's cheating.
01:17:43
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's being smart, playing
01:17:47
it smart. Yeah, but I mean, you see that
01:17:49
with with a lot of different quote, UN quote good beings,
01:17:54
like even if they're not cheating, they will find ways to
01:17:58
manipulate what happens so that it has the desired outcome, you
01:18:04
know, so. And Shao Khan is like, oh, the
01:18:07
ultimate cheat. I'm just going to make myself
01:18:10
immortal and unkillable. Right.
01:18:12
And I'm gonna do it by taking the other, the good guys
01:18:15
essence. I'm going to make him power my
01:18:18
immortality. I was like, that is so cruel,
01:18:23
but at the same time it's kind of smart, like.
01:18:27
Whoa, That was another. I told you, you, you feel things
01:18:30
are familiar. They literally did like a whole
01:18:33
Voldemort arc for Shao Khan where it's like we had to get
01:18:36
his last four trucks so we could finally kill him.
01:18:39
And it's really obvious when you're watching.
01:18:40
It doesn't detract from the enjoyment, but it's just like, I
01:18:43
see what you're doing, y'all? But yeah.
01:18:45
It also got like A Game of Thrones feeling the mountain and
01:18:48
the snake in in Shao Khan and and Cortana's father's fight.
01:18:55
Like he really should have won that fight.
01:18:57
I mean, I feel like he just took a moment.
01:19:01
He's being lost. He was trying to monologue.
01:19:05
He didn't. He didn't watch The Incredibles.
01:19:08
I mean, and I I say that all the time.
01:19:10
It's like when you're so close and all you have to do is kill
01:19:14
the, you know, make the last striking blow.
01:19:17
But you want to sit there and gloat or you want to give your
01:19:20
monologue or you want to tell your your forcibly adopted
01:19:24
daughter, like, yeah, you still got time to change your mind.
01:19:28
Like we can go back to to where we were.
01:19:31
You just got to why are you giving her time to think?
01:19:35
You are giving her time to be more pissed off and and giving
01:19:39
her what she need. I mean, and it's like that with
01:19:42
all them. They they talk too much, they
01:19:45
gloat too much or they just they're they're scared to take
01:19:49
out of, I don't know, maybe they're scared to take the final
01:19:51
shot. Like, OK, I really don't want to
01:19:53
do this. I mean, he seemed like he might
01:19:56
have kind of sort of cared for Cortana as a daughter.
01:20:00
But again. For you to have that horrible
01:20:05
traumatic beginning, like you literally killed her father in
01:20:08
front of you. You really thought she was going
01:20:10
to be loyal to you. You really wasn't expecting that
01:20:13
she would turn on you at any given point.
01:20:16
That's just. He has a dramatic flair and he
01:20:19
has a lot of self-confidence. And I mean, she's, she's not
01:20:23
killed. She's chained up.
01:20:26
I think it's like Yandu and Star Lord.
01:20:27
It's like, yeah, we'll let her down eventually.
01:20:30
He's just, he's not giving up. He's very confident.
01:20:34
I did like. The.
01:20:36
I like the character design for Shao Khan.
01:20:38
I told you guys at the theater that I it looks like on the
01:20:41
credits that the voice was the huge dude that played him.
01:20:45
And we can just see, like, reptilian eyes.
01:20:49
Yeah, he was. He was good.
01:20:51
The look of all the characters was really good in this one.
01:20:55
If you have either of you seen Mortal Kombat Annihilation?
01:20:59
I. Did we don't have to get into
01:21:01
it. But it's long time.
01:21:02
Ago. It's it's useful just when you
01:21:05
say these characters look good that it is tricky to try and do
01:21:09
something video game accurate and not have it look silly.
01:21:13
And Annihilation has like the cosplay spandex version of a lot
01:21:18
of them like Cindel bright purples.
01:21:20
So Shao Khan is a huge dude stuntman Brian Johnson with the
01:21:25
big video game helmet. He looks video game accurate,
01:21:28
but not cool like at all. So this was, I couldn't tell you
01:21:32
exactly what they did different, but he looked really good.
01:21:35
Like I thought Goro didn't look terrible in the first one.
01:21:39
Yeah. No, he did great.
01:21:42
Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm a big
01:21:44
defender of animatronics done well in the 90s.
01:21:47
But yeah, that's, yeah, Cora was great.
01:21:51
Yeah, it was, but. But the bat lady in 2021 Mortal
01:21:57
Kombat did not look so great. And I don't know, like they
01:22:00
didn't have a lot of time to finish her effects or something.
01:22:03
She was one of the ones that we saw killed Naitara.
01:22:06
Natara, the human gargoyle lady who I know enough about the
01:22:10
later games to know she did not look like that.
01:22:13
But yeah, they I don't. Know figure out.
01:22:16
Who she was in the first, I was like, who is this?
01:22:20
Yeah, and, and I don't know, I don't think y'all are watching
01:22:24
the boys, but Syndell's scream looked exactly like oh, oh,
01:22:29
father and the boys. I was like, oh, that looks so
01:22:34
familiar. It was.
01:22:35
OK, yeah, I haven't, I haven't started Season 5 yet.
01:22:38
I'm probably going to do that this weekend.
01:22:41
Yeah, that's not a spoiler. Oh, Father screams and.
01:22:44
Oh, I did like her. Doesn't she like hold up a
01:22:47
corpse to like block the scream and it's.
01:22:49
Like sitting in the front. Yeah, that was.
01:22:52
That was good. That was a fun effect.
01:22:54
The effects, all the effects were really good.
01:22:57
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, except the stent stunting
01:23:01
for Carl Urban. You were the I think you were
01:23:04
the only one that spotted that Anthony.
01:23:06
I think you just had a keen eye. He.
01:23:08
Probably, yeah. And then once he noticed it, he.
01:23:11
Couldn't stop. It so he was probably hyper
01:23:13
fixated on it. That was yeah.
01:23:17
And when it comes out, I am not going to be freeze framing
01:23:21
anything. So Oh well, you have to tell us
01:23:25
when to freeze frame and we'll spot it for the first time, but
01:23:28
when you can send a second. No, no, I didn't see it as much
01:23:32
then, but I saw it a lot when he was fighting Cortana.
01:23:36
OK. When when Johnny Cage first sees
01:23:40
Raiden, he asked him if he's cosplaying Big Trouble Little
01:23:43
China, which is really, really great 'cause I think my first
01:23:47
memory of Mortal Kombat is seeing it in the arcade and
01:23:50
saying, hey, they got the guy from Big Tremble China, so that
01:23:56
was awesome. This is also the first movie to
01:23:58
boldly have a character point out that they're spelling combat
01:24:01
wrong, which was great. Yeah, yeah, I like those little
01:24:06
touches. And you know, the film was not a
01:24:12
serious film, but it was, you know, you're fighting for the
01:24:16
sake of humanity and worlds and stuff.
01:24:19
So it's semi serious. But I they had enough comedy in
01:24:24
there to feel really kind of balanced.
01:24:27
It didn't fit. It didn't feel like overkill.
01:24:29
It didn't feel like, oh, you're overdoing it.
01:24:31
It was a healthy balance and I think it made the movie a lot
01:24:34
more fun and enjoyable. I really did enjoy this one.
01:24:38
Like I went in with very low expectations just because of,
01:24:43
again, coming off the first film and I was kind of disappointed.
01:24:47
And I was like, OK, I don't know if I'm going to go see the
01:24:50
second one. And then when they announced
01:24:53
Karl Urban's casting is Johnny Cage, I was like, OK, maybe I'll
01:24:58
go see it. And then when they announced the
01:25:01
when they released the first trailer, I think it may have
01:25:04
been like a red band trailer. And I was just like, OK, I guess
01:25:10
I'm going. And then I started talking to
01:25:11
you guys. I was like, are you guys going
01:25:13
to see more Mortal Kombat? I think I, I think I really got
01:25:15
on y'all's nerves because I don't know if you guys were
01:25:17
going to go see it. No, you're the reason I saw
01:25:20
this. I would probably still be like,
01:25:22
I don't know, it might be good. And I think listeners at home,
01:25:26
we don't spend 4 days in a row together, even if it's
01:25:29
Hanukkah's birthday. Like I'd argue even if it's a
01:25:33
convention, we may not see each other for all four days in a
01:25:36
row. So Hanukkah's like, I know
01:25:38
you're done with us, but like, it was really fun.
01:25:41
Like after three other things, boom, boom, boom.
01:25:44
It was like, I think on my way there, I was thinking, why am I
01:25:49
going to go see Mortal Kombat 2, Nick, really Mortal Kombat 2?
01:25:53
I mean, was 2021 really worth it?
01:25:57
Was. A lot of fun.
01:26:00
See, I don't steer you wrong. Well.
01:26:02
No, you don't. Well, Michelle and I were going
01:26:04
to go see it. We were going to go see it
01:26:06
anyway. OK.
01:26:07
Because, you know, this is me to see it earlier, but we were
01:26:11
going to see it. I mean, it was, it came at a
01:26:15
perfect time. It had a great release date.
01:26:17
Like that week was my birthday week.
01:26:20
We did Star Wars stuff on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
01:26:23
Mortal Kombat on Thursday. Like it was just, I was like,
01:26:27
OK, it's a it's a nerdy week and we would all be hanging together
01:26:30
anyway. It just happens that all of that
01:26:32
stuff happened in one. Yeah, I mean, I won the Diane X
01:26:36
wing, which was. Yes, you did it.
01:26:40
Was ridiculous. It ridiculous there.
01:26:42
Oh, do you you happen to have it right here.
01:26:44
It's not going to fit on the screen all at once like.
01:26:47
It's not going to fit, but it's how you guys the.
01:26:50
Trivia it. Seems it doesn't fit.
01:26:53
I wanted Star Wars trivia. Thanks to Honeygo, because 2
01:26:57
days ago, two days in a row. We did.
01:27:02
We clapped. He walks over with this thing.
01:27:04
We clapped. And then I'm serious.
01:27:06
The room got quiet and I realized everybody was thinking
01:27:09
the same thing I do. It's like, good job.
01:27:11
And we're like, yeah, I get that.
01:27:14
That is really sweet. So yes, there was some jealousy
01:27:17
in the room. It wasn't just me.
01:27:18
But yeah, that thing is awesome. So yes, a great week.
01:27:23
And Mortal Kombat 2 is just the cherry on top.
01:27:25
Yeah, that was that was great. I'm glad we went.
01:27:27
It was fun. It, it was a lot of fun and, and
01:27:30
those things like most of the times, those movies, especially
01:27:34
like before the last, I say one or two years a lot of times
01:27:38
because I usually go on Thursday night when it releases because
01:27:41
now so many people are posting spoilers immediately after
01:27:46
seeing it. So usually if I can't get
01:27:49
anybody to go, I would just go by myself.
01:27:52
But I really felt like that was one of those movies where it
01:27:55
will be more fun seeing it with a group of people or friends
01:28:00
that I knew would enjoy because I knew like Nick was sitting
01:28:04
next to me, Anthony and Michelle were sitting behind us.
01:28:06
So I knew that there were certain things Nick and I were
01:28:09
going to be kind of like elbowing each other and laughing
01:28:11
about, you know, especially once the movie started, we kind of
01:28:14
saw where it was going and I could hear like Michelle every
01:28:18
once in a while say something. So it was, it was a lot of fun
01:28:22
and I had I enjoyed it. I, I really hope they do get to
01:28:26
do a third movie because I do want to see kind of where
01:28:30
they're going to go with it. And I want to see if we're going
01:28:32
to get these, these dead characters back.
01:28:35
Jack's at least. I don't know what they're going
01:28:36
to do with Cole. You might be right, Anthony.
01:28:38
They they may be done with Cole. He has no body, they they have
01:28:44
nothing to to bring put his soul back into.
01:28:48
Yeah, but his, I will say this, his, his fight scenes in this
01:28:52
one were a lot better too. I mean, the fight scenes in the
01:28:55
first one were also good, but I feel like they weren't as long
01:28:59
as they needed to be again for a Mortal Kombat movie.
01:29:03
And I liked what he was doing in this one.
01:29:05
And I just like watching him fight anyway because he's also
01:29:09
done some other things I know he's been in.
01:29:11
I think he was in Cobra Kai, which I did not watch.
01:29:13
But he was also one of my favorite characters in Shadow
01:29:16
and Bone, which, you know, he fought in that one.
01:29:19
So yeah, I don't know. I just, I'm I'm a little I'm
01:29:26
conflicted on a character because I like the actor, but I
01:29:29
just the character was just, I could take him or leave him.
01:29:34
Yeah, the character I, I don't think since his superpower was
01:29:39
vibranium, Black Panther outfit, I don't know that he brought
01:29:43
anything special. To the table.
01:29:44
That was weird too. I I just felt like, because it
01:29:51
seemed like he absorbed the hits, but it didn't.
01:29:55
It didn't do what to Chalice, Yeah.
01:29:58
It was no good payoff. Yeah, so it was kind of like, so
01:30:02
you're just making it so that he can take hits really well, which
01:30:06
I guess given the fact that he was getting his ass kicked so
01:30:08
much in the first film, that was probably necessary.
01:30:12
But still, it's kind of like y'all couldn't think of
01:30:14
something cooler for him to have.
01:30:18
But maybe they were too subtle because Mortal Kombat is not a
01:30:21
subtle visual thing where it's like we want him to look cool
01:30:24
for a movie. And this is almost like he man
01:30:28
figures. Like if they had given him giant
01:30:30
mechanical claw hands or something.
01:30:32
That's I'm not saying it would look good, but it'd be more in
01:30:35
line with the game. Subtle cool dude with a cool
01:30:39
look. It's not very Mortal Kombat, so
01:30:43
yeah, OK. I don't.
01:30:48
I don't know if there's anything else for us to talk about.
01:30:50
I mean, like I said, it was, it was a fun movie.
01:30:53
I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to seeing
01:30:56
what they're going to do if they're going to do a third one.
01:31:01
This franchise does not stop. I mean, they have more Mortal
01:31:04
Kombat things than they do pet cemetery things.
01:31:08
So, and I mean, there's a, there's a whole host of
01:31:11
characters from Paris. Well, no, but you guys have
01:31:15
covered some pet cemetery and it's like, I didn't realize how
01:31:17
much pet cemetery there was. But it's like, so every four
01:31:21
years somebody says we should redo pet cemetery.
01:31:23
And I'm like, why? But Mortal Kombat, I mean, just,
01:31:27
I think there's a host of cartoon movies I've never seen
01:31:31
that aren't publicized where I look.
01:31:33
But it's like, Oh yeah, there's content.
01:31:35
Crazy. So people care about the
01:31:37
characters in the backstories. So yeah, I'd assume even if they
01:31:41
don't want to do another 10, they're doing another one.
01:31:44
It's just a question of characters.
01:31:47
This was good enough. I think it merits it.
01:31:50
I think it'll be interesting to see because I, I find it very
01:31:53
interesting that in this year, in this summer, we're getting a
01:31:58
Mortal Kombat movie, we're getting he mad and we're getting
01:32:01
Street Fighter like all within a month and a half of each other.
01:32:05
So I think it's going to be very interesting to see how it holds
01:32:08
up against those other two properties because those are
01:32:11
also very popular properties from from Gen.
01:32:15
X, especially with Street Fighter, because Street Fighter,
01:32:18
looking at the trailer, Street Fighter looks like it's going to
01:32:21
be more fun chaos than anything serious.
01:32:26
Like I know when I told aunt, when I showed it to Anthony, I
01:32:28
was like, are we watching this? And he was like, no, I don't
01:32:33
think you were planning on watching it.
01:32:34
Are you planning on watching it? I wasn't, but the person I live
01:32:41
with him. I'm related to my marriage.
01:32:44
She she wants to watch it. So yeah, I'll be watching it.
01:32:48
Yay. OK, OK.
01:32:52
Not. Yet honestly, Street Fighter is
01:32:54
higher on my list than a Mortal Kombat movie.
01:32:56
Really. OK.
01:32:58
Oh yeah. Expectations way down here.
01:33:02
Way, way down here, Yeah, for a Street Fighter.
01:33:06
Yeah, that's true. And that can only help.
01:33:09
Now I'm not gonna I I did like the the Van Damme Street Fighter
01:33:13
movie. It was.
01:33:13
It was actually fun. Yeah, that was fun.
01:33:16
I did. Not I liked, I liked.
01:33:19
Raw, Julian. I think everybody liked Raw Gee
01:33:23
and I'm sorry, Ming NAO Wynn is Chung Lee.
01:33:27
I like her. She was great, but it's just it
01:33:29
was a it was a hot damn mess. But but yeah, I I don't know.
01:33:35
They've shown us Giles haircut in the trailer, so we can all
01:33:38
see they're not only going for it, but it looks both accurate
01:33:42
and terrible. I mean, what I said about Kano's
01:33:44
face maybe not looking great on film.
01:33:47
No, this looks terrible. We're doing it, man.
01:33:50
It is how it looks, so I hope it rocks.
01:33:53
But yeah, it's. Yeah, I saw, I think I saw a
01:33:56
trailer where I saw Don Sims arm stretch and hit somebody.
01:33:59
It's OK, I can do this. It'll.
01:34:02
Be fun. Oh, he looked cool.
01:34:04
The character looked cool. I saw that from the trailer, but
01:34:06
yeah, yeah, Stretchy does not look good in real life like Mr.
01:34:11
Fantastic. It's a hard superpower to make.
01:34:13
Look. I mean, I guess Dawson would be
01:34:15
fast. Yeah, yeah.
01:34:19
October 16th. I don't know, I'm not sure I'll
01:34:22
be in a theater with you guys that's really close to a few
01:34:24
different things. Anthony will just.
01:34:26
Be that when Street Fighter's coming out October, that's when.
01:34:29
Street Fighter is coming out. Oh, that must be he math.
01:34:32
OK, So why how St. Rider was coming out a little
01:34:35
bit earlier than that, But yeah, you're right, it is later.
01:34:38
I'll be coming back from a cruise.
01:34:40
You'll be celebrating your 50th, right?
01:34:43
I may be in Disney. We will see what happens.
01:34:47
OK, I still may take long. I may try if you go.
01:34:51
Honestly, Lauren may just send you and me.
01:34:54
I'm not sure how that's going to go.
01:34:56
Don't say that too loud. Michelle might hear you and
01:34:58
still make it happen. I may still well, you know, but
01:35:01
I mean, I think you guys are, I'm just going to get off
01:35:04
tangent on a whole planning conversation.
01:35:09
We'll come back to it. Think a pen and it we'll come
01:35:11
back to it. You guys have any final thoughts
01:35:14
about Mortal Kombat too? It was fun.
01:35:17
I'd go see it again. It was fun.
01:35:20
Wow, that's high praise from you.
01:35:26
And one of my favorite things in movies like this is iconography.
01:35:30
And Mortal Kombat has some really good icon, the
01:35:33
characters. And I thought I like that very
01:35:36
much. So they hit all of those notes.
01:35:38
So yeah, I, I had a lot more fun than I expected.
01:35:41
I had low expectations, but they actually pulled a story
01:35:44
together. So yeah, yeah, I'm glad I went
01:35:46
and saw this in the theater. I don't know.
01:35:49
I don't know if I'm anxious to see it as I can.
01:35:54
I think I might have it recorded pretty well for now.
01:35:58
But yeah, down the road, somebody put it in.
01:36:00
I would not be like, oh, no, yeah, I'm going to see it again
01:36:03
because I really need to show it to my kid because he's going to
01:36:05
love seeing the horrible dismemberment that happens.
01:36:08
Yeah, we'll watch it again in my household.
01:36:10
So, OK, so before we jump off, Nick, thank you for coming on
01:36:16
and discussing Mortal Kombat with us.
01:36:18
Tell our listeners where they can find you.
01:36:22
Oh my goodness, y'all. I have a podcast that you do not
01:36:26
have to listen to, but I'm having a great time doing it.
01:36:29
It's called Alienating Ourselves, where Todd and I talk
01:36:32
about alienation episode by episode and we're almost done
01:36:36
with the show. We have 5 TV movies left.
01:36:39
So I may stop returning his calls because I want to slow
01:36:43
down the whole process. But yeah, from there we're going
01:36:45
to slide into Star Trek Next Generation.
01:36:48
I think that's the rumor going, but we'll see what happens.
01:36:51
That's me. That'll be fun.
01:36:53
OK. It's great to be here.
01:36:57
And yeah, I think I think that's that's all we have for Mortal
01:37:02
Kombat. Hopefully we'll get a third
01:37:03
movie and we'll get to talk about some more fun stuff.
01:37:07
But for now, that's it for our show.
01:37:09
You can find us online at www.phantomhybrid.com.
01:37:13
We are on social media on all the social media at Phantom
01:37:16
Hybrid. You can chat with us on our
01:37:18
Discord channel. You can watch our videos on our
01:37:20
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01:37:23
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01:37:25
We hope you join the conversation next time.