Hot take: the Mortal Kombat franchise is at its best when it’s full on camp, has fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously. The more dramatic, edgy, excessively gory and “deep” it tries to make everything, the less interested I become. The stories of the last few games have shown that the more it tries to move away from what made it what it is and attempts to aim for higher and more lofty narrative aspirations and writing, it just ends up falling flat for me. It wants to be Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, but in actuality, it’s just Big Trouble in Little China with more fantasy and gore.
Now, am I saying that the characters, story and world shouldn’t receive proper flashing out and development? Absolutely not. But pretending that this series is some sacred and serious holy work of fiction that deserves to be honored, never strayed from and that any change in adaptation is sacrilegious is frankly absurd. People didn’t come to the franchise because of it’s deep lore, story and character backstories. They came to it because they like seeing memorable and colorful characters fighting and beating the crap out of each other in various ridiculous ways in a tournament in a bunch of crazy environments.
That’s why when the new trailer for MKII was released and people online started complaining, it had me perplexed. I mean, it has Johnny Cage being Johnny Cage, Shao Khan being Shao Khan by being cheap and wrecking fools, Kitana, Jade, Baraka, Jax, Sonya Blade, over-the-top and bloody fatalities, unique and crazy environments/stages, Scorpion fighting Noob Saibot, Scorpion shouting “Get over here!”, etc. All of the trademarks of the franchise are there. Not exactly the same as in the games, but they’re there.
It looks like big, dumb gory fun, which is what the franchise is at its core. If you’re a longtime fan and it’s not meeting your expectations, I sympathize. Those being fans of this franchise for so long and not seeing it adapted on screen at least close to the way that you envisioned it sucks (like the whole Cole Young debacle, which I totally agree was dumb). I can relate on some level (see Michael Bay’s Transformers films). However, even I’m open to different takes on that franchise as long as they get what it’s supposed to be about. I don’t always like all of them, but because they miss the point and are just badly written, not because they tried something different. And that’s okay.
As someone who has only a casual and passing interest in this property, I just don’t see what the problem is and I’d like to understand why.
