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Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1995) |
Oh, dear, oh dear. Back in the '80s and '90s, when any franchise did particularly well, it would often end up getting an animated series tie-in made soon after, which usually tended to tone down the more objectionable elements for the younglings. Sometimes this worked, like in Batman or The Real Ghostbusters, but sometimes not so well, like in Rambo and Street Fighter. Care to make a guess in which category this series that ran for 13 episodes on ended up? The good news is that Defenders of the Realm isn't quite as stupid as the Street Fighter animated series that aired on the same network. That also means it's much less infamous across the internet, since it lacks such 'classic' scenes as M. Bison's rejoicing or Dee Jay inexplicably shrinking. That doesn't, however, mean it's any good. The show is actually something more along the lines of Power Rangers or GI Joe than anything you'd expect to see from Mortal Kombat: A bunch of bad guys come from another dimension to attack the planet, a team of heroes beats them up, roll credits. The contuinity seems to be a mix of the games and the movies, since everybody wears their MK3 outfits. Stryker and Nightwolf also make up the main team of good guys. On the other hand, the show seems to take place shortly after the original movie, as it's mentioned that Liu Kang ended up killing Shang Tsung and Sub-Zero's older brother during the tournament. Since this is a kid's show, however, Sub-Zero's death was changed from him getting impaled on his own ice to being frozen solid. Most of the episodes involve some kind of bad guy showing up with a bunch of mooks to take over Earthrealm. The show does a pretty good job of representing the different characters that had shown up in the series to that point, even more obscure bad guys like Rain and Baraka. Oh, sorry, did we say Baraka? We meant 'Kabrac,' who is an entirely different character that just happens to be a general of blade-armed mutants. Oh, and that green-clad ninja who turns out to be an acid-spitting lizard? That's Komodai, not Reptile. Original character, do not steal. Almost all the fighting is done against non-humans like Tarkatans or cyborgs, which means it's OK for the good guys to smack around people without soccer moms getting upset. The characters frequently use their special moves from the games, except for Stryker, who doesn't get to use his gun because hey, kid's show. When the heroes aren't fighting off the villain of the week, they seem to be spending most of their time among themselves. Seriously, if it weren't for poor Raiden around to babysit them, they all probably would have ended up Fatality-ing each other a long time ago. Sonya's kombat strategy, for one thing, involves her running headlong into the enemy while screaming "Kombat Time!" at the top of her lungs. Not to mention how they make Nightwolf stay in their secret lair and be their computer geek while they go out and do all their fighting. And the show makes Stryker into a germophobic because… uh… it's supposed to be funny, I guess? Raiden's probably the best character on the show, mostly because Clancy Brown's performance seems to make him drip sarcasm with every line. Even he keeps getting lines like "Then kick your jets and Jam!" Raiden also ends up getting one of the best scenes in the series when he takes on Shang Tsung without using any of his powers and still manages to win. If you look up the show online, you more than likely find one of the 'Defenders of Stupidity' videos, originally done by TheSwitcher. These are much more entertaining than the actual show itself, mostly because they take all of the many, many stupid moments across the show and compile them into a couple of videos. There's so many to pick from, after all. How about the scene where Jax laments about how naked and alone he feels, at a point where the colorist has apparently forgotten to color in his pants? Or the scene where Jax admits to Sonya about how fat he was as a kid? We're not talking a little pudgy, either, we're talking the fattest kid in school. Or maybe you'd prefer the scene where "Komodai" repeatedly kicks Sonya in the side? Those less fond of the series would probably say that this scene is actually closer to the games than any other. And that's not even getting into Quan Chi's episode, which gives him a metal theme every time he appears on screen, and a snake staff that spits a snake, that spits a bunch of smaller snakes. Yo dawg. The series only lasted 13 episodes, only half of even what the Street Fighter cartoon got. It's got its moments, sure, but for the most part, the only real value it has is comedy. If you really feel the urge to watch this show, you might want to be on the look out for the 'annotated' version, where people use Youtube's annotations to heckle the show, MST3K style. Mortal Kombat would never again see a cartoon after this, and honestly, that's not really surprising. How this thing even made it on TV in the first place is a mystery all on its own, even on such a low-rent network of the time like UPN. |
Defenders of the Realm
Defenders of the Realm
Defenders of the Realm
Defenders of the Realm
Defenders of the Realm |
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Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins (1995) |
A few months before the release of the MK movie, an animation outfit known as Threshold Entertainment released this, presumably to get people hyped for the feature film. With its lack of any redeeming qualities, however, it's shocking that nobody who saw it ended up taking a baseball bat to the first Mortal Kombat cabinet they encountered. It's that bad. Journey Begins actually seems to be based more on the original game than the movie, since everybody's using their designs from the game. Before we really tear into this short, it needs to be said that the casting is actually very good. You've got Jennifer Hale in one of her first roles playing Sonya, along with Jeff Bennet playing Johnny Cage. Appropriately enough, he also does the voice of Johnny Bravo. Jim Cummings does a great job of making Shang Tsung sound like a slimy jerk, while probably wishing he was back doing SatAM the entire time. Sadly, that's the only thing about this movie that could possibly be considered good. The story takes forever to actually play out, mostly because half of it involves the heroes walking around and listening to Raiden spout out exposition. Even during the CGI flashbacks, Raiden just drones on and on, usually explaining things that are actually happening on screen. The movie mixes traditional animation with awful CGI, the sort of pre-story stuff that would have gotten laughed off of an episode of The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest. If you look closely, you can even see the characters occasionally clipping through themselves. The CGI scenes are used to show canon events from the games, like the fatal fight between Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Only they're done incredibly awfully this time around. That's not to say that the drawn animation is any better. In fact, it's actually somehow worse. Nobody can even walk properly, with all of the characters having a ridiculously overexaggerated walk cycle. The crowning moment of awful would have to be the fight scene at the end, where the heroes face off against a few dozen Tarkatan warriors. The animators handle this by repeating about five scenes over and over and over again. See if you count the number of times you see the same Tarkatan running towards the camera, or Johnny Cage's ridiculous crab-walk/shuffle. And no, animators, blurring the footage and making it play in slow motion won't make it look new, either. That's just lazy. Overall, The Journey Begins is pure garbage, and you shouldn't even consider watching it unless you've got a few friends to share the pain with. If you have to watch it alone, maybe you could close your eyes and pretend that the movie is about Commander Shepard, Johnny Bravo and Liu Kang, who are going out to fight Dr. Robotnik from SatAM. Honestly, that'd be a much more entertaining movie than what is delivered here. Threshold Entertainment is still somehow alive today, their last release being Food Fight, a movie where Charlie Sheen plays a dog detective who's also a mascot of a breakfast cereal. The premise makes it somehow sound even more awful than Journey Begins.
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The Journey Begins
The Journey Begins
The Journey Begins
The Journey Begins |
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Mortal Kombat: The Movie (1995) |
By 1995, Mortal Kombat mania was at a fever pitch. With three games that had set the arcades of the '90s, it seemed Midway could do no wrong, even with stiff competition from Capcom and SNK. Merchandise was inevitable, including movie plans. Capcom already had their shot on the silver screen a year before with Street Fighter. Aside from a few good lines and a fantastic performance from the late Raul Julia, it generally wasn't very well remembered. The first Mortal Kombat film, however, ended up being quite a lot better, and it's still probably one of the best game to film adapations you're likely to see. Wasn't exactly the next Citizen Kane, of course, but for a martial arts movie and a video game adaption, it does pretty well. The script is an adaption of the plot from the original game, with Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, and Liu Kang taking a boat to Shang Tsung's island to compete in Mortal Kombat. Johnny and Sonya have more or less the same backstories they did in the games, with Johnny wanting to prove that his martial arts skills aren't faked, and Sonya out to capture Kano. Liu's backstory, on the other hand, gives him a brother named Chang who ended up being murdered by Shang Tsung. Not entirely accurate to the games, sure, but it gives him more of a motivation besides being 'the chosen one.' Raiden, played by Christopher Lambert of Highlander fame, takes up the mentor role once again. He doesn't actually do much here besides sitting around and offering advice to the heroes, usually trolling them in his gravelly accent.
Mortal Kombat: The Movie The movie gets a slow start until the second act when the setting changes to Shang's island, where the tension starts to pick up. The fight scenes are choreographed pretty well, with one of the highlights probably being Johnny Cage's long, drawn out fight with Scorpion in the Netherrealm. All the characters from the original game are given the time to show off their moves, and for the most part, they're represented pretty closely to the games. There are some more subtle references in there, like Shang Tsung shouting out "Flawless Victory!" after Goro kills Johnny's buddy, Art Lean. The only real low point of the fight scenes would probably have to be when Reptile shows up, since for half of the fight, he's a terrible CGI lizard creature.
Mortal Kombat: The Movie Considering this is 1995, it's not pretty. The writing is decent, and while it's definitely cheesy, there are a few really good lines in there, most of them coming from Johnny. After Goro crushes his sunglasses to dust, Johnny's response is to calmly inform him that "Those were 500 dollar sunglasses, asshole," before beating the hell out of him. The most questionable thing about the movie, however, is how they handle Sonya. She's shown throughout the movie to be a tough, capable military woman, who's able to kill Kano in a fight without too much trouble. When Shang Tsung pins her arm behind her back, however, she's rendered entirely useless, left to scream "Let me go!" again and again at the top of her lungs so that the male heroes can rescue her. A little questionable, that. At the end of the movie, Liu Kang manages to end up impaling Shang Tsung on a pit of spikes. As the heroes return to China to celebrate, the visage of Shao Kahn, who has been alluded to several times throughout the film, appears in the clouds. "You weak, pathetic fools, I've come for your souls!" he shouts below, sounding more than suspiciously like Dr. Claw. Raiden's response? "I don't think so." Roll credits. A great ending that leaves a great hook for a sequel, right? Sure, until you realize just how bad the sequel got. |
Mortal Kombat: The Movie
Mortal Kombat: The Movie
Mortal Kombat: The Movie
Mortal Kombat: The Movie
Mortal Kombat: The Movie
Mortal Kombat: The Movie
Mortal Kombat: The Movie |
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Mortal Kombat: Annihiliaton (1997) |
With how much of a success the original MK movie turned out to be, especially compared to the likes of Street Fighter and Super Mario Brothers, a sequel was soon underway. For whatever reason, however, everything that made the original film so enjoyable is gone. They couldn't get Christopher Lambert back, or even practically anybody who appeared in the original film. Maybe they were busy with other projects, or maybe they realized just how awful this film was going to be. They also got an entirely different director, one who seems to have gotten the gist of the plot from an eight year old playing MK3 on his friend's Super Nintendo. For one thing, the movie is absolutely determined to stuff in nearly every character who's appeared in the series, even if they literally have no reason to be there. Rain? He talks to Shao Kahn for a bit, then gets punched into a fire pit. Sheeva does a front flip, roars, then a cage falls on her? Stryker and Kabal? Briefly mentioned by Rain that they've been killed, so they don't even make a physical appearance.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation But that's far from the only issue. The plot doesn't make any sense, certainly not from the scraps that you can even hear. For some reason, the audio editing is screwed up so badly you can barely hear anything over the techno music they play over every scene. The fight scenes are about as well put together, given that there are so many cuts that you'll never have any sort of idea what's going on. Not that they're even that great for a martial arts movie. The special effects, when they show up, are the worst mid-90's CGI you'll ever see, with the 'climactic' scene between Liu Kang's dragon form and Shao Kahn's hydra form being something that Primal Rage would laugh at. And for some reason, nobody in the movie can walk from place to place. Instad, they always have to front flip. Everywhere.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation Overall, Annihilation is a travesty of a film, made even worse by how good the original was. Don't even attempt watching it, not with friends, not with booze, or any sort of mood-altering substances you might have on hand. If you want the experience of watching Annihilation, put the original film on, crank up some techno at full blast, and shake your head around really hard while you're watching. You might have more fun that way, too.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation |
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation |
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Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998) |
At the tail end of the 1990s, when action/fantasy shows like Xena and Hercules were all the rage on TV, somebody had the bright idea of making one based in the Mortal Kombat universe. Well, it would have been a good idea, if this weren't after Annihliation, which had basically destroyed MK's credibility on the silver screen entirely. Conquest ran for about 22 episodes on the TNT network from 1998 to 1999, with only a single season ending on a pretty huge cliffhanger that would never be resolved. You might think this is a hidden gem, like the Earthworm Jim cartoon, right? Sadly, you'd be very wrong. The series takes place in the time of the original Kung Lao, so this means this is 500 or so years before most of the interesting people in the series were actually born. Sure, Shang Tsung, Raiden, Shao Kahn, and even Quan Chi end up making appearances. But for the most part, Kung Lao travels around with some white guy named Siro and a girl named Taja, who's apparently an ex-thief. Scorpion's here, too, but now he's some guy who's pissed off at Kung Lao, and who's been stung by some magical hell scorpion. The problem is that the whole thing feels more like some kind of soap opera, with Kung Lao spending more time angsting about his girlfriend in the first couple of episodes than actually fighting. At the end of the season, Shao Kahn manages to end up killing all the good guys. Apparently this was supposed to be a dream of his, but since there was never a second season, we're left to assume it wasn't. Given how lame the special effects are and how low the budget was (They couldn't even afford bras for the female characters, supposedly), it's really not that much of a loss. If you're really all that curious to see how it ends, it's pretty easy to find the episodes on Youtube. It is, in fairness, not as much of a travesty as Annihliation, but it makes up for that by just being way more boring than something based on Mortal Kombat should be. |
Mortal Kombat: Conquest
Mortal Kombat: Conquest
Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
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Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
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Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
Mortal Kombat: Conquest |
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Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (2010) |
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In 2010, the Mortal Kombat franchise was pretty much done and dusted. That's when Kevin Tancharoen released an eight minute short film onto the internet, which was apparently made as a pitch to WB for a new MK movie. Unlike the last two movies, which basically took the supernatural weirdness of the games at face value, this proposed film would take the series in a grittier, more realistic direction. Not an awful idea, really, but probably much more difficult than you'd think, given the base plot of the games. So the whole Earthrealm/Outworld thing has been dropped entirely, with everything being set in a slumhole called 'Deacon City.' Jax and Sonya are cops here, trying to take down serial killers like Reptile, who's been made into a guy with a skin condition. Who still eats people's heads. Huh. And in what may or may not be a nod to the cancelled fighting game Thrill Kill, Baraka is a plastic surgeon who went insane after killing a patient, sharpening his teeth into blades and grafting blades into his arms. Oh, yeah, and he kills Johnny Cage. At least some things never change.
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth At the end of the video, Jax explains to a convict named "Hanzo Hasashi" about a tournament of serial killers and assasins being put together by a guy named Shang Tsung. After Sonya explains how Sub-Zero (who's been given the Mr. Freeze treatment for this film) will be there, Hanzo agrees to join the tournament. Before he steps out the door, he explains that Hanzo Hasashi is dead and his name… is Scorpion. Dun Dun Dun! Rebirth, despite the hokey way it tries to shoehorn reality into Mortal Kombat, is hardly the worst eight minutes you'll ever spend. The fight scene between Baraka and Johnny Cage is pretty good, even if it's the only one in the video. While Rebirth never went beyond the initial pitch, we did get something else out of it… |
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth |
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Mortal Kombat: Legacy (2011) |
A year later, Kevin Tancharoen would go on to make a web series set in the MK universe. While this series is a tad more realistic than your average Mortal Kombat game, Legacy brings back the more fantastical elements of the games themselves. So Outworld is one again a thing, and Scorpion goes from being 'some guy with a spear' to being the yellow hell ninja we all know and love. On one hand, it's a lot closer to the games, but on the other hand, it's kind of a shame we didn't see more of the realistic interpretations of the MK lore. The special effects on some of the more fantastical characters aren't great, the occasional spliced-in animation sequences don't quite fit in style, and at this point the plot doesn't seem like it's going anywhere. But it's still pretty enjoyable for a free web series on Youtube, and boasts some relatively big name TV actors in supporting roles, like Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade and Tahmoh Penikett from Battlestar Galactica as Stryker. |
Mortal Kombat: Legacy
Mortal Kombat: Legacy
Mortal Kombat: Legacy |
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Mortal Kombat: Legacy |
Mortal Kombat: Legacy |
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Mortal Kombat: Legacy |
Mortal Kombat: Legacy |
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Mortal Kombat Comics |
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Collector's Edition Comic Book |
Battlewave #2 |
Blood Thunder #5 |
Kitana and Mileena |
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Back when Mortal Kombat 1 & 2 were still fresh in the arcades, they came with ads on the attract sequence where you could send in for comic books. Both of these take place directly before the start of the two tournaments, and thus, moments before the actual games themselves begin. They also clarify a lot of plot elements that the biographies in both games only briefly mentioned, like how Shang Tsung managed to take control of the Mortal Kombat tournament. We also find out that the younger Sub-Zero apparently wears a nice suit when he's competing in death tournaments. There's also a comic for Mortal Kombat 4 that you could get for the PC version. It explains exactly how Shinnok made his escape from the Netherrealm, which was left pretty vague in the actual game itself. These comics are decent reading, and even if neither the art or writing are exactly fantastic, they can be taken more or less as official canon. Besides the official comics, there's were also a line of comics in the mid 90's published by Malibu Comics. Malibu were hardly the most prestigious of comic companies compared to Marvel or DC, and for the most part, we ended up getting stuff like Ex-Mutants and Dinosaurs for Hire from them. You think a big name license like MK would have ended up in better hands, but them's the breaks. These comics tend to be a whole lot worse than the official comics, and they're not even in the same DIMENSION of anywhere resembling canon. The first few issues follow the events of the original game pretty closely, to the point where they even reuse from dialogue from the official comic. Aside from Raiden speaking about himself in the third person, for some reason. Eventually, however, things start deviating from the game's plot pretty hard, starting with Goro getting teleported into a city by a wizard. It turns out that this wizard wants to make a giant warrior made up of the abilities of all the other fighters. So, how does a fighter so powerful end up being destroyed? Well, the wizard's brother, the god of order, ends up giving Goro a gun. And by 'a gun', we mean the most ridiculous gun of such Liefieldian proportions that it even looks absolutely stupid when a guy with four arms is carrying it. That's how. The Malibu comics generally go on like that, and neither the art nor the writing ever get any better. They never even make it to the events of MK3, which is a shame, because it could have opened up a lot of interesting story ideas. They're worth reading if you're the sort of person who enjoys the worst of what the Dark Age of comics had to offer, but other than that, you're best off with the official comics. |
Collector's Edition Comic Book |
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Mortal Kombat: The Album |
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In 1993, the two members of the Belgian techno band Lords of Acid, Maurice Engelen and Olivier Adams, formed a side project called The Immortals, with the express purpose of composing music for Mortal Kombat. Their first piece, called "Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)", was featured in the game's television commercials for the console ports. It features liberal use of the game's digitized speech samples, a catchy dance beat, and some kid yelling "MORTAL KOMBAT!" over and over. It quickly became associated with the games, despite only actually appearing in the Sega CD port of the first game. In 1994, The Immortals released a full CD called Mortal Kombat: The Album. In addition to the "Techno Syndrome" theme, it includes several other dance-influenced tracks, each themed after one of the main characters. Most of them have lyrics, and they're almost all entirely ridiculous. Take Sub-Zero's song: Ooh, Chinese Ninja Warrior The rap lyrics in Johnny Cage's song are similar fascinating: Fight Cage, Johnny Fight It's incredibly cheesy, but it's also massively fun, and an amusing relic from a time when Mortal Kombat was one of the hottest properties on the planet. There were several other Mortal Kombat albums released, mostly in conjunction with the movies. However, most of these consist of licensed tracks from musicians like KMFDM and Juno Reactor, and most are simply "inspired by" tracks that have little to do with the games themselves. There was an original soundtrack released for Mortal Kombat II, which was advertised during the game's attract screen and ordered via mail. The 2009 game did have a release with an assortment of tracks from the games. |
Mortal Kombat: The Album
Mortal Kombat: The Album |
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