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| Mortal Kombat ad. |
Originally intended as an adaptation
of Universal Soldier starring
Jean-Claude Van Damme
from Midway Games, Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel and Dan Forden turned to
Chinese mythology and kung-fu movies for inspiration when the licensing deal
fell through. They came up with the concept of six realms created by Elder
Gods, and a tournament held to maintain the freedom of one of the realms.
Visiting pinball designer Steve
Ritchie, upon noticing someone had written “combat” with a “K” on their
idea board, suggested they call the game “Mortal Kombat.” The name stuck, and Mortal Kombat was
born.
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| Real people with real problems settling them with real violence. |
What made the game different from
the other prominent fighting game at the time, Street
Fighter, was the fact that
instead of using animated character sprites they used motion capture to place
actual actors into the game. That, and the fact that the game was the goriest
at the time; from the amount of blood spilled during combat to the fatal
finishing moves dubbed “Fatalities” (although, compared to the characters the
gore seemed a bit cartoony at times). The brutality shown in the game led to
several controversies and public outrage, ultimately resulting in the creation
of the Electronics Software Ratings
Board which provides age ratings for all video game releases.
The game was a hit, and spawned two
sequels: Mortal Kombat II in 1993 and Mortal Kombat 3 in 1995, which was later updated and re-released as Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3; all of which were eventually ported
to home systems. Midway produced a series
of comics tying into the official story of the arcade games, while Malibu Comics secured
the licensed and published several
series between 1994 and 1995. Hasbro
also produced a line of action figures
in the same style as their G.I. Joe line and in fact reused some of those molds. In 1995, the
popularity of the games reached the notice of Hollywood and a movie deal was
struck.
Mortal Kombat was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson from a script
by Kevin Droney and produced
by Threshold Entertainment
for New
Line Cinema. It followed the basic plot of the first game (while adding
bits from the first sequel), where chosen warrior and former Shaolin monk Liu
Kang (Robin Shou), action
star Johnny Cage
(Linden Ashby) and Special
Forces officer Sonya Blade (Bridgette
Wilson) end up on a ship bound for an island to engage in sorcerer Shang
Tsung’s (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa)
Mortal Kombat tournament. As it was the 10th tournament, if Tsung’s
forces won it the dimension known as Outworld would lay claim to Earth under
the rule of its despotic emperor Shao Kahn (Frank Welker). Overseeing and guiding
Earth’s champions was Raiden (Christopher
Lambert), the god of thunder and Earthrealm’s protector. Opening in August,
the film spent three weeks at number one and earned $122 million worldwide.
Several months prior, Threshold released a direct-to-video animated prequel
called The Journey Begins, also written by Droney, which offered
background on the film’s main characters and featured a 15-minute documentary
about the movie. It was released to VHS and Laserdisc by Turner
Home Entertainment and featured the characters in their MK2 outfits.
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| The Defenders of the Realm in their secret base. |
Based on the film’s success, Threshold and New Line Television
commissioned Film Roman Productions to
create an animated series set in the movie’s continuity, although it also
incorporated elements from both versions of MK3.
The series focused on Raiden (Clancy Brown) assembling a group of warriors to
defend Earthrealm from invaders that entered through portals from other
dimensions. They would detect the openings in their hidden base and fly out in
dragon-shaped jets to kombat the threats.
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| Nightwolf, Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Kitana, Jax and Sonya. |
Carried over from the movie were main characters Liu Kang (Brian Tochi)
and Sonya Blade (Olivia d’Abo), as well as Blade’s partner Jax (Dorian
Harewood), who had bionic arms; Lin Kuei ninja Sub-Zero (Luke Perry), who
possessed ice powers; and Kitana (Cree Summer), long-lived princess of Outworld
who used deadly Japanese war fans. Joining them from MK3 was Stryker (Ron Perlman), leader of an NYPD Special Riot
Control division, and Nightwolf (Todd Thawley), a Native American shaman and
historian who can tap into spiritual energy. Nightwolf, although occasionally
joining in battles, served as the team’s tech support. All of the characters’
designs were taken from the MK3 games,
except for Kitana who featured elements of her MK2 outfit.
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| Shao Khan towers over Shang Tsung. |
Shao Khan (John Vernon) served as
the primary antagonist, allowing the other realms to invade Earthrealm while
only actually appearing in four episodes. Other Kombatants made appearances
throughout the show’s run, including the undead warrior Scorpion (Perlman),
Kitana’s ex-fiancé Rain (Rino Romano) who served the
Emperor, Sub-Zero’s fellow ninja and friend Smoke (Jeremy Ratchford), Lin Kuei cyborgs Cyrax and Sektor (Harewood),
Sonya’s arch-nemesis Kano
(Michael Des Barres) and the
four-armed Sheeva (Dawnn Lewis). Film
villain Shang Tsung
(Neil Ross) also made several
appearances. The series was notable for being the debut of sorcerer Quan Chi (Nick Chinlund) who went on to
become the villain in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat 4 in
1997.
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| Rain hasn't learned that "no" means "no." |
Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the
Realm debuted on September 21st as part of USA Network’s Action Extreme Team animation
block alongside episodes of Street Fighter. It was developed and
primarily written by Sean
Catherine Derek, with additional scripts from Steve Granat, Cydne Clark and Mark Hoffmeier. The music was
composed by Jonathan Sloate. Some
episodes were inspired by the games, but largely the series treaded its own
path with original stories and content. Because of its being a Saturday morning
cartoon, the violence was significantly toned down from the source material and
the gore none-existent. Although some deaths were shown in episodes, their
depictions were made as light as possible. As a result, the series was widely
panned by both critics and fans of the games, feeling that neutering the very
thing that made MK a success was a
recipe for disaster. The series only lasted a single season of 13 episodes
before it was quickly cancelled.
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| One of the DVD covers. |
In the United States, several episodes only saw individual release on VHS.
All but one episode were released across three volumes in the United Kingdom while
Australia saw all episodes across six volumes. The complete series was released
on DVD
in Russia and Brazil, each containing a language track specific to that
country.
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