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Why were the fights in Mortal Kombat more memorble then the ones in MK:Annihilation?

Z

ZeroCDR

Member
The fights in the first film are legit, Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion and the Liu Kang vs. Reptile are very well done in particular.

Mortal Kombat Annihilation has shitty fights all around, and scream of budget crisis. The best fight in the film was Sheeva vs. Prison Cell.

All the ninja pallette swaps made it in the film, costumes straight outta Party City.
mortalKombatAnnihilation2.jpg


The recasting was mostly horrible, but I agree that James Remar isn't a terrible Raiden, kind of the best thing about it really.

Then you've got Shao Khan, guess which one was the first film:
kahn.jpg


What in the world happened there lol
 
S

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
When the original movie came out that was a spectacle for kids - live action movie of this fighting video game, complete with amazing Shang Tsung's "It has begun" and the only techno song worth liking. Everything about it was pure hype. I remember not even seeing an image of what Goro looked like until seeing the movie in theaters. My friends and I all freaked out over it. It was 90s marketing done right. That garbage is gonna be burned into my skull forever.

Annihilation on the other hand, is like a Patton Oswald filibuster come true.
 
H

HyperZone<3

Member
Paul W.S. Anderson is actually a very good director of action. He's also got a solid eye for visual compositions, and his 3D movies just look great when seen properly.

He's the kind of guy who if he had better taste in material, or laid off being involved at all in the scripting stage of a film, actually could have had a major career ala Ridley Scott. He had nothing to do with the writing for Even Horizon and Soldier(both super underrated, Soldier especially), and those are great films. But he's spent the last decade plus on the never-gonna-be-taken-seriously Resident Evil franchise and has spent his other excursions on similarly ridiculous films.

For proof of Anderson's talent, he made a low-budget, low-expectation martial arts flick that actually had very few proficient (or even competent) martial artists in its cast and made it great, a beloved icon of the 90's. A more seasoned director followed that up with more resources and a cast loaded with stunt performers and American Gladiators and made Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Sometimes its all in the execution of what you've got.
 
N

NealMcCauley

Member
I remember reading Paul WS Anderson wanted MK1's fights to feel like an actual tournament. The stunt team had to tell him during the first fight scene that they only did one or two wide shots of the full fight (Anderson had them do six or seven) and filled in the rest in with closer shots.
 
V

Violence Jack

Member
All of MKs fights were memorable. They had some slick fight choreography, and excellent sound design.

Annihilation was shit from the very start. I was pissed when they killed off Johnny Cage so early.

I still have fond memories of the theater erupting in cheers when that statue transformed into Reptile. Crowd lost their shit then and during the Scorpion/Cage fight.
 
R

rec0ded1

Member
Never forget. Medals should be made for those of us that experienced this pos in theaters.
I'm so glad all I remember mostly is shitty rock canyons.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
On the film's 20th anniversary, an article revealed that the Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion and Liu Kang vs. Reptile fights were added in post-production, as they got complaints that the original film didn't have enough fighting. It's why they don't really make a lot of sense in terms of the narrative (Cage vs. Scorpion especially feels like it came out of a much more fantastical film with how otherworldly the setting in the forest and then Scorpion's lair felt), so there's that.
 
S

Stallion Dan

Member
It's the pace of the movies, the first is slow, builds the world, lots of talk with the occasional fight.

MKA is nonstop rushing, they fight, then run, then fight, then run, then fight, travel in balls. Not a lot else. The action blurs into one big blob.
 
S

Slayven

Member
Ridley327 said:
On the film's 20th anniversary, an article revealed that the Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion and Liu Kang vs. Reptile fights were added in post-production, as they got complaints that the original film didn't have enough fighting. It's why they don't really make a lot of sense in terms of the narrative (Cage vs. Scorpion especially feels like it came out of a much more fantastical film with how otherworldly the setting in the forest and then Scorpion's lair felt), so there's that.
Click to expand...

That makes so much sense, and the Reptile just randomly getting a body
 
S

Shaanyboi

Banned
I could list you all the fights but be almost completely blank about anything cool that actually happened in them. I moreso just remember being pissed, and Sub-Zero's hilarious grunting in the fight against Scorpion.

Also why the fuck does Sub Zero completely disappear in this movie? Fucking hell...
 
F

fernoca

Member
Ridley327 said:
On the film's 20th anniversary, an article revealed that the Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion and Liu Kang vs. Reptile fights were added in post-production, as they got complaints that the original film didn't have enough fighting. It's why they don't really make a lot of sense in terms of the narrative (Cage vs. Scorpion especially feels like it came out of a much more fantastical film with how otherworldly the setting in the forest and then Scorpion's lair felt), so there's that.
Click to expand...
Yep. The original script even had fights like Sonya vs Jade which explains why Sonya only fights once.

The thing is that the coreography if those 2 fights was done by Robin Shou who also had a hand in the coreigraphy of all fights in Annihilation, but nearly all the fights are badly edited in Annihilation.

The fights in Annihilation are less memorable, but were faster and more intense than the average fights in the first movie. It also had more with more characters, since it was more if an action movie.

Ironic is that Annilation had more fights, but were but for budgetary reasons during filming. Which made things wirse for some of the cast. The entire movie was supposed to be longer with more backstory, but many things were removed while filming.

Music was ace all around. Even the animated show had Suster Machine Gun...in saturday morning. XD
 
M

Mechanized

Member
The Cyrax fight was memorable because of what the energy net did, Mileena and Sonya because of the mud, and Lui vs Shao Kahn because of the awful cg.
 
P

Ponn

Banned
Mortal Kombat was like a decent B action movie. And one of the first actually good video game movies so it was memorable. Annihilation was like a hilariously bad SyFy channel movie that the only thing you remember is it being hilariously bad.
 
B

Bladelaw

Member
U

UnemployedVillain

Member
Fun fact, Kano was originally American, but the actor in MK1 (Trevor Goddard) who was British was mistaken as Australian by Americans and people loved the portrayal so much they canonically changed the character to Australian
 
R

Reckless Abandon

Member
Sojgat said:
Great piece about the making of MK that goes into a lot of detail about the fights.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/mortal-kombat-movie-oral-history-815287?facebook_20150818
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing, that was a good read. I watched the first MK probably 100 times when I was 10-11 and I got it on VHS. Child me loved the hell out of it. I haven't watched it in years, I kind of wonder how it holds up...

itwasTuesday said:
yesh, Yeah I don't think I can stand with you on that one.
Ajax is no MacLeod

but I also love hearing Lambert talk, in anything he does. Even Fortress.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's funny because I love Lambert and thought he absolutely nailed it as Raiden, but at the same time thought Remar's performance in the 2nd was one of the only remotely good things about it. I remember being so pissed when they killed Johnny Cage right at the beginning, even though replacement-Linden-Ashby probably would have sucked.

And hell yes, Fortress is awesome. I even dug the sequel, though it suffered without Red Foreman.
 
A

allenpergallon

Member
MK fights were memorable since they felt pretty tangible and grounded, as well as had stakes with them.

MK:A fights were less memorable because they were just throwing characters and CG and nonsense at the wall with no rhyme or reason. With good arenas and/or enough time they could work well, like Liu + Sub vs Scorpion or Jax + Sonya vs Cyrax + goons. But most of the action doesn't get much time to escalate since there's so much they wanted to cram in, so mostly everything starts off full-throttle and ends just as quickly.

Then there's stuff like Raiden flipping with ninjas, Jax punching a CG demon to a pulp Liu Kang, or swinging off of chains like Jack Sparrow to avoid rubber-mask Baraka, followed by Sheeva stepping in to get crushed 2 seconds later. Mess
but damn I can't look away. THE DATE'S OVER
.

MK:A also felt like it fell back on its soundtrack a lot to try and make scenes more exciting than they actually were. Liu vs Jade was a good example of tunes covering for some really jank choreography/camera-work/acting.
 
F

FlashbladeGAF

Member
Ponn said:
Come on, you watched Vanishing Son.
Click to expand...

I remember loving Vanishing Son.

Tried looking for the whole thing a few years back, but all I could ever find was the sequel series that had him as a fugitive, not the original series of movies that set up the character.
 
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