Video games into movies. It’s like trying to make an Indiana Jones film about aliens. Doesn’t really work all that well. The boys at Bonus Level know this. They’ve been doing a retrospective of all the games that have been adapted into films and sort of not worked.* Pretty good stuff.

I remember MORTAL KOMBAT as one of the last great arcade games that people still stuffed quarters into. Remember quarters? They weren’t always just for laundry and parking meters. I also remember MORTAL KOMBAT as being one of the first video game adaptations to sort of move in the right direction. I never understood why Christopher Lambert played Raiden though. Raiden was an Asian god of Thunder I thought. Not a highlander. But I do remember it being a lot of fun to watch.

It also produced one of the most kick-ass techno songs ever.

Love the fatalities and babalities at the end. Hell, I just love that dude screaming “MORTAL KOMBAT!” It gets the geek in you pumped up to maim human beings and say “Finish him.”

It was hardcore violence back then – and whenever you discovered a new way of doing a ‘Fatality,’ your friends would gather to watch you do it. You’d have like ten seconds to hit the buttons and the joystick just right, and you didn’t want to let your friends down by f–king up a Fatality. So then you’d hit the right combo, and the Fatality would start to perform. Your friends’ anticipation was palpable, and you’d all wait and say something like “oh oh oh here it comes look at this” – and then bloody evisceration, and your friends would go “OOHHHHHHHHH” and then laugh at how ridiculously violent a video game could be.

And then we’d do it all over again.

Who was your favorite? Was it Liu Kang? I did well with him, but he was pretty basic. Raiden? Sub-Zero? Baraka? Johnny Cage, right? No, it was Kung Lao. Maybe Reptile? Jax even? Kitana?

Don’t play games with me. It was Scorpion. Dude was badass, He’d throw a harpoon with a rope attached at you. Impale you in the chest. He’d yell at you like you were the one causing trouble – “GET OVER HERE!” Then yank you over like a fish on a hook and ruin your world. It was Scorpion all the way.

So that’s why it’s kind of cool that Devin Faraci posted this video over at CHUD. Seems like there’s hints of a new MORTAL KOMBAT movie floating around, and this might or might not be a ‘proof of concept’ reel to show to investors. They’re taking a grittier and more realistic take on it. Devin seems to think that this reel jives with a lot of what he’s been hearing – particularly with the origins of Reptile and Baraka. Me? I think that it’s real if only because Seven of NineJeri Ryan be doing in an expensive fan video? Maybe she’s just happy to be doing anything these days…. is cast as Sonya Blade. What would

Regardless: I think this gets pretty interesting.

What do you all think? Would you miss the more fantastic elements of the game? Or do you just want to see Mortal Kombat get real? Please feel free to talk about your favorite characters and about MK in general below.

*Here are the links to the Bonus Level retrospectives of turning games into film. A neat little walk down memory lane…

Games and Film: Part 1
Games and Film: Part 2

And just cause I needed to… (yeah, yeah, I know it’s the Streetfighter music… sue me)…

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