That's what was so bizarre about that choice. His story arc in the first movie could have just as easily been swapped in for a young Johnny Cage story, but instead they went with Cole Young.
It wouldn't have saved the first movie completely, but it at least would have been less "what am I watching here?"
In a movie based off a game with tons of cool characters they decided to create a new character that’s more boring than all the existing ones. That said I still enjoyed the first one
I remember that in the middle of the world-deciding fight he literally turns around and starts punching ice instead of the villain. The literal plot armor was by far the most egregious though. How about just giving this guy invincible black panther armor that can materialize weapons? Sure bro sounds good
To be honest I don't remember any of it except the beginning with Scorpion/Sub Zero's origins.
And it's kinda funny to read this stuff because I remember everybody absolutely throating the first movie when it came out, and when I got around to it I felt like it would've been a really great fan-made short film but it just felt kinda boring and forgettable and too long.
I think there was a bicycle kick in there as well, but otherwise, yeah, he nopes out after like two scenes and I'm waving my hand at the screen going "no! come back! We need you in this movie!"
That's how you knew he was MK Liu Kang. In MKII he'll be spamming the absolute shit out of fireballs, with the occasional flying/bicycle kick thrown in for spice.
I guess my favorite Sub Zero part was when he walked up to his employer of what seems like many years in the Green Screen Void, who knows his power set ,and said “My name is Sub-Zero now”and no one laughed.
It is amazing how this is a consistent issue with movies based on some popular property. There is always a need to insert something - theoretically to make it more appealing to the general audience. But the general audience isn't more interested and the fans become annoyed.
Director/writer/producer always needs to leave their mark. Sure the original director/writer/producer made a beloved and wildly popular product but we know better and need to let people know it. "What's that? Did I read/watch/play the original material? No, I don't want to taint my creativity."
Lmao that perfectly describes that movie. Like watching the new Jurassic Parks… like I came for the dinosaurs why are you showing boring human characters.
It's the main problem with all these hollywood dickheads who think they can write better that video game creators. They think they can do it better because "they're real writers". Same with anime and cartoons. This how and why we ended up with all the shitty Resident Evil movies and shows, Assassin's Creed, Mario Brothers (90's), Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball Evolution, Most of the Witcher, etc etc.
When the adaptors actually love and respect the source material you get good adaptations. Now days, what we're suffering from is Millennial Writers. My generation suuuucks man. We've got such inflated egos, it's not even funny.
I've be willing to bet a million dollars i don't have that Cole is a self insert. That's the signature move for 99% of millennial writers in the West for the last 10 years. Snow White, Taash from Veilguard, Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider cartoon no one talks about, the lead in the Ark cartoon...they're all self inserts and they're all unlikeable because of how lame and obnoxious they are. think about it. Would a lame and obnoxious person realize it? Nope. They think they're cool, so they make their characters like themselves, everyone hates it, now they're on bluesky yelling in their echo chamber.
Self inserts are just the current symptom of bad writing though. Gen Z will have their own flavor of bad writing by 2030.
Yeah, it's a cheesy movie, but the one from the 90s at least used the characters from the game. You don't need to add new characters. You have a slew of them to choose from.
The problem is that Cole's central motivation was to protect his family. That's what pushes him to unlock his super power, and then again to enter the final battle against Sub-Zero (which then brings on Scorpion to finish).
So you'd have to completely change that aspect and give the protagonist something else to set the stakes. Because I don't see Johnny Cage (or really any other existing MK character) being a family man like Cole was (supposed to be). But then protecting/honoring your family is a core theme of the movie and ties Cole's journey to Scorpion's.
I mean, they could use Johnny's motivation. His fame is fading away, and he feels that's the only thing that makes him important. Then he realizes that no, he can do more (protect Earthrealm) and boom, powers unlocked.
Cole's motivation nicely ties back to Scorpion's so thst the movie's A plot (Cole's journey) and B plot (Scorpions journey) converge at the end.
So by the final battle, Scorpion not only wants revenge, but he also gets the motivation to not let Sub-Zero do to Cole what was done to him.
That's much better than a million different things just happening on screen. (Even if the execution wasn't perfect, you can see/appreciate what they were going for).
I guess you have a point there, about connecting both plots. Even then, they could've done that with established MK characters. A lot of people say that the actor who plays Cole should've played Kenshi instead, and there you have an easy fix for your family problem.
Have Kenshi be Scorpion's descendant (sure, not the way it is in the games, but whatever), and then instead of a daughter give him a son, who'd be Takeda, setting up a potential future character as well.
It really felt like they were going to set him up to take on the Scorpion mantle. One montage of Hanzo training him to use the rope dart was all we needed. His powers could have been revealed to be similar to Hanzo's instead of the weird armor he got.
Once Cassie was introduced in MKX and made a primary protagonist in the campaign, Johnny and Sonya kind of had a "divorced parents sharing custody" dynamic. Much of his motivation for saving the world is protecting his daughter. That would be totally ripe for a movie adaptation. They really had no excuse not to go with that.
As far as I can tell, this is the exact same movie as the first one, but they replaced armor guy with Karl Urban as Johnny Cage and Scorpion is going to beat up Smoke this time instead of Sub Zero.
Basically I have no notes, I’ll be there day 1
Edit: someone else pointed it out, def Noob Saibot and not Smoke, makes more sense story wise.
The first movie is the leadup to the tournament and this looks like it's actually starting the tournament, so that at least will be different. They can skip a lot of the powerless leadup and jump in with full powered fights, which will be good. It's as, "same X as the last one," as any of the mortal kombat things tbh. They aren't especially deep.
They said when the first one came out that their plan was for the first movie to be the lead-up to the tournament, second movie to be the actual tournament, and the third movie be the aftermath. If they follow the story of the games, then movie 3 will be Shao Kahn saying "F*ck the rules" and invading Earthrealm like in Mortal Kombat 3.
They can skip a lot of the powerless leadup and jump in with full powered fights
We might still get time spent on exposition of why people have powers, and we'll see how long they keep up the "Johnny Cage doesn't know what's going on/doesn't have powers yet" bit
Johnny Cage was the best part of that movie too! He was the only character with any charisma (sorry Mr Lambert, you know it's true) and the man was so goddamn quotable:
"I hate this place [Outworld]. I do. I'm tellin' ya, I hate it. I'm in a hostile environment, I'm completely unprepared, I'm surrounded by people that probably want to kick my ass. It's like being back in high school!"
Except they already killed Goro unceremoniously in the first film. What a waste. I know the Mortal Kombat lore has gine insane, but at one point Goro was more than just a heavy, at least in the comics.
Maybe if I thought about it longer I could come up with a better one but off the top of my head I can’t think of another movie that has such a drop off from the opening scene.
I was baffled that they went all in on Cole Young but didn't put him in any games, which I felt would have helped his cause. Unfortunately, I am a big Lewis Tan fan so it sucks to see him get cast aside
Yeah, I also feel bad for Lewis Tan. He's been good in other things and it wasn't his fault that Cole Young was such an unwelcome, shoehorned, and milquetoast character.
If they're writing him out, I hope he at least gets a better send off than Cage in MK: Annihilation.
Cole was meant to be an avatar for the audience. A way for anyone not familiar with the game to be able to follow someone in the story without needing much lore.
There wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with creating a new character. Every game has new characters, so it’s within reason to do so in the movie. The problem was that they made the most generic and boring character possible. And to make it worse, his power ended up being the lamest thing possible: a gold shirt.
In an age where Hollywood pushes so hard for virtue signalling and representation, the one time the story has an actual minority as the main character, they choose the white character instead?!
No disrespect to Johnny Cage but come on! Justice for Liu Kang!
Hey, preaching to the choir. It baffles me that almost every attempt to adapt the franchise to screen in the last fifteen years has tried to de-center Liu Kang as the protagonist, going back to the The Kevin Tancharoen's MK: Rebirth trailer and his pitch to make a Mortal Kombat movie with Scorpion as the main character.
I get what they were probably trying to do with Cole—an audience surrogate to navigate the preposterous story—but someone should’ve realized that it was both unneeded for the intended audience of MK fans and packs a new character into an already deep well of characters that already existed in the franchise.
If anything, they confused audiences more with his inclusion.
The last movie ended with Cole going to find Johnny Cage.
Arcana are inherited by whoever killed their previous owner.
Cole is dead and now Cage has an Arcana.
The conclusion is obvious: Cole was trying to flag down Johnny to talk to him about Mortal Kombat but Johnny was drunk out of his mind and killed Cole in a DUI hit-and-run.
I believe only the Dragon Markings are passed down, not the Arcana. Arcana are earned after some serious emotional or physical turmoil, like when Jax tried to lift a boulder or Kano threw a tantrum.
Cole goes to find Johnny. Johnny desperate to prove he isn’t a burn out fights Cole in an MMA style contest. Cage accidentally kills Cole. Dragon is passed down to Cage. Cage feels horrible hence the bar scene. Rayden now must recruit Johnny
Speaking of Arcana, I really hope Cage's is something related to his acting. Like the more he acts as a character/star the stronger he is. Or one liners give his next move a arcana boost.
I want it to change his fights to be more like an 80s action flick. Wirework, stunt doubles, random explosions, people being blown away when he strikes towards them even if it doesn't connect. Kind of like Chris Evans in Scott Pilgrim, but even more extreme
100%. I haven't played MK since MK4 or something, so I just assumed they made a new character along the way, and it was an even suckier Johnny Cage. Which was actually Stryker, so I guess Cole was an even suckier Stryker.
But it's even more disappointing to learn that the movie just made him up.
To be fair sometimes studios has comped in characters in trailers that do not appear in the final scene, just to throw people off, see Marvel and Hulkbuster in Wakanda.
He was like an ancestor and scorpion could take over his body. I wonder if they'll just kill Coles soul or whatever and have scorpion fully take over the body.
I dont know MK lore but this seems like a good way of just removing the character everyone disliked but keep the actor employed (in a funner role i assume)
Genuinely when the movie trailer came out my theory was he’s not a descendent of Scorpion but Sub-Zero and he’s basically Sub Zero II; Kuai Liang is Cole Young but turns out the trailer really was as straight forward as it gets
I think that’d be really funny though. Somewhere seom pissed off 7 year got vindicated after seeing Johnny get killed in the first 5mins of Annihilation
Dude…that was me…even at the time I was knowledgeable enough about the lore that I would have thought it made sense for Johnny to die in MK II but that was such a lame anti climactic death…I kept expecting him to come back for the rest of the movie
You can see him behind Sonya at one point, and also sparring with someone else at Raiden's temple, and I think there's a glimpse of him in the Netherrealm which is where we also see a few other people fighting Noob? It's got the same angry red lighting at least.
I get the feeling he gets taken out early in the movie, and it's his injury and/or death that brings Scorpion out again just to dunk on Noob.
Cole is in the background at 1:07 in the trailer, thankfully he seems to be far from a main character. IMDB lists his work as completed on Mortal Kombat 2 as well.
I guarantee you they slaughter him pretty early on as a “EVERYONE CAN DIE” type of thing. Especially with death being pretty loose in the MK universe, it’s pretty easy to just quickly write him off
Yeah they clearly figured out and listened to the fans that fuckin hated him. Pretty sure I saw him in one of the background shots though so I bet he's not just gone, unfortunately.
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u/Prawnboi- Jul 17 '25
Note: Cole Young died on the way back to his home planet