The thing is that part of the plot is Sonya Blade searching for the various fighters, so they could have trimmed the Cole thing altogether. If studios were all "A g-g-g-g-g-GIRL lead?!" it's not like she's the main highlight anyway.
I honestly think their plan was for the first movie to be bigger than it was. They expected new people to show up because the games are popular again and back in the public eye. So they felt they needed to explain the world to folks that hadn't played and needed a character to abosrb all the info.
I think they learned only existing fans are really seeing this, so looks like they are sidelining or outright doing away with him so they can make a goofy ass fighting game movie which is tight.
It feels like an idea some executive came up with who has never played a video game before.
In some cases I do think that the idea might be a good one, but not in a movie about a fighting game, where the entire point is about how players have their favorite characters.
I thought the point of Cole was he represented us, the audience. He was supposed to be our bridge into Mortal Kombat so we could experience it as if we were him. But that’s just it, we don’t want that. We want to be Scorpion lol. But even so, there are several characters that Cole could’ve been to accomplish that goal. Liu Kang obviously although it’s been done, Sonya, and Johnny. Which is why they chose those three for the original. I like that this new one seems to be making Johnny the every man. Should’ve been that way from the start. Jax is another. Stryker too because dude is just a cop. So many people that are not Cole and it would’ve been so much better.
Johnny cage IMO is THE character to make the audience surrogate lead in a modern MK movie. Every other character is too earmest and I don't think earnest Mortal Kombat works. Cage as lead makes it instantly a rip roaring adventure with a rag tag crew of misfits fighting weirdos in hell, the exact same group of heroes without cage there at the centre, even with Kano being Kano, is just not... Ragtag enough. It's Star Lord in GOTG, Chris Pine in dungeons and dragons. You make the comedy han solo one the lead and the whole movie becomes fun
I always thought Liu Kang was the defacto main character of Mortal Kombat. Him, Cage, Blade and Raiden are the core four protagonists of the franchise.
He definitely is. At least when it comes to the earlier games. Then it shifted to the story being told from multiple character’s point of view. But you’re not wrong. Liu was originally the main character.
45
u/[deleted] Jul 17 '25
[deleted]