Just a few hours ago, Warner Bros. released the first Mortal Kombat trailer. The short video has been warmly welcomed by most fighting game fans, who got treated with a bunch of the splatter scenes they were used to see while playing with Liu Kang, Raiden, Sonya, and the others. Shortly after the trailer was released, Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid got the chance to comment on it and offer some tidbits about it.
The director almost immediately took on the subject of the creative liberties he has taken from the franchise. Unlike in some versions of the games, Jax loses his arms due to Sub-Zero in the trailer.
“We have really tried to be very truthful and true to the canon where we can be, but every now and again, we might deviate slightly where we felt that it was okay to do so and kind of where there’s precedent,” McQuoid said while talking with IGN.
The primal liberty they took from the MK story is that they introduced a new character called Cole Young, an MMA fighter. According to the director, the most crucial thing about Cole is that audience can empathize with him.
“We felt it was okay to bring in a new character, given that Mortal Kombat has over the years introduced new characters quite a bit,” McQuoid said. “It’s not like it’s ever just stuck to the same classic set.”
You can watch the full video in the player below. Reminder: like the regular version, it’s still NSFW.
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Next, he said that the movie would also take on Scorpion’s birth, confirming what actor Hiroyuki Sanada has recently revealed. The director then discussed fatalities, one of the trademarks of the franchise.
“The fatalities were always in from the getgo,” he stated. “There was never any question from anyone at all. There was no resistance from the studio. They wanted them. I wanted them.”
He then went on to add that the fatalities are never for their own sake, but they are always part of a bigger narrative. According to McQuoid, they are an essential ingredient in the rhythm of the action scene.
“There’s a fatality from Kano. He ripped someone’s heart out,” he concluded. “But what was important to me was that even when the fatalities arrived, we couldn’t just do a fatality and have it mean nothing.”
Mortal Kombat will debut hit both theaters and HBO Max on April 16.
What do you make of the director’s words? Let us know in the comments section below.
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