Mortal Kombat 2021 Embraces The Game’s Reboot Timeline Over MK’s Original

While Mortal Kombat2021 looks to emulate aspects of the original games, its overall presentation seems more akin to the later reboot timeline. In the world of movies and TV shows, franchises being rebooted, revived, remade, or retconned has become extremely common, especially in the last decade or two. Hollywood has seemingly decided that at least three quarters of their slates need to involve established IPs at all times, and as much as that pains those longing for new stories, said reboots and revivals tend to perform well financially.

However, non-interactive entertainment by no means has a monopoly on the dominance of established IPs in the marketplace, and the love of big studios for remaking, rebooting, and reviving old favorites. Such franchises as Tomb Raider, God of War, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear have all seen themselves reinvented in recent years, all to pretty great results. Also revamped for the better was Mortal Kombat, in 2011. After the downfall of Midway Games and Mortal Kombat‘s acquisition by Warner Bros., it was time for a change, and fans got one.

The original Mortal Kombat timeline had come to a close in underwhelming fashion with the PS2 era game Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, but newly formed developer NetherRealm Studios knocked fans socks off with Mortal Kombat 9, official titled simply Mortal Kombat. That game led to an ongoing tale told in subsequent sequels Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11. For better or worse, the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie seems to be showing more than a little deference to the reboot timeline.

Mortal Kombat 2021 Embraces The Game’s Reboot Timeline Over MK’s Original

In the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, the only character to appear in any kind of major role that wasn’t in the original video game was Kitana. Everything else focused on the original game’s roster of tournament competitors, those being Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Kano, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, Raiden, Shang Tsung, and Goro. By contrast, Mortal Kombat 2021 has already revealed it’ll be incorporating characters like Jax, Mileena, and Kabal into the mix. Jax and Mileena debuted in Mortal Kombat 2, while Kabal debuted in 3.

The 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot game retold the story of the initial tournament, and the first three games as a whole, while retconning characters into the original tournament that didn’t debut until later, such as the three mentioned previously. That looks to be the same thing the 2021 movie is doing. The only weird exceptions to this rule are the absence of Johnny Cage and the inclusion of Nitara. Cage figures prominently into the reboot timeline, while Nitara has only made a mere cameo in it, only being playable during the original timeline games. Still, it’s often the exceptions that prove any rule, and it does appear that the new Mortal Kombat movie is looking to the game reboot for inspiration.

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