#i don't really blame liu kang but don't blame shang tsung for jumping on the first ocassion to get out of his miserable life either | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dbittz · 9 months

Text

Mortal Komabt 1 Story/Theme Thoughts (Spoilers)

Mortal Kombat 1 released recently. I haven't played it cause I don't have a PS5, but I want to be apart of it so I've watched gameplay and I know how the story unfolds. I have a lot of thoughts about everything but if there is one thing I want to say/express is that while I love a lot of what happens with this game and the "reboot" aspect of it all, part of me feels that they dropped the ball in a way at the end. I'll try to explain as we go and I think the biggest clue or upset is the tagline and ultimately how the story unfolds.

"It's in our Blood". That is the big tagline for the MK1. What I got from this and what they initially showed is that no matter what changes Liu Kang made to restart the universe and make it better, it wouldn't work. That humans/creatures/characters at their core are violent or that combat is an essential part of life. I see this type of theme or tagline and I'm like "Yes! Let's roll with it." I was really excited to see these Iconic characters in the "perfect" world Liu Kang made when he restarted it at the end of MK 11, only for it to all fall apart because no matter what changes Liu Kang made, each character had a core aspect of their personality that brings them back to the character we know them as. Thus, the cycle/events would repeat themselves.

An example I would love to see this with is Shang Tsung. We know him to be a bad guy. He's always been a bad guy. It would be interesting to see how someone would go about making him not a bad guy. How would they change his life? Would they take his powers away? Give him a good life where he didn't need anything else? How would he fall? How would he become a villain again? Is it circumstance? Or is there a fundamental part of Shang Tsung that will always bring him back to the villain we know? It's in his blood. That is the story I would've loved to follow with him Shang and the rest of the MK characters.

Instead, SPOILERS, the story we get is that, Liu Kang is the villain and he has no one to blame but himself for setting up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi to be bad guys. Why? He made their lives fucking miserable. Sure, I get it. The two fucked up a lot of shit and are responsible for some problems, but instead of trying to fix their lives and make them good, Liu Kang tries to make their lives "mundane". Sure he could've done that, but what did he do? He made Shang Tsung a snake oil salesman who would get beaten up when it's discovered his product doesn't work while we learn from the story that Quan Chi worked in the mines. Heck, Havik was a slave who was treated poorly by the rulers of OrderRealm. Like no wonder he wanted to rebel against the governing class. Given the situations these characters were put in, it's no wonder they jumped at a chance for power, to be who they see themselves as.

Now, you could say this is in line with the theme of "It's in our blood" and I see it. No matter what Liu Kang did to restart the world, it ultimately would be one of conflict, kombat, where people are mistreated, evil returns and good must fight back. We find out that there had been a War in Outworld. Jarrod is dead again, like the guy just can't live happily with his wife and daughter(s). But part of me feels like Liu Kang could've tried a little harder to make the universe a better place before it feel apart.

Maybe I'm just upset they did the multiple timelines things that intersected where all the events unfold because evil Shang Tsung from MK 11 manipulated MK 1 Shang Tsung. Lol. Like, in a way it's cool because it takes in account the multiple endings from MK 11, but it also feels like such a cop out.

Overall, the story for MK 1 is a lot of fun. The new origins for everyone and everything were fun to see and experience. And in a way it was fun to see that despite the changes, these characters are still who they are. That they held on to the core aspects of their character, for better and worse. The new changes were also good, like Baraka actually having a character/personality instead of just being a goon. lol

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #Spoilers #theme #story #thoughts #it's in our blood

2 notes · View notes