If it ain't broke fix it till it is.
Jun. 26th, 2009 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariI've dabbled in script writing for years, but I've always been hindered by the whole "In order to write on TV/Movies, you need to be in the Writer's Guild...and to get in the guild, you have to have a TV/Movie produced." Add to that the whole "I'm going to rewrite you till your story has no resemblance to the story you worked on" attitude of Hollywood, and I never really had much faith of writing anything that would be produced, so I kinda gave up on it.
I was also a bit of a Mortal Kombat "Superfan" during the MK2 to MK4 heyday. I knew the stories backwards and forwards, up and down, left and right. My fandom cooled off after Usenet turned into spam hell, the MK community went from Usenet to the Web (::plug:: http://www.mortalkombatonline.com ::plug::) and Mortal Kombat turned into Tekken (Still a good game, I just can't remember all those long strings of combos).
But, back to 1995. The Mortal Kombat movie had just come out and was hugely popular. Frankly, it wasn't a bad movie, and I loved it. Loved it so much, when I heard Threshold Entertainment was considering a sequel, I had an idea for a sequel, and wrote to Threshold Entertainment to see if they'd be interested in a spec script based on the first movie (I knew at the time that you can't just send a script to a producer as (1)They're usually trashed without being read and (2) if it's accidentally read, they're pretty much legally obligated to not do the script). They of course turned it down. Later I asked again if they were taking spec scripts for the Mortal Kombat Conquest series (I had an idea that was an expansion of something![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
audaciousd had come up with (we make quite the writing team)) but again they weren't interested at all.
So neither idea went anywhere. I don't remember much of the Conquest idea, other than it had something to do with Serena from the Mortal Kombat Mythologies "world" showing up in Conquest after being nearly killed by Shinnok in the game. But I DO remember my version of the Mortal Kombat sequel, which I personally think is better than the movie they made (which most folks and fans alike found....lacking).
Wanna hear about it?
The end of the original Mortal Kombat movie ends with Shang Tsung defeated, Liu Kang's Brother's death avenged and our heroes, Sonya, Cage, Kang, Kitana and "Rayden" coming home after a job well done. That is until Shao Khan enters in an explosion of special effects threatens to take over, the heroes say "I don't think so." and then the first movie ends....
My sequel picks up a few weeks after the last scene in the last movie. Earth is slowly being ravaged much like Outworld was ravaged as Shao Khan enslaves the planet continent by continent. Jax (with no freaking Super Arms), Kang, Sonya, Cage and Kitana are living underground attempting to start up an underground to help overthrow Shao Khan, when Rayden shows up with Kitana's sister, Mileena (for those of you who know your MK mythos, at this time, she's obviously human, although wearing her traditional mask, and Kitana trusts her as her sister).
Mileena's crossed over at great peril to contact Rayden and the small underground cell on Earth, because she has been heading an underground cell on Outworld of humans (well, outworldians) and Mutants. Mileena is there to try and team the Earther's underground movement with the Outworld one and overthrow Shao Khan. She suggest a summit between the Earth fighters and the leaders of the human and mutant undergrounds in Outworld. the Outworl underground is much more organized and wide spread - they could help build the Earth underground, and at the same time, the Earthers could provide intelligence on the growing Khan Empire on Earth. They agree to meet in Outworld, since the network is much more established there.
There's an adventure as our heroes get through the portal between Earth and Outworld, mostly with Rayden doing everything he can as God of the Earth Realm first to distract the guards, then to keep the portal open as our heroes fight their way into Outworld. They make it, and are faced witha long trek in the windblown deserts of outworld to an underground cave where the heads of several of the outworld leaders are waiting. Mileena asks for Baraka, who is the head of the mutant underground, and hasn't shown up. He walks in, explaining the only other Earth group he could contact was the White Lotus Society, and (being a mutant) they figured him for a Trooper in Khan's Army. The only person the Society would send: Kung Lao.
The meeting is short, and Mileena and Baraka come to the conclusion that if they have all the warriors here who kileed Khan's minions (Goro, Shang Tsung, Sub Zero, Reptile and Scorpion in the first movie) they should make a move now. They also offer to go with the group, but Kang is worried abotu having them along. Thinking that Kang's misgivings that Mileena and Baraka weren't fighters, Kitana says that as her sister, she had as much trainign as Kitana has had. And Kung Lao vouches for Baraka saying that he not only fight agains the Lotus Society and survived, he "left many a scar on my friends to remind them of their fight." With everyone's agreement to fight Khan, everyone smiles and cheers. What we see, that the assembled team don't see, is that Mileena grabs, holds and squeezes Baraka's hand.
The head to Shao Khan's towers, meeting wasteland monsters and enemy troops on their way including Kintaro, who is out on a hunt to kill everyone at the summit - Jax and Sonya defeat him, but Sonya is badly wounded. Kitana orders one of the mutants to take Sonya back to a place of safety to heal her. Once at Khan's tower, they work their way up the tower, eventually meeting up with the reanimated remains of Sub Zero and Scorpion, who occupy Jax and Kung Lao while the others continue scrambling up the tower.
At the top, Mileena, Baraka, Kitana, Cage and Kang get all the way to Khans chamber. Just as Kitana, Cage and Kang thing "This was too easy" they realize it was. Mileena and Baraka turn on Kitana, Cage and Kang. The whole plot was for Khan to bring the Earth Realms underground leaders here to destroy them himself. The reward for Mileena's and Baraka's treachery? They're made King and Queen of earth. Mileena removes her mask to reveal she is a human mutant hybrid as in the game. Kitana and Mileena square off (They're both outworlders and equally strong) and Kang and Cage fight against Baraka.
Kitana kills Mileena and is badly huirt, but turns her attention to Baraka, who has mortally wounded Cage. Cage seeing Kitana fight with Baraka, decides to go straight for Khan himself. He fight bravely, but Khan is just too strong and Cage too hurt. Khan kills Cage. Kang sees this, becmoes enraged but can't get away from Baraka and Kitana's fight. Kitana tells him to just go, she can handle Baraka. Kang goes into a berzerker rage, fighting against Khan but isn't making as much of a dent as he should be. He then realizes that he's out of control from anger, and tries to recenter himself in the middle of the battle. Using more controlled methods, and a slightly weakened Khan (Cage did manage to hurt him even while wounded), Kang kills Khan.
It's just Kitana and Kang now, and each go to their fallen comrades. Kitana to Mileena (mourning the sister she grew up with) and Kang to Cage (rivals who became good friends).
In the wake of Khans death, the respecitve undergrounds are managing to slowly restore order to both Outworld and Earth and even exchange "ambassadors." The outworlders, both Human and Mutant, are working to gether to rebuild their world...but there's a hint that the mutants are being treated as second class citizens (an opening for an MK3 movie). The last shot of the movie is Kitana finding a broken statue of her real father at a far outpost in Outworld, and Kang and Kitana start to rebuild it.
What do you think? This was before MK3 came out, so there aren't many MK3 characters, but I think it works a LOT better than the movie then ended up producing.
I was also a bit of a Mortal Kombat "Superfan" during the MK2 to MK4 heyday. I knew the stories backwards and forwards, up and down, left and right. My fandom cooled off after Usenet turned into spam hell, the MK community went from Usenet to the Web (::plug:: http://www.mortalkombatonline.com ::plug::) and Mortal Kombat turned into Tekken (Still a good game, I just can't remember all those long strings of combos).
But, back to 1995. The Mortal Kombat movie had just come out and was hugely popular. Frankly, it wasn't a bad movie, and I loved it. Loved it so much, when I heard Threshold Entertainment was considering a sequel, I had an idea for a sequel, and wrote to Threshold Entertainment to see if they'd be interested in a spec script based on the first movie (I knew at the time that you can't just send a script to a producer as (1)They're usually trashed without being read and (2) if it's accidentally read, they're pretty much legally obligated to not do the script). They of course turned it down. Later I asked again if they were taking spec scripts for the Mortal Kombat Conquest series (I had an idea that was an expansion of something
audaciousd had come up with (we make quite the writing team)) but again they weren't interested at all.So neither idea went anywhere. I don't remember much of the Conquest idea, other than it had something to do with Serena from the Mortal Kombat Mythologies "world" showing up in Conquest after being nearly killed by Shinnok in the game. But I DO remember my version of the Mortal Kombat sequel, which I personally think is better than the movie they made (which most folks and fans alike found....lacking).
Wanna hear about it?
The end of the original Mortal Kombat movie ends with Shang Tsung defeated, Liu Kang's Brother's death avenged and our heroes, Sonya, Cage, Kang, Kitana and "Rayden" coming home after a job well done. That is until Shao Khan enters in an explosion of special effects threatens to take over, the heroes say "I don't think so." and then the first movie ends....
My sequel picks up a few weeks after the last scene in the last movie. Earth is slowly being ravaged much like Outworld was ravaged as Shao Khan enslaves the planet continent by continent. Jax (with no freaking Super Arms), Kang, Sonya, Cage and Kitana are living underground attempting to start up an underground to help overthrow Shao Khan, when Rayden shows up with Kitana's sister, Mileena (for those of you who know your MK mythos, at this time, she's obviously human, although wearing her traditional mask, and Kitana trusts her as her sister).
Mileena's crossed over at great peril to contact Rayden and the small underground cell on Earth, because she has been heading an underground cell on Outworld of humans (well, outworldians) and Mutants. Mileena is there to try and team the Earther's underground movement with the Outworld one and overthrow Shao Khan. She suggest a summit between the Earth fighters and the leaders of the human and mutant undergrounds in Outworld. the Outworl underground is much more organized and wide spread - they could help build the Earth underground, and at the same time, the Earthers could provide intelligence on the growing Khan Empire on Earth. They agree to meet in Outworld, since the network is much more established there.
There's an adventure as our heroes get through the portal between Earth and Outworld, mostly with Rayden doing everything he can as God of the Earth Realm first to distract the guards, then to keep the portal open as our heroes fight their way into Outworld. They make it, and are faced witha long trek in the windblown deserts of outworld to an underground cave where the heads of several of the outworld leaders are waiting. Mileena asks for Baraka, who is the head of the mutant underground, and hasn't shown up. He walks in, explaining the only other Earth group he could contact was the White Lotus Society, and (being a mutant) they figured him for a Trooper in Khan's Army. The only person the Society would send: Kung Lao.
The meeting is short, and Mileena and Baraka come to the conclusion that if they have all the warriors here who kileed Khan's minions (Goro, Shang Tsung, Sub Zero, Reptile and Scorpion in the first movie) they should make a move now. They also offer to go with the group, but Kang is worried abotu having them along. Thinking that Kang's misgivings that Mileena and Baraka weren't fighters, Kitana says that as her sister, she had as much trainign as Kitana has had. And Kung Lao vouches for Baraka saying that he not only fight agains the Lotus Society and survived, he "left many a scar on my friends to remind them of their fight." With everyone's agreement to fight Khan, everyone smiles and cheers. What we see, that the assembled team don't see, is that Mileena grabs, holds and squeezes Baraka's hand.
The head to Shao Khan's towers, meeting wasteland monsters and enemy troops on their way including Kintaro, who is out on a hunt to kill everyone at the summit - Jax and Sonya defeat him, but Sonya is badly wounded. Kitana orders one of the mutants to take Sonya back to a place of safety to heal her. Once at Khan's tower, they work their way up the tower, eventually meeting up with the reanimated remains of Sub Zero and Scorpion, who occupy Jax and Kung Lao while the others continue scrambling up the tower.
At the top, Mileena, Baraka, Kitana, Cage and Kang get all the way to Khans chamber. Just as Kitana, Cage and Kang thing "This was too easy" they realize it was. Mileena and Baraka turn on Kitana, Cage and Kang. The whole plot was for Khan to bring the Earth Realms underground leaders here to destroy them himself. The reward for Mileena's and Baraka's treachery? They're made King and Queen of earth. Mileena removes her mask to reveal she is a human mutant hybrid as in the game. Kitana and Mileena square off (They're both outworlders and equally strong) and Kang and Cage fight against Baraka.
Kitana kills Mileena and is badly huirt, but turns her attention to Baraka, who has mortally wounded Cage. Cage seeing Kitana fight with Baraka, decides to go straight for Khan himself. He fight bravely, but Khan is just too strong and Cage too hurt. Khan kills Cage. Kang sees this, becmoes enraged but can't get away from Baraka and Kitana's fight. Kitana tells him to just go, she can handle Baraka. Kang goes into a berzerker rage, fighting against Khan but isn't making as much of a dent as he should be. He then realizes that he's out of control from anger, and tries to recenter himself in the middle of the battle. Using more controlled methods, and a slightly weakened Khan (Cage did manage to hurt him even while wounded), Kang kills Khan.
It's just Kitana and Kang now, and each go to their fallen comrades. Kitana to Mileena (mourning the sister she grew up with) and Kang to Cage (rivals who became good friends).
In the wake of Khans death, the respecitve undergrounds are managing to slowly restore order to both Outworld and Earth and even exchange "ambassadors." The outworlders, both Human and Mutant, are working to gether to rebuild their world...but there's a hint that the mutants are being treated as second class citizens (an opening for an MK3 movie). The last shot of the movie is Kitana finding a broken statue of her real father at a far outpost in Outworld, and Kang and Kitana start to rebuild it.
What do you think? This was before MK3 came out, so there aren't many MK3 characters, but I think it works a LOT better than the movie then ended up producing.
