Episode 65: Mortal Kombat

Dog good, How are you good? Good? Ben? So we're covering Mortal Mortal Kombat and you have a Mortal podcast. How long has it been going on for? I just released the tenth episode. My guest was Iffy Hell and uh, I just decided to I'm like, okay, well, so I'll pause for a minute and call that the first season because because we got through all the characters that are

in Mortal Kombat one. Yeah. I know you asked me on it last month and I was like, this is actually not my background, and You're like it doesn't matter. The whole the whole premise of the podcast is that I I've spent my whole life knowing way too much

about Mortal Kombat. And keeping up with the story, and so every episode, I have a friend who ideally, I've had a couple of people who were like, no, almost as much as I do about it, but ideally a friend who knows nothing about Mortal Kombat at all, and I kind of combat explain um the entire lord like twenty seven year continuitous Mortal Kombat, Laura, from the perspective of a single character, if you we have been doing

this podcast wrong. We have been bringing on experts every week, and we should be bringing on people that know nothing so that we could just explain to them what it is. Bring on some real du faces, like my guess. Can you imagine last week when we had a COI like, and we just brought some that has no idea what who Spider Man is? It would be somebody that would be like legitimately would probably just be someone's mom or something. Nobody you knows mom. I'm very certain anyone you guys

knows his mom's will know about Spiderman. I bet she would know Spiderman. I bet she would know, but I don't think she would know Peter Park Like. I know that sounds crazy, but I bet if I were like, what spider Man's real name. Obviously, if I said Peter would John spider Man. Anyways, Yeah, yeah, we've been starting our podcast out with what you're geeking out about? What are you getting out about this week? Uh, this week, especially because today there was a big game. I'm geeking

out about the US women's soccer team. Yeah are I have not been a fan of the sport for long, admittedly, I just started watching during this World Cup a little more regularly. And they're just really strong and fast, yeah, and intense and cool and uh, I love them and they're my heroes and I'm geeking out. It's funny. It's been a known fact that the women's soccer team, the

US women's soccer team is just way better than comically better. Yeah, Like they have succeeded, Like this wouldn't be like their first try, Like it's not. It's kind of not a surprise that they're doing well because they have consistently done well in the Women's World Cup, which again is is the World Cup. It's just for women, and consistently the US is like one of the greatest teams in the world. Yeah we are. Yeah, I'm so excited. Thanks for bringing

that up. Yeah, it's awesome, and then I look forward to seeing them playing in the finals this weekend. So wait, people will have it. We're in the future now the drops. So I am really enjoyed watching them when in the finals. And I hope that this doesn't sound comically ignorant when this episode air's Yeah yeah, no, um they've The US women's World Cup team has won three World Cups? Yeah what years it was? The one that has shown me is uh the last one is in two thousand fifteen,

looks like which was the last World Cup? Yeah? Ok, yeah yeah, and then before that was eleven, and I think they won that one. What win was Mia Hammond? It oh, because that spawned so many girls named Mia. Everybody I knew that was having babies then named their

daughter Mia. So we won in two thous Okay, So, so the women's team won the last World Cup and is still paid less than the men's US team, which is worse and way less people watch their games, but just makes sense for for the whole it just so

you can know. So two thousand fifteen they won. In two thousand and eleven, they got second place, in two thousand seven, they got third place in two thousand three before that third place they won at that and so they haven't not got top three and they they're just one of the greatest teams in sports in the world historically from the last I'm gonna look up US Men's World's Cup us rrible mention over and over, big fat doughnut, Big fat donuts. This is very painful for me. Um.

But the wage gap is real. It's real. It is tangible. Yeah. God, Okay, let's move on before I get blow an artery. What are you geeking out about? You know what I'm geeking out about is dream Works has lined up a new series called Kipo and the Age of Wonder Bees that's going to be on Netflix. And somebody here wrote for it. That person has bent it's me. I wrote for it. God, it's such a good show. And I'm really it's it's an animated show. I should have said that. Did I

say that? Yeah? So I think it comes with the Yeah, um, guys, it's so cool. I think I'm allowed to say pretty much nothing other than it comes out. But like you created it, Rad Secris, Uh, and it was developed by Bill Wilkoff, and Uh, it was really, really, really great writing staff was the most fun I ever had working on a TV show. Um, there for a while. I was there for a year and a half, and I don't think I'm allowed to say, well, I was there,

But there's a lot of really great ship. Yeah, very exciting, definitely. I don't know if you all have started a Twitter, Instagram or whatever for the show, but people should follow it, or you guys should create one and people should follow it. It'll it'll be out there eventually. Until then, you just have no choice but to follow me on social media for me to direct you towards more. Check out some of the Yeah, go check out some of the It's set in a post apocalyptic time. Uh, it's a girl, right,

that's true. This is in I want to You should see Ben's face right now. I'm trying. This is what I'm reading from Hollywood Reporter then, so it's okay. It's not any of our private conversation waiting for me to miss. I know you can see his face when I asked him, he started a sweat. Um. Yeah, it's post apocalyptic. She Anyways, this is from the Hollywood Reporter that DreamWorks gave them, so you're fine. Anyways, the animation is really beautiful. Check

it out. Postocalyptic, lots of big cute animals and other surprises coming. If you what are you seeking out about? I'm geeking out about the new season of Apex Legends. We got a new map change, we got a new hero, Uh Watson, She's amazing, she'll zapp you good. And that that gets me hyped, and I think the runner up behind that for me is definitely con season. We're getting

ready for San Diego Comic Con. By the time you're hearing this, I would have already done our t X and Anime Expo and Danny's uh and Danny's and then after that, Uh, we have a twitch Con. So I'm soups excited. And you know, any of the nerd fam or Salt squad who plans on being down in San Diego for twitch Con, let me know. I'm gonna put a channel for it in the discord so we can do one big Salt fan meet up and NERD fan meet up where nerdificent or Salt fan shirt or um

or I'm a tickle on the subject of salt. I saw a custom video game controller today where by pouring salt you can quit out of a match. Online. Really it had a I don't know how that it worked, but it had a sensor that you could pour salt onto and it would quit you out of now, man, I need that. Well. Speaking about quitting, uh, quitting out matches and being salty, we're talking about Mortal Kombat. Mortal

great game. I really hope to play something. Oh yes, if my little brother was exactly that person that if you were beating him, he would just turn off the game. Yeah tactic. And you know what I did. I already said this. I threw his buzz light ear in the pool. And it was really funny, like to get back at him, and he deserved it. And it was really funny as I was talking to one of the animators for Toy Story four and we were saying that we both had

that chrome buzz light ear. I don't know if you remember people out there, remember there was a chrome member one that one came out. Um. I may have also thrown that in the pool. Whatever he deserved it. Please Mortal Kombat. All right, let's get the nitty gritty out

the way. First. Mortal Kombat is media franchise sent around a series of video games originally developed by Midway Games Chicago Studio in the development of the first game was originally based on the idea that Ed Boone and John Tobias had of making a video game starring Sean Claude Van Damn, but that idea fell through A fantasy theme

fighting game titled Mortal Kombat was created instead. Mortal Kombat was the first ever fighting game to introduce a secret fighter uh reached at the player fulfilled a set of requirements. The original game has spawned many sequels and spinoffs, consisting of several action adventure games, films, animated and live action, with its own sequel and television series, as well as a comic book series, a card game, and a live

action tour. Along with Street Fight and Second Mortal Kombat has become one of the most successful fighting franchises in the history of video games and one of the highest grossing media franchising of all time. Ben, what was your introduction Immortal Kombat? Like? What do you remember was your first time you got your hands on it? I vividly remember big Foot's Arcade and South Florida, where I grew up. I did not have enough quarters to play a lot of games, and I wasn't good at them because I

was like, I had to have been five or six. Uh, I have this memory. But because I could play like a game for like five seconds and I was out of quarters, I would just stand in front of Mortal Kombat Kay Cabinet and watch the like character profiles flipped by and yeah, that's like a that is a struggle story. Yeah.

I would just watch it in a tract mode, which is what they call the arcade games, and they just start going through screens trying to attract people to play, and I was like, Cabinet, you've convinced me I would like to play. I just can't. I don't have the

I don't have coinage. So I would just study the like little character profiles and I became very invested in them because I was like right into thunder God who controls the like for he had a really weird character problem like Mortal Kombat two and three, but it was like he controls the power of the wheels, and I was like, what are the wills and what? And then it would be like sub Zero, He's a ninja who could control ice and it's very mysterious, like well, what

a mystery? And uh, I vividly remember standing there, and then I remember that by the time World Combat four came out, there was a new arcade in town called Blockbuster Golfing Games, and I wanted to go there as soon as it opened because I heard the Mortal Kombat four. So I know that I had to have become obsessed enough at a young enough age that by the time the fourth one came out, I was like, I'll drive a crawl. I will make my mom drive me across town so I can see the cabinet. I probably play

like two times. So you you are a legit Mortal Kombat fan's even before the podcast you're like, oh, no, Mortal Kombat is my jam. Yeah, admittedly, Like I mean, I worked at a lot of nerdy places in my time. It's been a lot of time working at nerdicet, and I always kind of felt like odd man out, So I'm not. I feel like I'm not nerdy enough about enough things compared to a lot of my friends. With Mortal Kombat, I'm like, uh, painfully nerdy about I know everything.

It's like it's like having your things, like, because I have maybe like five, I don't I can't be nerdy about everything I have maybe four or five things that I know a lot about, and that's what you're brought in for as like the expert, Like you'll be on panels for that specific thing. Yeah, oh man, So yeah, I think my earliest memory of Mortal Kombat was definitely

going to be Ultimate Mortal Kombat three. Like I definitely dabbled in m K one and two and three, but Ultimate Mortal Kombat three is when I remember getting hands on getting like really try and get good with Syrax. I was like, you're definitely going with the cyber ninch and I kept I remember, I was trying so hard to get the move where he opens his chest and shoots a missile out and I could not get it. It's really hard. Yeah, I still care. So so that was where I kind of like really got into it.

But like there's, like doing your podcast, there's like deep lore that has actually built up from the first one and continued that I was really unaware of. I think they've been more dedicated with that franchise to keeping like a continuitous story over almost three decades now then anything else I can think of, And it's all the more

impressive considering like it is just a fighting game. Like it's just a very violent fighting game and you generally speaking, like they'll have stories, but not not as intense as like an RPG. Yeah, they go hard. Yeah, So let's talk about like the actual game it came out. It was a two D fighting game that had a joystick, so that was originally help people played with five buttons. Oh my gosh. So do you still play the like the no, the original ones? I mean I also Ultimate

Mortal Kombat three was like my favorite. I think it was because that wasn't was the one that opened the world up the most, but it was also like joystick two D fighter. Um, but I never really had that at home. I mean, all the consoles that I've owned at home, they haven't really done re releases, especially since I have had consoles that I owned myself. I might have gotten like one of the Midway Arcade treasures or something, but I never had like a fighting stick at home.

Well we but we have so many barcades now, Like is that do you seek out Mortal Kombat when you go to it? Is I gravitate directly towards it. I went to a friend's engagement party recently that was at a barcade and dragged my wife over the Moral Combat four cabinet and we played a bunch and it was great. Anytime I know that Moral kombats in arcade, it's the very first thing I gravitate towards, and I'm still not good. One thing I wanted to on a highlight because, like

you said, it's typically a fighting game. You know, what's your what's your punch strong strong punch, uh kick strong kick type moves that you string in the combos. But one thing that set Mortal Kombat apart from other fighting games is they introduced these things called fatalities, which was you know, uh, which is I think one of those things that started off in a nerdy way and transcended it,

which is the line finish him. Apparently it was. The original idea was that it was going to give gamers a free hit at the end of the fight, and it basically evolved into fatalities, and from that it evolved into other things. So the fatalities, it would do some extra gruesome way to to finish off an opponent, like I think, um, the one I remember that kids were talking about in school was Scorpion pulling off his mask and blowing fire and lighting the personal it's a great one.

And the other cool thing about like like they kind of like buried storytelling details in those fatalities because like no one really knew, you know, if you sat down and started playing the game, he picked Scorpion, you started playing, he's just a human ninja wearing the yellow suit. And if you actually get to the fatality, yeah, he pulls his face off and revel City as a skull Underneathan breathes fire and you're like, wait, is he not a person?

And there weren't necessarily answers for like a whole game. Yeah, but but the answer is no, he's not a person.

He is a revenant. Yeah, in the hopes I gotta ask you if he since you grew up around here, I've had two guests on my podcast that also grew up in the l A area, and they had insane rumors going around at their school about fatalities that were not actually in the Moral Kombat games, but they were like rumors going around that were like, I I can't even repeat the horrific stuff these little kids were talking about.

Theorizing Yeah, no, I was gonna say something like having your but pulled out of it like a lot of that was. That was the one I heard, is that Sonja Blade can like rip your genitals. Yeah, it's only as the male character. Yeah, that's not a fatality. It's not it's not a fatality. I went. I went through my whole life assuming that that was. I think it's like a southern CALIFORNIATI are you from around here? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, County Okay. And then but I was in Texas for

high school. So it's clear that Mortal Kombat genital mutilation rumors were going around here because they were obviously the rumors. I think the rumors everywhere because it was such a like, uh taboo thing that kids had access to those things

when we were younger. But in Florida, I can't remember a lot of rumors going around about like genital mutilation, people puppeteering like severed genitals, but apparently a thing every Maybe maybe it was just on one of our cabinets and y'all just didn't get it, because I think it's

weird that all of us down here know about that. Honestly, maybe I'm dominant, isn't there, And I just don't know what The one thing I love about fighting games and also anime is I think that our parents didn't realize

what we were watching like they would. I think with fighting games, like they weren't really paying attention and so they would just be like, um, they would never put that in there kids, you know game because video games are for kids, and anime, like they look at cartoons and animation is like for kids, and so I think if they actually knew what we were exposed to, that's how so many young kids got to watch Evan Gelian even though then for kids because their parents are like, oh,

it's just cartoons, they would the people making this would never put that in there. I just watched the first episode of that show. We actually have to take a really quick break and then we're going to we're already in, but then we're gonna hop back into Mortal Kombat right after this, and welcome back to Nerdificent. You know it's me if you wide away across from me as always, Danny Fernandez and guesting with us to talk about one of combat. Ben Meckler A mac dog. How you doing.

I don't know if I've ever gotten dog feels like one who calls you mac dog, but it flows so well, so I will never I addam Eington to people's names, so you would be like Meckington or whatever. Because my sister in law's Alexis, I call her Lexington. I think because my first name is so short and I've rarely gotten nicknames. Well there you go. Yeah, I get Ferny a lot. So I just like took that great. I hated it growing up, and then I just used it

against them. Um okay, so who is did you gravitate towards? I wanted to talk about the characters with their particular ones that you gravitated towards in the beginning that changed over time. Yeah, I kind of was just thinking about this actually, So, I mean I always gravitated. I was always like a monster kid. I love monster movies. And so in Mortal Kombat, you know, you have like soldiers like Sony Blade and like Hollywood movie stars like Johnny

Case next to actual like monsters. Uh, so I always gravitated towards them, like to Reptile, who's essentially a dinosaur ninja and Goro, who's like a half dragon prince. It looks like a giant forearmed ogre um. And then as they started adding like robots and other sorts of fantasy creatures. That was always where I gravitated. I know a lot of kids when I was younger were super into like

Scorpion and sub Zero. I think once I actually started trying to be good at playing those games, I gravitated towards sub Zero just because he was like pretty easy to pick up, and I'm just not good at video games as much as I like them. Um. But most recently, I've started getting really into playing as Luke Kang in the NU Mortal Kombat, which I was surprised I liked him so much because I always thought he was so four because he was kind of like because like it's

like picking Luke Skywalker in a Star Wars game. It's like, well, he's the he's just not super interesting. Yeah yeah he is. Yeah, but he's just like he's like a prototypical hero. But because Mortal Kombat storytelling is so like wow yeah no mk Levin, Luke Kang looks straight up like Han solo

cause player. Um yeah, I've gotten into playing I said recently, because they've just taken him on such an insane journey where he started as kind of like a boring prototypical hero and has now gone through some truly insane ship. He's been dead and alive and alive and dead over and over again, good and evil that I find him a lot more interesting now than I did before. But I think that's like something more. Kombat always been really

good at changing characters and evolving them. If he who are the ones that you were into as always a Scorpion guy, Scorpion, and then which was anyone who were yellow? Yeah? Yeah, I got it. Yeah, that was there my guy. I loved him. I was big, big, big fan u And even when I came back from Mortal Kombat ten, I went back to Scorpion. I just love the flame and the teleportation. You know. I was actually, uh, do you know much about cyrax Is? Like backstory? No, what's what's

his deal? So when you came on my podcast, you were joking about being like the one guy who didn't fit in with the rest of Scorpions Clan uh in Japan the share I are you, Yeah, cyrax is that but for the Linn quit for the Chinese Ninja clan uh sub Zeros clan. Yeah, he's like not Chinese. I don't know. I think he can accident in MK nine, but he's like not from there. He is like the odd man out where you never really get a full backstory on like where he came from or what he's

doing with those guys. Um, But he's kind of awesome. And he's also like the tragic monster of the Cyber Ninjas because he is the one who did not want to be turned into a robot, but was forced into a cyborg body. So he just like woke up one day and looked at himself. I was like, oh God, what if I had become and my body has literally been discarded? So I'm like this forever. Now. One thing I like about Cyrax two is I went back to

his original art. Now he's very robot, but really these dudes were just in dirt by gear and they a helmet, and I like that they three different colors. Yeah, in the that was the span of the creativity and making these robo guys. Do you know how many Mortal Kombat characters there are? I should because I'm trying to do all of them, but it's got to be in the fifties or sixties. I'm looking at a poster with them and it looks no joke like the Infinity War posters,

just like all of them stuffed on there. That's not even up to date because I know that art is from like a few games ago. Yeah. Yeah. In the spirit of Mortal podcast, I'm gonna just do a slight deep dive into the cy rex by backstory so apparently. Yeah, so you're right. Cyrax was a member of the Lynn Quake Lan with sub Zero, Sector and Smoke, and when the clan decides to utilize modern technology by converting its

members into soul, is Cyborgs initiative? Yeah? Yeah, sub Zero was like, I'm out failed, which sucks because Smoke was like his best friend. He was like later, so did Smoke get turned into a robot? Although in the new timeline because there's two different timelines. Yeah, it's kind of like the Star Trek reboot, and like their side timelines, Smoke did not get turned into Cyborg and sub Zero did. Whoa yeah, but then Smoke died and sub Zero got

on Cyborg somehow. I love it. Yeah, man, let's tell the audience original roster the original roster was, and their moves, all of the moves, okay, not all of the don't just give me give them give me their signature move a what they look like radon thunder god. Uh, he's got lightning in his eyes, and so of course his

moves are all lightning based. His most iconic probably is going completely horizontal and flying across the screen, and flying with your body across the score does not look good anymore, but it's of its time. It's perfect. I love it. Um. Let's see who else we got. Uh. Well, the first you mentioned that Mortal Komba had the first ever hidden character. Uh,

that was reptile. Um. He I think he actually, you know, he may have appeared in the background of the first game, been playable in the second, but were just pot acid. He's as a terran um lu Kang. Of course, he has a lot of Bruce Lee inspired moves. He's very much inspired by Bruce Lee. He can throw fireballs, which Bruce Lee, to my knowledge, was not able to do. Son you blade. He was in the US Special Forces in the military, so a lot of guns stuff shooting guns.

Johnny Cage Hollywood movie star, so of course he could do a kick where he slid forward on green energy blasts, just like Jean Claude van Dam who he's inspired by because they couldn't actually do a j CVD game, so they made Johnny Cage as a parody of Jean Claude vandam he like stands out so much from the other character. It's hilarious that he was literally created as like a goof.

They're like, what if his missical island of monsters and ninjas in a fighting tournament, and what if the Hollywood actor went there to prove that he doesn't use visual effects in his action movies. And now he's like the most sympathetic character in the whole series. He's wound up becoming like a great guy and a good dad, and he has like a tragic romantic storyline in the most recent game. It's kind of great. Who else the first

sub zero who eventually became noopsibot um behn was in there. He's, of course suberiously throws uh you know, freezy balls. Scorpion naturally revenant undead ninja who was there to kill Behond to get revenge for allegedly murder during his entire clan. Uh Scorpions got fire moves because he's a little demon

from Hell, so a lot of hell fire moves. Um Goro, who was one of the sub bosses where he was thus sub boss big fore armed half dragon Shokan Prince pick you up in a punch you with his top arms while he held you up with his bottom arms. Shank Sung sorcerer who hosted the first Mortal Kombat tournament on his island, which had the very clever name of Shank Song's Island. Ah. He is a sorcerer who can steal your soul. So one of his iconic moves is

stealing your soul. You know that that um Dream Daddy game? Yes, I do. This is like the original Dream Daddy. Yeah. There are a lot of daddy's. Only one mommy was just Sonia Blade, I mean originally. Now there's a lot of mommies. Yes, I think I got everyone. Yeah. If not, somebody will write you. Yeah. If not, someone can just be mad at me and I'll just say, yo, buddy, how have you made ten episodes of a podcast about this? Eat stuff? Wait? So let's talk about the if he's

something happened? Yeah, yeah, the movie. I was trying to read off the cast of the movie, which had Christopher Lambert as Raiding Robin Shoe as lu Kane uh Lyndon Ashby as Johnny Cage, Carrie Hairoi Tagawa as Shang Zung, who most recently came back for MK Levin. Yeah. Everyone, everyone has been so hyped about Oh my gosh, h Bridget Wilson Sampras as Sonya Blade and Talisa Soto as Katana. Trevor Goddard as Kanoh sorry, Kano was also in the first game. Yeah, I will admit that. Chris Casa Massa

as Scorpion, France as sub Zero. I don't know a lot of these actors. Keith Cook as Reptile, Hakim Alston as the Fighting Monk. Yeah, you have long left behind recognized not play. These are NPC what's known as an extra. But yeah, that movie, Yeah, it was like, you know, looking back on it, it's probably not great, you know, but when I saw it as a kid, I remember coming out of that theater swinging my fist ready to fight. I was so into, probably scared the stuffing out of

some people coming into the theater. I'm realizing how much I default to discussing. I don't remember what was the plot of this movie is. It was basically a remake of Entered the Dragon. Um, it was just that a bunch of people get summoned to an island for a mysterious fighting tournament that winds up having the fate of the world at stake. Um as you do. Yeah, but the hero onto it's got to be in the history of action movies. It's got to be one of the

great uh like meetups of hero ensembles. It's literally like, all right, there's this guy Luke Kang who's partnered up with a thunder god name Raydon, who's on his way to this island to get revenge on the person holding the tournament for killing his brother. He teams up with a Hollywood actor trying to prove that he doesn't use visual effects in his movies, and uh, someone from the military who's tracking down a mercenary who killed her partner who's going to the island to try to get rich,

and the three of them become buddies. Yeah, yes, yeah, man, you know, it's it's crazy, just kind of like looking back, because this is one of those movies that fell for the Hollywood trick of like we're not going to have them in their costumes from the game. That would be lame, so we're gonna have them wear regular clothes to a fighting tournament, like this is the one time you can actually probably and probably should have them wear what they're

wearing in the video game. They at least put all of the villains in their costume, which kind of works I think for a movie, because it was like the heroes are not from a magical world and they're being dragged into uh an insane world of monsters and stuff. How insane Goro look the Goro puppet in that movie is, isn't is just terrifying to look at. They also like toned it down a lot, like there wasn't like the

violence was not, like it was free of blood and gore. Yeah, it was a PG thirteen, which actually wound up bumming me out as a kid because I did not ask to go see it because I assumed it was rated R. I was like six, maybe five when it came out, so I just like didn't even ask my mom, even though it was all I wanted to see, And then when it finally came out, I had to wait till I could go see it at like a friend's house or even watch it like an after school program or something.

But it's better than people remember. It's like a pretty good movie, yea, for like a video game movie. It's like a fun action flick. Here just so you were just so people were wondering how games ended. I went and found the final text for if Raydon wins the first Mortal Kombat, and this is the text that it uh that it reads you. Raden's victory comes as no surprise to him. He was never impressed by Shank Sun's and fear sorcery, Grol's brute force, or the challenge of

the other contestants. He quickly becomes bored with his mortal competition and soon invites other gods to participate in the contest. The ensuing battles rage on for years, and the wars results in our world's final destruction. Have a nice day, that's that's that's what you said at the end of Mortal Kombat the world the world ends, have a nice day. But not even that. I like that. They were just like a frightened wins. I don't know what could happen.

He gets bored, invites every god in the world to enter a fighting tournament that becomes a centuries along war that ends all of that kind Yeah, also, we got jokes, okay, by So after this amazing film that Ben says still holds up because you want to watch it tonight. Um, we had the cartoon Mortal Kombat Defenders of the Realm. Do you remember watching the good? Yeah, but I thought you would have like an air of nostalgia around it. No, it's just bad. I didn't like it then and I

don't like it now. I weirdly as a kid like didn't whoa And IMDb it has three out of five stars, so people don't agree with you, Ben, Three is what it's more than two. That's like almost half. It's barely passing, but it is passing. Yes, I'll give you that it is passing. Um, look, you know how the Internet is. I'm willing to stand up to the Internet movie database and say that also looks like the Infinity War poster.

It's so funny, like everyone copies that stands with having like a main character in the middle and then they're all kind of like winged out. Yeah. I do love that. It's from an era though, where they were like kids like things that are not for them. So we'll just make animated shows anyway. Like around the same time they were doing like Ambo, the animated series where I think the intro is like a full minute and half him

putting knives on his belt. Crease Summer played Katana. She's amazing if you all don't know she's she's like every She's like a tear of strong. She's voiced everybody ever. So there was also She's Sorry, She's Susie Carmichael on The Rugrats. She's Penny and Inspector Gadget anyways, that's really cool. And then also Ron Perlman played Striker. Yeah, Striker who is Everyone makes fun of Striker for being just a straight up NYPD riot com Hi, just shooting guns at dragons. Yeah,

I can find those worlds. Sorry, I mean to cut you off. Yes at all. Um, I was gonna say that the animated series not great. Um. There was also a live action show, right that came out after that. Yeah, it was Mortal Kombat Conquest and my directing team true In film school, Chip Chalmers directed a couple episodes and I made him give me a VHS copy of one of his episodes so I could watch it, and he was like, why do you want this? It's because I

love Mortal Kombat. I want to see it. He's like all right, whatever, have you asked him to be on your podcast? He I think it's back in Florida Skype. Yeah, maybe maybe he should be. And then there's also one or Premier ordered a web series that was inspired by Rebirth, titled Mortal Kombat Legacy, and that series was on YouTube

and also Machinima I believe. Yeah, that was an interesting because I remember in college that short came out Rebirth, and I was so hyped because it was like a gritty reboot of Mortal Kombat, which at the time I think everyone's getting really sick of gritty reboots, but it worked for something that began pretty dark and gritty in the first place. Maybe not, I guess Mortal Kombat is

kind of still pulpy and goofy around that time. But um, it was really really hyped about and then for whatever is And I never actually brought up watching that web series, but they did like two seasons. It did pretty well. I know what you can do tonight now, Ben watch the entirety of the website. You said it like, I was like, I need something to do tonight. You're the extra. Yeah, all of the content I gotta catch up. I have to watch the entirety of Defenders of the Realm, the

animated series. I gotta finish up Conquest because I've only seen Chips episode, and uh, I gotta watch the entirety of m k Legacy. Yeah. Well, if you guys want to hang out, I'll be busy for the next al Right, Well, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, we're going to talk some more Mortal Kombat and we're also gonna get your thoughts on this new Mortal Kombat

movie that's apparently coming out in a bit. And where back, I'm still Danny Fernandez here with Iffy Wade and Ben Meckler. We were just during the break talking about Mortal Kombat the album, which was a techno album based on the first game, inspired by the first game. I'm reading this directly from this article. Ben, I just like saying inspired. Um, but you said that several of your friends have admitted that they have it in their car currently at this moment. Yeah.

The most recent person I could think of who told me that was Jenuine Motto. Yeah, I play I don't play CDs anymore, But that was a flex must be nice. I didn't mean for it to come out that way. You were looking derisively at my walkman while you said. What I meant to say was I play soundtracks. I'm a weirdo. I play like in my car on Spotify, I'll play like the Halloween soundtrack. I play Wild Wild West one, so good Ghostbusters And that's what if you

come into my car, I'm just playing soundtracks. Yeah, I have the Tokyo Drift soundtrack in my car, you know, No, that's my jammer. But yeah, the one song it talks about is the one called Techno Syndrome, which is the one everyone thinks of when they hear Mortal Kombat, which

is just screaming Mortal Kombat. I cover that song for the intro to my podcast, and with me yelling the name of every single Mortal Kombat character to the beat of the song for the entire length of it, I will say, you know what what really goes unappreciated is that portion in the middle of that from from from from from from from, Because not only is that just a fun riff, it really encapsulates, encapsulates, like techno of

that time, like that goes beyond Mortal Kombat. Yeah, I think I know why it sounds like a cyber goth piece of music, which was what nineties techno. Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, it sounds like the techno you would play in a spooky cyber goth castle. Oh man, I guess we can just kind of run through the games and we're gonna go, we're gonna we're gonna do like a mini just and I feel like you're the man for the job of what each game is about. So

oh boy, let's do it. M K one m K one the Mortal Kombat, the tenth Mortal Kombat tournament in a row, is occurring between the realms of out World and Earth Realm. If out World wins the tournament, that's the tenth one, which means they're allowed to merge our realms and eat the souls of pretty much everyone on Earth. If Earth Winds, the world is saved. Earth Winds Mortal

Kombat too. Out World is pissed that they lost, so they demanded you over tournament, uh, and they forced the fighters of Earth Realm to come to out World for another Mortal Kombat tournament. Earth Realm wins Mortal Kombat three. Outworlds like real piss now that they lost twice, so they decided to say forget the rules, man, and they straight been vade Earth Realm. Uh. So our heroes at this point are now fighting in the streets of New York as like dragons and centaurs are rampaging around in

death squads. Mortal Combat four, with out World finally defeated Shinnok, a fallen elder god in the Nether Realm, yet another realm it's basically Hell, decided to tis time to shine and he's going to take over both Earth Realm and the realm of Adenia. Combat five Shannak got beat up, so he's done. And in Mortal Kombat five, Shinnok's little buddy Quanchi and Shacom, the former ruler of out Worlds little assistant Shang Song, say, uh, let's go kill our

bosses and become a deadly alliance. So they do, and they also kill Earth's champion Lukang and wage a campaign of h I guess evil to try to take over the realms and succeed. Wortal Combat six. H Just as those two guys have succeeded in their plan to take over all the realms, Uh, an ancient ruler from out World Onaga the Dragon King is resurrected and kills everybody and brings an undead army to ramd Page throughout the realms unless somebody can stop him. This Mortal Kombat seven

or right next would be seven. Uh. Someone does stop Onaga, but just in time for an ancient prophecy to kick off, in which all of the heroes in the world. At this point, all of the villains in the world are basically going to go to war uh, in which only one person can survive. It is armageddon. Mooral Combat eight will Combat eight is kind of like not necessarily canon. That was morratl Kombat Verse d C universe. Uh so that was uh our realm includes DC superheroes. They wind

up fighting. It's like a dark Side Shoo Khan hybrid and I don't really remember what happened. It's not really cannon. Before I saw a news about the Joker joining that's a rumor, but I'm pretty sure it's true that he's going to be DLC for Moratal Kombat eleven. Yeah, yeah, okay, I just wanted say that they're bringing that back. Oh yeah, uh wait, so before who were there? Who were the other DC characters? Do you remember any of them there,

Captain Marvel in their Batman, um Superman. Obviously I can't remember if Harley Quinn was in that one, but basically that game was why Injustice exists, because it's the same studio that makes more makes Injustice. So I want to say it was a woman was in there too, right, man, I want to see her fatality. Well that was the other thing that out. Yeah, yeah, they're rated. It's a it's a rated T game. So they took out a

lot of the gore. Oh yeah, they had Batman, Captain Marvel, Catwoman, Dark Side, death Stroke, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Joker, Lex Luthor, Superman, and Wonder Woman. But yeah, you'd expect more or less. Yeah maybe, Harley. Yeah, you were right about it being a rumor but probably true that the Joker will get added to Mortal Kombat eleven. Yeah, I'm like sure that's true. Please continue. What where are we at?

Mortal Kombat nine? Kombat nine is the reboot only kind of a reboot because Raydon is the like second to last person to survive Armageddon. He's going to die. It's an active desperation. He sends a message to himself back

in time, which creates a new timeline. Some Moortal Kombat nine kind of retails the first three games, but certain events change and uh go kind of catastrophically, so the only survivors out of our entire cast wind up being raid In, Johnny Cage and Sony Blade and Mortal Kombat ten.

Twenty five years later, the children of Johnny or Johnny and Sonya's daughter and the children of other Mortal Kombat characters are a new team being trained by special forces, and they wind up having to take on Shinnok in

this timeline and Mortal Kombat eleven. Shinnok's mother, a Titan named Cronica who controls all of time, is pissed about all this weird time stuff, so she decides she's going to kill rate In and create a new timeline, but in doing so, she opens up a rift that brings back heroes and villains from the past that collide with heroes and villains in the few mature for the present, and everyone basically has to work together to stop critical from creating a new timeline. Doesn't work, she does, so

we're back to zero now and then will kind of franchise. Wow, I'm so proud of you. Yeah. Again, I just did ten episodes of podcast in a row where I had to I had to make sure I had all of that down. I know. I love just how easy that was for you. Also, I love like like I've I've been going through as we've been um doing this podcast, watching lou king play throughs and just kind of comparing comparing them to what you said in our episode. You

didn't miss a beat. Hell yeah, so so definitely make sure you if you're definitely interested in the lower side of Mormal combat and hearing just the whole run of all the games through one character's perspective. I can't recommend Mortal podcast enough. And if you listen to the most recent episode, you can hear if he's completely insane story about the time you saw a guy do a bicycle kick in real life. Yeah. Yeah, I'm saving that for

your podcast. I'm gonna make I'm gonna make people go check it out if they want to learn about the legend of Jimmy dank O man legend. Yeah, I realized I totally missed Mortal Kombat Annihilations for the best. Yeah. Yeah, it's unnecessary mention. It's an unbelievably bad movie. With some iconic lines. Um. I think the probably most quoted one is when uh Kaittana yells to her resurrected mother, mother, you're alive, and Sandel says, too bad you, we'll die.

And it's great. Really, you know, I mean that kind of sounds like video games. It's extremely It's a very watchable movie. Honestly, you've probably seen Annihilation more times in the first movie because it's just so completely bonkers. With the first movie, I also wanted to mention that this

is crazy. Steven Spielberg, who's an avid fan of the Mortal Kombat series, was supposed to make a cameo appearance as the direct in Johnny Cage's first scene, like the first six minutes of the film, and he wanted to be in it, but he had a scheduling conflict and so he couldn't. But but the director character in the film is supposed to resemble Steven Spielberg, So Steven Spielberg was almost in Mortal kombast. Oh wow, that's news to me.

Oh my god, I guess, I guess. Stephen then decided to kind of hold off on a cameo like that until Austin Power's Gold where that cameo at the beginning of the movie. How many stars does it have? If Steven Spielberg wasn't, it would have five four nine. It

would be a classic the classic film. Oh. One other thing was Johnny Depp was and Tom Cruise where it was considered for the role of Johnny Cage and they the idea that either of them would have said yes even then Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I did not recoize is most of the names that we said uh, And then Danny Glover was considered for rayd in Oh. That would have been cool. Although Christopher Lambert his performance wound up being kind of iconic and that his delivery

of every line is really weird and good weird. So what do you think about this new UH movie coming out? Are you excited about it? I? I love and trust James One who's producing it. Um. I want to believe that a big budget Mortal Kombat movie will be good. I need to know what story they're telling. I'm hoping they're not going to do some revisionist like we need an access character stuff where it's like a normal guy finds out that he's actually destined to be a part

of the Mortal Combat Tournament. I'm afraid that it might go that way because I know that at a certain budget, studios get afraid of being too uh, you know, going too far with the story, or or making something it's just for a niche audience. Like with Dark Tower, they totally turned that into like, you know, it's just a boy's journey, like he realizes he's part of a larger tale, which is an interesting perspective to take into it. But it didn't make it the same story. So the things

that worked about it didn't work quite as well. I'm worried the same thing I happened with Mortal Combat. Also selfishly, uh, since I also write movies, I would very much like

to be writing this movie. Um specifically, I would love I feel like the story of of Bihan, the first sub Zero going on in odyssey through the Nether Realm, so an ice Ninja going on an odyssey through basically hell Um in order to obtain an artifact, while coming into contact with his blood rival Scorpion, and falling in love with demon S who lives in the nether realm, and realizing that he's serving the wrong masters, and meeting

like an untimely tragic demise. I feel like that would be a really good story for a movie that could kind of tick all the boxes, um while still being canonically something people would enjoy. UM. I had no idea, but I guess Warner Brothers bought the Midway Games assets and in bankruptcy court. I didn't know that they had a file for bankruptcy. Yeah. Sad, Midway like owned the nineties. But things would go so great after that. Maybe who knows,

Maybe this movie will be successful. And there's the m k c U and then crossed. Alright, where can people find you? Ben? You can find me at Ben Meckler. That's b e n m e k l e R. There's no ce in my last name on pretty much every social media platform. I worked on show called Final Space. It's erin now, so you can check that out. You can get There's this application called Netflix you can be

a subscriber of. That's where KEEPO will be airing next year and hopefully more exciting stuff you can catch for me soon. But also just check out Mortal podcast p O d K A s T because combat um wherever podcasts exists. I assume that was my opportunity to plugs. I just want to write to it. That's what that was. You can catch me at if you wait. I f Y n W I D I W E on Twitter and Instagram, if D's on Twitch. Here on Tuesday's Candy Dinner on Monday, and I'm now the host of Who

Shot Your Pod? On Max Fun on Fridays. UM, too many things, but let's keep it going. The marathon continues as Nipsey hustles. I know somebody asked if I wanted to be the host of a twilight Zone podcast, and I was like, absolutely not, absolutely not, even though that is the thing that I know a lot about. I was like, I cannot take on one other thing. I'm trying to make some things and I am at Miss Danny Fernandez. If you and I will be at San Diego Comic Con, so check out our our twitters and

our Instagrams will be posting. I think we're gonna have a meet up. I have two panels on Thursday that I will be sharing whenever I have that info officially, but yeah, check us out. We will be there in San Diego. We are friendly. Come get a drink with us whenever we finally pick a time uh and, as we always say, staying nearty