Current Events > Mortal Kombat movie: a white character being the hero is "unsavory"

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/mortal-kombat-2021-preview-todd-garner-on-cole-young-johnny-cage

Lastly, one more problem Garner and his team had was the unsavory idea of a white character (like Johnny Cage) being the hero who saves everyone. (Tan is mixed-race Chinese-British.)...I feel like if I was getting to make a movie with a diverse cast, it felt weird to have a white actor, literally Johnny Cage, be the hero of the story, Garner says, adding that these discussions took place at the start of the movies pre-production nearly seven years ago way before Black Lives Matter and other pushes for diversity across industries including Hollywood.

So they left fan-favorite MK character Johnny Cage out of the movie because he's white. Instead, the hero of the movie is some OC (do not steal) of Chinese descent, even though Johnny Cage has NEVER been the hero that saves everyone. That has always been Liu Kang, an Asian. So creating some Chinese OC to be the main hero is completely unnecessary.

Sounds like it's going great lol

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PokemonYoutube posted...

Instead, the hero of the movie is some OC (do not steal) of Chinese descent

There's a very simple reason for that.

Imagine if they said they left Jax out of the movie because having a black character be the hero is "unsavory". The usual crowd would demand their heads on a pike.

Isn't Liu Kang the canon hero? His fatality was the only one that didn't turn the lights off.
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Thats what was kinda annoying about the street fighter movie and dead or alive movie. Super white washed and the white people became the main topic despite the games being more diverse than that

Liu Kang is the hero. Johnny Cage is an anti hero. Thor vs Loki. Kind of. Loki was a DB who became good. Thats what Johnny is. Hollywood primadonna who becomes humbled and becomes a good guy.

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Laserion posted...

Isn't Liu Kang the canon hero? His fatality was the only one that didn't turn the lights off.

Yep. He's always the one that beats the big bads and saves the day.

CruelBuffalo posted...

Thats what was kinda annoying about the street fighter movie and dead or alive movie. Super white washed and the white people became the main topic despite the games being more diverse than that

Yeah it's fuckin dumb. Make the hero the same as the hero from the fickin thing you're pulling from

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ArianaGrandSlam posted...

I wanted to see Liu Kang and the gang

And you will. Go watch the trailer.

If they don't want Johnny Cage to be the hero, they could just... not make him the hero? He can still be in the movie.
If they want a non-white hero, they could pick ANY character from the games and have them be the hero. No need to invent their own.

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So they're making a movie for a franchise that they know nothing about. That certainly bodes well.

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The original character could either be good or very, very bad. I would have just stuck with Liu Kang as the main hero but whatever. Still looking forward to this silly movie that probably shouldn't exist.
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Meh, I never liked Johnny Cage, and I appreciate diversity in media, so Im cool with this.

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The truth is they want an mk2 and theyre saving cage for that.

thsts why there is no shao khan or kintaro too

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Smashingpmkns posted...

The original character could either be good or very, very bad.

His name is Cole Young, which is very likely a corruption of Kuai Liang.

That's my guess, anyway.

Also it's okay, everyone, there are still white people in the movie.

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CyricZ posted...

Also it's okay, everyone, there are still white people in the movie.

This seems like a stupidly trolly response to this topic.

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Phynaster posted...

This seems like a stupidly trolly response to this topic.

It's pretty normal for CyricZ, he's trying to turn it into an argument about white people being racist so he can take the moral high ground.

The OC is either Johnny Cage [non-stage name] or Kuai Liang

Phynaster posted...

This seems like a stupidly trolly response to this topic.

Ask me if TC deserves better.

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Did they just look at the roster, see one of the most prominent white guys, and just assume he's the protagonist and insist of subverting that with an OC?

I just want to understand why they mention Johnny Cage specifically, when MK has so many characters, with Liu Kang being the canon protagonist.

Esrac posted...

Did they just look at the roster, see one of the most prominent white guys, and just assume he's the protagonist and insist of subverting that with an OC?

I just want to understand why they mention Johnny Cage specifically, when MK has so many characters, with Liu Kang being the canon protagonist.

You can absolutely read the entire article without TC's editorializing and see if that's what's going on.

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CyricZ posted...

Also it's okay, everyone, there are still white people in the movie

lmao at the trolly response. Lame/10

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So, reading the article, they created Cole to be the casual audience insert. Hes the guy who will be asking all the questions. Sure. Ok. But that was literally most of the main cast role in the OG movie. Even in the 2021 trailer, they got Sonya, Jax and the Special Forces pretty much investigating MK which leads them to Cole. The questions can be answered through the actual MK characters. We didnt need an insert to help us follow along.

Did they not even watch the original film? Johnny Cage is very clearly a comic relief secondary hero and always has been. This just sounds like woke justifying their unpopular decision in retrospect.

Aelia posted...

Liu Kang is the hero. Johnny Cage is an anti hero. Thor vs Loki. Kind of. Loki was a DB who became good. Thats what Johnny is. Hollywood primadonna who becomes humbled and becomes a good guy.

Agreed- anyone with basic familiarity of Mortal Kombat knows this stuff.

Saves me wasting time seeing it
they have no clue about the game story if they assume any White man is the main hero

fuming posted...

Did they not even watch the original film? Johnny Cage is very clearly a comic relief secondary hero and always has been. This just sounds like woke justifying their unpopular decision in retrospect.

Agreed. For some reason they have this idea in their head if Johnny Cage is in the movie, he will HAVE to be the hero. Nobody looks at Cage as the white saviour and no one would think so if they write him the way hes supposed to be portrayed.

I'd like to see the exact question the director gave that answer to. It seems like a controversy that could very well be made in editing. Note that it isn't the director making the "unsavory" comment.

Also this is buried at the end of the article after a number of other (bad) reasons for the main character being one made up just for the movie are made, so this seems like a low ranking point even among all those.

The movie sounds absolutely awful, though.
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Liu kang has been the lead since the beginning except in a few titles. Johnny took center stage a bit in Mkx but that was it

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CouldBeAnAlt posted...

Liu kang has been the lead since the beginning except in a few titles. Johnny took center stage a bit in Mkx but that was it

The MKX prologue is the only time Johnny Cage has ever been the main hero, and even then, Cassie Cage took over for the remainder of the story.

They should just show the story mode for MK9.

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Johnny Cage isn't a main character anyway. Sorry Johnny you are a supporting man.

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I'm getting tired of all this woke shit.

By all means diversity of film characters is welcome and I love that, but deliberately forcing it such as this case is becoming annoying as fuck.

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Phantom36 posted...

By all means diversity of film characters is welcome and I love that, but deliberately forcing it such as this case is becoming annoying as fuck.

...especially when MK is plenty diverse already.

fan357 posted...

They should just show the story mode for MK9.

They made an OC protagonist because they wanted a character that asks all the questions the audience would ask, like "who's that?" and "what's going on?"

That was LITERALLY Johnny Cage in MK9.

I don't get why a white guy being the star is a problem when the rightful star of Mortal Kombat is Chinese Shaolin monk Liu Kang.

Does Mortal Kombat need a fish out of water? Its been around forever.

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For those who read the article, what question was asked by the interviewer that prompted the response that we see in Post #1?

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fan357 posted...

Does Mortal Kombat need a fish out of water? Its been around forever.

Maybe a little I feel like the average person probably only knows scorpion and sub zero

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Questionmarktarius posted...

...especially when MK is plenty diverse already.

I know, right?

Liu Kang? Asian.
Kung Lao? Asian.
Raiden? Asian.
Scorpion? Asian.
Sub-Zero? Asian.
Kitana? Vaguely Asian.
Jax? Black.
Jade? Black.
Shang Tsung? Asian.
Mileena? Vaguely Asian + monster girl.
Sektor? Asian.
Cyrax? Black.

Hell, there's even Nightwolf for Native American representation (albeit a tad stereotypical).

The only white characters in the first 3 games are Johnny, Sonya, Kano, and fucking Stryker.

Kano is half-Japanese.

Casting a fish out of water main lead is a trick as old as time in film making. It gives the audience their optics into this crazy world. I think it's a well worn trope at this point but whatever.

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they should have made sonya the hero just cause the original movie really shafted her and this could make up for that

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Kaldrenthebold posted...

Casting a fish out of water main lead is a trick as old as time in film making. It gives the audience their optics into this crazy world. I think it's a well worn trope at this point but whatever.

This isn't Wizard of Oz. This is Mortal Kombat.

In the original, Johnny Cage worked just fine asking "What the hell's going on?" from a supporting role. The lead should know what Mortal Kombat is.