I heard that the creators of MK and the actor that played johnny cage were in a legal dispute over the rights to use the actors image. Thats why they made him such a wuss in the sequel, it was their way of getting back at him. Does anyone know if this is true?
shareI've heard about the dispute, which is why Johnny Cage's split-punch was missing from MK trilogy, but never heard it related to the movie. I just assumed they killed him off so early because Linden Ashby wouldn't come up, so it'd be pretty lame to have some male model in the movie for an hour and a half.
There is a man...he travels fast...he has purpose...he brings violence and destruction.
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I have no idea about a movie dispute, but I distinctly remember something revolving around Cage that led to the character losing his distinctive splits move.
There is a man...he travels fast...he has purpose...he brings violence and destruction.
Old post, but I've heard the only reason that Johnny Cage didn't have that move in Trilogy was because it requires a custom reaction sprite for every character when he grabs his balls in pain. Not a big deal for the nine affected male character models of MKII, but twice as much work for the 18 in Trilogy, and for one move Midway supposedly didn't want to put in the effort.
I guess they could have made it just do damage like a crouching low punch, but that would kind of kill the point.
I'm guessing (and hoping this is a reason cause its a good one) that they decided to follow the storyline of the games for that little instant. This came from an online reference guide found on TRMK.com that tells the complete storyline of Mortal Kombat as it was ment to be told in the games.
A large portal opened in the Earth's sky and panic filled the streets. Shao Kahn entered the Earth realm, merged it with the Outworld, and took the souls of Earth's inhabitants. Earth was slowly turning into a part of the Outworld. Aware that chosen warriors would survive the initial attack, Kahn proceeded to send out extermination squads to eliminate the survivors. Motaro, a member of the Centaur race, was assigned to lead the extermination squads. Johnny Cage was one of their many victims.
As you can see it is almost identical to what happens early on in MK: Anihilation
Yeah, but the character was such a hit in the last film that I can't see them killing him off so early unless Linden Ashby didn't want to come back. It doesn't ring true that he would've come back if the character wasn't killed off, as the screenplay must of reeked of crap to anyone with a brain cell.
There is a man...he travels fast...he has purpose...he brings violence and destruction.
I can clarify the reason Johnny was absent from MKA after the first five minutes, since I read an interview with Linden Ashby where he discussed it.
Ashby said that he had a two-movie contract to make both MK movies with Threshold Entertainment, but when he read the script to MKA, he saw that they killed him off very early in the film. So he added that he demanded to be given a good part to play, or be let out of his contract. Threshold opted for the latter, and got Chris Conrad (another good actor and martial artist imo) to take his place.
So the stupid party in this story is Threshold for having two great actors in Ashby and Conrad, and wasting them, and spending so much of the film on the lousy actors who played Jax and Jade, etc.