SDCC 2011: Mortal Kombat: Legacy Panel, New Character Announcement & Image

Guess what? I just watched the somewhat delayed new episode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy, and it was pretty much the business. The reason for the delay? Extended robot fighting scenes that took too damn long to render. The episode follows Sektor and Cyrax on their path from human to robot. And it's awesome. Go watch it now.

For the rest of the presentation, the panelists talked about making sure the series really honored the characters and stayed true to the groundedness of the game. The fight choreographer tries to keep the fights really gritty and real, acknowledging that he is constrained by time and budget. Co-writer and director Kevin Tancharden said he wanted to do it in the style of several Asian movies I've never heard of, but with no wire work. He also said that it has been suggested that Johnny Cage die every episode, like Kenny on South Park, but I wouldn't look for that development any time soon. Jeri Ryan joined the panel via Skype, and said that fan reaction to Sonya Blade has been great and that the passionate fans remind her of Star Trek's fans. Michael Jai White said that he met with Tancharden and it was immediately clear that he knew what he was doing, so he just put his faith in him.

At the end of the panel, Ed Boon announced the newest downloadable character for The Mortal Kombat: Freddy Krueger.

I am not a huge video game person, nor am I a person that ususally enjoys fighting, but I have to admit, it was hella fun watching Freddy Krueger use his Wolverine-like claws to beat the crap out of classic Mortal Kombat characters. I expect a lot of geeks will get a lot of fun out of this.