What? She isn't? I've been playing MK for years. You could have fooled me.



I am shocked this is not a stripper.



I am really shocked this is not a stripper.



I am really shocked this is not an old, washup-up stripper who has just been beaten by her pimp for not meeting her financial quota.

I respectfully disagree, I loved Rebirth, I wanted to see a new take on the series, others didn't.

To be fair, Kerri Hoskins was a Playboy model, not a stripper. ;P

Sonya doesn't have to be some fake tit-bottle blonde. She needs to look like a real person. You wanna see Jeri Ryan looking hot? Watch Star Trek Voyager, or the new show she is in Body of Proof. Or google her. Jeri Ryan is beautiful. This show is to be a little more real so I'm thinking they are going to stray from the "vest with no shirt" or "strap holding the tits in" look of all of the Ladies (Save Ashrah) from the games.

This is the best live action version of Sonya I have seen.

Me to man times a x10000 But seeing as this is a whole different direction. I can forgive.

Me too, never did I think I'd see my boy in the first episode.
You know, I actually think Stryker's ingame model looks abit like Tahmoh.
Pretty cool.

I find this depiction actually made me give a damn about Stryker. Woo!

Pros: That was totally Kano. I mean, Trevor Goddard is still THE Kano in my eyes, but this guy did a great job. Jax was good too, and so was Sonya (though I wish she did more in this episode). The Jax vs Kano fight is still pretty cool, as was most of the other close-combat fight scenes.
Cons: To me, that wasn't the Black Dragon (besides Kano). They looked too much like common street thugs to me (which may have been what they were going for, but still). Also, the advanced tech like Sonya's HUD and the Black Dragon's rifles kinda took me by surprise. Considering this is the same universe where cyborgs exist, however, I can let that slide. Plus, that long slow-mo shot of Sonya at the end seemed kinda cheesy to me.

Overall, I liked what I saw and can't wait for the next episode.

I am not saying she "has to." I would actually prefer if she wasn't over the top with implants and naked just because it'd give her dignity to her character. However, all I meant is that the Sonya I imagine isn't a 43 year old woman. And if she was, she'd look better than Jeri Ryan. Even though this is apparently a Jeri Ryan who has been tortured for the past two days. Either way, you're making a big deal about one sentence.

My impressions.
Characters:

Sonya.
She looked too old in some episodes. It was strange because she looked much better in the MKR and the end of this episode. I think maybe it was screw up of the mak-up artists. Generally I like that she was chosen to play Sonya. Her being mature gives Sonta image more weight and makes her more believable character. I like thta she wasn't played by some topmodel.

Kano.
He was very good. I love that hewsn't like Goddard in the first movie (I hate Kano from the first movie) and neither he wasn't like Kano from the games. He created his own "Kano" - mercyless bandit with thin coat of madness. I like this. And I liked his accent too. On emore thing: is it me or he looks a bit like young Jeff Goldblum in some moments?

Jax.
Impressive. Not that I expected anything less after MKR. Like that his now comic relief like in second movie. He is a cool confident cop, and I don't care if he is member of specail forces or not. He is a real action hero.

Stryker.
I din't expect to appear in this episode at all, but I was impressed. He is confident, authoritative figure. Something that I neve ever expected to see from ol, fgood Stryker. I like their approach to the character and hope if there will be full-length movie this actor will reprise this role. Generally I think NRS managed to rehabilitate Stryker character.

Episodes:
The begining of the episode was captivating, dark and atmospheric. I loved neat details - like cyborg mask amongst details and "red eye" foreshadowing.

Scene in the police was good. I wish there will be more scenes like this. I am agree that Jax's line "Fuck protocol" should be his intro (or at least one of his intros in this game or a new one).

Scene between Kano and Sonya was dark and somewhat disturbing. Kano was awesome in this scene, chanelling psycho. Sonya really looked like she was bruised and beaten. Nice acting form the actors.

Shoot-out in the factory...was a mess. Begining was interesting, but later it was hard to tell what the heck is going on the screen. And there was too much slow-mo. It made already chaotic segment even more confusing. I liked how Jax fought bad guys, but because of the things, I said earlier, it didn't look cool. More like episodic. Overall it wasn't that impressive.

Fight between Jax and Kano looked nice. Quite realistic and simple, but I liked it. Though this whole granade launcher thing...was quite silly. Epsecially the end of the fight.

And the lately Sonya's escape. I liked how they tryed to make it look epic, but after she escaped the room all this slow-mo looked really out of place. I don't understand why they did it.

General thoughts:
Aside from minor problems this is the Mortal Kombat I want to see. I like that this story is about earth people not bunch of multicoloured ninjas and I very much prefered it to stay that way. Just like in the first games in the series.
Director definitely has his own style - dark, captivating and memorable. Operator was good too - there were some nice angles and during action camera didn't jump around. I like that there was blood, but at some moments in the shoot-out I think there were too much blood. Reminded me about trash movies a little. Special effects were nice, considering the budget, there were too many slow-mo. I hope there will be less of this in the next episodes.
Overall I have good impressions about this episode. It was dynamic, stylish and gritty. I liked work of the operator. Actors played they parts well and I cann't say anything bad about they perfomance.
Impatiently waiting for the next episode.

Whoa! Tahmoh Penikett is Stryker. Hope he's more prominent in the eps to kome.

Exactly.

um ok, my impressions:

1)jeri ryan is too old to play sonya. im thinkin around the timeline she shouldve bn in her late 20s early30s. jeri ryan obviously isnt.

2) the fx, they were sub par at best. the blood fx were good but that military issue assault rifle shooting energy blasts was just rediculous and the effect was awful. there was also an over use of slow motion.

3) the gun fight scene and fighting scene were ok but weak. the shoot out was dis organized like it should b, but the fight scene seemed too over practiced. like they were just going thru the motions without putting any effort into it.

4)too short.

5) with that said i actually like the direction they r taking the story in with this. i like how they conected the automation with the black dragon clan. seems like it fits since the lin kuei wouldnt be as advanced in tech.


All in all, to me, it was just...meh. it peaked my interest but i just wish the production values were higher. with the fx so bad i dread to kno wat sub-zeros ice freeze will look like. and if tha fx are any indication of wat the props will look like than i dread kano's eye and jax's cyber arms. lets hope the eye doesnt look like a bad cosplay stick-on and jax's arms arent a re-hash of the rubber zip-ons that were used in tha movie. regardless, ill still watch it if the story continues to draw me in.

btw ppl, these r just my opinions so no flaming me plz, just cuz u disagree. good day.

It was good, but left a good bit to be desired, even for the first episode.

I was hoping they would end it with the teaser of Jax getting his arms and Kano's face plate. They did end with Kano and Jax being in an explosion right near some chemicals, which is what I'm guessing will be linked to both's additions.

Something simple, like:

Jax in a special triage unit, arms all torn to shreds, a doctor/scientist/whatever says "I think I know a way we can fix him, but it's highly experimental," shows Stryker and Sonya exchange looks, zooms in on Jax's unconscious face.

Fade to Black

Fade back in, Kano is shown sitting in a chair, view from behind. You hear him grunting, almost sobbing from pain. He screams. View changes to the other side, his face hidden behind two men working on his head. They say something simple like "It's finished." He slumps down in his chair, looking at the ground. It gets silent, the camera zooms in to the top of his head, he looks up, the eye glows.

Cut to black.

Credits.




But I'm still pleased with it, and impatient for next week.

All the more reason to end the bizarre preoccupation with "Deacon City PD" and just make it what it is in the source material. There's nothing about the Special Forces that would interefere with a debriefing scene or the military action that made up the majority of the piece. There's certainly no benefit tying Stryker into it, either, who could easily be a generic Mr. Military character with a vaguely recognisable actor, instead. Maybe budget for uniforms got the better of them? Maybe the actors dressed themselves for those scenes. Even then, I think a fictionalized military unit that dresses down from time to time is a smaller suspension of disbelief than city PD running military ops.

After the positive reaction to the most nonsensical aspects of Rebirth, nothing the audience can say will ever be completely surprising, but I really wish I could find the great story and characters some people are referring to. In the ten minutes of running around, I'm not sure either is actually there. Maybe in the next episode, but not this one.

Very nice. Much better than I expected.

The director must be a paintball fan...

Nope. That assault rifle is the H&K XM8 - basically a failed replacement for the M16/M4 that the US military didn't buy.



It shoots 5.56mm so I don't know why they decided to have it shoot whatever the hell it was shooting. Energy? Plasma? Whatever it was stupid. They were probably going for the sci-fi effect but there are much better and more obscure weapons than the XM8 they could have turned into their little ray gun.

Not bad for a low budget web series but I wasn't really impressed. If it wasn't for the guy playing Kano doing such a great job I probably wouldn't have watched it all the way through.

I think you're of the mindset of " It's not exactly what I wanted and it deviates from the canon so It's crap " Whether the fanboys want accept it or not, this franchise is open to interpretation. Deal with it or don't watch it.

Dealing with it and watching it. lol

My browser randomly deletes words as I type. It's fairly retarded.

No worries.

I'm of the mindset that when you produce an adaptation, there's no reason to expect or accept nonsensical deviations. Particularly when your finished product would be better served by maintaining a basic element. This is an absurd representation of a city police department -- but an utterly acceptable version of a fictional super-special forces unit. It would be completely better off keeping closer to the source, in this case, even on its own terms.

I'm also of the mind that, regardless of what brand is attached to these ten minutes, it was a very shallow, uninvolving, unearned delivery of a rudimentary and arbitrary plot containing characters that almost exclusively exist by the references we're bringing to them. Viewed independently, without the lens of MK, it's difficult to be generous to anything but the action, which takes unchallenged precedent over anything else you would typically expect of a film project.

I look forward to following episodes and I think it's clear that there is a lot of strong material yet to come. However, I think it's utterly unimpressive and ill informed to heap praise on what they achieved with the available resources. As a pilot, it was a plodding, shallow exercise in sound and fury signifying nothing.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying it for what it is, finding positives, and looking forward to what is yet to come. However, I think it's a scathing indictment of the medium and the audience if this is where people are convinced the bar is set. I think unbridled praise reflects a lack of objectivity far more than a few basic, obvious criticisms, which include the lacklustre and unnecessary use of a licensed name.

Again, it is very easy to be critical of how these ten minutes were used, but that shouldn't strip perspective for what is yet to come. There is still a lot of good stuff that is likely to be delivered based on the trailer alone. It is not an overwhelmingly negative situation by any measure. All things considered, just a bit of a slow start. Maybe an unedited seamless version will hit DVD and we'll all get a look at a better version.

I give this episode a 7/10.... or less. I think the beginning is just a bit slow because it's a pilot episode, which is forgivable. The director probably was limited with what he could do given that the digital series is controlled by WB.

The dialogue was surprisingly mediocre. I don't understand what happened to the seriousness that was Rebirth. The dialogue in that video was more Rated R cinema-esque compared to this watered down TV show version.

THAT, however, is forgivable by me too. The thing that I REALLY liked about this was there was great exposition. I liked how they introduced the cybernetic parts at the beginning and foreshadowed Kano's eyeball. Very awesome. I liked the backstory between Kano & Sonya too.

So, this episode is very passable. I just hope the next one is 10x better. This series has a chance to be better than the first two movies.

http://www.411mania.com/siteimages/swat-team-posing_25084.jpg
Have you never heard of a SWAT unit? Jax's unit resembles a SWAT unit rather than military. As far as the deviations go, its called " putting your creative stamp on things" Grant Morrison, Denny O' Neal and Frank Miller did it with Batman. Kevin Tancharoen and Paul W.S. Anderson did it with Mortal Kombat.