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[Raziel]

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.) In Mortal Kombat lore, Johnny Cage is a Hollywood star who enters the tournament to prove he isn’t a pampered, spoiled A-lister. While Cage is rarely the capital-H hero in any given Mortal Kombat game, he is always somewhere near the center bringing levity to the serious stakes.

Garner didn’t confirm the precise whereabouts of Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat (his name came up a few times during the interview) but his absence thus far suggests the filmmakers are trying something different.

“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 movie’s pre-production nearly seven years ago “way before Black Lives Matter” and other pushes for diversity across industries including Hollywood.

'Mortal Kombat' producer explains why you won't see Johnny Cage in the movie

'Mortal Kombat' producer Todd Garner spills the bloody beans on why they created a brand new lead character for the violent adaptation.

www.inverse.com

 

[MMaRsu]

Johnny cage was never the hero, more like the goofball

 

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Cage wasn't the hero. He was just the Hollywood guy. The glitzy pretty boy in the martial arts movie who eventually gets rocked by one of the other fighters.

 

[Richard Packer]

Poor Johnny got caged.

 

[SafeOrAlone]

But you could have made one of us lame whities a total dork, who get a flaming spear through his head for trampling over some sacred weeds or something.

 

[Schattenjäger]

i feel he’s putting up a smoke screen and the new character is really Cage

 

[SentientStone]

Cage wasn't the hero. He was just the Hollywood guy. The glitzy pretty boy in the martial arts movie who eventually gets rocked by one of the other fighters.

Exactly how the first Mortal Kombat film portrayed him.
As I said multiple times, the psyop to trigger more White extremists is in full fledge.

 

[GeorgioCostanzaX]

Johnny cage was never the hero, more like the goofball

Yeah he’s always been kind of a joke but honestly wouldn’t the solution be to hire a biracial dude like Keanu to play him? Pretty sure that with a name like Daniel Pesina and his bro Carlos the arcade game actor might be actually Latino?

 

[QuantumZebra]

Johnny cage was never the hero, more like the goofball

Exactly how the first Mortal Kombat film portrayed him.
As I said multiple times, the psyop to trigger more White extremists is in full fledge.

Yep

It's hilarious tbh

Woke culture eats it up tho

 

[ShinraMiddleMananger]

Exactly how the first Mortal Kombat film portrayed him.
As I said multiple times, the psyop to trigger more White extremists is in full fledge.

Doing everything wrong in full effect.

 

[Kraz]

Chastity Cage.

 

[O-N-E]

But... the hero was Liu Kang.

Now they have Cole, whoever the fuck that is.

Sure doesn't sound like a minority to me.

 

[Entroyp]

Wait what? Johnny Cage is not in the movie? That’s a lame ass excuse....

 

[Reality Czar]

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.)

Ah yes, would be unsavory for the white character to save everyone. Chinese one will do.

 

[Soodanim]

Seems like a troll/bait piece, because no sane person would actively not include Johnny Cage from a Mortal Kombat movie because it’s not diverse enough with a white character in it and because Johnny has to be the hero if he’s there.

There must be some important detail missing here.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Are they trying to bait people or simply looking at Johnny and saying "white male hero bad" without giving it any thought and without researching the character?

 

[Woo-Fu]

No surprise that MK virtue signaling is roughly the same quality as the games themselves.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Aaannnnnd, I’m out.

 

[Reality Czar]

Almost feel like rewriting history or gaslighting tbh. In the first movie Johnny Cage actually steps aside so that Liu Kang (played by Honk Kong-American actor Robin Shou) can defeat Shang Tsung in the final battle.



Maybe the journo was leading him on. "Why did you bravely decide on this POC actor instead of a horrible white man?" "Well I want to sell tons of movie tickets and receive favorable coverage from you and your lunatics, so let me tell you all about that..."

 

[BennyBlanco]

I kinda like how you can just go around saying shit like this and get zero pushback. Nick Cannon said white people are subhuman and jews are secretly running the world and got a bigger contract from Viacom lol.

 

[DESTROYA]

That just proves the writers are shit if they can’t write a script without the “White” guy being the center of attention.
What a load of crap

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Fuck off with this shit.

..Not Raziel, in general.

 

[SentientStone]

Almost feel like rewriting history or gaslighting tbh. In the first movie Johnny Cage actually steps aside so that Liu Kang (played by Honk Kong-American actor Robin Shou) can defeat Shang Tsung in the final battle.



Maybe the journo was leading him on. "Why did you bravely decide on this POC actor instead of a horrible white man?" "Well I want to sell tons of movie tickets and receive favorable coverage from you and your lunatics, so let me tell you all about that..."

This is why I don’t like the current political and cultural climate as an Asian (Chinese) person who is real super woke, not mainstream woke lol. They are deliberately triggering more racial divide. Of course, those truly in power want this and there is a strategic direction behind this madness I feel.

 

[triplestation]

i get the feeling director doesnt really know mortal kombat

 

[triplestation]

in what mk series was johnny cage ever the hero?

 

[PSlayer]

They probably felt that the character would steal the show in a robert downey jr/tony stark way. Specially because Liu kang has no personality.

It sucks tough because Johnny is my favorite character

 

[j0hnnix]

 

[Michele]

Disgusting. Almost sounds like racism.

 

[Reptars Revenge]

Bring on Asian Johnny cage!!

 

[bitbydeath]

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

psyop to trigger more White extremists is in full fledge.

Derp State at it again. Is this actually triggering "white extremists"? Johnny Cage sucks ass anyway

 

[triplestation]

this shit was so funny when i was a little kid

 

[SentientStone]

Derp State at it again. Is this actually triggering "white extremists"? Johnny Cage sucks ass anyway

That is the narrative currently, and if you notice how the woke leftists so casually throw out the word "white" in a negative connotation after the recent attacks on the elderly and massage parlour, we can see how the emotions are fuelling the herds and causing more instability. It is hard to remedy these cultural divides overnight, just look at the Hong Kong riots, same shit.

 

[rkofan87]

i feel he’s putting up a smoke screen and the new character is really Cage

i hope so.

 

[triplestation]

i hope so.

wat hell no cage is supposed to be the pompous hollywood star

the main character here is like a college student or some shit

 

[DoubleJTripleDistilled]

Won't be supporting racsim

 

[Torrent of Pork]

Well, I was excited for this film. Thanks again Hollywood for confirming once again that LOTR was the last thing of value to ever spawn from that shit hole of a town. I mean, for fuck's sake you just said a white man cannot be included in a "diverse cast". Fuck off.

Edit, and from my extremely basic understanding of MK storyline, wasn't Liu Kang always the central hero? Johnny Cage was never more than comic relief.

Edit 2, wait, what about Kano then? I got the impression from the trailer that all the established characters were in support to the OC that the film will follow. Is Johnny Cage in the film or not? Is this whole interview just ginning up buzz through unforced controversy?

 

[It's all in the wrist]

The producer said this? How could the producer of the movie have such a fundamental misunderstanding of the character lol. Cage isn't the hero. He does splits and punches Goro in the nuts.

 

[mansoor1980]

i think cage will be in the movie but as a mentor/teacher to the main character

 

[Goro Majima]

Liu Kang was always the hero. Like always always. Except when he's one of the main villains to shake it up a bit.

Johnny Cage was always this campy comic relief that mocked Hollywood action stars.

 

[INC]

Fans lose

Wokeality

 

[Reality Czar]

I kinda like how you can just go around saying shit like this and get zero pushback

Forget pushback people get promoted for saying shit like this. Race hustlers have built entire careers out of it by now.

 

[triplestation]

fuck this movie

they should have hired the guy who made the undisputed movies



and hire fighters who can act AND/OR actors who can fight

 

[Outlier]

What a brain dead reason. Not interested in the movie, if THAT'S the thought process behind excluding an iconic character. Johnny was never the main hero.

Besides. They could have made any of the characters the "main" hero, or focused on a group dynamic or created a new character, but no... They have to be anti-racist by being racist, for woke-go-broke points.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[MrA]

Well, I was excited for this film. Thanks again Hollywood for confirming once again that LOTR was the last thing of value to ever spawn from that shit hole of a town. I mean, for fuck's sake you just said a white man cannot be included in a "diverse cast". Fuck off.

Edit, and from my extremely basic understanding of MK storyline, wasn't Liu Kang always the central hero? Johnny Cage was never more than comic relief.

Edit 2, wait, what about Kano then? I got the impression from the trailer that all the established characters were in support to the OC that the film will follow. Is Johnny Cage in the film or not? Is this whole interview just ginning up buzz through unforced controversy?

let's quickly check out their mk 4 endings


one of those 2 definitely looks like the protagonist with a story-driving ending and the other an ending played for a laugh.
or you know they could do like the 1995 movie where the white guy was a supporting character to the Asian guy but apparently, Hollywood has determined 100% of their audience is stupid and that they've developed a total anathema to character growth and development, you know, the backbone of good characters

 

[Hulk_Smash]

fuck this movie

they should have hired the guy who made the undisputed movies



and hire fighters who can act AND/OR actors who can fight

Michael Jai White should be in this movie. I don’t care what other versions he was in. The guy was born to play Jaxx.

 

[oagboghi2]

Yeah, I don't want to support this asshole in any way now. I think I will skip this.

If they felt like their cast was just better this way, why not say so. Why make up such a ridiculous argument.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Why is it that after Mortal Kombat 1, people suddenly had amnesia about who the hero is in MK? It's not Cage, it's not Jax, not Sonya, not Scorpion, not Sub-Zero. You know who it's always been.

The fan movies, Scorpion's revenge, and now this new movie keep acting like he isn't. He's literally handed to you on a platter as a Kung-Fu captain america doo-gooder hero archetype and instead you say 'Well I thought Johnny Cage was the protagonist so I shelved him' Why did you think that? Who told you to think that? Someone who's writers can't think of a good enough backstory for Liu Kang to make him interesting and like-able for the audience. It's not that hard is it?

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

What a racist prick.

 

[Lanrutcon]

So that Producer seems really up to date on the source material.

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