Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind Director Breaks Down Mortal Kombat 11 Nods, Big Twists
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind offers a much different take on a Mortal Kombat story in a number of ways when compared to the first two Mortal Kombat Legends titles that preceded it. It focuses on Kenshi, for example, a fighter who still has a devout following but is not quite as recognizable as Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and Johnny Cage, and it also exists in a space akin to an alternate universe take on Mortal Kombat lore. That free rein that accompanies that setup naturally comes with a twist or two which may have even circumnavigated some of the expectations and predictions Mortal Kombat fans had going into the movie.
To help get a better grasp on everything that went down in Snow Blind, we spoke to director Rick Morales (who also served as a producer on the first two Mortal Kombat Legends movies) about everything from the start to the end of the movie. Morales shared his views on how the movie's surprised unfolded as well as the ways that Mortal Kombat 11 played a part in this film.
Spoiler Warning: Spoilers for the end of Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind and Mortal Kombat 11's various endings exist below.
The Shang Tsung Misdirect
As soon as it was clear that Shang Tsung would be in Snow Blind, people made assumptions about what was going on with Kano who's referred to as "King Kano" in the film given that he rules the wasteland. Surely Shang Tsung would usurp King Kano through some soul-sucking tricks, right?
He sure tried, but was ultimately ineffective in his quest for power. Shang Tsung got his head ripped off in true Mortal Kombat fashion which made it clear who the real ruler was in this world. Morales seemed to have anticipated these Shang Tsung assumptions and prepared this twist accordingly.
"As a Mortal Kombat fan, my thought on this is 'Well, of course the twist is gonna be Shang Tsung's gonna plot and scheme and get the souls and kill Kano and take it all over, and he'll be the big bad because he's always the big bad,'" Morales said. "And so, to me, it was a more interesting direction to say 'Oh no, he's gonna get the souls, he's gonna do this, and he's still gonna fail.' I felt like that was a little more unexpected."
An Ending Straight Out of Mortal Kombat 11
Mortal Kombat 11's modes offer various endings for different characters, and in Kano's ending, he obtains control of Kronika's Hourglass. Snow Blind plays off of this by revealing that Kano's big secret is Kronika's Hourglass which allows him to rewind time over and over again (it's worth mentioning that Kano aligns with Kronika in the game, but as far as Snow Blind is concerned, Morales said "he's killed her").
"Obviously, the reveal at the end of this is that we're basically in Kano's ending from that game," Morales said. "He's won that tournament, he's killed her, he's taken over the hourglass, he's in control of time now."
Mortal Kombat 11 players and big-time Kano fans might've picked up on this twist partway through the movie. Kano occasionally uses language that alludes to time rewinds and doing things over and over again, and with Mortal Kombat 11 being the most recent game in the series, Kronika was a logical component for that setup. The movie also includes a shot of two women fighting in a cage while Kano overlooks them which seems to have directly been inspired by the brief cutscene that plays in Kano's game ending.
But what about Geras, the other character introduced in Mortal Kombat 11 who was created by Kronika? And why wasn't Kronika shown on-screen at all? Morales said their absence was part of an effort to keep the story more focused on the movie's main characters – Kenshi in particular – though there were indeed debates on how much of the Mortal Kombat lore and roster to employ in this movie.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is now available on digital, DVD, and Blu-ray.
