It’s been a while since we’ve gotten any live-action Mortal Kombat stories. And having it pop-up as a web-series is a pleasant surprise.
On Tuesday, 12 April, on Machinima’s YouTube channel, we’ll get to see the first episode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy, an apparently big-budgeted web-series with some pretty well known names including Jeri Ryan of Star Trek: Voyager Fame, who will be playing the part of Sonia Blade.
The high-budget web-series is an interesting new medium, and these early series, like this one and the recent Riese: Kingdom Falling will establish precedent on web-series to come.
Is this really a good format for genre narratives? Only time will tell, but if Riese is any indication, producers don’t really know how to treat the medium yet.
Seeing Warner Brother, the owners of Mortal Kombat film IP, get involved in such an experimental project is heartening however. We’ll just have to hope that they treat it right.
The biggest issue with any web-series so far is pacing. From amateurs to big dogs, most web-series simply aren’t paced properly. They almost always feel like they are more traditional 40 or 90 minute stories, which have simply been chopped up to make a web series.
Seeing a 90 minute story in 1-15 minute chunks is actually not all that compelling, and usually leads me to wait until the entire season or series is finished before watching it. Mortal Kombat, with its focus on single combat, might be just the right property to do it right with.
This trailer for the series was released last week:
The series Will be available on Machinima’s youtube page starting 12 April.
