Had Potential For Massive Sequels
Had they actually tried.
sharei like this one because the story was simple, and accessible for people who don't know the game.
tournament to save humanity? awesome and simples.
music? awesome.
the sequel had TOO many characters, and some dumb plot that I'm not sure i ever understood.
meh.
True. Even if you're not a MK fan the first movie is easily digestible as a regular non video game movie due to its straight forward plot.
It's not that they didn't try with the sequel it's that they poorly managed and lost everything that made the first work. Linden Ashby's add-lib greatly improved the original script. Getting Paul Anderson at first time director price was a stroke of luck. Say what you will about him he's a very good visual director which is what this movie needed. Lambert, Goddard, and Tagaha were cast very well for their roles.
Producer Kasanoff was overly concerned with staying under budget and getting the sequel out as fast as possible to promote the new game. They pretty much skipped writing, cast the least expensive actors they could find, just promoted the crew from the first movie to replace the non returners, and spent millions traveling around the world for shooting locations, several of which never even made the cut.
Kasanoff should have found another up and coming director since Paul refused to come back. He should have honored Linden's sequel deal. And he should have spent more money on pre-production, writing, SFX.