Mortal Kombat II Writer Breaks Down Why SPOILER’s Death Was Inevitable

Heads up for major spoilers if you haven't seen Mortal Kombat II yet.

Let’s just get right to it: if you were holding out hope that Cole Young (played by Lewis Tan) would keep dodging death after front-lining the first Mortal Kombat movie, think again. The sequel wastes no time killing him off. And if that feels like a surprisingly big move, well, turns out fan outrage played a huge role. Seriously.

Why Cole Young Had to Go

Mortal Kombat II screenwriter Jeremy Slater offered up the explanation in an interview with GamesRadar+, and it’s honestly pretty revealing. His comment says it all:

'The idea was very much we need some deaths that are going to shock everybody. I love Lewis Tan. I think Lewis is the best, but Cole was a character that the hardcore fans did not respond to in the first movie, and they were very vocal about that, and very vocal about calling for his head. So Cole was a great example of a character where killing him would shock the casual fans, the people who are not terminally online and just went to see the movie and enjoyed it. It’s going to be a really shocking moment for them, but the hardcore fans are expecting him to die.'

Basically, Slater and the team knew that if anyone’s death would get jaws dropping in theaters, it would be Cole’s—especially since the more invested Mortal Kombat crowd wanted him gone anyway. It’s a rare case where ‘listening to the fans’ meant unleashing a fatality on the character the franchise invented just a couple years ago.

Original Character Dilemma

Let’s be honest, the decision to even create Cole Young in the first place never made much sense for people who actually play the games. The franchise is built on decades of beloved (and, frankly, usually pretty weird) fighters, so tossing in a brand-new lead always felt like ignoring the real draw of Mortal Kombat. Even Slater admits he didn’t see the point in sticking with Young for the second movie. He told The Hollywood Reporter:

'One of my approaches to this was saying, "Look, the joy of playing Mortal Kombat is every time you put a quarter in the machine, you select a different character for a wildly different experience." I wasn’t interested in continuing the storyline of Cole Young from the first movie. It’s not necessarily admitting that mistakes were made. But we did say, "Let’s look at what the first movie did right and double down on those areas. Let’s also look at the areas where that movie failed to connect so we can steer clear and pivot in other directions."'

Translation: Why force another whole movie about a guy no one wanted, when you could spend more screen time with Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and all the old favorites?

Did It Work?

If you want the short version: Mortal Kombat II gets some things right that the first movie fumbled, but it’s still a mixed bag. Our own Chris Bumbray put it this way:

'While Mortal Kombat II isn’t quite the knockout follow-up some of us might have been hoping for, it does improve on the last film, and is night and day compared to the last time we got a Mortal Kombat II in theaters. Karl Urban gets a great showcase here, and even if you can’t help but feel the action could have been a bit more memorable, I had a fun time watching it.'

So: improvement, but not flawless. At least the fatalities are there, and Slater’s willingness to kill off an unpopular protagonist was a gutsy swing. If nothing else, Mortal Kombat II learned from some of its biggest mistakes—let’s just hope the next round leans even harder into what the hardcore fans want.

Okay, your turn: What did you think of the sequel? Let us know, and if you somehow miss Cole Young (you might be the only one), feel free to defend him in the comments.