Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary of starting work on the iconic game by sharing a video showcasing the creation of Scorpion's signature move.
"Mortal Kombat will be 30 years old in 2022," Boon said in a tweet. "But 2021 marks 30 years since we actually BEGAN working on the game. To celebrate, it seemed like a fun idea to share some behind-the-scenes stuff. This clip shows how we created Scorpion’s iconic (GET OVER HERE!) spear move." Check out the video below and see how it all came together.
The video shows Boon, John Tobias, and the rest of the team working with the actor who played Scorpion for the game footage. In it, you can see the idea emerge for a spear-tipped rope weapon to be used to pull in opponents. The team workshops the movement, before a casual "Get over here" is thrown out as an example of how Scorpion should pull in victims. The whole thing has a loose and collaborative air to it, all the more amazing considering how iconic the move and phrase have come to be. Boon acknowledged as much in a series of follow-up tweets.
"We certainly did a ton of prep for our video shoots, but some ideas came to us while filming," Boon said. "With Scorpion’s spear, it started with, 'You know what would be a cool ass move?' From there, you can be a fly on the wall and see us working through the details... One of those details was how fast Scorpion threw the spear, which had to be quick so he could catch opponents by surprise. This meant keeping the animation simple & very few frames. We also wanted the spear to pass over a ducking opponent, so we kept it at chest height."
"Finally, while there was SO MUCH more involved with us creating this classic move (fx, sounds), it’s still kool to see the germ of an idea that eventually became so synonymous with Mortal Kombat, and duplicated SO MANY TIMES in future games, movies, tv, animation & comics!" Boon continued.
Boon finished by teasing that more videos like this will be arriving as the team continues celebrating the legacy of the game. "Fingers krossed, I’m hoping to release more (fly on the wall) videos like this in the future as we lead up to Mortal Kombat’s 30-year anniversary."
Source: Twitter