Karen Strassman possibly not reprising her roles as Kitana / Mileena

[MKF30]

Like I said, Liu Kang is not a parody of Bruce Lee, but rather an Bruce Lee-inspired character. Same thing for all of the Bruce Lee-inspired character from all other fighting game franchises which like Fei Long from SF which yes, are indeed exist. The term "parody" is supposed to refer to something that take the original inspiration in a joking fashion. If any of those characters would've been an actual parody, they would've been a totally different character. The Law's from Tekken are technically a parody due to their comic-relief aspects, although like I said earlier, almost every Tekken character is comedy-prone in terms of story, unlike Mortal Kombat, so maybe it doesn't count.

More what I meant, was just pointing out that every fighting game has a "Bruce Lee" like character what I should have said, I agree. Yeah I know, like Deadpool is an actual parody of Deathstroke. The creator even admitted it, then later tried to say he wasn't lol. But it's pretty obvious. Even Deadpool in the crossover admits it to DS saying "if it weren't for you I wouldn't exist man!" lol. Yeah Tekken's story has always been like a comedy soap opera.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Liu Kang is Bruce Lee-inspired character and not a parody

Liu Kang is most definitely a parody. That sound he makes while doing the bicycle kick when MK2 dropped was one of the silliest sounds in the entire arcade. Turning into an actual dragon was pretty silly too, but awesome. They cranked the rapid-fire Bruce Lee vocals up to ridiculous levels, but it works for what the franchise is.

MK has never been completely serious, just like Ed Boon is never completely serious -- his personality and the series go hand in hand. There's always some tounge-in-cheek for every bit of drama. But that balance is part of what makes the series so beloved.

 

[Roy Arkon]

Liu Kang is most definitely a parody. That sound he makes while doing the bicycle kick when MK2 dropped was one of the silliest sounds in the entire arcade. Turning into an actual dragon was pretty silly too, but awesome. They cranked the rapid-fire Bruce Lee vocals up to ridiculous levels, but it works for what the franchise is.

MK has never been completely serious, just like Ed Boon is never completely serious -- his personality and the series go hand in hand. There's always some tounge-in-cheek for every bit of drama. But that balance is part of what makes the series so beloved.

The Bicycle Kick sound is only one aspect of Liu Kang's design, but his other sounds of all of his other moves, while indeed being inspired by Bruce Lee, are not cheesy at all. Turning into a dragon for one was also not silly, I don't understand how can someone even say such a thing.

Also, like I said, MK is indeed not completely serious, but MK is the most serious Fighting Game franchise of them all and especially during it's story, and even during gameplay when the all of the more cheesy stuff do appear, only some of the aspects of it are, not all of them, like in the case of Liu Kang, only one or two sounds of him during battle are cheesy, yet not his whole design both in story and gameplay. If you wanna see a Fighting Game series that is truly cheesy, look no further then Tekken, in which almost all characters except a few Bosses are cheesy and comedy-prone in terms of the story and even during gameplay there are some aspects that are just that, not all of them though.

 

[KHTC Takgillo]

Thanks for explaining it to me!

First of all... The Voice Actors Guild is an awesome name for their union!
And that explains why Troy Baker was indeed in everything all of a sudden! I like both him and Nolan North though, so I personally didn't mind... I just thought they were the current "it" guys in the industry though.

It does kinda suck that the strike would collide with the development of MK11, but it makes sense now.
Let's hope the VA's in MK11 will do a great job then. ^^

Not mk11 inj2 was impacted that's one of the reason for the reused voice and the launch date of May instead of April.

 

[KHTC Takgillo]

I'm 90% sure it's because of the voice actor strike. So far it seems the voices for Scorpion, Kitana, Mileena and potentially Sonya Blade are gone.

Phil LaMarr (Kotal Kahn) and Ashley Burch (Cassie Cage) were apart of the strike. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Steve Blum (Sub-Zero, Reptile, Bo' Rai Cho) was apart of the strike as well. If they get punished, then we could be losing at least 5 more character voices.

I will note that LaMarr and Blum returned for Injustice 2, so while it may seem like they are not out, it really depends on how their contracts work. I know work on Injustice 2 started before Mortal Kombat X was even out yet which was in 2015. If they started doing voice work for the game mid-2016 then that was actually before the strike happened, which was in October. They definitely got contracts for Injustice 2 before they started the strike, now that the strike is done and over, they may not be back for future projects.

The only thing I can think of to go against this is that Blum did Sub-Zero's voice in Injustice 2 as well, and he was released months after the game's launch. Unless he recorded his lines for Sub-Zero around the same time as Green Lantern (for the base game) -- which I feel is somewhat unlikely -- then he must have returned for additional voices. But again, since he had a contract before he went on strike maybe apart of it was that he was obligated to do more voices in post launch or something, I really don't know. So even then, it's possible he was only able to do Sub-Zero's voice again because of the fact he was able to get the contract before the strike.

We will have to wait and see, but it's not looking good for fans of the original voices. It really sucks for the voice actors involved, but with that being said it doesn't mean that the voices for these characters will be bad or generally not done justice. If it's true that they are getting Ronda Rousey for Sonya Blade, then honestly it's not really a strong way to start things, but here's to hoping that her voice is good and the other actors/actresses they get are as well.

EDIT: Looked it up and it does seem that Steve Blum was apart of the strike. He even had a site for a limited time promoting the strike and going over information detailing what it was all about.

Pretty sure the strike happened in the middle of inj2 development, they start development early but I doubt the voices are recorded years in advance

 

[ImperatrixSindel]

Yeah if the strike is a factor it's that they are choosing (perhaps because WB is still angry about it) not to use the talent that went on strike, not that the strike actually impacted the MK11 development cycle.

It's also possible they're just replacing them with celebrity talent. We'll find out soon, I guess.

 

[MKF30]

Liu Kang is most definitely a parody. That sound he makes while doing the bicycle kick when MK2 dropped was one of the silliest sounds in the entire arcade. Turning into an actual dragon was pretty silly too, but awesome. They cranked the rapid-fire Bruce Lee vocals up to ridiculous levels, but it works for what the franchise is.

MK has never been completely serious, just like Ed Boon is never completely serious -- his personality and the series go hand in hand. There's always some tounge-in-cheek for every bit of drama. But that balance is part of what makes the series so beloved.

I think MK while it does have it's moments, compared to other fighters is pretty dead serious overall. I mean preventing everyone from dying, killing people in pretty brutal ways in Kombat, resurrecting dead heroes? Pretty dark, the comics were a lot darker (game tie ins) compared to the games with a bit more humor at times but the overall plot of MK I'd say that's a hell of a lot more serious than anything in SF, Tekken, MVC, Injustice, DOA etc, etc You do raise a good point on LK's 3 stooges sounds when he does the bicycle kick, but MK has always kind of said gibberish with some moves some of which not even funny just like "what the hell did he/she say?". SF does this too, some things are understandable but then you have guys like E.Honda who say things like "owee oiiee" and in some SF games it's really hard to understand certain characters when they do moves. Ryu, Ken etc you can understand Hadoken and Scorpion with "Get over Here!"

Fei Long also makes silly noises when he fights, I think easily on par with Liu Kang if not more actually with his flaming kick move, the dash punch move etc. There's a guy in DOA who also makes noises who seems Bruce Lee inspired(forget the name) but I'm sure you get the point. lol.