11. Scorpion’s origin
Scorpion’s origin story is pretty komplicated, but we can make some assumptions about the version this movie is going for based on these scenes. Hanzo Hasashi was an ex-assassin and member of a cabal of ninjas called the Shirai Ryu, who had “retired” and started living as a pretty regular guy with a quiet life and a family. However, tragedy struck when his entire clan and family were wiped out by Sub-Zero (or, one of the Sub-Zeros in MK’s lore, but don’t worry too much about that). Hanzo himself didn’t survive the encounter and was sent to the hellish Netherrealm where he was resurrected by Quan Chi, transforming him into the nightmarish Scorpion. In more recent versions of the story, it was revealed that Sub-Zero actually had nothing to do with the murder of Hanzo’s family and the whole thing was, in fact, a ploy by Quan Chi meant to manipulate and puppeteer Scorpion into working for him.
It’s not completely clear if we’re going to see Quan Chi in the movie, or if we’ll get the version where Quan Chi is manipulating the rivalry between Sub-Zero and Scorpion, but we’re definitely going to see Hanzo experience some real tragedy and bounce back from it as a new and presumably more dangerous man. And he’ll probably have a huge, climactic fight with Sub-Zero somewhere in here, too, just based on Sub-Zero’s status as one of the featured antagonists for the Earthrealm gang.
