Adapting Kitana: Boring Hero or Redeemed Prize

Kitana.

Mortal Kombat mainstay. Icon of the franchise. General fan-favorite.
One of the more developed characters story-wise, and one of the few to undergo an actual arc through the series.

And, for some reason, a character adaptations of Mortal Kombat just can’t get right.

The story has been adapted to outside media quite a few times now—movies, comics, TV, animation—and has even been rebooted/re-imagined in the games themselves. Kitana, as would be expected for a popular and iconic character, has been featured in most if not all of them.

But, for some reason, we’ve yet to see a great interpretation of her. For all the times she’s appeared in MK films, animation, etc., few (if any) have managed to truly nail her. Have they come close? Sure. Is she the only character who’s been done dirty by adaptations? Absolutely not. Has she gotten it worse than others? Not really.

Most would point out—not incorrectly—that Mortal Kombat is just a video game. Not exactly Shakespeare. For all the lore present, when you get down to it, it’s a collection of familiar archetypes, stock characters, and cliches. Should any of these characters, including Kitana, really be that hard to translate to film, television, comics, etc.?

So how and why—despite multiple goes and despite being one of the franchise’s most popular and iconic characters—do so many miss the mark?

Game of Thrones: What Happened After?

And thus, Game of Thrones has come to an end.

But what became of Westeros and the surviving characters in the aftermath? What future awaits the Six Kingdoms and independent North, good or ill? Who went on to prosper, and who sank into failure?

Let us take this journey....

Daenerys's Rage-Quit

So there it is. After eight seasons, Game of Thrones comes an end.

And...oof. What an ending it was.

As much as it seems like a bandwagon thing, I'm inclined to agree the show fizzled out in a spectacularly anti-climactic and unworthy letdown. I love the books, and the previous seasons of the show were arguably some of the best television produced, but, as tends to happen from time to time, when it came time to stick the landing...it crashed and burned.

Many would say things took a turn when the show went beyond the books—which would be circa Season 5—but I think the last two seasons, more than any other, saw a catastrophic drop in writing quality.

There's going to be no shortage of articles, essays and think-pieces all over the internet exploring the how and why, but one thing I want to focus on here is how things turned out for the Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen. 

**Spoilers ahead, obviously, for those who might care**

My Top 10 & 5 of 2017

It's the end of another year, and whatever else can be said about this year of our lord Cthulhu, 2017, at least there has been some good stuff to watch. I don't get to the theater that often these days, but this year actually saw me making the trip for three movies. A feat compared to last year where I didn't hit the theater once and by the end, I didn't have a Top Ten list so much as seven or so movies that I saw...half of which I didn't even like.

So let's roll with My Top 10 Movies of 2017...that I saw....