Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon continues to reveal more about the game's history for its 30th anniversary. This time, he talks about the trials and tribulations surrounding Raiden's hat. No, really.
Previously, Ed Boon has talked about Scorpion's iconic spear, the work of himself and others as voice actors for the first few games, and how they brought Scorpion and Sub-Zero to life. Now, he's released a new video where he talks about Raiden -- and how his iconic hat proved to be a major pain in the butt.
Here is our 3rd video celebrating Mortal Kombat’s 30th anniversary! (More to come!) This is more of a fun video that features behind-the-scenes of us filming one of MK’s most recognizable characters. Raiden was played by a FANTASTIC martial artist and friend, Carlos Pesina. pic.twitter.com/IeBEAN6883
— Ed Boon (@noobde) May 4, 2022
Raiden's Hat Made Mortal Kombat Mocap a Challenge, Ed Boon Says
Raiden in the original Mortal Kombat was portrayed by the "fantastic martial artist and friend" Carlos Pesina. He was able to bring the high-flying kicks and energetic moves that were needed for the godlike character Raiden, but it also presented some problems with his hat.
"As amazing as Carlos is, there were some unexpected challenges that came up involving one of MK's most iconic costume pieces…. Raiden's hat. More specifically Raiden’s hat and the laws of physics," Boon explained in a Twitter thread.
"Over the 2 days we filmed Carlos as Raiden, his hat fell off countless times. To this day, I’m shocked we used only a rubber band to keep it on. WTF were we thinking? Carlos was a great sport during all this, especially while performing 'knocked down' motions."
Boon explained that they eventually came upon a somewhat inconvenient (but sensible solution) -- John Tobias would walk over and pick it up after every take. This did present a problem, though -- they couldn't do a proper recovery animation from a prone position without the hat on. That led to the devs coming up with an innovative workaround by having Raiden recover into the standing position by teleporting.
Raiden's legendary hat also had one other problem -- it was accidentally destroyed in the process of motion capture filming. They were able to repair it to continue work, but it could have proven to be a pretty big problem if they hadn't gotten that sorted.
These videos from Ed Boon continue to give insight into the early days of a massive fighting game franchise. Now all we have to do is hope and wait for the next big Mortal Kombat game to be released -- hopefully sooner rather than later.
