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SDCC 2011: Warner Premier: H+ and Mortal Kombat Legacy

Thursday at San Diego Comic Con was packed with panels and people, as my fellow geeks and I continued to make our way through all of the different exhibits, booths, and presentations.  While the much anticipated Twilight panel certainly got its audience and hours at a time were spent by people in various other lines as well, including the panel for the awesome HBO series Game of Thrones (wish I could have been there), I did manage to take some time and see what Warner Premier had to offer in the way of their new and popular web series.  The results were interesting enough as the panel included a new web series being produced by Bryan Singer and, more excitedly, a panel with the stars and creators behind the popular online hit, Mortal Kombat Legacy.

First up was the new web series H+, a science fiction series set in the not too distant future.  The story takes place in a world that has advanced technology and communication far enough to the point beyond in-hand mobile devices, with implants that now have the user literally connected to the internet via their own mind.  However, during the early stages of the release of this new technology, a virus within the system causes the death of a third of the population of the world.  This virus leads to a new world order, as we follow a number of different characters through this whole ordeal.

Producer Bryan Singer was not at the panel, as he is currently in London, filming Jack the Giant Killer, but he did provide a video introduction for the trailer of the web series, which can be seen here:

 

The series has been directed by Stewert Hendler and has been written by John Cabrera and Cosimo De Tommaso.  It was filmed mainly in Chile, in order to have a place that can represent a number of different continents and countries, as the scope of this web series is worldwide.  The web series will be divided into 48 episodes, each lasting around 3-7 minutes, making for a 3-4 hour total runtime.  The series will have 11 different main characters, with the option to view the different episodes in a number of different arrangements, in order to better focus on certain characters and understand various arcs of the series in different sort of ways, once all the episodes have been released.  H+ is set to premiere later this year.

The second half of the panel was devoted to the Mortal Kombat Legacy web series, created and developed by Kevin Tancharoen.  The panel included Tancharoen, as well as many of the actors who have appeared in the web series thus far, including Jeri Ryan (via Skype) and Michael Jai White.  A brief Q&A with the moderator had Tancharoen address the fan reaction to the series thus far, with Tancharoen being very forward thinking in regards to both the good and bad comments that each episode has received.  The cast and crew present also spoke highly of Tancharoen and what his vision of the series has had to offer.

Following this initial discussion, the audience was finally treated to the still unreleased episode of the series and season finale for the time being – Episode 9: Cyrax and Sektor.  Apparently, the reason for the delay was due to the amount of time it took to have the CG robotic warriors be appropriately rendered for the film.  Comic Con turned out to be a great place to premiere this episode, as it received great reaction, which should be obvious, because who wouldn’t want to see live action robots beating the crap out of each other at a panel for Mortal Kombat?  The robots certainly looked very good, which is promising for the next season, as more confidence has surely been built up, based on the response for the previous episodes as well as this upcoming one, which will be officially released Sunday, July 24^th on YouTube and Machinima.com

One final note, Mortal Kombat creator, Ed Boon, was at the panel and revealed that the recently released Mortal Kombat game would be receiving a new downloadable character.  This character would be none other than Freddy Krueger, who will have his own set of special moves and fatalities for fans to tear into.  This was easily pleasing to both fans of Mortal Kombat and of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

A lot of fun was had at this panel, as people got a nice sneak peak at an exciting and epic looking web series along with some good ol’ Mortal Kombat fun, as the newest episode was premeired.  Audiences certainly seemed satisfied and will most likely continue to be pleased by all the different joys that San Diego Comic Con has to offer.  Check back at Why So Blu to find more coverage of events, panels, and screenings during this exciting time that is 2011’s San Diego Comic Con.