Mortal Kombat's Elder Sub Zero Explained

the first sub-zero has officially been confirmed to make an appearance in the upcoming mortal kombat film while it's no surprise to see b han featured as one of the main characters in the film there's a rumor floating around that we might get to see his spectre version noob cybot make an appearance as well the dark resurrected warrior has been one of the mortal kombat fandom's favorites since he was featured as a secret character in mortal kombat 2. today's mortal kombat video is all about noob cybot i'll go over his introduction in the franchise how he evolved throughout the year and his story in both timelines of the series as discussed in our cbr video on scorpion's origin story the first sub-zero was resurrected by the evil necromancer quan chi as the warrior of darkness noob saibot but the black-clad ninja first appeared in the mortal kombat franchise without really having a story behind his character noob saibot was one of those secret characters you could unlock under certain conditions but to get him as a playable character you first had to challenge him to mortal kombat in order for him to appear in goro's lair the task was rather simple you basically had to win 50 matches in a row in two-player mode which probably incited every single one of us players to cheat and not actually be playing with a friend noob reappeared once more in ultimate mortal kombat 3 where the only information we know about him is that not unlike scorpion he is an undead wraith and is a member of the brotherhood of shadow now you might have noticed that his name is kind of funky and clashes with most of the other characters of the franchise that's because the spectre's name is taken from mortal kombat creators reversed last names ed boon and john tobias which makes noob for its first part and cybot for the second while noob saibot's story is expanding although very slowly as the video game sequels keep coming he's still somehow of a hollowed template story-wise after all not taking into account his past life as sub-zero noob saibot was born out of nothing he's devoid of a soul and literally represents evil itself in the form of darkness the character appeared in various fighting games from the mortal kombat franchise whether as a playable character or not and even in the horrible yet awesome film mortal kombat annihilation in the 1997 film directed by john r leonette noob briefly appears at the end of the film as one of irmak's souls as the red ninja lets them out of himself to fight sonia blade now before we get to his story or should i say stories if we take into account the two timelines let's take a look at how he evolved from 1993 to 2019 now when it comes to character design the first three installations of the game lacked a bit in the originality department before the mortal kombat franchise got into 3d graphics territory the company midway games actually used real actors to play their in-game characters and as the games grew into popularity and fans demanded more sequels they had to come up with brand new characters this is where palette swap comes in there are many reasons why a production studio would go for a palette swap over creating brand new designs for every single character the most obvious is of course money production cost for a video game can be really high since it requires the studio to hire an enormous team and a project often takes years to be completed another reason for adopting the palette swap practice which in some ways is still linked to production cost is for memory preservation measures early video games like mortal kombat were mainly sold on the market in cartridge form which makes the space available in these games rather limited while the technique can be used in inventive and creative ways mortal kombat opted for a cost saving approach when introducing more ninja type characters when noob cybot was first introduced he was an extreme case of palette swap taken from subzero's design while using scorpion's moves like the infamous spear but instead of just swapping the colorful parts of sub-zero's blue costume the creators opted to make him all black from head to toe what results is more of a shadow character without any specific details in his design and that idea will not only stay to some extent but will inform both his personality and his abilities that are born out of pitch black darkness now in terms of character design noob saibot has become one of the most iconic characters in the series while still remaining one of its most mysterious characters in the original mortal kombat he appeared as bihan under the alias sub-zero wearing the blue and black ninja outfit that has later been adopted by his brother quailang after being defeated in the first mortal combat tournament by the vengeful scorpion bihan returned as a secret character in mortal kombat 2. now i'm not quite sure what the creators thought when they brought him back in mortal kombat 3 using the same palette swap technique but instead of filling in one of the ninja silhouettes with pitch black they strangely used kano's design but also his special moves now in some ways this announces the mutability of the character who can later on create clones of himself during a fight making him even more puzzling it's not until the special edition ultimate mortal kombat 3 that noob cybot someone emerges from the shadows as his features are now slightly visible and appears to be a black and white version of sub-zero the idea of a dark ninja design continued throughout the franchise up until the rebooted timeline in the 2011 video game mortal kombat where he looked more and more like death itself while noob saibot died again in the series ninth installment and skipped mortal kombat 10 he returned stronger than ever in the 2019 mortal kombat 11. netherrealm studios takes their idea of noob cybot as the grim reaper one step further now wearing a hood spiky knight like shoulder pads and armed with a pretty sharp look in scythe noob cybot is something out of one's worst nightmares now that i've situated noob cybot in the mortal kombat franchise and talked about his amazing looks let's talk about his story in the series chronologically noob saibot first appeared as sub-zero in mortal kombat mythologies where he was hired by quan chi to retrieve the map of elements which would then lead the necromancer to the powerful artifact named the amulet of shinnok this is where all the drama between sub-zero and scorpion began as the ice warrior ended up taking scorpion's life and was blamed for the killing of the shirai ryu clan this led scorpion reborn as a wraith to enter the first mortal combat tournament in order to seek revenge against the lin kuei ninja after scorpion defeated sub-zero the ice warrior was resurrected as the dark ninja noob cybot by that jerk quan chi while he doesn't have much of a storyline in mortal kombat 2 he returns in the third installment as an ally to the outworld emperor shao khan in the following game he serves another villain once more but this time fights side by side with the fallen elder god shinnok things get a little more interesting for the character in mortal kombat deception as he finds his old pal smoke now a deactivated cyborg noob eventually reactivates him using him for his own gain and starts a whole new pet project the creation of an army of ninja cyborgs in mortal kombat armageddon noob and smoke try to take over the lin kuei clan but are stopped by the edenian demigod taven after both characters are defeated the god of thunder raiden tries to make him remember his past life as bihan but the wraith is so corrupted and way too deep into darkness that there is nothing to do to bring him back when the timeline is rebooted in a 2011 mortal kombat raiden has a vision of bihan becoming noob cybot and tries to prevent scorpion from killing the original sub-zero raiden's plan fails as quan chi shows scorpion a fake version of sub-zero attacking his clan while noob still acts as a servant to bigger villains in that game he is killed by a soul nato but is brought back in mortal kombat 11 where he is finally free from quan chi noob's newfound freedom is short-lived as he now pledges his allegiance to the keeper of time chronica so she gives him his own dark clan as the past and present timelines have been merged in that latest video game and sub-zero succeeded in preventing bihan from being corrupted by sektor we might just get a future behind who can wield both the power of darkness and ice that is if some part of noob saibots survived the time change under our scorpion video user aj thomas is curious about how cole young is connected to scorpion in the upcoming film you and i both aj but i think cole might also somehow be related to xiao khan or maybe he is shao khan

Channel: CBR

Views: 112,179

Rating: 4.9454255 out of 5

Keywords: Bi-Han, Finish Him, Liu Kang, MK, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 11, Mortal Kombat film, Mortal Kombat movie, Noob Saibot, Scorpion, Sonya Blade, Sub-Zero, videogames

Id: g14Zs5oZZAE

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021