Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie.
The 2021 Mortal Kombat movie briefly mentions the Elder Gods; the cosmic beings who created the Mortal Kombat Tournament. Yet the movie says almost nothing about them and none of them make an appearance apart from Raiden, who is a lesser god of thunder. This makes sense, however, given that in the original video games the Elder Gods took a vow against interfering in the affairs of mortals beyond certain prescribed roles, such as Raiden’s role as the celestial defender of Earthrealm.
Strangely enough, despite Raiden’s overseeing the training of the champions of Earthrealm, it is the villains of the film who speak the most of the Elder Gods and their role in the Mortal Kombat Tournament. Early in the movie, Mileena voices her concern to Shang Tsung about what will happen if Raiden discovers they are “breaking rules set in stone by the Elder Gods” by killing the champions of Earthrealm before the tournament begins. Shang Tsung dismisses her worries, saying that he will deal with the Elder Gods and that is the last time they are mentioned.
In the original video games, the Elder Gods were the cosmic beings responsible for creating and overseeing life in the various Realms that form the Mortal Kombat universe. They came into existence at the dawn of time along with another race, the Titans, and a creature known as the One Being. The Titans drew their power from the abstract forces that governed the universe, such as Space and Time. By contrast, the Elder Gods’ powers were tied to the more physical aspects of the universe, such as the elements, life, light, darkness, and death. The Titans and the Elder Gods generally opposed one another, though they did join forces to stand against the One Being, who consumed and absorbed the powers of both races. It was the One Being’s physical form which, broken into six pieces, came to form the six major Realms of the universe.
The Elder Gods and the Titans came into conflict once again when they disagreed over how to best manage the new life which was born of the Realms. The Titans favored planning out the life of every individual soul according to the predetermined whims of Fate. The Elder Gods, perhaps remembering the tyranny of the One Being, believed that all life should be free to seek its own destiny. Despite the Titans being more powerful and numerous, the Elder Gods were somehow able to win the war and, to prevent further damage to the cosmos, swore to limit their involvement in the affairs of mortals from that day forward.
Despite their vow, the Elder Gods intervened one more time with their creation of the Mortal Kombat Tournament. Fearful of the effect that wide-spread war between dimensions would have on the universe as a whole, the Mortal Kombat Tournament required all disputes between the realms be settled with a series of single-elimination duels between the chosen champions of the respective realms. One realm could invade another only after winning ten consecutive tournaments. This edict did help to slow Outworld’s efforts to conquer all of reality but it did not halt them completely, leading to the conflict in the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie, where Earth is one loss away from an Outworld invasion.
