Here's my list of selective murdering:
First of all... MK1 for me is critical... Because it's the foundation of all MKs. So...
MK1 - Kano, Raiden and Liu Kang can all go to hell.
Seriously... These three characters never grew on me since the original MK, too generic...
Ok, aside from Kano, LK and Raiden are the two main characters... But damn... The main characters shoulda be Scorp and Subby.
Talk about overrated... Like when Street Fighter The Movie appeared (the crappiest film in all time, followed closely by Popeye), and they tried to shift focus to Guile, instead of Ryu and Ken... In the MK case, is the opposite... They try hard for us to like and think of Raiden and LK as Main Characters, but... It's very hard to swallow... Even Kojima did a better job with Raiden from MGS, and now he finally progressed from "fag" to "yeah, he's kickass now, but... Still a fag!"
I mean, this is character design 101 in my book... When your main characters aren't the favorites... Better turn the favorites into main characters, and call it a day.
Boon and Tobias missed a prime oportunity there, they shoulda listen to fans since the original MK, and then work on the Story from there, from gamers feedback. Now the end result is a crippled story, filled with uninteresting, empty and inexpressive characters on the spotlight.
Story-wise, they did a good job in MK9 though, but they shoulda have done this sooner... And also, the crappy ending is a X-Ray of the crippled nature of MK Story. Not so much room for improvement.
And actually, for me, MK9 already killed Raiden for good... I mean... Dude... What kind of crappy god is he? If humanity had a religion which relied on a god like Raiden, they shoulda be better off by being followers of Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate or Scientology. If Beavis and Butt-Head were in the game, they would appear smarter than Raiden... In MK9 Raiden looks clueless and dumb as a door knob, and fails miserably.
MK2 and onwards:
Now the murder begins...
The following characters can die, and rot in hell, with no explanation at all:
Sheeva, Sindel, Chameleon, Khameleon, Fujin, Jarek, Kai, Meat, Reiko, Tanya, Bo' Rai Cho, Drahmin, Hsu Hao, Mavado, Mokap, Moloch, Nitara, Onaga, Sareena, Dairou, Darrius, Havik, Hotaru, Kira, Kobra, Shujinko, Daegon, Taven.
Die with an explanation:
Blaze - They should have done it as a real secret character in MK2...
Kintaro and Motaro - Never liked them... Goro is the man, and should be unique, and a little more developed, character-wise.
Nightwolf - Seriously? I hated T. Hawk in SSFII, and probably because of that I hate Nightwolf.
Stryker - In MK9 he's a bit better developed, but still, he's a dumbass donut eater.
Rain - The Rain of ninjas must stop.
And That's it... For me, a better retelling of the story should be a (re)retelling of MK1 again, but starting with Raiden as a powerful and almighty god (and unplayable), Liu Kang would be killed in the first match, and Kung Lao avenging his death (which is a way more interesting character), and all that sub-zero/scorp ninja thing going on, with a HUGE focus on them.