Mortal Kombat Annihilation

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
File:Mortal kombat annihilation.PNG
Directed by	John R. Leonetti
Written by	Brent V. Friedman Bryce Zabel
Produced by	Lawrence Kasanoff
Starring	Robin Shou James Remar Talisa Soto Sandra Hess Brian Thompson Lynn "Red" Williams
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release dates	November 21, 1997
Running time	91 mins.
Language	English

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a 1997 movie that was the sequel to Mortal Kombat, and was based on the popular Mortal Kombat fighting game series. The film was produced by Threshold Entertainment and directed by John R. Leonetti, who had served as the director of photography for the previous film. MK:A's storyline is largely an adaptation of the game Mortal Kombat 3.

Plot summary

The evil emperor Shao Kahn illegally opens a portal from Outworld to the Earthrealm and has reclaimed his Queen, Sindel, who is also Kitana's long-dead mother. With the portal open, Earthrealm is in danger of being absorbed into Outworld within seven days, a fate which Liu Kang and the others must fight to prevent. Shao Kahn grabs Sonya Blade and holds her hostage to force Rayden into recognizing his claim on Earth, which Rayden returns by holding Kahn's generals hostage to force him to relinquish his control. Johnny Cage attempts to rescue her, only to be intercepted and killed, which forces Rayden and his friends underground to regroup. With very little time to stop the merging, Rayden suggests that they split up; Sonya, Liu Kang, and Kitana are to search for allies to the cause, while Rayden will go ask the Elder Gods why Shao Kahn was allowed to break the rules of Mortal Kombat.

Sonya immediately heads to her headquarters and recruits her old partner, Jax, who had fitted himself with external robotic prosthetics for his arms to enhance his strength. Before they can leave, they are ambushed by a cyborg named Cyrax, along with some of Shao Kahn's warriors. After defeating them, Sonya notices a dragon symbol peeling itself off of Cyrax's shoulder before vanishing. Cyrax then enters self-destruct mode and Jax and Sonya escape just before the headquarters complex is destroyed. Meanwhile, Kitana and Liu Kang search for a Native American shaman named Nightwolf, who they have been told knows how to defeat Shao Kahn. On the way to meet up with Nightwolf, however, they are confronted by a cyborg similar to the one that attacked Sonya and Jax, this one named Smoke. They defeat him with the aid of Sub-Zero, the younger brother of the Sub-Zero Liu Kang had defeated in the previous tournament, who explains that the cyborgs were captured and reprogrammed by Kahn to search after them, instead of him like his clan wanted. As a sign of good faith, Sub-Zero aids the two warriors further by forming an ice bridge over a large chasm, but before Kitana and Liu Kang can cross over, Scorpion appears and attacks Sub-Zero. The attack on Sub-Zero is merely a diversion so that Scorpion can kidnap Kitana. Knowing that Liu Kang is not yet strong enough to face Shao Kahn, Sub-Zero exhorts Liu Kang to continue on to Nightwolf before pursuing Scorpion and Kitana.

Rayden meets with the Elder Gods and is allowed to ask them three questions. He asks why Shao Kahn was allowed to break tournament rules and force his way into Earthrealm, and how Shao Kahn can be stopped. The answers he receives are sparse and ambiguous; one of the Elder Gods, named Shinnok, says that reuniting Kitana with her mother, Sindel, is the key to breaking Shao Kahn's hold on Earthrealm, but another insists that the defeat of Shao Kahn himself is what is needed. Rayden is then asked by the Elder Gods about his feelings and obligations towards the mortals, and what he would be willing to do to ensure their survival.

Liu Kang manages to find Nightwolf, who teaches him about the power of the Animality (a form of shapeshifting which helps to utilize a person's strengths and abilities), which is essential if he is to defeat Shao Kahn. To achieve the mindset needed to acquire this power, Liu Kang must pass three tests. The first is a trial of his self-esteem and focus. The second comes in the form of temptation, which manifests itself in the form of Jade, who attempts to seduce Liu Kang and make him forget about Kitana. Liu Kang resists Jade's advances, which impresses her. She offers her assistance in fighting Shao Kahn. Liu Kang accepts Jade's offer and takes her with him to the Elder Gods' temple, where he and his friends are to meet Rayden.

Sonya and Jax also head to the temple, only to be confronted by Mileena, who Sonya initially mistakes for Kitana, and an unearthly creature. Jax makes short work of the creature, and Sonya beats Mileena after a brawl in a mud puddle. Mileena is shown to have the same dragon tattoo that Cyrax had, and hers, like Cyrax's, disappears after Sonya's victory over her. At the temple, Earth's warriors reunite with a newly-shorn Rayden, who they are shocked to discover has sacrificed his immortality to freely fight alongside the Earth Warriors. Together, they head for Outworld to rescue Kitana and reunite her with Sindel.

With Jade's help, Liu Kang sneaks into Shao Kahn's castle and rescues Kitana, fending off a quartet of Tarkatan soldiers (led by Baraka), and killing Sindel's former bodyguard, the Shokan woman Sheeva, during their escape. Rayden, Jax, and Sonya find Sindel and reunite her with Kitana. Unfortunately, Sindel remains under Shao Kahn's control, and she escapes while a trio of Reptile-like Raptor warriors ambush the heroes. Jade also steals away, having revealed herself to be a mole sent by Shao Kahn to disrupt the Earth warriors' plans (though Shao Kahn later has her killed for her alleged incompetence). The Raptor ninjas are defeated but not before Rayden is injured, revealing the same dragon tattoo found on Cyrax and Mileena. The tattoo is revealed to be a family crest which allows Rayden and his family safe passage through interdimensional portals. The tattoos on Cyrax and Mileena were only temporary, which explains their disppearance when the two were defeated. Rayden then makes the shocking revelation that Shao Kahn is his brother, and that Elder God Shinnok is their father. He realizes that Shinnok had lied to him about reuniting Kitana and Sindel in order to keep him from pursuing Shao Kahn. With renewed purpose, Rayden and the rest of Earth's warriors make their way to the final showdown with Shao Kahn and his generals.

Liu Kang and his friends openly challenge Shao Kahn and his allies, only to be interrupted by Shinnok, who demands that Rayden submit to him and restore their broken family, at the expense of his mortal friends. Rayden flatly refuses, and is killed by an energy blast from Shao Kahn. With Rayden now gone, Shinnok prepares to wipe out Earth's warriors and complete the merger of Earthrealm and Outworld, but the other two Elder Gods appear, having uncovered Shinnok's treachery. They declare that the fate of Earth shall be decided through lawfully agreed means; in other words, through Mortal Kombat.

In the final battle, Jax takes on the Centaur Motaro, Sonya fights the ninja Ermac, Kitana squares off against Sindel, and Liu Kang faces Shao Kahn. Things begin to look bleak for the Earth warriors; Shao Kahn and Sindel simply overwhelm Liu Kang and Kitana, Motaro tears off one of Jax's cybernetic prosthetics, and Ermac double-teams Sonya with his shadowy counterpart, Noob Saibot. Suddenly, Jax rids himself of his prosthetics and gains the inner strength and confidence to beat Motaro naturally. Sonya, for the first time in her life, shouts for help, which Jax is more than willing to give. Sonya, with Jax's help, is then able to take out the two ninjas. Kitana manages to fake out Sindel and subdues her. Liu Kang manages to tap into his Animality but he is barely able to hold his own against Shao Kahn's own Animality. Shao Kahn begins to gloat and taunts Liu Kang, unwittingly making him angrier and releasing the Earth warrior enough to give him a second wind. Liu Kang defeats the Outworld Emperor once and for all, and Shinnok is banished to the Netherealm by the other Elder Gods.

Earthrealm reverts to what it was before the Outworld invasion, and Shao Kahn's hold over Sindel is finally broken, allowing her to reunite with her daughter. Rayden, however, remains dead — until the other Elder Gods revive him, and bestow upon him his father's former position as an Elder God. Afterward, the Earthrealm heroes walk away, glorious and happy.

Cast

• Robin Shou - Liu Kang
• Talisa Soto - Kitana
• Sandra Hess - Sonya Blade
• Lynn "Red" Williams - Jax
• James Remar - Rayden
• Keith Cooke - Sub-Zero
• J.J. Perry -- Scorpion, Cyrax
• Brian Thompson -- Shao Kahn
• Chris Conrad - Johnny Cage
• Deron McBee - Motaro
• Dana Hee - Mileena
• Reiner Schöne - Shinnok
• Musetta Vander - Sindel
• Marjean Holden - Sheeva
• Irina Pantaeva - Jade
• Litefoot - Nightwolf
• John Medlen - Ermac
• Tyrone Wiggins - Rain
• Dennis Keiffer - Baraka
• Ridley Tsui - Smoke
• Lance LeGault - Elder God of Fire
• Carolyn Seymour - Elder God of Water
• Mark Caso - Reptile (uncredited)
• Sultan Uddin - Reptile (uncredited)

Critical reaction and performance

This sequel was much less well-received than the first movie. Though attempting to continue in the style of the first movie, it is said to have lacked the level of authenticity in both special effects and fight choreography. Additionally, Annihilation suffered from an overly large and homogenous cast, employed to depict as many Mortal Kombat characters as possible, with a subsequent drop in characterization; in fact, several characters (e.g. Noob Saibot) make only unidentified cameo appearances.

The cast was almost entirely different with only Robin Shou (Liu Kang) and Talisa Soto (Kitana) reprising their roles from the first film. The only other actor to return was Keith Cooke, the actor who portrayed Reptile in the first film. He was recast as the new Sub-Zero. The part of Mileena was performed by Dana Hee, Soto's stunt double from the previous film.

The budget for Annihilation was $40 million, but the movie grossed only $36 million in the U.S., with an opening weekend take of $16 million. This represented a drop of 50% of the original movie's total domestic gross ($70 million). Worldwide, the film only grossed $51 million, versus the first film's worldwide take of $122 million.

Legacy

Apart from being generally regarded as a classic example of bad filmmaking, this movie was partially responsible for causing the Mortal Kombat franchise to lose strength during the late '90s. Despite the success of Mortal Kombat 4 in both arcades and home console systems, interest in the series began declining due to inevitable overexposure, including projects such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (a side-scrolling prequel in which the original Sub-Zero is the lead character) and two short-lived TV shows: the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996) and Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998). Defenders of the Realm lasted only four months and eleven episodes. Conquest was canceled after only one season despite being popular.

In 1999, John Tobias, co-creator of the series, resigned from Midway and took a large number of Midway's staff with him. This occurred while Mortal Kombat: Special Forces was still in production. Ironically, when asked by video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly in a 1994 interview whether a Mortal Kombat game would be made without him or Ed Boon, Tobias replied, "It would be over our dead bodies."

By the start of the new millennium, Mortal Kombat seemed to be a relic of the 1990s until the release of the direct-to-console Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002) re-ignited interest in the series.

Trivia

• Early in the film, Shao Kahn kills Rain by knocking him into a pit of fire. Later on, Baraka dies after being kicked into the same pit, but footage of Rain's death was reused for this scene.
• Two of the film's actors were regulars on American Gladiators: Lynn "Red" Williams (Jax), and Deron McBee (Motaro), who were Sabre and Malibu, respectively.
• Shao Kahn's quote "You will never win!" is taken directly from one of his in-game taunts. Raiden's yell, when performing his iconic torpedo push attack, is also taken directly from the game.
• The French release of the movie was known as Mortal Kombat: Destruction Finale, while the Italian release was titled Mortal Kombat 2 - Distruzione Totale (Total Destruction).
• Part of the movie was filmed on location at Parys Mountain on the island of Anglesey.

The Original Script

Numerous websites have hosted a script to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation that is very simular to the movie, but featuring around 22 scenes that were cut short or completelly removed. It's been rumoured that this was the original script, but it was cut short (both in pre-production and in editing) to make the movie shorter (and due to the budget). Some of the scenes listed in the script, includes:

• Johnny Cage dies (but in battle, sacrifising his life so that the others can live)
• Shao Kahn reveals the resurrected Sindel and mentions that he has powerfull allies in the Netherworld that helped him with this. (Scorpion and Kano are also generals as they were also resurrected.)
• A longer battle between Sub-Zero and Scorpinon, ending with Sub-Zero joining Liu Kang on his path to Nightwolf.
• A longer training scene with Nightwolf, including Sub-Zero and Nightwolf talking about Liu Kang's real power.
• Jade is introduced as an actual member of Nightwolf's team, and is shown to have doubts how to win Shao Kahn and mentions that surrendering is maybe the only way of surviving.
• We see New York City being destroyed by Kahn's Extermination Squad led by Rain. Stryker and Kabal are shown batteling him in a 'match' and he kills them both after a long battle (Kabal dies first from wounds inflicted in the battle, but Stryker is killed by a 'fatality' attack).
• Rain returns triumphant over New York in Outworld. We see more of Shao Kahn's plans of actiong against earth and how the others are doing (such as Kano is teaching the minions of Outworld how to use machine guns).
• Mileena revealing more about her backstory, and instead of an unearthy creature, Jax saves Sonya from Scorpion, killing him again.
• Instead of a group of Tarkatan soldiers, Liu Kang battles only Baraka, who is decapitated in the end of the battle.
• Kitana actully battles Sheeva.
• Instead of a trio of Reptile-like Warriors, the resurrected Reptile battles Rayden, more time is spent on the actual battle with Sindel and it's even shown when Jade knocks her out.
• When their plan on re-uniting Sindel and Kitana together, doesn't work, Jade flees in horror, instead of being a traitor. She goes to the castle, and tries to join Shao Kahn in fear of dying if she keeps fighting with the others. Shao Kahn makes her tell him everything she knows of their plan (and Rayden becoming human) and then snaps her neck.
• Shao Kahn gathering what's left of his generals to finish off the heroes.
• In the final battle; Jax battles Motaro, Sonya battles the resurrected Kano, Kitana battles Sindel, Sub-Zero battles Ermac and Liu Kang battles Shao-Kahn.
• Instead of ripping off one of Jax's cybernetic prosthetics, Motaro ripps off one of his arm.
• Jax continues to fight bravely, but is fatally injured in battle, Motaro is about to give him the finish blow, but Nightwolf shows up and continues to hold off Motaro.
• While Sub-Zero and Ermac battle, he releases Noob Saibot who Sub-Zero reckonizes as a fallen member of his clan. They double-team on Sub-Zero, and while he appearently fatally injures Noob, Ermac get's the best of him and manages to kill him.
• Sonya battles Kano, but his new improvement is too much for her, Jax manages to sneak up behind on Kano and remove a pin from his grenade belt, blowing him up. Sonya (wounded from the battle) tries to cover up Jax's wounds they briefly mention how she finally called for help and how he finally realized his inner strenght. He dies in her arms.
• As Kitana finishes off her mother (killing her, in the script), she faces Ermac who is about to attack the wounded Sonya.
• A much longer Animality battle. it's explained that Liu Kang manages to reach his animality so soon because Nightwolf is there to guide him through it.
• When the world returns to normal, the heroes still alive, go to a Shaolin Temple and bury their friends, also seen there are Art and Liu Kang's brother (from the first movie). Raiden arrives in a form of an elder god and bids farefell to his friends, who then rejoice that the world is saved.
• In the Netherrealm, we see Quan-Chi re-resurrect Scorpion and mentions that Shao Kahn was a fool, it's seen that he's talking to Shinnok (now in his MK4 look) and how together, they will rule the Outworld, Earth and everything in their sight. The scene ends with the camera zooming out showing an army of undead warriors, including Noob Saibot as his personal general. This was appearently set to be the beginning to MK3, simular how the ending of the first film was where the second one started.

Fans who have read the leaked script, have stated that the movie would probably be much better with this added in, though many question it's authenticity.

Notable stunt doubles

• Tony Jaa was a stunt double for Robin Shou.
• Dana Hee was a stunt double for Talisa Soto and, appropriately enough, was also cast as Mileena.
• Nicola Berwick was a stunt double for Sandra Hess.
• Ray Park was a stunt double for James Remar and Robin Shou.
• Buster Reeves was a stunt double for J.J. Perry.
• Tyrone C. Wiggins was a stunt double for Lynn "Red" Williams.
• Mark Caso was a stunt double for James Remar and J.J. Perry.
• Theo Kypri was a stunt double for Robin Shou, J.J. Perry and Keith Cooke.

John Medlen (Ermac) and Tyrone Wiggins (Rain) also worked as stunt coordinators.

Mortal Kombat: Devastation

Pre-production on Mortal Kombat: Devastation was initially scheduled to commence shortly after the release of Annihilation, but was shelved due to its poor box-office performance. Nearly a decade later, it is currently in pre-production; however, MK:D has been mired in development hell for a number of years with numerous script rewrites and story changes, along with the destruction of Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina (near where part of the movie was planned to be filmed), further complicating things. Limited information regarding the film exists on the official MK website, or from Threshold Entertainment.

mink has been confirmed to direct, and the screenplay is written by Drew McWeeny. Christopher Lambert and Chris Casamassa are said to be the only confirmed cast members.

The only plot information about Mortal Komat: Devastation is that it will be a reboot of the MK film saga, confirmed by mink on IMDb; he said that the story draws from the entire universe of MK from the beginning until now. mink also stated that the reason the script is taking a long time to write is because the intellectual property or project is a joint venture between the producers (Threshold), an independent studio, and Midway and that "each party has a signficant say about the script and the project overall."

2010, thirteen years after Annihilation, has been listed as a tentative release date.

See also

• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (soundtrack)

External links

• Official MK Site (Threshold Entertainment)
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at IMDb
• Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension
• MK Next Generation