Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

32 mistakes since 26 Mar '17, 00:00

(7 votes)

Revealing mistake: When Rayden and Kahn fight at the start of the film, at one point Rayden does a flying body-spear into Kahn, which sends him flying backwards. When he lands on the ground, the floor beneath him "warbles," revealing he landed on a pad. It also continues to move a bit for the rest of the shot as he moves.

TedStixon

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation mistake picture

Revealing mistake: During the opening scene, a few shots after we see the Outworld ninjas falling through the portal and leaping about, there's a shot of several monks fleeing that tilts up towards the (digitally replaced) sky. As it does this, you can see several hard lines about in the sky from where pieces of the digital animated skies were "stitched together." It's easy to miss the first time, but if you know to look for them, they're pretty obvious. You can see similar lines in the sky in several other shots throughout the scene, but it's most noticeable here.

Revealing mistake: During the opening scene, when the ninjas begin to arrive through the portal, in several shots as they leap about, you can tell the stuntmen were filmed in front of a greenscreen and crudely "cut out" and placed over the footage. They're very strange-looking and have a weird jagged border around them. Some of them are also missing pieces of themselves or look like they were improperly "cut out."

Revealing mistake: When Smoke is frozen and then is kicked into the pit where he explodes, watch closely. In the second shot of the explosion, once the plume of fire clears, you can see a strange-looking flame at the bottom of the screen moving subtly from right-to-left in a very unnatural way. Obviously a part of the explosive charge that created the effect. (Likely some sort-of mortar or something similar that propelled the fire upwards and is still burning).

Revealing mistake: When Rayden and Khan face off at the beginning, when Rayden says "As long as I have the power, Khan...", look at the background. The tree and pillar behind them look very crude, with fuzziness and haze around them from where they were rotoscopped so the background could be added behind them.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Liu Kang and Kitana fight Smoke and his goons, Kitana dodges one of the goons and then roundhouse kicks him. It's obvious in the wide shot that her kick did not connect.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Sonya overhead throws Mileena into the ground, she throws her with one arm (she even ends up facing the camera). In the next shot, she's throwing her with both arms.

Continuity mistake: During the Sonya vs. Mileena fight, Sonya is kicked by Mileena, and she lands into the mud on her back. The next shot briefly shows that Sonya is standing ready to block Mileena's kick but Sonya is sitting again in the next shot.

Revealing mistake: When Liu transforms into a dragon during the final battle, the wideshot where he actually transforms while being held by Kahn is completely laughable. The digital dragon clips through portions of the live-action background (particularly around Khan's arm that was hanging onto Liu) and the lighting on the dragon doesn't match with the lightning flashes in the background.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Smoke is running up to Kitana at the start of the Liu VS Smoke fight, Liu runs up behind him, jumps and pushes his foot against a pillar to sort of rebound, and grabs Smoke. There's a quick insert shot of Liu's foot pushing against the pillar, and you can see the "stone" pillar briefly bend like rubber beneath his foot, revealing it's fake.

TedStixon

Deliberate mistake: When Jade is killed, Kahn is holding her up by her neck about a foot above the ground as the monster appears behind her. Right before the monster bites down and eats her, Kahn lets go over her neck... and she just sort-of floats in place. She should have fallen back down given she was being held above ground. (In all likelihood, the actress was standing on a box or something to make it look like Kahn was holding her up.) This happens a bit quickly, so it can be hard to catch.

TedStixon

Continuity mistake: When Sonya grabs Ermac with her legs in the final battle, pay close attention. In one shot, you can see for a brief instant that Ermac's mask has completely fallen down and his entire face is exposed, but two quick cuts later, his mask is suddenly back on. (It goes by quick so you have to pay attention, but it's very noticeable once you see it the first time).

TedStixon

Continuity mistake: During the Jax vs Cyrax fight, at one point Jax accidentally punches his arm into the wall and gets stuck. In the first shot, you can see dust or smoke shooting out of the hole, but in the very next shot, it all vanishes.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: During the Jax vs Cyrax fight, pay attention right after Jax says "Yeah, now what?!" A few shots later, Sonya is hit in the face with a weapon by one of the extermination squad members. But you can see plain as day that the weapon completely misses her. It actually goes over her head, but she still reacts as though she's been hit in the face.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: During the Liu VS Baraka fight, pay attention when Liu and the Barakas are swinging around on the chains. Several times, you can see safety-wires attached to the chains and actors. It can be hard to catch, but there are at least three or four shots where they are visible.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Sheeva is crushed by the cage, pay attention to the first shot as we see the cage falling towards her. You can see the cage actually come to a stop right before it cuts to the low-angle shot looking up at her screaming. (Since it would be rigged to stop above the actress so it wouldn't actually crush her. They unfortunately just cut the shot too late).

TedStixon

Deliberate mistake: During the opening fight between Rayden and Kahn, at one point Kahn is kicked and lands on the ground in front of his generals. A few seconds later, he is hit and lands on the ground again... in the exact same spot, landing in the exact same position. (Watch for the somersault he does.) It's clear these are two different takes of the same stunt. It wouldn't necessarily be a mistake, except when he gets hit the second time, he flies backwards a bit, so it makes no sense for him to land in the exact same spot as before. Sloppy editing.

TedStixon

Continuity mistake: When Rayden says the line "What closes can also open again" in the beginning of the film, watch the background. For this one single shot, the top of the pillar behind him on the left is missing a square-shaped chunk. But in the shots of Rayden before and after, the pillar is totally intact.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When the Emperor's generals are introduced at the start of the film, pay attention to Sheeva's lower arms. If you look closely, her lower arms are added digitally and don't quite blend with the actress, nor do they 100% match her motion. (Especially her lower-right arm, which is on the left hand side of the screen. You can see it "clipping" with the background plate. At one point, it even briefly looks like it's floating behind her for a moment instead of being attached to her).

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: Jax and Sonya jumping away from the explosion when Cyrax self-destructs is just comical. The lighting on their bodies doesn't match the lighting in the background, revealing they were just filmed on a green-screen, and the background makes no sense whatsoever. The background is a blurry still image that doesn't have the same color-temperature as the exterior of the base seen earlier, with an obvious stock-explosion effect added over top of it that doesn't blend properly into the scene.

TedStixon

Kitana: Mother! You're alive.
Sindel: Too bad you... will DIE.

More quotes from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Trivia: In the beginning of the movie, when Rayden 'shoots himself' against Kahn, he makes a strange cry, which is actually from the Mortal Kombat II games.

More trivia for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Question: Is there any story as to why the overall quality of this production was much less than the first Mortal Kombat? For example, the computer-animated creatures and morph effects seemed much worse than the first movies, and certainly worse than any other movie of the year. Also, the costumes and sets were of a lower quality than the first movie. Everything seemed to be a step down from Mortal Kombat 1. You would think that the sequel would have a bigger budget, but it seemed just the opposite with this movie.

Answer: Mortal Kombat 2 was given a budget around the same as the first one probably indicating that New Line (makers of the film) were not convinced the film would not be as much an success as the original was. The buget of 30 million is not too high of a risk for a major film studio. The original was more built on the novelty of the video game and the interest of how it would translate to the screen so a sequel was always going to be tough. While it's hard to find out why the quality was unimpressive, this can just be more from different film crews from the first or just tougher f/x to try and create for the film in the time available. Take The Mummy Returns for example. The Scorpion King near the end looked far too computer generated. This was despite a massive budget and impressive CGI for both films.

Lummie

Answer: From what I've gathered about the film, the entire production was rushed by the studio and producers, as they wanted to capitalize on the first film's success. Pre-production was troubled at best. Funds weren't allocated to the right places. The film was often being re-written on the fly on set, so large chunks of the movie were being changed at the last minute. It also had a first-time director at the helm who supposedly had a very bad time making the movie due to how hectic it was. And finally, the studio forced them to release the film before it was completely finished, hence the effects and editing were never finalized. So basically, it was a perfect storm of a rushed production without a finished script, an overwhelmed first-time director, and a studio that wouldn't let the producers properly "complete" the movie. Hence, the entire film was a complete mess and was very low-quality.

TedStixon

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