You can’t blame the team behind Mortal Kombat II for being a little cavalier with the concept of death. After all, the game is built on being able to kill every single character during every single battle. So, the fact that characters who died in the first film come back in the sequel certainly suggests that characters who die in the sequel can come back too. But, at a certain point, the film wasn’t saying that as clearly as it should have.
In a new interview, the film’s writer, Jeremy Slater, discussed how the current ending you see in theaters was added later in the process than you may have realized to bolster that fact for audiences.
In the film, the surviving champions of Earthrealm decide that they’re going to all go to the Netherrealm to bring back their dead friends. And, apparently, those final moments showing the group walking off to go on that journey weren’t originally there.
“When we were looking at the initial cuts, we loved the final battle and everything leading up to the ending, but we all walked away feeling like the ending was a little bit too abrupt,” Slater told the Hollywood Reporter. “We were missing the final check-in with all of our characters. It happened as a wordless montage, and that wasn’t sending people out of the theater with the feeling that we particularly wanted. So that’s why I wrote the new ending.”
“It gives you a little bit more fun with all of the main characters, and it teases where the series could go in a future movie,” he continued. “It also provides a glimmer of hope. We know we killed some pretty big names along the way. Some of you guys might have just lost your favorite characters, but once again, death is never final in this universe. So we wanted people to walk out of the theater with that glimmer of hope that they’ll maybe see some of their all-time faves again.”
Slater is likely referring to Liu Kang, who himself spoke about going to the Netherrealm to save Kung Lao and Jax. Maybe he even means Cole Young, though we aren’t quite so sure about him. Nevertheless, Slater wrote the new ending as a more satisfying sendoff, and it was filmed in additional photography.
“We always had a week of additional photography scheduled,” Slater said. “We just didn’t quite know what we were going to shoot during that week. But it was always scheduled in the budget that we were going to go back to Australia at some point to pick up a couple additional scenes.”
Read more from Slater in our interview at this link. Mortal Kombat II is now in theaters.
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