10 Real Reasons Behind Annoying Movie Moments

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a largely terrible movie but one which saves the worst for last, climaxing with a woeful eyesore of a final between Liu Kang (Robin Shou) and Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson), who have used their Animalities to transform into a giant dragon and giant hydra respectively.

The result is an abject car crash of horrendous CGI that even in 1997 was a pure laughing stock, ending the film on a fittingly disastrous note.

And though you might simply put it down to budgetary constraints or a filmmaker patently unfamiliar with complex VFX, the rabbit-hole actually goes a little deeper than that.

In a 2017 interview, producer Lawrence Kasanoff revealed that the "final" version of the movie isn't quite so final:

"There was supposed to be an entire second pass of visual effects, post-production, editing. But New Line said 'You know what? It's testing so well, it doesn't f**king matter. It's still gonna be a hit.'"

This was expanded upon in 2021 by film historian Brad Henderson, who tweeted that the released version of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is effectively a workprint - an in-progress cut never intended for public consumption.

All the poor VFX were placeholders which were supposed to be spruced up before release, but after it test-screened well even with the dodgy effects, the studio decided to forego any extra CGI work.

And so, the appalling Animalities aren't at all the result of a VFX company in over their heads or a film struggling under time or budgetary constraints - it was because of boneheaded studio execs cutting corners to bring the film in under-budget.