More than 25 years after the first Mortal Kombat adaptation became a cult classic, Warner Bros' reboot has arrived, but for all its easter eggs and fan service, there are some tweaks to 2021’s fatalities, including Scorpion’s infamous "Toasty!" fatality. Die-hard fans of the seminal fighting game will no doubt be thrilled to see classic fatalities from the game unfold on-screen in all their gruesome glory, from Jax’s cybernetically-enhanced head smash and Liu Kang’s flaming dragon to Shang Tsung’s soul suck, and Kung Lao’s buzzsaw hat.
But there’s one fatality, perhaps the most iconic in the series’ entire 30-year lifespan, that looks just a little bit different from its digital counterpart, and that is Scorpion’s signature fire-breathing fatality. In the original version of the fatality, which was first depicted all the way back in 1992, Scorpion tore off not just his mask, but his entire face along with it, to reveal a ghastly skull underneath, before the undead ninja spews flames from his mouth, engulfing his opponent and burning them alive.
The film makes some minor adjustments to the iconic finishing move. Following a brutal fight that sees Scorpion and his descendent, Lewis Tan's Cole Young, finally defeat Sub-Zero, the former Hanzo Hasashi takes his revenge on the man who killed his family. He does so by removing the bottom half of his ninja mask and explaining that he’s learned to control the fires of hell. Scorpion then proceeds to shoot flames from his mouth, incinerating his cryomancer foe. In a nod to the game version of the fatality, the flames of hell appear to burn away the skin surrounding his mouth, temporarily revealing only a flash of his skull. It's a more toned-down version, even with Mortal Kombat's R rating.
It’s a striking visual change, and a far cry from the much more direct translation in 1995’s Mortal Kombat, which saw Johnny Cage defeat a fully skull-headed Scorpion inside his native Netherrealm. It also makes for a strong callback to the beginning of the film; with his dying breath, Hanzo Hasashi tells Bi-Han (Sub-Zero) to his face. Thus, it makes sense that just as Bi-Han’s face was the last thing the mortal Hanzo Hasashi saw, so too was Hasashi’s face the last thing that Bi-Han saw. Joe Taslim, as Bi-Han/Sub-Zero, is finally without his mask in this moment, as well, expressing a vast array of emotions, and seeing his unblinking face post-mortem is so much more arresting than if the film had taken the games’ cue and simply had Scorpion’s flames reduce him entirely to ash and bone.
The 2021 reboot of Mortal Kombat is sure to get aficionados of the series talking with its emphasis on fatalities. The film’s R-rating lets it run wild with the gore that the franchise has come to be so well known for, but the interaction between Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion and Joe Taslim’s Sub-Zero is so wholly engaging, the slight alterations to Scorpion’s “Toasty!” fatality make it all the more impactful when it finally happens.
