If you were a kid in 1995, you probably remember the absolute fever pitch of Mortal Kombat mania. The movie was coming out, the games were dominating arcades, and parents were terrified of "fatalities." But tucked away in the corner of video rental stores was something... else. It was a VHS tape called Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins. Honestly, if you haven't seen it, you’re missing out on one of the most bizarre experiments in early 90s media. It wasn't a movie. It wasn't exactly a cartoon. It was basically a 54-minute long commercial/prequel hybrid that tried to explain why a frozen ninja and a guy with four arms were fighting on a private island.
Most people today just laugh at the animation. They aren't wrong to do so. But there is a weird, technical history behind this tape that actually matters for how games were marketed back then.
What Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins Was Actually Trying To Do
New Line Home Video didn't just release this because they liked cartoons. They released it to "prime the pump" for the live-action Paul W.S. Anderson movie. It was a "prequel" in the loosest sense of the word. The plot follows Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade as they travel on a boat to Shang Tsung’s island. Along the way, Raiden (who looks nothing like Christopher Lambert or the game version) shows them "visions" of the past.
These visions are where the legendary—or infamous—animation kicks in.
The "present day" scenes were done in traditional 2D animation. It’s flat, a bit choppy, and looks like a middle-of-the-road Saturday morning cartoon. But when Raiden starts telling stories about Goro or the Great Kung Lao, the style shifts into 3D computer-generated imagery (CGI). In 1995, this was supposed to be high-tech. Today? It looks like a fever dream from a haunted Nintendo 64.
The creators used a process that involved motion capture, which was still in its infancy. They wanted to give the fights a "realistic" weight that 2D animation couldn't achieve. Instead, they gave us characters with blocky limbs and eyes that never seem to look in the right direction. It's fascinating because it shows the industry's desperate attempt to figure out what "digital" was supposed to look like before Toy Story changed the game later that same year.
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The Lore is Surprisingly Accurate (Mostly)
For all its visual flaws, Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins actually took the lore quite seriously. This wasn't some throwaway project written by people who had never played the game. It actually dives deep into the backstory of the rivalry between Sub-Zero and Scorpion. It explains the origins of Goro’s family and his ascent to the throne of Shokan.
- It confirms the "Great Kung Lao" was the one who lost to Goro 500 years ago.
- It establishes the Elder Gods as the arbiters of the tournament.
- It explores the "Lin Kuei" vs "Shirai Ryu" conflict long before the games made it the focal point of the entire franchise.
The script actually handles the exposition better than some of the later movies. When you watch it, you realize the writers were looking at the internal bibles from Midway Games. They weren't just making stuff up. They were trying to build a cohesive universe at a time when the "story" in the games was mostly just a few paragraphs of text between fights.
Why the CGI Looks Like That
You have to understand the hardware. We’re talking about a time when rendering a single frame of 3D animation could take hours on a standard workstation. The team behind the 3D sequences had to make massive compromises. That’s why the backgrounds are often just empty voids or simple stone corridors. There wasn't enough memory to render a forest or a bustling city.
The character models are basically "primitive" shapes—cylinders for arms, spheres for joints. It looks like a digital mannequin. When Goro moves, his extra set of arms often clips through his torso. It’s glorious jank. But for a kid in '95, seeing a "3D" Goro was genuinely cool because it looked more like the "advanced" graphics we were seeing in the transition from SNES to PlayStation.
The Weird Connection to the Live-Action Movie
The weirdest thing about Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins is how it interacts with the 1995 film. It uses the same character designs for the "present day" scenes, yet the personalities are slightly off. Johnny Cage is still a jerk, but he’s a weirdly heroic jerk. Sonya is incredibly intense.
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The tape also included "Behind the Scenes" footage of the live-action movie. This was the real "hook." Before YouTube or the internet was a thing, this was the only way to see what the Goro animatronic looked like or to see Robin Shou (Liu Kang) practicing his stunts. It was a marketing masterstroke. You bought the tape for the lore, but you kept it for the sneak peeks at the "real" movie.
Is It Still Worth Watching?
If you’re a completionist? Absolutely. If you’re a fan of "so bad it’s good" media? 100%.
There is a charm to the earnestness of it. It doesn't feel like a cynical cash grab as much as it feels like a group of people trying to use new technology to tell a story they didn't quite have the budget for. The voice acting is actually decent, featuring veterans like Ron Williams and Jennifer Hale (though she isn't credited in the way you'd expect).
The legacy of this weird little VHS is that it proved Mortal Kombat could exist outside of the arcade cabinet. It paved the way for the animated series Defenders of the Realm and the later Mortal Kombat: Conquest TV show. It was the first step in turning a gory fighting game into a multi-media "universe."
How to Find It and What to Look For
You can’t really buy this on modern digital storefronts. It’s been out of print for decades. Most fans find it on YouTube where people have uploaded VHS rips.
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- Look for the "Making of" segment at the end. It’s the most valuable part of the footage.
- Pay attention to the Scorpion and Sub-Zero fight in the CGI realm. It’s the highlight of the "low-poly" era.
- Check out the transitions. The way the screen "glitches" into the 3D world is peak 90s aesthetic.
If you want to understand the history of gaming media, you have to look at the failures and the "middle ground" experiments. This tape is exactly that. It's the bridge between the 16-bit era and the cinematic powerhouse the franchise eventually became. It's ugly, it's clunky, and the character designs are questionable—but it’s an essential piece of the Mortal Kombat puzzle.
Practical Steps for Fans
If you're looking to dive into the history of these early MK spin-offs, don't just stop at this video.
Watch the "Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins" VHS rip on YouTube. It's usually available in 480p, which is the best you're going to get. Don't expect a 4K remaster; it literally doesn't exist.
Compare the lore to Mortal Kombat 1 (2023). It’s wild to see how many of the concepts introduced in this 1995 tape—like the specific hierarchy of the Shokan—are still being used in the modern reboots. The continuity is surprisingly sticky.
Track down the "Defenders of the Realm" series. If you find the 2D animation in The Journey Begins tolerable, the follow-up TV show is the logical next step. It’s more consistent, even if it is "censored" for kids.
Avoid the "Collector" scams. You might see people trying to sell the original VHS for $100+ on eBay. Honestly? Unless you're a hardcore physical media collector, it's not worth it. The tape quality of these mid-90s releases was notoriously poor and many suffer from "bronzing" or mold. Stick to the digital archives.
The journey didn't just begin; it stumbled, tripped over some CGI rocks, and eventually found its footing. We're just lucky the evidence still exists.