One thing that’s become increasingly common in modern movie trailers is using either slower paced or orchestral covers of famous songs to accompany the footage, and in the case of the recent Promising Young Woman, a haunting string version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” was implemented to great effect in the buildup to the third act climax.
The long-awaited first promo for the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot, meanwhile, has taken an altogether more self-aware turn, using a remixed version of the theme song from Paul W.S. Anderson’s 1995 original towards the end of the trailer. The 1995 cult classic is hardly a beacon of cinematic excellence, but one thing you can’t deny is that it’s got an awesome theme.
Simon McQuoid’s feature debut is looking like a much more serious affair if the new footage is anything to go by, but it’s also going to be packed full of Easter Eggs for longtime fans, and no offense to composer Benjamin Wallfisch, but he’d struggle to come up with something better than the peak mid-1990s techno that played throughout the first big screen adaptation of Mortal Kombat.
Needless to say, folks were hyped when they caught wind of the reference to the signature sounds of the original, and you can check out some of the reactions below.
You seriously gonna do a high budget Mortal Kombat movie and NOT drop the Techno theme song in the trailer?! Really? pic.twitter.com/PgfKCuaH5F
— Adam Reck (@arthurstacy) February 18, 2021
Me when the orchestral version of the mortal kombat theme started playing pic.twitter.com/gXw2JIKp6p
— No Escape from the Final Shape 🏴🇵🇸🏳️⚧ (@noescapevg) February 18, 2021
https://twitter.com/MattGoldberg/status/1362433914653057027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1362433914653057027%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcomicbook.com%2Fgaming%2Fnews%2Fmortal-kombat-trailer-2021-original-1995-movie-theme-music-song%2F
Welp, now I'm gonna be hype all day as the #MortalKombat theme plays in my head. Definitely need to watch the trailer again on my tv once the kid is asleep lol
— JA Sifontes (@ArgentArtisan) February 18, 2021
I couldn't ask for anything better. That little bit of the Mortal Kombat theme at the end of the trailer put such a big smile on my face#MortalKombat pic.twitter.com/HN3AjDgvGO
— Ani-Ray Animations (@AniRayAnimation) February 18, 2021
If anyone needs me I'll be playing the Mortal Kombat theme song on repeat for the rest of the day pic.twitter.com/J1SjtU1efS
— 🇺🇸Marc Madness🇮🇹 (@MarcDeSwollsto) February 18, 2021
Based on the fact that the reboot is more than willing to embrace previous iterations of Mortal Kombat, it might not be quite as po-faced as the majority of the footage indicates. That’s probably the best idea as well, because nobody wants a big budget fantasy martial arts actioner to take itself too seriously, especially when we’ve already been promised buckets of blood, gore and fatalities.