Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon himself has noted that the film was "awesome," though he did note that it "probably crosses the line as far as re-imagining goes." He later stated that he thought it was "incredibly well done" and that it was "a legitimate alternate universe Mortal Kombat."
Jeri Ryan claims she did the short as a favour for a friend, thinking it was a pitch for a feature film.
Reptile is reimagined as having a disease called harlequin ichthyosis, which gives him scale-like skin and back-to-front eyeballs. This is an actual medical condition where skin cells multiply so fast, the body is starved of nutrition as a result of the body being unable to cope with the vastly increased cell division. Infants afflicted with it have a thickened epidermal layer of skin, causing it to crack with a pattern of open sores between the scales. This leaves infants in constant, excruciating pain and vulnerable to serious infection. After being born, infants normally die within one to two weeks from starvation, sometimes even as little as a few hours or a day if an infection sets in, but recent medical breakthroughs, such as certain prescription acne medications and a super-high calorie diet rich in proteins, have extended the lives of those suffering from this ailment, the oldest having been born in 1986 and is still alive.
There is a police officer in riot squad gear seen at the beginning. This is identified as Kurtis Stryker.
Jax claims that Reptile likes to eat the heads of his victims. This refers to Reptile's fatality attack where he devours the head of his opponent.