by James Coulter
Admittedly, it’s become a grossly reductive cliché to compare any sci-fi flick to Star Wars. After all, even films based on stories that pre-date it like John Carter and Dune are unfairly compared to a film that, either directly or indirectly, drew influence from said stories. However, if anything, the comparison only speaks volumes of the lingering influence of the 1977 blockbuster and how it set the bar for sci-fi films that followed.
Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon is no exception. If anything, the comparison is especially apt. Initially, Snyder had pitched the idea for a gritty, “mature” R-rated Star Wars movie. When Lucasfilm rejected his pitch, he filed off the serial numbers from his script and sent it to Netflix, which approved his idea for a film “inspired” by Star Wars.
So, essentially, Zack Snyder directed a Star Wars movie that isn’t really a Star Wars movie but is totally a Star Wars movie. Moreover, this film is only the first part of a multi-part saga, with not only the second part being released in the near future, but also a prequel comic series and a director’s cut scheduled for early next year.
But will Rebel Moon make Lucasfilm regret rejecting Snyder’s initial pitch, or will it have Snyder fanboys insisting that the Director’s Cut is better?
Stop me if you heard this story before: a young wide-eyed farmhand from a backwater planet gets roped into a rebellion against an evil galactic empire, which involves the teaming up with talking robots, sarcastic smugglers, and an elderly warrior and setting off on a star-traveling adventure with ray guns, laser swords, and spaceship dog fights.
Okay! Admittedly, comparing Rebel Moon to Star Wars is slightly disingenuous. If anything, the movie is more akin to Seven Samurai or Magnificent Seven. The protagonist, Kora,
is a villager from a farming planet which is being forced by the empire to give up its food supply. So, she ventures out to find and recruit fighters to help her village fight against their evil overlords. But will she succeed? Or is there more to her story than she and the others are letting on?
Rebel Moon is a Zack Snyder movie. I don’t merely state that to point out the obvious. I mean that the movie has all of the elements, both good and bad, that can be expected from a film directed by Zack Snyder. On the plus side, the film exhibits grandiose visuals and exciting action scenes with plenty of blood, gore, and grit to appease any adolescent male filmgoer. On the other hand, all this cinematic splendor remains about as deep as the spray paint on an 80s-style fantasy van mural.
In fairness, like Snyder’s other films, Rebel Moon certainly has the potential to be a good movie. Within its two-and-a-half-hour runtime, the movie certainly crams in plenty of extensive worldbuilding for its elaborate sci-fi setting. Admittedly, it also has plenty of cool characters, from a dual laser sword-wielding Samurai swordswoman to a slave who wins his freedom by taming and flying an untamable griffin.
In the hands of a competent director, these characters and setting would have the potential to be better fleshed out with compelling character and story arcs. Sadly, Rebel Moon is directed by the same dude who thought it was a good idea to have Superman snap a man’s neck and for him and Batman to bond over the fact that their mothers share the same name of “Martha.” As such, this movie is a pure style-over-substance spectacle filled with stock characters with flatter-than-cardboard personalities who spout excruciatingly long exposition lore dumps and follow trite trope-ridden plot beats.
In other words, it’s a typical Zack Snyder film.
Overall, Rebel Moon is what you would come to expect from Zack Snyder directing what another movie critic has fittingly dubbed “Star Warz: Extreme powered by Monster Energy.” Sadly, I highly doubt that a second movie, let alone a director’s cut, will be able to salvage this spectacularly beautiful yet dull mess of a story.
I would say the only people who would enjoy this film are Snyder fanboys, yet considering this film’s female protagonist who’s physically-competent yet not conventionally-attractive, I’d imagine they’re too busy decrying her as a “Mary Sue” in “woke garbage.”
