YMMV / Rebel Moon

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• Alternative Character Interpretation: Kai sells out the rebels, but entrusts Gunnar with a weapon that could either stun Kora or free her. Was he just gripping the Idiot Ball or did he secretly want to give the rebels a fighting chance while making himself look unaffiliated? The deed cost him his life, but then again Gunnar wasn't established as being particularly wily.
• Awesome Art: The film features stellar production values, with special mention going to the various creatures depicted (Harmada, the Gryphon-like creature that Tarak summons, etc.), as well as some of the costume designs, such as Admiral Noble's and the Priests' and the armors worn by Kora, Titus and others.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Kai's betrayal. His desire to join the rebellion comes out of nowhere just in time to convince the main character to make a sudden stop to a faraway planet and he discourages the other rebels from inspecting his cargo. His flirtation with Kora was probably supposed to make his offer sound genuine, but the fact that it comes out of nowhere combined with the poor chemistry between the characters only makes it feel less genuine.
• Cliché Storm: The generally negative critical reception the movie received mostly stems from the story and setting feeling like a full-blown regurgitation of its inspirations, chief among them being Star Wars and Seven Samurai, without providing much in the way of compelling characters or twists in the plot to carry the very familiar concepts.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: If you listened to reviewers on their favorite character, both those that did and didn't like the movie firmly landed on Jimmy the Robot as a favorite and would think he's the main character, rather than an ancillary character who becomes They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.
• Fight Scene Failure: Quite surprisingly, as Zack Snyder's harshest critics usually praised his action scenes and fight choreography. However, a major criticism about the movie is the unconvincing fight scenes with the awkward choreography, weightless violence given lack of blood and gore, the heavy Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy at play and the overuse of slow motion that, rather than making actions look epic, draws out mundane and awkward movements.
• Funny Moments: When Atticus Noble greets Sindri by saying the Imperium welcomes Veldt into its warm embrace, he literally prompts Sindri into a hug. One has to wonder if Noble does this every single time he visits a planet.
• Love to Hate: Admiral Noble has been described as the evilest, most inhumane villain Ed Skrein has played and possibly of all of Zack Snyder's filmography, and because of that reason alone (along with his badass design), even before the film's release, he has become beloved by the fandom. This skyrocketed after the TUDUM Brazil 2023 event, where Skrein, in-character as Noble, sent out a threatening message to the entire audience in a manner that was reminiscent of General Zod in Man of Steel.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Snyderverse Green Arrow" ^ExplanationThe shot of Charlie Hunnam with a blonde goatee and a green hood has been compared to the Emerald Archer, mostly due to Hunnam being a fan favourite to take over Stephen Amell.
  • "I ❤️ Zack Snyder" ^ExplanationA cheering fangirl opening her jacket to reveal a shirt with this written on it at the São Paulo TUDUM preview of the movie has become a common reaction image for anything related to Rebel Moon or Zack Snyder in general.
  • "Let him cook."^ExplanationDuring the marketing for Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder personally served the cast some meat that he cooked at a barbecue. Therefore, the meme was taken quite literally.
  • Space vagina ^ExplanationIn the opening Infodump, we see one of the Imperium's ships coming out of a gateway. Unfortunately, people thought it looked like a penis coming out of a vagina, sparking a lot of crude jokes.
• Moe:
  • Sam the farmgirl. Jimmy is implied to be developing romantic feelings towards her.
  • Princess Issa, being essentially a Disney Princess in space.
• Narm: The use of Overcrank can come across as this, as every movement in combat is slowed down, especially any impacts, even if the camera does not focus on them. As a result, all of the fighting seems tailor made to not be exciting, but rather a chore to watch through due to taking far more time than it should. In general, the slow motion, which extends even beyond the fight scenes to things like grain harvesting, comes closer to parody than anything.
• Squick: Noble getting pleasured by some tentacled creature.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: A lot of the negative criticism for the movie is of the opinion many of the "homages" in the story seem more like outright ripoffs of more popular blockbusters, crudely stitched together. The fact that the movie began development as Star Wars spinoff that had the Serial Numbers Filed Off is quite obvious in the end product to a significant number of critics and general viewers. Comparisons to Seven Samurai (an idea already explored in the Star Wars expanded universe decades ago, and also becomes reminiscent of Battle Beyond the Stars as a result), Warhammer 40,000, and Dune, particularly Denis Villeneuve's recent adaptations, are also very easy to make.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: One problem of splitting a film in two is that the first film ends before many of the characters pay off in any meaningful way.
  • Chief among the criticisms the movie has received is that, because the Avengers Assemble portion of the story takes up almost all of its runtime, each newly recruited character just fades into the background so that the remaining recruits can get their own Establishing Character Moments.
  • "Jimmy", the robot soldier who now refuses to fight after the death of the beloved princess, suffers abuse and discrimination at the hands of the Imperium soldiers, and ultimately regains the will to fight to save a girl who had been kind to him. There was a lot that could be done with this plot, yet as soon as he headshots the head soldier holding Sam hostage, he literally just runs off awkwardly, and isn't seen again until the final shot of the film, wearing antlers for some reason. It feels like a more interesting and unique film could have been made centred around the idea of an oppressed and abused robot rebelling against the army he was built to serve, or at least could have made an interesting member of the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
  • There is the one imperial soldier who is against the cruelty of his comrades. Not only does he stand up for Jimmy, he also stands against them when they attempt to rape a farmer. He would have provided an interesting moral complex to explore, between keeping his loyalty and protecting the innocents from abuse, not to mention that he would the perfect Foil for Kara, herself a former member of the military. Instead, he disappears as the movie proper starts.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Gunnar's name is pronounced in the Norse fashion ("gooner") rather than the English fashion ("gunner").

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