Rebel Moon

So, I'm curious, a few months on now and what are peoples' thoughts on this and has that changed since release?

I feel like I've mostly heard people get harsher to it with time. I don't think my opinion has much shifted: I thought it was fine and the sequel will be make or break for me. I'm hoping this will be necessary setup for a satisfying payoff. If it's bad (or honestly, if it's meh in of itself), then this would be a waste of time for that.

But the few times I hear about it nowadays seem to be more negative to what I was hearing when it came out. Doesn't help that it's most recently been in headlines due to Snyder's absolutely wild statements on Joe Rogan's podcast, already its own contentious platform.

Also, this is petty but I really do like the name. Not the "A Child of Fire," but Rebel Moon is just a... pretty name. Makes me a little bit happy just seeing it, honestly.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 18th 2024 at 5:00:44 AM

New trailer for Part 2 on YouTube

https://youtu.be/UEJuNHOd8Dw?si=dDvHoA56Lf08jits

It's very... "we have Star Wars at home". Hits a lot of the same beats (or tries to), but isn't nearly as coherent or tightly-written/edited. Flashy, but doesn't say much, and even that 'flash' felt kind of hollow and paint-by-numbers for Snyder.

Edited by Chortleous on Mar 18th 2024 at 3:01:17 AM

One thing I’ve been kinda curious about: does it have any space battles in it worth noting?

I think the name is good too.

More Jimmy is good.

Yeah... the new RM movie just dropped, it has a 14% on RT.

IMO biggest problem with Zack Synder as a storytelling director is focus, sure, he's great if you focus on the visuals or when he is "shackled", either by an adaptation or by a separate writer, but he fails on his own while attempting to build an original story. He either spends time focusing on the super duper cool past lore and teasing stuff for the sequel rather than actually doing anything meaningful on the present movie you're watching right now.

IMO, the greenlighting of a director's cut and these cuts parallel to each other also sounds like it was a huge mistake. Like, Snyder went out of his way to use as few of the same shots as possible, to the point of using alternate takes if the scenes are the same.

There's a really obvious problem with that.

If the director's cut (stupid name, both cuts of each movie are director's cuts) is the one he cares about, it's going to have all the best takes in it. So not only was the first foot forward a pair of really cut down movies to the point that they can be accurately described as a checklist of "character does cool thing and then disappears into the background", it's probably got worse acting and action than the later cuts. Which people will now be a lot less interested in because of how uninteresting the first one was and the second one doesn't sound any better.

I just straight up don't get why Netflix went with this angle, it's idiotic. They could have just been like "we're the first people to give him full creative range and to give him final cut privileges right from the start" and instead it's "you get two shitty movies and then two way longer possibly less shitty versions of the same movies within the same year for no apparent reason."

Edited by Zendervai on Apr 19th 2024 at 4:13:05 AM

Because those if they claim the former, they have to do the latter. Snyder wants extended cuts. Therefore if they want to claim giving him the freedom he wants, they have to let him do the latter.

So, looking at Wikipedia, this was released in select theaters a week ago. That means it was done for awards consideration.

I do think it's wild that I had no idea this was out. Doesn't seem to be as much buzz for this one.

I'm not surprised there's no buzz. Would anybody be excited for Freddy got fingered 2?

The consensus seems to be the same issues as the first: gorgeous visuals and thrilling battles, with the rest of the movie being a confusing plot full of boring info dumps and paper thin characters.

I think Zack is at his best when he either has a very strong script to work off, or, alternatively, is telling a very simple and straightforward story. The problem with Rebel Moon is he clearly has a bunch of cool ideas in his head and is just not very good about actually working them into any sort of interesting, coherent narrative.

Edited by comicwriter on Apr 19th 2024 at 5:06:17 AM

…why would advertising that he got full creative freedom and final cut privileges require them to ask him to make two worse cuts as well? The point of advertising that would be like “see, this time, he doesn’t need to do a director’s cut!”

Instead, we just get this absolutely nuts situation where it isn’t the studio cutting it down for the initial release, it’s Snyder himself.

Yea, Netflix should have just leaned into allowing Snyder to make his own cut of the film off the bat. "Look, he created the version of the movie he wanted to" would have worked better than "we purposefully created a lesser version just to drop the 'real version' later on for no reason."

Completelly agree that this “director’s cut” situation is crazy…

I still liked the movie. It still has problems with slowed down shots and somehow thin characterisation, but it still did connect with characters and action was pretty cool, plus music was great.

Edited by EmperorGeode on Apr 21st 2024 at 6:27:35 AM

Jimmy/James stole the show once again. Should have made him the protagonist.

Hopefully all that expanded universe content I've heard about won't make the same mistake.

I can't help but compare Rebel Moon to one of the few really good changes Joss made to Josstice League that Snyder undid (redid?): showing us the Big Bad getting beaten before the actual conclusion thus undercutting their threat. Granted, Noble isn't the Greater-Scope Villain and I understand and support the idea of having the Final Boss be someone firmly established, but when you show someone getting thoroughly trounced halfway through, it undercuts their menace if they're supposed to be threatening in a few hours.

Showing Darkseid (yes, I know he was Uxas but... c'mon) getting trounced by the alliance of man in the past is narratively a horrible idea. And while Power Levels are... nebulous at best, it implants the idea in the mind of viewers "this Big Bad was beaten by the guys who were beaten by the guy who was beaten by one of the JL". And then Rebel Moon makes it less abstract by making it the same characters.

Well in this case it’s not really about direct combat strenght. Kora beating Noble in one on one fight really dosen’t do her much when he brings his army and ship that can destroy the village with ease.

Darkseid wasn't beaten by the alliance of men though. He was beaten by Zeus and Ares. And Zeus showed that he was even stronger than Superman when he split up the Motherboxes without breaking a sweat.

Zack really need a editor at best, he have a lot of crazy ideas that are cool but have issue trimming down to it.

How do the Zack Snyder fans feel about Rebel Moon?

I’m mostly seeing a lot of “it’s really good, but we need to wait for the extended cuts, they’re where the real masterpiece will be” and then being weirdly quiet about what specifically they like.

Atticus Noble and Jimmy are obvious highlights. Titus was also pretty cool.

Gunnar was the biggest weakness. Between getting the chief farmer killed because he couldn't keep his mouth shut and spending the rest of his screentime being a bland love interest, there's nothing particularly likable about him.