Rebel Moon — Part One review: Zack Snyder delivers a soulless dud
The divisive director falls flat in his Star Wars-inspired attempt at universe-building for Netflix
Film Reviews Rebel Moon
From his critically maligned but fan-favorite Sucker Punch to his infamous internet darling “Snyder Cut” of 2017’s Justice League, Zack Snyder is no stranger to drumming up discourse whenever one of his films nears release. His latest effort for Netflix, Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire, has already sparked discussions of an R-rated, three-hour director’s cut to give his fans an alternate taste before Rebel Moon — Part Two hits the streaming platform early next year. But while Snyder may do his best to invent a dark, gripping universe to engross viewers, Rebel Moon is a limp, soulless regurgitation of tropes stolen from much more formidable films.
Written, directed, produced, and shot by Snyder, Rebel Moon follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), a battle-hardened soldier with a tragic past. Though she’s attempting to live a low-profile life on a peaceful farming colony, Kora is forced to once again take up the mantle of warrior when the Motherworld sends a military contingent led by the brutal Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein) to occupy her new home. With the help of a humble farmer (Michiel Huisman) Kora sets off on a galaxy-spanning adventure to recruit a ragtag group of fighters to defend her homeland.
Attempting to establish an original, engrossing science-fiction world is no small task, even for the most adept of writers, and it’s painfully clear that Snyder took heavy aesthetic and stylistic notes from genre classics like Star Wars and Dune, without understanding the story and emotional beats that made those aforementioned franchises so beloved. Certainly, there’s all manner of science-fiction spectacle in Rebel Moon to gawk at: the characters are all dressed in tattered greyscale robes, wielding retrofuturist weapons and talking about the “Motherworld” and the “Imperium.”
But while every element of production design, costuming, and worldbuilding is certainly specific, none of them are inspired or purposeful. Instead, Rebel Moon’s stylistic sensibilities feel like Snyder simply tossed all the sci-fi greats into a blender and called it a day. Extensive attention is paid to plotting out lore and history, but Snyder forgets to flesh out the characters that populate his meticulously detailed universe.
Aside from Kora, whose tragic backstory and brutal upbringing are delivered entirely through clunky monologues of exposition that bleed into extensive flashback sequences, the rest of Rebel Moon’s sizable ensemble cast are eacg allotted five minutes of dialogue, if that. Kora and her crew flit to a new planet, are treated to a dazzling display of their new ally’s combat prowess, given the CliffsNotes version of their tragic backstory (is there any other kind?), and then that character simply falls in among the ranks, never to be examined or explored with any real intentionality again.
As for Kora herself, Boutella brings the customary strength and stoicism expected of a YA dystopian protagonist with none of the heart or passion. Constantly glowering out from underneath her dark crop of hair, Kora is a painfully uninteresting hero whose stoicism is certainly understandable given her history, but whose personality could not make for a more tepid protagonist. Though she’s plenty ferocious in combat, Kora is detached and distant when not embroiled in a fight, giving the entire film a remote, inaccessible emotional core. At two hours and 15 minutes, Rebel Moon is a laborious moviegoing experience—why should the audience care about the film’s events when the protagonist herself barely seems to?
Rebel Moon’s lack of interest in exploring its own characters is made all the more frustrating by the cruel, visceral nature of its villains—while we don’t get much personality from Kora, Gunnar, and the other wannabe heroes, we are treated to several extended sequences that revel in the cruelty and violence of the Imperium. The vaguely fascist ruling faction is clearly an underbaked stand-in for Star Wars’ Empire, but Snyder mistakes onscreen brutality for effective writing. The film’s first act subjects viewers to an extended sequence of Imperium soldiers attempting to rape a villager, a scene that serves no other purpose than making explicitly clear to the audience that the authoritarian military occupiers are, in fact, bad guys.
The world Snyder has created is a cold, brutal one, utterly lacking in any kind of charm, whimsy, or excitement. The closest Rebel Moon ever comes to eliciting any kind of emotional response is during the action-packed, slo-mo heavy combat sequences. Stories like Star Wars and Dune soar by using far-fetched worlds and fantastical settings to interrogate relatable, deeply human ideas. Rebel Moon, on the other hand, trades in the aesthetic trappings of those classics without making the effort to engage on any emotional or philosophical level.
Though Rebel Moon ends on a relative cliffhanger with the promise of a sequel on the horizon, it’s difficult to imagine why one would want to subject themselves to another two hours in this soulless slog of a universe. Certainly, Snyder is a master of his particular brand of highly stylized action sequences, but the sheer lack of emotional stakes and memorable characters renders Rebel Moon toothless.
Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child Of Fire begins streaming on Netflix December 21
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Rebel Moon is a limp, soulless regurgitation of tropes stolen from much more formidable films.
trades in the aesthetic trappings of those classics without making the effort to engage on any emotional or philosophical level.So it’s a Zack Snyder movie. The man is psychologically incapable of engaging with anything any deeper than the surface level.
I still wonder if he really read Ayn Rand, or if he just pretended to because he thought it made him seem cool and edgy,
That System of a Down-esque shit in the background of this trailer makes me laugh, which is probably not the intended effect.
A long time ago, specifically 2002, in a galaxy far far away…
They should’ve gone with Slipknot
OMG there’s a preview for part 2 at the end of this and somehow it looks worse.
But-but the “Star Wars cantina” scene is set in a brothel! What better illustration of Zac Snyder’s deconstructive genius could anyone possibly need?!
To be fair, the music the band’s playing being called jizz makes more sense in that context.
Also, the two human twins in bodysuits in that scene were nicknamed “The Star Whores” by production.
I actually guffawed. Nice one, mate!
Snyder looked at a shot of the vast, darkness of space. “Can we make it darker? I feel that would be edgier,” he directed.
How much darker could it be? None. None more dark.
Sh*t sandwich.
Honest to god, people forget what made the original star wars interesting. Luke, the backwater farm boy is a stand in for a naive audience unfamiliar with the world he is about to enter. Think about the first time Obi-Wan trails about Anakin. He says the absolute barest minimum about him, the Clone Wars, all that. World building isn’t about paying attention to the most specific details, it’s about letting strong characters exist in a world and organically allowing it to thrive. An interesting world should always be a background character, not the point of the story
I feel like broadly, especially with the idea that every film must be the jumping-off point of a multimedia franchise and the idea of catering to hardcore nerds, the fact that you don’t need to tell us everything about the world and that people will be more engaged if they’re not spoon-fed is a lost art. Star Wars gives you a quick info dump at the beginning to set the stage—bad guys, good guys, hidden base, macguffin—and gets you on your way. The details of the world—stuff like dropping the clone wars mention, the brief political discussion on the Death Star—are never treated as “we need to overexplain this so some person who was only half-watching this film while on their phone can’t argue about plot holes, or we can hang a future prequel series off here” points of content creation rather than movie-making. Ins
That’s what the original trilogy got right and rhe prequels got wrong.Not everything needs explaining. Sometimes it can just he a quick backstory
Great point. I’m two hours into this and only enduring it to the end to see how many more cliches and tropes can possibly be in it. I’m still not entirely sure what is even going on or why I should care…
Well, does San Holo shoot a fellow brothel goer dead, in cold blood, with no possible claim of self defense?
“He got it coming.”
Add in a “Fucker” and you got it!
Question: how many Suicide Girls did Snyder hire as background extras for that scene?
Imagine getting carte blanche and full creative control to do whatever you want…and still create a “director’s cut”. This guy and his fans are clearly in love with their own farts.What’s also funny is that some of his fans think there’s some “leftist” thread in his films when the guy is clearly an opportunistic unrepentant capitalist.Can’t wait for his adaption of ‘The Fountainhead’. Somehow this clown will find a way to make it even less subtle, make a 12-hour director cut and get paid millions for it. It’s sad how many talentless people get famous and rich.
Director’s cuts are mostly marketing ploys. There are a few exceptions, bu mostly it’s just the studio getting to release the same thing twice and pretend it’s a new product.
Ooh ooh let’s name some exceptions! I nominate The Abyss, and Once Upon a Time in America (and really this one should win, as the original is damn near unwatchable while the director’s cut is damn near a masterpiece). Note: I would nominate Blade Runner, except there are too many director’s cuts, somehow, which doesn’t seem fair.
Blade Runner is, in a weird way, both an example of a good director’s cut AND a cynical marketing ploy to get people to get the same thing multiple times. When you can buy box sets of all of the different versions, there’s a problem.Kingdom of Heaven comes to mind though. Clearly Ridley Scott has a brand.
The Coens did a director’s cut of Blood Simple that I think was a minute shorter than the original version, and I believe the actual changes were barely noticeable. It was almost like a parody of the idea of a director’s cut.
It sound like a game of Snyder Bingo where every card is a winner.
And we all lose
“The only way to win is not to play”
This ain’t your granddad’s Battle Beyond The Stars!
Lazu-leeeeeeeeeee!
… but you’ll wish it was
The original already had a ship with boobs; how’s Zack gonna top that?
Austin Powers already did the dick and balls rocket, so I guess all that’s left is to combine them and create a futa ship.
Funny you should ask…
Two ships with boobs and they totally make out?
Jumping to light speed in the movie involves tearing vagina shaped holes in space(this isn’t a joke)
THREE BOOBS (sure, it’s been done, but so has literally everything else in this film)
Snyder had no chance w/o John. Saxon and Robert Vaughn
May The Farce Be With You Zack!
Calling Snyder divisive instead of universally disrespected as an artist severely lacking in both skill and talent except for a bunch of psychotic sycophants that make his work their entire identity is the most generous thing anyone that isn’t them will ever say about him.
Snyderites are truly a bizarre and fetishistic cult.
I give him points for not liking his fans, either, though. And as someone else mentioned I don’t think he understands the implications of what he makes, he just thinks he’s making cool shit.
Snyder fans love this shit though. They don’t want to think about what the characters are feeling (most aren’t very interested in how other people are feeling in-general), they just want to move on to the next overshot tedious action scene.
Worth mentioning – Zack Snyder seems like a very nice man who is doing his best, this movie is fairly diverse and he’s dunked on some of the alt-right chuds who worship him right to their face – but his fanbase is one of the worst on the internet. The intersection with MauLer fans, who are actually the worst, is pretty much a circle as well.
“Zack Snyder seems like a very nice man who is doing his best.”
This. The fact he has attracted such weird, angry fan base is a little mystifying. But that said, Snyders work clearly demonstrates he’s the guy who only looks at the covers and splash pages of comic books instead of actually reading them.
My appreciation of Snyder has gone steadily downhill since Dawn of the Dead, the positives of which I attribute to James Gunn. He ruined 300 by adding more backstory and tedious fast/ slo-mo. Watchmen looked great but was soulless. Same with pretty much his entire DC run…
I mean, dunking on your worst fans is one thing, but continuing to make material that panders directly to what those fans want kind of undercuts said dunking.
He fits a long-running pattern of artists whose art seems to have quite the opposite point of view to what they express
publicly. I tend to think a person’s art is a more accurate
barometer of who they are than what they say in interviews.
It’s pronounced “thermometer”
It’s pronounced “thermobaric bomb”
So if an artist’s work is pro-tolerance yet their publicly expressed views are intolerant we should assume it’s their art that shows their real views?
He can be a very nice man who does his best but still makes garbage movies.
Oh, 10000% agreed. I looked up a list of all of his films for reference and there’s not one good one in the bunch. The best I’ve ever seen from him is ‘fine.’ He’s part of that crop of directors who started in music videos, but seems like maybe he should have stayed there.
Yeah people say his Dawn of the Dead movie is good but I do not concur. I thought Watchmen was an ok comic adaptation when it came out but after watching it again I think I was wrong in my initial assessment.
It completely misses almost all the points Alan Moore was making. Yeah, it slavishly copied a bunch of panels. So what. I would have preferred engagement with the fucking IDEAS
While I agree, I think it’s important to point out that a lot of the “fucking IDEAS” in Watchmen are deeply rooted in the very medium of comic books. Which goes some way to supporting the notion that it shouldn’t be adapted.I actually think that IF you’re going to make a Watchmen adaptation in film or TV it should engage with film or TV narrative tropes the same way the original engaged with comic books. Which is hard given the development of Watchmen as a would-be Charlton satire/reimagining.But then I feel similarly about any adaptation of Stephen King’s It that doesn’t make it a 1:1 period piece. Pennywise doesn’t fucking WORK in contemporary storytelling. He chose a clown because that’s what appealed to kids in the first half of the 20th century. He would never appear as a fucking clown to kids in the 80s or 90s. God I hate that fucking bullshit adaptation…
This business about the It adaptation is interesting. I’m not saying clowns weren’t more popular prior to the eighties—they probably were, though I wasn’t around to verify. But they certainly hadn’t disappeared from children’s entertainment like you seem to suggest. Circuses complete with clowns were very much still a thing—I went to several in the eighties. Bozo the Clown still existed in multiple markets; in Indiana where I was growing up, we got the most famous Bozo broadcast to us out of Chicago, all the way up through 2001 (!). My sister and I regularly watched both Bozo and local imitator Happy the Hobo in the mornings. The Simpsons poked at Bozo with Krusty the Klown in the 90s, and it wasn’t even an anachronism. And most famous of all, McDonald’s was still happily selling billions and billions of Happy Meals on the back of their famous clown mascot. We also still had the specter of John Wayne Gacy (real-world predatorial clown, and children’s entertainer) looming large through the entire 80s and into the 90s.To me the biggest issue with that adaptation isn’t the era transplant, it’s that Pennywise is so overtly creepy at all times. He makes no attempt to actually lure anyone in. It’s decent cinema, but also kind of stupid.
That’s fair. The timeline on when exactly kids stopped being interested in/trusting clowns can be fudged a fair bit. But it’s much more to your follow-up point that Pennywise as represented in the Mushyshitty adaptation is a fucking terror from the fucking jump. That adaptation obviously gets me worked up, as you can tell from the two f-bombs in a row. It just makes so many goddam stupid choices. Like WHY the fuck does it need to be made contemporary? Do we not make period pieces set in the 50s or 80s anymore? Why did they mix Ben and Mike’s characterizations the way they did? I know they were trying to maintain the idea of “adults are complicit” but I thought it was a huge shame that Mike’s dad got such short shrift. The novel scenes between Mike and his dad are some of my favorite and I think they go a long way towards informing how the adult Losers act when THEY grow up. I think the scenes in Niebold street from the novel are terrifying and I get why you would want to adapt them into a film but the movie changes a ton of shit in that sequence, to the point that it just seems so goddam pointless! Why the fuck is Richie given a closeted gay storyline, especially when the novel makes it incredibly clear that IF one of the kids was gay it was fucking EDDIE, not Richie? Of all of them I could very much see Eddie having an unrequited, unspoken homosexual crush on Bill. I know more than most people that you have to make changes to the source material when you make an adaptation. I learned it in grad school for screenwriting and I teach it to my screenwriting kids. I worked in the story department at Sony for nearly a decade and read any number of adaptations that made reasonable changes to the narrative. The It movie changes are fucking inexplicable and idiotic. Some people like to bitch and moan about the TV miniseries adaptation and sure, it gets some things wrong. It’s limited in the violence and gore because of TV S&P. It’s limited by budget. But it doesn’t make such huge and unnecessarily STUPID changes to the narrative as the theatrical films. And all due respect to many of the actors, including Skarsgard as the rubber-faced and genuinely terrifying Pennywise, the miniseries casting was fucking IMMACULATE.
I admire your passion about this! I was far less familiar with the book and so basically enjoyed the movie—but I have been similarly enraged by other adaptations that made lots of changes that seemed basically unmotivated. And I can also tell you, even though I liked part one pretty well, part two was a real turd no matter how you slice it. Not just a bad adaptation but a bad movie all around.
Kind like how Guy Fieri is supposed to be a really good guy, but his TV persona is tiresome.
This is a weird thing for me to say but I was kind of hoping that his personal grief may have changed him up a bit and given his work a more personal, melancholy feel. The man’s been through some shit.However, he’s kind of gone the opposite direction (the Liam Neeson route, I call it) and just said “Fuck it, I’ll just do what I want and have fun.” Which, he’s getting paid so fair play to him, but it’s not leading to good art imo.
I mean, he has openly encouraged his fans’ most toxic behavior, to the
point of pre-building a “Snyder cut” into films he has complete creative
control over, he’s a Ayn Rand enthusiast, and he made one of the most
blatantly racist major studio films of the last 20 years, but I sure, I guess other than that he’s cool.
I said he seems nice, not that he seems cool. He’s openly rebuked some of the alt-right chuds to their face, like that Geeks and Gamers douchecanoe. But yeah, I think he’s just a dude thoroughly incapable of introspection who mirrors whatever works or whatever he’s around. I wouldn’t be surprised if he likes Ayn Rand because he read it at 14 and hasn’t read more than a dozen books since.
But all that besides – dope Home Movies username. What are -eyes- Ping Pong?
I worked in the office next to his right after 300 and he is super nice.
I don’t love all of his work, but he really was a good dude. He signed a copy of The Watchmen for my lead’s birthday.
Visually, his work can be pretty great but he needs a co-writer.
I don’t know what mauler fans are, and based on the context here I’m sure I don’t want to know.
I cannot imagine Snyder fans reacting well to a movie in which fascists are the bad guys.
The key to imagining it is to remember that it’s only fascism when it’s people with opposite political beliefs in charge. When an authoritarian leader shares their ideology, then it’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Fascism!.
Yes! Yes! And they are probably bald, fat and have micro penises! And Trumpers. And live in their mom’s basement. And climate change deniers! Yes! Brilliant! It’s very easy to tell all of this based solely on the kind of entertainment they like! Sick burn!
Please don’t take this as a defense of Snyder’s films, which I think suck, but how would you know that his fans don’t care about other people’s feelings?
It’s a glib joke about how his fans all act like sociopaths online.
*Is* he a very nice man though? He routinely uses his fan base to launder harassment at critics.
There are slow motion laser swords that somehow move slower than the regular slow motion action around them, though!!! …though one does wonder how that is helpful, but she seemed to be doing okay with them.
I’d love to see someone make a big sci-fi/space opera movie like this, except the hero figure they all have to rely on ends up being MacGruber.
Many a throat will be ripped out and no celery stalks will be safe!
I look forward to Zack Snyder’s Crusade of the Lost Temple – Part One: The Ark of Doom.
Other future Snyder franchises:Reverse to the Upcoming TimeSpiritfightersThe VectorTriassic Preserve
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Those sound like great MST3k episodes
I’m drawing a blank on The Vector. What’s that one?
The Matrix, maybe?
The Matrix, as Zircon correctly guessed.
Ah, nice!
‘Alrightfellas’.
Swellguys
Larry Squatter and the Wizard’s Rock.
ChangeFormers: Fall of the Risen.
The biggest missed opportunity in Hollywood is the fact that they didn’t get Snyder to do Ready Player One.
I’m looking forward to a gender-fluid look at Roman times, Ben-Them.
I liked his zombie movie. Forced myself to watch the slog of The Justice League Snyder Cut even though I don’t care for superhero movies much. He should eschew all action and sci-fi fare and make a low budget indie drama. As a test of his filmmaking skills.
The sad part is that the Snyder Cut is actually better than the theatrical release. Which just goes to show how bad the theatrical release is.
Its sooo much better and still sooo bad
Right? The only good part is still the quicktime scene when Superman comes back to life.
There’s something to be said for an artist’s vision. Even if the vision is terrible, it’s preferable to the studio Frankenstein version.
It would have been at least 20 minutes shorter without all the slow motion. Which might have made it slightly better?
Maybe it’s better but it’s so damn long that if I had to watch a version again it’d be the theatrical for sure. I think you can argue it’s the better version just by virtue of “less time spent watching a terrible movie.”
I kinda feel like the theatrical release and the Whedon reshoots gave us a brief glimpse of the charismatic Superman Cavill could’ve been if Snyder wasn’t treating him the same way he treated Dr. Manhattan.
But that’s the point. The entire Snyder universe was very clearly leading up to the Injustice storyline with “evil” Superman, so you have to lay the groundwork of how he gets there. And having him be somewhat disconnected from humanity is part of that.It’s a different viewpoint on the character but not a worse one, imo.
I don’t think I agree – the Injustice Superman snapped because he was so connected with humanity and so devastated when he lost everything he’d loved and protected. Showing him as disconnected from the start would undermine that.
That’s one of the things I never really liked about the Injustice storyline. It doesn’t make sense for someone to care *too much* such that a single loss causes him to turn 180 degrees instantly. Especially the way the storyline is set to make Superman actually responsible, but instead of responding with guilt and shame, he becomes fascist?It makes much more sense for him to already be somewhat alienated and only tenously connected to humanity. So that when his one remaining link, Lois, is killed, that final straw pushes him over the edge. Thats a better process for creating an authoritarian who believes that his moral and physical superiority allows him to control the actions of “lesser” beings for their own good. Because you need to not see people as individuals in order to ignore their own expressions of free will.
For sure—Snyder’s Superman feels much more like Omniman than Clark Kent.
I’m fine with Injustice as a video game and a comic series because it’s off to the side. Making it the main thrust of the DC movie universe is a terrible take. And beyond that, I don’t get the idea that it was Snyder’s idea from the beginning. His Superman was disconnected from humanity and more dour than the classic version because he doesn’t get Superman all that well. And if the last act of his Justice League cut is any indication, his Injustice Superman would have been pretty terrible, so let’s all be thankful we didn’t get the whole thing.
As a comic it gave us the best mash-up of Harley Quinn and Green Arrow to ever exist, and is worth reading for that alone. It went on WAY too long, though.
Honestly, I don’t even see it as a different viewpoint on the character. It seemed like Snyder legitimately didn’t know how to portray a heroic character. MoS spent most of its runtime suppressing heroism using nonsense commentary about societal symbolism poorly copied from Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy.Pa Kent and News Editor Morpheus just outright spout that crap every time they were on screen.
BvS was just a mashup of famous comic arc references shoved into a single film that wasn’t even coherent until the director’s cut. All the references seemed like they were adapted by someone who looked at the visuals but didn’t read the written words or even understand what they were looking at and why it was popular. Batman was basically Rorschach. Alfred was a sassy alcoholic resigned to Bruce’s paranoid Punisher-esque shenanigans. Superman was basically Dr. Manhattan, and no one really wanted him around but his mother. Wonder Woman was still pining over a guy she knew briefly during WWI but still managed to be the highlight of the film. Flash did timetravel because that is apparently all he can do. There is apparently and Injustice-like timeline with Darkseid influence but it seems to only exist for Batman to have an action scene with no consequences.
Meanwhile Justice League… was a mess. Both versions. With Whedon at least showing why you’d cast Henry Cavill instead of… I dunno Werner Herzog as Clark Kent. Snyder’s version gave us Martian Martha and Joker-Jesus though so thats a… well it isn’t a plus.
Honestly the criticism of B vs S can be applied to Watchmen almost word for word. It’s like…he SAW it, but he didn’t get it, so he just copied the pretty pictures (admittedly very well), though I do give him points for the changes to the ending, as that made sense. And, oddly enough, he nails Rorschach and Dr Manhattan…the two least-human characters in the entire thing. Unfortunately all the very human characters are just as wooden in the movie.
The truth is, I wasnt a fan of the DC movies until the Snyder cut. I thought Man of Steel was well shot but kind of dour, BvS’s central conflict didn’t make sense, and the theatrical Justice League was just trash.But after watching the Snyder Cut I actually understood the broad arc of what Snyder was trying to achieve. It only makes sense if you realize that the whole thing is leading up to evil Superman, and the way to get there is by building an portrayal of heroism that is different from the standard American comic book hero.I’ve already seen classic Superman in movies and tv, so not getting to see the same thing again isn’t a huge loss.
My problem with it is that even if it was building up to an evil Superman, it wasn’t doing it in a way that actually made sense. The setting was such that I honestly couldn’t care if anyone died since Wonder Woman and Aquaman were the only people who had any actual enthusiasm as characters. Plus… WB gives you the reins to make a combined cinematic universe and you decide to go with a route that can’t be sustained unless you’re directing every single film? That is just bonkers.
Even worse, while the Snyder Cut fixed a lot of JL’s issues, it also showcased the problem inherent to most of Snyder’s works that aren’t direct adaptations. The guy is a visual director who’s very passionate but he really needs someone who can make his ideas coherent without relying on bloated runtimes. Plus he’s just not very good at storytelling or having characters that actually seem like real people.
I’d definitely hire him to run my visual direction and action sequences, but I’d keep him away from anything that actually requires a story and character development. Pretty much all of his original work has had good concepts but poor execution. His Netflix work definitely showcases this.
Oh yeah I’m never going to watch either of them again but if you hold a gun to my head and told me to pick one to watch I’d choose the theatrical just so I wouldn’t have to spend so much time watching it again.
Even worse is people who have the strange belief that the Snyder Cut is what we would’ve gotten theatrically if he hadn’t had that tragedy that made him leave the film.
Yeah there’s no way WB would have released that in theaters.
The zombie movie was a lot of fun, though it fell apart at the end. Snyder needs a couple of things:to not be allowed to write his own scripts anymorean editorbudgetary constraints, so he can’t fall back on VFX
“Snyder took heavy aesthetic and stylistic notes from genre classics _____ without understanding the story and emotional beats.”
Change what is in this blank and you get every single Snyder project.
Penis?
Is it that he doesn’t understand them, or he doesn’t care?cue ‘why not both’ meme, I suppose
He doesn’t come across as a guy who doesn’t care. For all his schlock, he’s not some cynical ripoff artist just in it to make a buck. I think he believes in what he’s doing.
I believe that he believes that his work is totally metal, yes.
It’s metal like Motley Crue was metal.I just searched to see if he’d ever actually directed and Motley Crue videos, and it seems his video career was over pretty quickly. Only 10 from 89-95. But get this: he came out of video retirement in 2009 to direct a My Chemical Romance video! They almost have to much cred to be his music analogue.
Watchmen and a MCR video all in the same year? That’s gotta be the nadir of something or other.
You didn’t eat that, did you?
A dud, eh?
Watch as Snyder fans completely ignore this film. He’s the one director who can put out total shit (Sucker Punch, etc.) yet his fans just forgive him every single time and worship him.
I don’t know about all the negativity here. Even the picture of the cast at the top of the review shows how Snyder is branching out of his normal wheelhouse. You can see him moving out of his “everything is grey” phase and into more of a “but what if it was also dirty brown?” aesthetic moment.
Ah, so he’s moved onto the id Tech 2 engine.
Calling the bad guys “The Imperium” deserves to be dragged more, esp. since Snyder straight up stole that from Auralnaut’s Star Wars parodies.
I wish he had stolen petulant vlogger Kylo instead.
I will say the girl being named “Kora” is just making me wish I was watching the live action Airbender show that is coming out.
Sounds a lot like The Magisterium from His Dark Materials too… It’s like he went… “If we combine the Imperials with the Magisterium we get — The Imperium. Or the Magperials. Which do you guys like better?”
The Magisterium’s a real thing, but: they’re the dudes in charge of interpreting the word of the God in the Catholic Church. Of course, Pullman knows that because he’s literate and well-read and smart.
is Snyder really going for Auralnaut parody though? I feel like he stole it straight from Warhammer 40K, along with aiming it squarely at the same grimdark vibe. The bad guy looks straight out of the Warhammer minifigure catalogue for ‘Imperial Commissar’.
DON’T TURN AROUND
uh oh!
DER KOMMISAR WILL GUN YOU DOWN
uh oh!
Or he stole it from 40k
Gods I love those Auralnaut edits. I’ve watched that prequel trilogy more than the actual one.
Something about Darth Vader shouting “Yeaaaah boiiiiiiii!” at getting a middle-management job kills me every time. And the “Larry” Kenobi series they did last year was so much better than its source material, too.
Some may call Snyder a “rebel,” but his fans definitely love getting mooned.
—-wish we had a delete button
And yet The Forever War, complete with its totally cool twist ending, still has no adaptation. (And guess what Hollywood: the book’s length is a “good fit” for a two-hour movie. It’s a win-win. IF it’s ever adapted.)
Are you really so confident that Hollywood is going to do a good job adapting a story that potentially contains lots of big space battles and not try to turn it into a big rah-rah fighty Star Wars-aping thing? The potential for a studio or director to ruin it by undercutting the entire premise seems very, very, very high.
That has ‘trilogy’ all over it!!!
Please, I do not want Hollywood to fuck that book up. It connected me to my father in a way that I never got to experience when he was alive. I will piss on anyone who adapts it less than perfectly.
Imagine my shock – The AV Club continues to hate on Zack Snyder. lulz
Zack Snyder delivers a soulless dudSo it’s like every other Zack Snyder movie?
Maybe it’s because I was in college and both a) young and b) perpetually drunk enough to appreciate 300, but Zack Snyder has built his entire career around style over substance. It works when the entire premise of a movie is “oiled up Greek dudes killing Persians in slow motion,” but the rest of his filmography is pretty bad.
Yeah, he shot a comic book and it was ok. Then he shot another comic book and even though it gets a lot of hate, I kind of liked Watchmen (esp. the ultimate edition). Then bleh after bleh after bleh.
It was (unfortunately?) the closest we’ll ever get to an actual Watchmen movie, but holy shit he missed the point so fundamentally that I just can’t forgive it. I want to, because his style sure fits the visuals and overall tone, but blurgh it was SO close to getting it right. And I do think he did a really good job with the changes to the ending, strangely enough (and really everything about Dr Manhattan and Rorshach–the two least human characters–was perfect)
I agree about the ending. I think that the movie ending (i.e., turn everyone against Dr, Manhattan) was better than the comic book ending (i.e., faked alien squid attack — it also kept us from having to watch a shitty CGI monster ending). Dr. M and Rorschach were perfectly cast and perfectly characterized — the rest of the cast perhaps less so (thought I did like Jeffrey Dean Morgan). And yes, he kind of missed the point… but it still holds up overall.
I enjoyed Watchmen quite a bit but I figured it was at least in part because I came in cold since I didn’t read the comics.
Highly-detailed, visually rich, slomo combat sequences without a whiff of a plot or characters? In MY ZACK SNYDER?? Well I nyeverMan’s good at adapting previous stories and painting famous comic book scenes in a moving environment, but he can’t make his own stories. He needs to hire a writer or 4, or better yet, demote himself to cinematographer for fight scenes and let someone else write/direct.
Or just let someone write. He can still direct.People can just be writers and just be directors. Maybe even should be!
Or…and hear me out here….let him just direct credit sequences for movies that require backstory. He’s a fucking genius at that, somehow.
So it’s Rogue One.
It wishes it was that good.
Rogue One isn’t a great film by any means but it isn’t terminally boring. Rebel Moon is a tedious drag that goes on forever – and if the endless slo-mo had been cut it would have been an hour shorter.
What in the hell is this nonsense? I will not hear the good name of the second best film in all of Star Wars besmirched in this manner. NONSENSE I SAY.
Fuck outta here. Either ANH or ROTJ has the number two spot, depending on your tolerance for Ewoks.
Eh, ROTJ is fourth at best due to the Ewoks. I can accept ANH and often change the two on my ‘list’ depending on my mood, but Rogue One is at least in the top half—I can even accept fourth even if I disagree, but OP is just unreasonable comparing this mess of a movie to Rogue One.
Yeah, Rogue One is better than the Prequels and is probably the best of the newer SW films, but this is a pretty low bar. All of the first trilogy is far more rewatchable.
Soulless is never a word I would use to describe Snyder’s work.
Fascist, nihlist, Toxic Dudebro, but not soulless.
Maybe he should have written his story from the perspective of the Imperium.
Our king with the ridiculous hairpiece is dead, long live the king’s hairpiece. We diligently hold the line against fractious rebellion that would send the empire into lawless chaos and wanton destruction. The only way to maintain control, and ensure the imperium’s survival is to do the fascism. “But won’t that make people want to rebel even more?” you might ask.. Not if we do the fascism really really good with the big fancy flags, the Hugo Boss and the shiny boots and the always fashionable undercut hairstyle. Because you can’t have the fascism with out the fashion. We will save the imperium with slow motion violence and 40K references alone if we have to.
Zach Snyder’s Fascism and the Furious 2, Fascists in Space streaming now on hulu+
Just watched it, it’s soulless. A chatbot could have written a better script.
Maybe he’s saving all that boring “character development” stuff for the Director’s Cut?
The film’s first act subjects viewers to an extended sequence of Imperium soldiers attempting to rape a villager, a scene that serves no other purpose than making explicitly clear to the audience that the authoritarian military occupiers are, in fact, bad guys. Oh. This trope. Again.
FFS, one can adequately convey amorality without a goddamned gang rape.
Outlander producers: “Go non-consensually fuck yourself, Ugh.”
One can. Unfortunately Snyder is not that one.
I’m more disturbed by the “extended attempt” part. Is this a “couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn” thing where the Dollar Store Stormtroopers can’t aim for shit, so they’re falling down all over the place and just humping random objects?
There was no actual or attempted rape, no clothes even came off. The soldiers grabbed the girl and carried her into their abode. One of them tried to protect her and the others subdued him and threatened to make him watch. The CO then comes and says he gets first crack at her. At this point the protagonist comes in and wipes the floor with the soldiers. So calling it an extended rape attempt is a bit of a misnomer.
Nobody called it an “extended rape”. The quote was “extended sequence of Imperium soldiers attempting to rape”
Yeah she straight up murdered everyone in that room—it was video game levels of heroics— and murder.
“The soldiers grabbed the girl and carried her into their abode. One of
them tried to protect her and the others subdued him and threatened to
make him watch. The CO then comes and says he gets first crack at her.”I’m no fancy big city D.A., but I’m pretty sure that’s attempted rape.
It’s definitely implied thoroughly enough that it basically can count as one. The screams and pleas from the victim, the laughs from attackers, the assault…My partner is a survivor of sexual assault and was frozen and near tears due to how distressing it all was. That entire sequence (and even the earlier parts where the creeps were watching/verbally assaulting her) is unsensitive, un-nuanced, unadulterated fucking trash.
“The soldiers grabbed the girl and carried her into their abode.”Clearly they wanted to challenge her as the local Scrabble master.
It’s more “extended” in the sense that, it was completely unnecessary to show as much as they did, or have it go on as long as it did. Some screams from off-screen and the hero showing up is all that was needed, but it felt like it dragged on for fucking ever.
it’s one of 1000 in this movie. The ‘princess’ is a blonde, white girl that heals birds, somehow. And I’m pretty sure these are actual Nazi uniforms with the swastikas removed.
This is surprising because his other movies were so good.
/s
<<>>Good. The last time we saw a moon, in Star Wars, fucking Ewoks were running around.
That’s no moon!
The man has never made an emotionally impactful, character-driven movie in his life. I did quite like his Dawn of the Dead remake, however.
That Dawn of the Dead is very overrated. The opening sequence is great, but after that there’s nothing really special about it, and it can’t hold a candle to the original. A movie I don’t think Snyder gets.
A few things.1. I’m not arguing at all against the accusations of ripoffery. *That said*, I was under the impression that this started as a licensed Star Wars story that Disney passed on. You could reasonably argue that he should have made bigger changes to the story once they passed to make the development less obvious but IMO that makes the similarities less damning.2. Snyder is the platonic ideal of my argument against writer-directors. He clearly knows how to create an image and build and execute (with the help of a stunt team, obviously) action sequences. As a visualist he’s got chops. But he’s a terrible TERRIBLE writer. He’s a TERRIBLE storyteller. Yes, I’m aware that not all hyphenates are Zach Snyder. But more of them are more like him than people want to admit.
I was under the impression that this started as a licensed Star Wars story that Disney passed on.
It started as a spec pitch that Snyder brought to Disney that they rejected. Saying that it was a ‘licensed Star Wars story’ implies that at some point Disney paid Snyder to come up with a story for them and then they changed their minds.
After Disney passed, Snyder filed the serial numbers off and took it to Netflix. It’d be like that guy who tried to sue Amazon for ripping off his LotR fanfic adapted said fanfic into a screenplay, rearranged the letters in all the names and managed to get a development deal out of Crackle or something.
“Oooo Crackle!”== Chip Baskets
Ah, that makes slightly more sense. Although to be fair, they actually *took* the meeting. And they don’t have to deal with anyone they don’t really want to. It’s not actually much like the LOTR fanfic guy.
Snyder is good argument against directors.
Re #2, yeah, whatever else his shortcomings, he can put together an absolutely gorgeous shot like few others. If someone could put him on a movie and give him zero story control or input, and zero script control or input and just have him purely on shot composition, he’d be very well-suited for it.
Or, maybe filmmaking shouldn’t just be a process of putting together a trailer. Anyone with a good eye can compose a bunch of pretty shots.
I think he can frame a shot just fine, but I struggle to find those shots gorgeous because they’re all gray-brown, washed out, and kind of ugly. I feel like he’s our best director at making ugly-pretty movies.
Ah, a D-. The gentlemens D-.
A 8==D~ if you will.
I will not! Good day, Sir!I said Good day!
A rocketship!
The rebel moon isn’t even a moon at all. It’s a Kuiper belt object.
He got both Daarios?
And a Carey Elwes!
Yeah, I wasted two and a half hours of my life on Army of the Dead, I’m not going to give more of it to this. Man of Steel was my introduction to Henry Cavill so imagine my surprise watching The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and seeing an actor with charm, charisma and wit. Superman should be charming and charismatic, damn it. That came through with Christopher Reeve in the role, but Richard Donner could direct people.
Remember, instead of giving money to artist to make a second Man From Uncle…. Producer hand out blank checks for three Rebel Moon movies.
eacg
Release the Snyder … oh fuck it … who has the energy?
I watched it and enjoyed it. While a movie like Past Lives may have been better directed and be more technically sound, Rebel Moon was way more engrossing. It’s not a great movie, but I don’t regret watching it and it kept my attention. I have a soft spot for movies that involve a ragtag group of heroes assembled to fight the big bad though. Comparing it to some of the most beloved sci-fi movies ever seems unfair. Compared to lesser movies, it holds its own.
Comparing it to some of the most beloved sci-fi movies Who could possibly compare something as daring and original as Rebel Moon to Star Wars? Obviously they have nothing in common.
Yeah, it’s a big dumb sci-fi movie, it looks good and I thought it was fun. But, you know, even comparing it to Star Wars, it’s not like Star Wars is some deep treatise on the human condition, it’s also just a big stupid sci-fi movie. This thing is vapid and shallow, but it’s not any more vapid and shallow than Star Wars is. They’re both just costumes, creatures and pew-pew lasers.
Star Wars had interesting characters, backstory and humor. There was zero fun to be had with this one.
I know I’m in the vast minority on this, but I don’t think the characters or backstory of Star Wars are all that interesting. Honestly, as the Star Wars movies go on and they try to do more world building, the worse it gets. Star Wars definitely beats Rebel Moon on humor because Rebel Moon had zero humor, but they both had pretty rote characters and generally bad dialogue with pretty scenery, cool character design, and quality combat scenes. They’re the kinds of things you watch for the visual spectacle, not any kind of deep sci-fi experience.
Yeah. I guess a big difference (and there are many) is Star Wars had amazing, inspired production design. Taking inspiration from such diverse sources, it felt entirely different from anything we’d seen before and even now has a legitimate feel of transporting you to some other place and time. Rebel Moon looks utterly, vehemently generic. It’s like someone remade, I dunno, Dark Matter or whatever with a huge budget. Everything in RM looks like it has been lifted directly from an obvious source – a viking village, a Roman coliseum, fascist military uniforms from the 20th Century. There’s no inspiration, and it looks like everything you’ve seen before. Nothing memorable about the spaceships either, which is kind-of a big deal in a space opera.
Then there’s the editing. Star Wars was super- super- tightly edited (from which the Disney TV shows could really take some cues). Rebel Moon never takes less than ten minutes to tell three minutes’ worth of story. It took me three attempts to get through the first 20 minutes of talky, boring village setup.
It’s not that RM is (just) a bad movie, it’s that it’s entirely misconceived – bad decisions at every turn of its creation.But hey. It’s better than The Rise of Skywalker.
“While a movie like Past Lives”God, I love Snyder bots. “This is actually more engrossing than a random movie in a completely different, unrelated genre.” Wow that’s awesome dude
You’re allowed to like a Snyder movie without being a fanboy. I compared it to Past Lives because AV Club voted it the best movie of the year. It was a relevant comparison for this site. The point is that at the end of the day, a movie should be entertaining. I was entertained by Rebel Moon, but not Past Lives, which was a technically superior movie.
You don’t have to be such a tool on comment boards to make your life meaningful.
Sure but how does it stack up to Rashomon? Or the episode of What’s Happening!! where Rerun bootlegged a Doobie Brothers concert? Or the Cheesy Gordita Crunch? Let’s get some more comparisons going
Technically ReRun’s bootleg is mainly the sound of him eating potato chips w the Doobies in the background. Signed, Pedantic Man. 🙂
Past Lives is not a valid comparison, it’s a drama, it’s not meant to be entertaining in the same way a sci-fi action movie is. Maybe compare it to Creator, which this site called next level sci-fi, I would actually be interested in hearing that comparison. I haven’t seen Rebel Moon yet, I’m waiting for the full R director’s cut, because I’m not going to sit through it twice (unless it does turn out to be amazing).
A rewatch of Battle Beyond The Stars sounds more worthwhile
Most movies hold their own when compared to lesser movies? Though this is definitely a lesser movie to be sure.
In other words: “if you hold Zack Snyder to the lowest possible standards, this film is kind of alright.”Let’s face it, even leaving aside that this film isn’t exactly subtle about comparing itself to Star Wars, never mind the reviewers, that’s not exactly glowing praise. ‘Better than absolute crap’ is the bare minimum expectation, it’s not reason for praise.
Watched it yesterday. No worse than “Ice Pirates,” not quite as good as “Krull.”
Zach Snyder presents Battle from Beyond the Stars featuring:
1. Warhammer 40K
2. Laser swords
3. Sloooooooow Mooooootion
Asking all the hard hitting questions like:
1. What if the damsel in distress from the Magnificent Seven was a dude?
2. What if Magnificent Seven but in space?
3. What if Shelob was kinda hot?
4. Abs?
5. And what would happen if I fed every sci-fi and western trope into chat gpt?
She was basically the love-child of Shelob and the Borg Queen.
You forgot the original was seven Samurai.
took heavy aesthetic and stylistic notes from genre classics […] without understanding the story and emotional beats that made those aforementioned franchises so beloved.The entire review could have just been this line and I would have known you were talking about Zach Snyder because that is literally his entire schtick.
I stopped around the halfway point where that one guy said “but, we had a deal.” And the other guy said “We do. Now I’ll set you free.” Then he kills him. Kind of reminded me of Sucker Punch…
I’m 90 minutes into this and holy shit what a movie. Some observations:—Shirtless Griffen Whisperer is the best character ever, and it’s kind of awesome how the Wonder Woman theme plays whenever his shirtless, smoldering visage is on screen
—Griffin whispering is worth 300,00 space moneys, which seems much more lucrative a trade than whatever fat human Watto was trying to do as a ‘business’, aside from keeping male models in chains (which, admittedly, is likely somewhat lucrative)—I missed how they got the space map of where all the 7 space samurai were, but apparently they’re on planets that are extremely close together, so that’s convenient—Why is Charlie Hunnam Irish? Although now an hour later he sounds decidedly more English, so maybe he was disguising his accent earlier?—thank God the badguys have unfortunate haircuts, and the space savior is blonde and white. Makes it super easy to tell who’s who—why is everything so dark all the time everywhere, even when it’s sunny??—really, if you have that much power and you still have to live with THAT haircut, is it worth it? I say no. It does kind of explain why he’s such a dick, though.—wow the aliens that didn’t speak English earlier but do now were not in this long—I don’t think Zach Snyder is capable of filming an action scene at regular speed—the subtitles like “Gladiator Arena of Castor” followed by “Moon of Castor” are super helpful—um…are these Orcs? —wtf with Spider-woman??? I was seriously texting someone about that scene while it was going on and the next thing I know Spider-woman is fighting warrior she was totally cool with a minute before and I have no idea why—Charlie Hunnam is a bad guy now. But I’m sure he’ll be a good guy again soon. Have I seen this already? It sort of feels like it. I refuse to believe he isn’t smart enough to realize the gold mine he’s sitting on with the Griffin Whisperer in his party.—the cast is actually impressive—I have 45 minutes left and I don’t care about anyone in this except for Griffin whisperer, who needs his own movies complete with Wonder Woman music.I may add more later, but just reading over that list now this is just a giant clusterfuck of a movie.
My wife wanted to know why he was Irish as well, but I had no answer for her.
Apparently, it’s because Charlie Hunnam just wanted the character to sound that way.https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a46215446/charlie-hunnam-rebel-moon-accent/
Your mention of Castor reminded me how much I hated all the names in this movie, of the people and the places.Also, in this thing, Castor was a moon of the planet Pollux (or vice versa, I don’t remember and who cares). But Castor and Pollux were twins, so they should’ve been the names of the stars in a binary system, or two planets, or two moons. Two equal things, is my point. (Is this pedantic? Sure, maybe, but it rubs me the wrong way.)
I get the appeal of the Griffin Prince—I really do—but that whole scene makes zero sense to me. First, the Griffin Prince owes the bossman a substantial debt. Doesn’t that mean that the Griffin Prince provides animal-taming services for the bossman? Otherwise, what is he doing there? And if the Griffin Prince does tame animals for the bossman, then why not just make him tame the griffin as part of his normal duties? Because the bossman likes a wager, I guess?Second, the Griffin Prince’s approach to griffin-taming is to speak psychobabble to the griffin and bond with it, which I get. But I genuinely don’t know if the griffin can understand the alien language he is speaking. I have no frame of reference for any of it—the griffin, the language, or even the Griffin Prince (who we don’t even know at this point in the movie is a prince).Third, as soon as the Griffin Prince bonds with the griffin, he’s like, “Sorry, but I’m still gonna tie your beak shut and make you fly me around, even though you clearly don’t wanna.” Rude!Fourth, the bossman is true to his word and lets the Griffin Prince go, so yay! But the bossman is also stupid enough to think that one session with the Griffin Prince means that the griffin will let anyone ride it. How did he get to be the bossman here? He doesn’t seem qualified.
Fifth, the Griffin Prince seems to read the writing on the wall and know that the griffin is going to turn on the bossman, which seems to me like the Griffin Prince didn’t keep up his end of the wager with the griffin-taming. And yet he doesn’t act with any urgency here. Like, he doesn’t say to his new friends, “Maybe we should get while the getting’s good.” He sticks around to watch the griffin kill the bossman. So, I guess the bossman was really evil. But not Imperial-soldier-level evil, right? (Again, a frame-of-reference problem.)And sixth, wow, it was so important that the good guys recruit the Griffin Prince to their cause because of all those creatures he had to tame in the rest of the movie. Oh, wait, he didn’t? Not even one? Never mind, then.That said, I’m not opposed to seeing more of the Griffin Prince.
My favorite part of the movie was the bit with romance cover guy (who tames angry Buckbeak in about 5 seconds) making the slo-mowiest jump in cinematic history. I should have used the break to get some water. Also, Buckbeak eating David Crosby was pretty funny too.
I’ve said it before and it still stands: Snyder is a masterful film-maker…when those films are 3-7 minutes long, and are opening credits. Until this movie (ironically enough) his credit sequences are absolute masterpieces, and usually tell you all you need to know to catch you up. THIS movie needed credits like those.
This movie made me question if he’s even good at credits anymore.
Got about halfway thru last night and couldn’t bring myself to finish. It’s soooooooo boring. Holy crap. I mean, how do you fuck up Seven Samurai in Space so bad that it’s this boring?
Look at something like Oceans 11, it bring together a rag tag group efficiently and you actually have a decent sense of who ever one is. I still have no idea what the hell the guy riding buck beak had anything to do with the movie. He shows off for a bit riding a creature and immediately does nothing else the rest of the movie.
He’s a prince!
Of what? I don’t know because the world building is so shit we have no idea what it means. The most sense would be he’s the son of the slain King that they mention 500 f’ing times.
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing that the first 2 hours of Rebel Moon is spent collecting warriors… But there is so little time spent on why the warriors join up. It’s like Snyder said, “all that motivation crap gets in the way the cool buckbeak flying scenes and giant spider lady fight scenes.” It’s a weird 8-year-old playing smash up with action figures mentality. And it’s not like this kind of thing hasn’t been done before, just watch Magnificent 7 or something.
I think he has all of two lines after that intro scene.He does have one hero-y moment towards the end that I guess I shouldn’t spoil but even that has some bizarre choices (both technical and in-story) in it that make no goddamn sense.
I will give this movie points for this: Somehow the algorithm said I should try “Blue Eyed Samurai” when it was over, and of course I didn’t trust it and had to look up reviews just in case it really was like this film. Once I saw the reviews I decided fuck it—maybe it would wash away the stink of that movie…and I’ll be damned if this isn’t really good so far.
It’s kind of amazing that the same people who paid to make Blue Eyes Samurai also paid to make Rebel Moon.(Granted BES gets a little over-the-top at the end)
Both Darioos in this
Just another rewriting of Seven Samurai. Nothing original here. Action OK, dialogue not so much.
Kora and Noble were fine. The farmer was poorly cast unless they were going for wet blanket. I don’t really know who the other samurais are, because we have little to no dialogue. I’m not sure why I am rooting for the “heroes,” given the lack of any real emotional connective tissue other than shared generic trauma. I have no spatial sense of the world building, but I guess everyone could breathe fine. Cool fights.
I almost turned it off at the extended sexual assault scene involving a teenager. I really, really wish I did, but at least I already forgot most of everything else.Did Star Wars ever need to show stormtroopers trying to sexually assault children to get across the point that the empire was bad? No. Why the fuck does Zack Snyder put this kind of shit in his films? Then, twenty minutes later, the “simple farmer” guy was also sexually assaulted, and that was obviously played for laughs/the ‘it can happen to guys too, durr!’ effect.
I genuinely wanted to like this, but sheesh did it leave nothing but a bad taste in my mouth. I do think that Watchmen, Dawn of the Dead, his Justice League and 300 (haven’t seen it in over a decade, though) were good films. But after this and Army of Dead, I’m pretty sure that was only because they were pre-established characters and worlds. Zack Snyder just needs to be a DP that someone else directs, because if this was truly his “vision”, I’d rather have not seen it at all. No wonder Lucasfilms was like “Yeah, no thanks.” If only Netflix was as smart as them.I can’t imagine how much of a shit-show the “R-Rated, hyper-violent super macho, rapey” cut is going to be. I think Zack seems like a good guy, but fuck this nonsense.
I made it about 15 minutes in til i got bored. will give another try later thoi kept imagining the imperial guy as played by a young Rik Mayall for some reason
It is bad. Like, really bad. Ignore the fact that there is no character development (because when has ZS ever…), the action scenes are boring, set design lackluster, CGI mid-tier at best and humor? What is that?
I love a good assembling a rag tag bunch, but man this was almost 3/4 of the movie and it was dreadfully boring and I had no interest in any of them. I can’t imagine what the 3 hour cut will be like. I have never seen anyone waste as much screen time as what Snyder does in his movies.
“I will never fight in a war ever again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Okay. I’ll fight.”
When the robot soldier named Jimmy who spoke with Anthony Hopkins’s voice and turned on his fellow soldiers to protect the farmgirl who’d been nice to him turned up at the end of the movie wearing antlers, I thought, “What the actual f***?!”