Rebel Moon final trailer

[GloatingSwine]

Again, I agree with the interpretation that they weren't really there for food, but instead were using food as a means to suppress the locals.

Even then there's a scale problem that this one village just isn't possibly worth going to all the trouble of extorting the food from. They can't provide a space empire anything that's worth showing up to collect, they can't make a meaningful contribution to a rebellion but if you think they might just drop a rock on them from orbit, except the iron in the asteroid is probably worth more than what the village can cough up in a century...

[Sapphire Guard]

The objection is more "this village as presented could never produce enough food to be relevant to a space empire, or rebellion against a space empire".

True, but it's not presented as such in the actual film, so the objection is irrelevant.

Having the Admiral arbitrarily show up 9 weeks before harvest just so there's that time buffer is no worse or better than any other justification, as long as it makes sense in-story.

What I was objecting to was the idea that having the Admiral want women instead of grain fixed anything, it just presented a host of new problems like 'there's no need to come back in 9 weeks, they can just take them now. It destroys the film as presented without fixing anything.

Even though he really knows he doesn't need it. Or should know. Or if he does need it, the story hasn't explain how or provided any justification for how that could be credible. His troops don't look emaciated. The story shows them trying to violate one of the village girls, not one of the granary stores. There's no mention of a food crisis back home.

I mean, at the very least, the Admiral should have insisted the villages use modern, high-tech methods, conflicting with their ideology. He doesn't even do that. It's almost like he doesn't give a crap about food, and was just using that as an excuse to exert control over a remote commune of rando farmers. Which would be fine, but jeez, did we need to spend 15 minutes debating wheat bushels then?

He does know he doesn't need it. He wants it anyway as a bonus. It's not his sole food source or the sole food source of the empire.

The wheat bushels debate was sadism, he's pretending to more ignorant than he is to watch the villagers squirm.

People think ecology is magic. Like, in the sense that you can't just produce endless food like you can produce, I dunno, endless amounts of steel or something. But it just comes down to energy. Farms take up land because that's the cheapest way to get sunlight on them, and sunlight is cheap. But if you can generate the power to fly up into orbit seemingly as easily as pulling out of your driveway (and remember Kai's little ship could do it too), then you have access to levels of energy far beyond what we can do here and now. It's not reasonable to compare that to what a WWII ship can harness. The WWII ship might as well be a sailboat in comparison.

Energy is not the same thing as food, just because you work in a power plant doesn't mean you can't starve.
There are plenty of places with excellent manufacturing that are not self sufficient in raw materials and have to import them, that's how colonial empires work.

A military flagship that can freely come and go - there are no ground defenses and another plot point is trying to scrounge up a ship, so we know they aren't commonly available to the village - has nothing to fear from the heroes. The village is completely indefensible no matter how many rebels they can round up.

They all know that, but they're screwed anyway, so the best shot they have is to get help from the rebels, who might have ships or ground defences

As for leaving, as you said, ships were not readily available to the village.

Is that what was going on? That one ship needed food? But they weren't going to come back and get it for weeks. Did I miss something where they explained why they couldn't head to a supply depo to restock in that time? The empire seemed stressed, for sure, but I didn't get the impression it was malfunctioning. If that ship needed food, time was of the essence.

Needed? No. Wanted? Yes. It's not a question of of the fleet starving without that village's food (although how far the grain stretches would depend on how automated his ship is and what size the crew is), he just wants it, maybe to assert authority, maybe to deny it to the rebels, maybe it just tastes nicer than field rations. It might not be worth going back to resupply for something so small when he can grab it locally, or any number of other reasons.

[Tyndmyr]

This is a very silly objection. The village doesn't need to be relevant to the entirety of the space empire, it just needs to be relevant to the one spaceship whose commander is plundering it. There's no reason to think that the 10,000 bushels of grain the admiral intends to confiscate from the village isn't going to be a worthwhile amount of food other than an assumption that it can't possibly be so. And when your assumption causes a story to not make sense, the problem is with your assumption, not the story.

Farming by hand is notoriously hard and not very productive. Farming villages have very little excess food stores. Given an unusually good crop, they could perhaps feed as many additional people as live in the village. This is quite optimistic. In practice, over 50% of humanity was engaged in agriculture until the green revolution, and they didn't all restrict themselves to avoid technology. Farming purely by hand is basically raw sustinence farming. You don't have meaningful amounts of extra food.

There is no plausible way that a spaceship containing *far* more people could be fed by this village. It probably wouldn't even feed the troops for the length of time necessary to come back and deal with them. They literally aren't worth the expedition.

To be clear, I didn't keep watching long enough to see all of this. I was bored pretty much from the start, and just didn't see a reason why I should keep watching. I don't know if a reason is given why the problem isn't solved by orbital bombardment, but realistically, if you want to just murder the whole village and take all the food, that does seem like a reasonable option.

Why do people keep letting Snyder make movies?

[InvisibleBison]

There is no plausible way that a spaceship containing *far* more people could be fed by this village. It probably wouldn't even feed the troops for the length of time necessary to come back and deal with them. They literally aren't worth the expedition.

Except we don't know how many people are on the ship. Your assumption that there are far more people than could be fed by the village is just that. All we can say for sure is that it clearly is worth their time to gather the food from this village, since they are doing so.

[EggKookoo]

Except we don't know how many people are on the ship. Your assumption that there are far more people than could be fed by the village is just that. All we can say for sure is that it clearly is worth their time to gather the food from this village, since they are doing so.

I'd just like to know why, since it seems implausible. Which is fine, it can be, but the writers should expect someone somewhere to wonder. That could manifest as someone asking the Admiral outright, or debate among the villagers over the matter. Because the movie kept silent, I'm caught up thinking about it myself, which includes juggling logistics and trying to second-guess the worldbuilding. Then when it turns out that it really doesn't matter, I feel like the story wasted my time.

Better to have cut that all out entirely and just have them be generic militaristic oppressors out for the lulz.

So to move away from the food thing, this basic pattern repeats itself a few times throughout the story. Take Staz (the guy who rode the griffon thing). In a good script, that whole thing would have been some kind of setup. We learn that he is physically capable and has a way with animals. He gets up after being thrown (and laughably catches up, on foot, to the flying creature, but whatever). The sequence is at least five full minutes of eye candy with him soaring and struggling, complete with exciting action music. Then... what? He goes free, leaves the animal behind, and becomes a background grunt for the rest of the film. Does Snyder understand you need to pay off your setups? Especially ones that dominate the story for long lengths of time?

Jimmy is a compelling character at first. We learn he won't fight back, despite abuse heaped upon him and (apparently) being programmed for combat. He makes a shocking decision early on which changes the tide of the story. Then... poof. He's literally not even in the rest of the movie except for a stare-at-the-camera moment at the end. Why was he even there in the first place?

The script was a mess.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

They all know that, but they're screwed anyway, so the best shot they have is to get help from the rebels, who might have ships or ground defences

As for leaving, as you said, ships were not readily available to the village.

That's the absolute worst shot, though. Even if the rebels came to their defense and the warship was defeated, it's one ship of an interstellar empire. More would be sent to crush resistance or make a point. Their best shot was leaving. Ships aren't readily available to the village, especially not fighters, but they're not entirely unobtainable on their planet since the protagonists come across one almost immediately.

The writers probably should've revised the timeframe. Nine weeks is enough time to stage an evacuation and abandon the village, especially because the soldiers stationed there don't seem to report in or have any line back to the ship (which really makes the empire look like a bag of idiots, but that's a totally different problem with the movie we're not discussing).

The script was a mess.

Yes, it's abundantly clear that Snyder never learned much past his history as a television commercial director. The guy seems to have no idea how to string scenes together into a coherent narrative and lives for that 2-5 minute scene to cover a single idea, after which he discards it for the next toy. He's competent when he has source material to draw from, but his original writing always turns into an odd collection of fever dreams that never builds on itself.

So many scenes in this movie are like someone got $10 million to shoot a short film about their awesome DnD character.

[Sapphire Guard]

So to move away from the food thing, this basic pattern repeats itself a few times throughout the story. Take Staz (the guy who rode the griffon thing). In a good script, that whole thing would have been some kind of setup. We learn that he is physically capable and has a way with animals. He gets up after being thrown (and laughably catches up, on foot, to the flying creature, but whatever). The sequence is at least five full minutes of eye candy with him soaring and struggling, complete with exciting action music. Then... what? He goes free, leaves the animal behind, and becomes a background grunt for the rest of the film. Does Snyder understand you need to pay off your setups? Especially ones that dominate the story for long lengths of time?

There is a part 2 coming, plenty of time to pay those off.

I feel like a lot of these assumptions don't make sense. In Seven Samurai, when the bandits decide to come back at harvest time, the audience isn't expected to randomly assume that they have no other food to keep them alive until then, so why are people doing it for this movie?

That's the absolute worst shot, though. Even if the rebels came to their defense and the warship was defeated, it's one ship of an interstellar empire. More would be sent to crush resistance or make a point. Their best shot was leaving. Ships aren't readily available to the village, especially not fighters, but they're not entirely unobtainable on their planet since the protagonists come across one almost immediately.

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One that sells them out to their enemy, yes. Not so easy as that.

[EggKookoo]

There is a part 2 coming, plenty of time to pay those off.

Curious what the audience numbers for part 2 will be. I'm not convinced I'll spend the time.

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One that sells them out to their enemy, yes. Not so easy as that.

Dang, those farmers should have chosen a less cliche-riddled world to settle on!

[BloodSquirrel]

Yes, it's abundantly clear that Snyder never learned much past his history as a television commercial director. The guy seems to have no idea how to string scenes together into a coherent narrative and lives for that 2-5 minute scene to cover a single idea, after which he discards it for the next toy. He's competent when he has source material to draw from, but his original writing always turns into an odd collection of fever dreams that never builds on itself.

So many scenes in this movie are like someone got $10 million to shoot a short film about their awesome DnD character.

The problem with this idea is that the Synder Cut shows that he's better at putting together a 4-hour movie that holds together coherently than a 2-hour one. And Rebel Moon has a lot of the same issues that the Whedon Cut had (obviously not the ones in the scenes that Whedon shot)- a lot of stuff that feels kind of disconnected, underdeveloped characters, a plot that doesn't feel like its flowing naturally, etc.

The real problem seems to be an inability to reign in his ambition and work it into the format available to him. He likes his slow, heavy pacing, but also wants a complex storyline with a bunch of characters. I have a feeling that 3-hour version of Rebel Moon that's being rumored about probably has a lot of connective tissue and important character development that the released version is missing. I'm also kind of wondering if they gave him two parts because he needed four hours to tell his story, but then he decided when he was making it that he really needed six. Or eight.

What he really seems to need is the same kind of environment that Lucas had when he created Star Wars- something that forces him to refine and focus his ideas. That, and he desperately needs to learn the value of lightening his tone up every once in a while. So much of what bogs down his writing is that it all has to be super-decompressed because otherwise it would just be too oppresive.

There is a part 2 coming, plenty of time to pay those off.

If you're not going to release parts 1 and 2 and the same time, you need to do a better job at communicating what exactly the audience is watching. Part 1 tries to be conclusive in some ways- ending with a giant action finale and a heroic sacrifice- and in other ways it's obviously incomplete. The structure of the whole thing isn't entire clear- Kora's story seems like it's much larger than the village- she's definitely more important to Balisarius than the grain is- but that doesn't mesh with part 2 just being about the admiral coming back and fighting over the grain.

[EggKookoo]

I thought while watching it that it would have worked better as a miniseries than a movie. Maybe he was hoping for a theatrical release later?

[Sapphire Guard]

Curious what the audience numbers for part 2 will be. I'm not convinced I'll spend the time.

Streaming services are very opaque, we rarely ever know.

If you're not going to release parts 1 and 2 and the same time, you need to do a better job at communicating what exactly the audience is watching. Part 1 tries to be conclusive in some ways- ending with a giant action finale and a heroic sacrifice- and in other ways it's obviously incomplete. The structure of the whole thing isn't entire clear- Kora's story seems like it's much larger than the village- she's definitely more important to Balisarius than the grain is- but that doesn't mesh with part 2 just being about the admiral coming back and fighting over the grain.

Structure is not good or bad, it's just structure.

The Fellowship of the Ring also ends with a heroic sacrifice and a battle without being complete, would you say it is a bad story because of that? Getting hung up on the story not having the exact structure you were expecting isn't much of a criticism, because a good story can have bad structure and a bad story can have good structure. Structural question by themselves are not particularly a problem unless you can explain why.

The grain is important to the villagers, it's not in itself important to the Empire. Defiance is what's important to the Empire.

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Kora's story is larger than the village. The Admiral isn't coming back to get the grain because he wants the grain, it's because he accidentally created a Rebel Alliance and if he doesn't squash it fast he is facing public execution. None of the Imperials even mention the grain as important after the opening scene, the Admiral isn't chasing the grain, he's chasing a bunch of big name rebels with titles like 'General' and 'Prince' who could become the nucleus of the resistance.

What he really seems to need is the same kind of environment that Lucas had when he created Star Wars- something that forces him to refine and focus his ideas.

What kind of environment is that?

[BloodSquirrel]

Structure is not good or bad, it's just structure.

This is a pretty silly comment. There are definitely stories which have better or worse structure, as well as structures which are more or less conducive that that particular type of story, and Rebel Moon is borrowing the structure from one story and seems to be trying to force a different kind of story into it. I'm not sure how this response isn't just "you can't talk about story structure in media criticism", which is a really silly thing to say.

[QUOTE=Sapphire Guard;25939391]
The Fellowship of the Ring also ends with a heroic sacrifice and a battle without being complete, would you say it is a bad story because of that? Getting hung up on the story not having the exact structure you were expecting isn't much of a criticism, because a good story can have bad structure and a bad story can have good structure. Structural question by themselves are not particularly a problem unless you can explain why.[/spoiler]

The Fellowship of the Ring establishes an endgoal early in the movie: Take the Ring to Mount Doom and toss it in. Rebel Moon's endgoal is much less clear. The main villain is more concerned with Kora than the village, so at this point her being in the village is painting a bigger target on it than the grain is, so the "defend the village" goal has become completely muddled.

What kind of environment is that?

One in which he needs to fight to justify his budget/runtime, forcing him to re-write things to eliminate the bloat and distill the movie down to its essence, along with people who can provide creative feedback to help him do that.

[Tyndmyr]

Yes, it's abundantly clear that Snyder never learned much past his history as a television commercial director. The guy seems to have no idea how to string scenes together into a coherent narrative and lives for that 2-5 minute scene to cover a single idea, after which he discards it for the next toy. He's competent when he has source material to draw from, but his original writing always turns into an odd collection of fever dreams that never builds on itself.

So many scenes in this movie are like someone got $10 million to shoot a short film about their awesome DnD character.

That's sort of been my take on Snyder's one strength. The guy can put together a single scene that is glorious at covering one single microstory. Absolutely top notch.

He just struggles to scale it out properly to the whole film.

If the man was still filming commercials, he'd be really great at it.

[Mechalich]

One in which he needs to fight to justify his budget/runtime, forcing him to re-write things to eliminate the bloat and distill the movie down to its essence, along with people who can provide creative feedback to help him do that.

Unfortunately, Zack Snyder seems to have found a way to cheat the feedback process. Specifically, he's discovered that he can produce a cut-down, chopped-up, and generally terrible version of a production while teasing the existence of a longer, more cohesive, and therefore genuinely better - though not necessarily truly good - 'director's cut' version and thereby deflect blame from himself to the studio until said cut is ultimately released.

Now, in his defense, ridiculous studio-side demands do damage film production and they do force compromises in the director's vision. However, these things needs to be hashed out before production starts, and if director and studio can't reach an agreement on the project's scope, then they simply shouldn't do the project. Case in point: Disney turned down Rebel Moon as a Star Wars project and it seems very clear that was the right decision. Netflix, by contrast, tried to force promises on Snyder that he was never going to keep: like making the project PG-13. Considering that Netflix did not need a new space opera franchise, it would appear they made a mistake here.

If the man was still filming commercials, he'd be really great at it.

I recall once, back in the BvS period, some talking head proposed that Warner Bros should make Zack Snyder Director of Photography for the DC films rather than the actual director, and frankly that seems like something supported by further evidence. Snyder can put together great shots and great scenes, but a great film seems to be beyond him.

It's really a shame, since he can produce great set pieces and given the right movie to put them in something genuinely spectacular might turn out.

[EggKookoo]

He just struggles to scale it out properly to the whole film.

I may be in the minority with this, but I really liked Man of Steel. I mean it wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was pretty good and IMO much better than the Snyder stuff that came afterward (or before). But then, that had Nolan on the script, so it's a little apples to oranges.

[gbaji]

The writing here is very unfocused. The opening crawl implies the villagers are already subjects of the Motherworld. Remote subjects without any active supervision to be sure, but still subjects. Worse, when the Admiral initially shows up, he offers to buy the supplies he needs at very generous rates and the villagers nominally agree in principle to sell, it's just that they lie to him about not having any food available for sale. This lie is incredibly stupid and the Admiral sees through it immediately. All the subsequent violence sources to this blatant lie - the Admiral is pissed that a bunch of peasants in the middle of nowhere would dare to defy him and imposes a brutally punitive demand upon them in response.

This was honestly the (first) point at which I just eyerolled at the film (yes, there were others). It really bothers me when characters are shown taking the time to discuss exactly what to do when/if something happens, and then, when exactly that thing happens they for some unexplained reason do something else entirely. They literally had a whole discussion about what to do, and decided that they would sell their surplus food to the Imperial folks for whatever they would get, so as to show they weren't resisting and would get a tidy profit. So... when the Admiral actually offers them triple the going price for their food (more than they expected to get), the headman guy does what? Lies about how much food they have, and tries to pretend that they have nothing. Um... You literally said 5 minutes ago that you'd sell them whatever they needed, so as to get them to leave peacefully. WTF?

That entire conflict was completely unnecessary. Now sure, maybe the Imperials were going to take all of their food and leave them starving anyway. Great. Have that be the conflict. Have the fight and death of the headman be because the Admiral demands all of their food instead of just their surplus. Show the villagers complying with their requests and willing to sell them the surplus, and then have the conflict occur when they realize that "surplus" means "we starve". Same exact outcome, but less nonsense.

And yes. I also got the whole Seven Samurai thing. But while that works when it's just a group of bandits, and the samurai are hanging out nearby just kinda doing their own thing, it does not work at all when half of the heroes they pick up are on the Empire's most wanted list, but they are also just "hanging out nearby", and can be found trivially. The general guy was the worst of the lot. Um... The Imperials employ bounty hunters to find and capture folks, but they somehow couldn't find him? The guy they literally heard about where he was from the first random person they ran into (and apparently had a huge reputation for fighting in some arena on some nearby world), and... shockingly, there he was just laying about drunk on a sidewalk where anyone could easily scoop him up.

Dunno. The whole thing just felt way too contrived for me. And not just the whole "we just happened to randomly run into these super capable people in practically zero time", like it's just something that happens all the time, but that these people were willing to help out in the first place. The motivations for the other heroes just didn't make sense at all. Ok.... So there's a village somewhere, and the Empire is squeezing them for food. There are villages all over the place, and the Empire is causing problems (pesumably) in those locations too. What makes this one special? Nothing. Not the least problem is how on earth they expected to do anything anyway. I mean, it was brought up, briefly, that the bad guys have a giant space cruiser, and they have nothing, but hey... let's just go fight anyway? Not much of a plan IMO. Of course, we all know that the heroes will somehow have just the right sequence of silly things happen to allow them to win anyway, but that's what makes this such a silly tropish story in the first place. We know, going in, that despite the fact that no one should expect to have any chance at all of winning, and thus should not even be attempting this in the first place, they will win anyway. Which... yeah. Is dumb.


Oddly, I actually didn't have problems with the Admirals actions and motivations at all. He clearly stated, on several occasions, that his mission was to find and defeat the rebels in this area of the empire. So yeah, stirring things up with local populations to try to force a response does make sense. I do agree that maybe a line or two of dialog to show that this is why he's doing this would have helped things along a lot. It certainly didn't make a lot of sense for this to actually be about food. The guy literally flew his ship to what looked to be a fairly wealthy and industrial planet (and then killed their king and bombed it from orbit), so I'm reasonably certain they could have taken vastly more food and suplies right there if that's what they actually needed. So yeah. "We got reports of rebels in this area, so let's squeeze the locals and see what happens" makes a lot of sense to me.

I was also really bothered by the whole "capture and then escape and kill the bad guys" scene at the end. First off, we've got these super capable hero folks, but not one of them is fast enough to avoid being grabbed by those mechanical things that popped out of the shipping boxes? They have super reflexes and fighting abilities, and can dodge blaster shots, and take on massive monsters in hand to hand fighting, but can't jump out of reach of some bounty hunter trap things? Not one of them? But then, apparently, the bounty hunter trap things work and hold people immoble for as long as you want, and can move them around as you want, but if you put the murder spike thing into it, but then remove it without killing them, it releases them? And one person being released, while all of the enemy forces are right there, weapons trained on them, is sufficiently surprising that they can turn the tables on the entire bad guy force, free everyone else, and then they all fight their way out (but apparently, no one was able to do this when the traps appeared in the first place I guess?). And... if you knew this is how they worked, and knew this was a possibility, why on earth do the super villain trope thing of "I'm going to make one of the prisoners kill the other one... for lulz!". Really? Let's just hand the key to unlocking the traps we've got all the heroes in, to one of their friends? /facepalm

Sorry. The film just sucked from start to finish. I watched it. And yeah, I suppose if I just turn my critical brain completely off, I could maybe enjoy the mindless sequence of action shots... maybe? And yeah, the actual back story and setting was even pretty decent. That goes a long way for me. But they pretty much just ignored it all in favor of said mindless action sequences instead. I kept waiting for some kind of payoff for the dumb stuff I was watching along the way, but got nothing but the promise of having to sit through yet another film with the same batch of dumb stuff and hope for a payoff there.

Yeaow. Just bad. And made worse by the fact that, with better writing, and some serious editing of the nonsense stuff, it could have actually been really good. The kernel of a great story was there, it just got steamrolled by a pile of total garbage.

[Sapphire Guard]

This is a pretty silly comment. There are definitely stories which have better or worse structure, as well as structures which are more or less conducive that that particular type of story, and Rebel Moon is borrowing the structure from one story and seems to be trying to force a different kind of story into it. I'm not sure how this response isn't just "you can't talk about story structure in media criticism", which is a really silly thing to say.

Stories do have structure, and sometimes different ones get used, but using a different structure by itself isn't a problem unless it causes a particular problem.

The story takes inspiration from Seven Samurai, but that doesn't mean not following its structure exactly is a problem in itself unless it causes an actual in story problem. There's no particular narative problem presented by the differences from 7 Samurai, unless you were expecting 7 samurai exactly and any divergence at all was too far.

One in which he needs to fight to justify his budget/runtime, forcing him to re-write things to eliminate the bloat and distill the movie down to its essence, along with people who can provide creative feedback to help him do that.

I'm not sure that was particularly true of SW. I mean, they upped the budget from 8 to 11 million and no one seems to actually know what he had to fight to justify, it's just assumed because people heard it somewhere on the internet.

[warty goblin]

Finished watching this last night. I ended up watching up in stages because the GF wasn't a fan.

I, um, I really liked it.

I liked the universe, how dense and old and nasty it felt. It had strong Chronicles of Riddick vibes, which is 100% a compliment from me. It's the first space opera I've watched in ages that felt dangerous, which gives the narrative weight. It isn't that I think the bad guys will win, it's that this a universe where clearly the bad guys do win, have been winning for a very long time, and aren't sanitized fun theme park empire but the kind of empire that puts the punitive back in punitive expedition. Do they need the grain? No, that's not the point, the point is destroying everybody who maybe had anything to do with the rebellion because they can.

Right, the visuals. Holy cow, but I loved the visuals. It's consistently dark and weird and gritty and worn down, but also mythic and beautiful. It was just fun to watch, the use of color and scene composition was marvelous. The slow mo was a touch excessive, but when it worked it really worked. I want to keep looking at this universe, I want to go more places, see more weird stuff.

So the story. Yeah it's half a story, and yeah its derivative. So? I'm much more interested in how to delivers its recycled narrative than the fact that the narrative is recycled. And I like the delivery. The characters are arch, and underdeveloped as it is, but again, half a story, and arch is fine in a planetary romance sort of story. I don't think they're sympathetic or relatable, and I like that because sympathetic and relatable is boring and gets you anodyne schmucks like Luke Skywalker. These characters would feel right at home in a Leigh Brackett novella, which is extremely high praise. Honestly, the whole thing feels quite Leigh Brackett, or maybe a touch more C. L. Moore. Not so much "psychologically realistic" modern protagonists as archetype adventure/romance novel characters that are load bearing precisely through only being sketched in lightly, leaving their why to the audience's imagination. I like this sort of protagonist, particularly in an ensemble piece.

So, uh, yeah. I liked it. I'm looking forwards to part 2 and the R rated cut. It was pretty much exactly what I hoped it would be, a bleak, nasty, mythic feeling piece of space opera/planetary romance with cool action and visual design. I can definitely see why Lucasfilm passed on it, frankly this was better than modern SW deserves, because modern SW is a spineless corporate #Content mine, and the farther anything even vaguely creative can get from it, the better.

[Eldan]

Huh. I wouldn't have expected that after all the reviews. Maybe I do need to have a look.

[warty goblin]

Huh. I wouldn't have expected that after all the reviews. Maybe I do need to have a look.

I mean mine is I think the only positive take I've seen, so, you know, probabilistically you probably won't like it very much.

I'd say this isn't really a movie you think about, so much as one where you see what's on screen, figure out what it's making you feel, then lean into feeling that feeling. Is this scene giving you rural salt of the earth vibes? Then feel that. These are the most virtuous, wholesome common people anywhere ever. Banal sadism of the sort that people who haven't read anything about how empires work think is unrealistic? This is the cruelest cruelty ever, feel that in your bones, let the rage pump. This tiny little lady with a woodaxe is absolutely wrecking these big burly dudes? This is the coolest, most redemptive violence ever, a poetry of brutality for the ages. These scenes should be carved into golden goblets for warlords and kings. You sort of have to watch it backwards from a modern piece of franchise nerd stuff, where the whole point of any given scene is what it means about the universe and what comes next and the continuity and the lore. Don't do that. Literally, do not think about what will happen next. The point of any scene in Rebel Moon is the scene, and how it can turned into absolutely maximal imagery. If you can buy into this mode of engagement, it gives the entire thing this really heavy, epic feeling, everything is frozen in time because the moment is the only thing that only exists.

The effect, if you lean into this entirely gut reaction driven approach, is that you can coast along on this wave of feeling every scene to the max, and although the components are decidedly and I'd say unabashedly shallow, it sums up to something quite affecting. There were scenes that absolutely riveted me in this, where the combination of the color scheme and camera work and music and action just nailed my eyes to the screen and my emotions to my ribs. It isn't the best thing I've watched in the last twelve months or so, but it was the most immediately fixating. I just plain watched this movie, and didn't think about anything else when doing it.

It's sort of grimdark epic mega-camp for straight guys. I very strongly suspect that inside of fifteen minutes you will either get with its groove or not.

[Errorname]

It's sort of grimdark epic mega-camp for straight guys. I very strongly suspect that inside of fifteen minutes you will either get with its groove or not.

I feel like you'll probably basically know how you're going to feel about it from the description "Zack Snyder's Star Wars/Warhammer fanfic"

[EggKookoo]

To me it felt like unintentional satire.

Also, possible (likely?) spoilers in this, but...

[Sapphire Guard]

It's a perfectly competent story, and the trailer criticisms are the same things we have been talking about.

'Why do the villagers care so much about grain, that they starve to death without'

It's half a story, yes. That is why it's labelled 'Part 1'

'It's Seven Samurai, except when it isn't Seven Samurai, and taking influence from Seven Samurai without copying it completely is bad?'

'We could nuke the Rebels from orbit... by destroying the village they are not in?'

I don't even get why the two different cuts is a problem, they've been doing that since DVDs made it possible. I don't see people complaing that LOTR extended editions are an issue, why a problem this time?

It's not the best thing ever by any means, but the weird hatred continues to be weird.

[EggKookoo]

I don't even get why the two different cuts is a problem, they've been doing that since DVDs made it possible. I don't see people complaing that LOTR extended editions are an issue, why a problem this time?

HT isn't complaining about director cuts in principle. It's mainly a jab that many people disliked the theatrical cut of Justice League and there was some reaction to his director's cut that felt... forced? I dunno. I didn't like JL but I'm not going to sit through 4 hours of Snyder's self-indulgence. Praising its 4:3 aspect ratio as some kind of elite art tells me I'm not interested in his vision for it. But still, a lot (or a vocal minority) of his fans trumpeted his cut as some kind of redemption.

So in the case of RM, he almost preemptively touted his director's cut as something better (more adult?). That's what HT is talking about.

[Sapphire Guard]

Praising its 4:3 aspect ratio as some kind of elite art tells me I'm not interested in his vision for it. But still, a lot (or a vocal minority) of his fans trumpeted his cut as some kind of redemption.

If you're not interested don't watch it. But why object to the fact that it exists at all?

Snyder's Justice League was in a unique situation, because it was almost complete and then Snyder had to leave because his daughter killed herself. After he left, it was changed to something that wasn't his vision. So people wanted to see what his vision was. If you didn't like it, no one had to watch it.

[EggKookoo]

If you're not interested don't watch it. But why object to the fact that it exists at all?

I don't, not JL. I don't really object to RM either. But this is a thread about it, so of course there will be criticism.

I object to the process that allows low quality to be made in the first place. It's a waste of resources that could have been put toward better things. I want good RM, not no RM, and I object to bad RM being greenlit.

[BloodSquirrel]

HT isn't complaining about director cuts in principle. It's mainly a jab that many people disliked the theatrical cut of Justice League and there was some reaction to his director's cut that felt... forced? I dunno. I didn't like JL but I'm not going to sit through 4 hours of Snyder's self-indulgence. Praising its 4:3 aspect ratio as some kind of elite art tells me I'm not interested in his vision for it. But still, a lot (or a vocal minority) of his fans trumpeted his cut as some kind of redemption.

So in the case of RM, he almost preemptively touted his director's cut as something better (more adult?). That's what HT is talking about.

The Snyder Cut was absolutely, massively better than the theatrical cut, and I'm not sure where you get the idea that the 4:3 ratio was what people were latching onto to praise it. The theatrical cut removed a ton of connective tissue and build-up that the movie needed in order to work, and the Synder cut winds up feeling like a completely different movie when it was put back in. I didn't go into it with any particular expectations - I hated BvS and had little regard for the DCEU that point- just idle curiosity. I was utterly shocked at how much better it was.

A good example was bringing back Superman: in the Synder cut, they spend a lot more time (ie, any at all) explaining what the mother boxes are, what they do, and the idea that they can be used to resurrect Superman organically arises out of that. Meanwhile, Steppenwolf is much more of a threat and much more decisively hands their asses to them when they fight. They also establish beforehand that it was Superman's death that awakened the motherboxes, and that the reason they weren't calling out to Steppenwolf before was because Earth had a kryptonian guarding it. The moment when they decide to use them to bring back Superman feels like an actual culmination of the movie up until that point. It's a major turning point; we know why the heroes need to do it, we know why they think it will work, all the pieces were put into place and now they're fitting together.

In the Whedon cut... they just kind of decide to do it randomly. Where do they get the idea that they can bring someone back to life with the mother box? No idea. Why are they doing this risky and uncertain thing now? No idea. It just kind of happens.

There is a ton of stuff like that between the two movies. Cyborg's entire character arc gets cut out in the Whedon cut. I thought the idea that he was the "heart of the movie" sounded batty when Snyder said it, but then I saw the Synder cut, and, yeah, he kind of was. What was the point of Flash having to run really fast to give the mother box a jolt? Why was this played as some kind of tense scene when if he failed... they could just try again? Well, in the Synder cut, it's because running that fast could screw up time, so it might actually have consequences, and that turns out to be a set-up that pays off at the end of the movie.

As I've already said on this thread, if there is a director's cut of Rebel Moon, I'd be interested in seeing it, and I'm hoping it has the same kind of improvements, but I still consider Synder's inability to deliver a finished product on his first try a major strike against him as a filmmaker. He never should have tried to make Justice League a four hour movie- it's not like he could have ever expected theaters to run a movie that long- and if he can't learn to compress his ideas into a tighter format he needs to stop trying to force so many of them into one project. Why didn't we get the director's cut of Rebel Moon in the first place? How did you get Netflix to agree to give you a giant pile of money to make this passion project of yours, but then somehow wind up with a butchered version of it? It's not like it got handed off to another director or that Netflix is adverse to putting out series with longer (and sometimes bloated) runtimes.

If a director's cut of Rebel Moon turns out to be brilliant, then I'll be happy that the whole thing was made, but I won't be happy that my time was pointlessly wasted by putting out a mediocre version of it first. I don't think Synder is playing some kind of cynical game here. I think he just has problems staying within the format he was given.

[warty goblin]

For Rebel Moon I rather suspect there's two versions because Netflix wanted a PG-13 version because action adventure space movies do well at PG-13, and Snyder wanted R because, well, just look at the movie. So they compromised at doing both.

It's not even that weird, horror movies have been doing R rated theatrical cuts and unrated DVD cuts for ever for the same reason. It lets you release a version at the most marketable rating, and another later targeting the hardcore. You get to double dip for the cost of a couple extra scenes.

[Sapphire Guard]

I don't, not JL. I don't really object to RM either. But this is a thread about it, so of course there will be criticism.

I object to the process that allows low quality to be made in the first place. It's a waste of resources that could have been put toward better things. I want good RM, not no RM, and I object to bad RM being greenlit.

The criticism is that there will be two versions of the movie? When you buy a DVD with bonus features, do you object to it for wasting your time? Do you object to LOTR theatrical cut because they didn't release the extended edition in theatres? Director's cuts happen all the time.

This isn't rocket science. The movie was released, and if that caught your interest, there is later bonus content. If it didn't catch your interest, then you're not under any obligation to examine it further. No time is wasted unless you choose to by yourself. It doesn't even cost you more money, because it's on the same Netflix subscription you already have if you saw the first one.

I doubt his original Justice League would have hit four hours, but streamers at home can pause the film and come back, so there was more space. There's even an intermission point in the middle if you want to turn it off and come back.

What happen with justice league had nothing to do with his filmmaking style, his daughter died and then it was changed behind his back.

Rebel Moon is a finished project, it's just that there is another film that is also a finished product. It's two movies for the price of one, literally.

[EggKookoo]

The criticism is that there will be two versions of the movie?

Screen Junkies' criticism seems to be that Snyder caught a lot of flack for Justice League (along with Whedon, I guess), and got a reprieve from some corners because of the Snyder Cut. Rebel Moon was lacking, and Snyder announced another Snyder Cut even before it was released, which they (Junkies) interpreted as him preemptively trying to save himself.

This isn't my criticism, even if I agree with their overall assessment of the film. I'm just trying to explain what I think they're saying in the video.