Let’s face it, Zack Snyder is a divisive figure in the world of entertainment. He’s made a few movies that have been iconic in our culture, but he has also fallen exceptionally hard on his face. Snyder has die-hard fans who will rock the internet with their angry defense, but they are drowned out by the majority of people who just shake their heads and wonder why he makes the choices he does.
His latest eye-roll-inducing epic is Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver. He’s loaded it with great actors and given them some pretty awful stuff to work with. But here we are after these first two movies, more than four hours later, with furrowed brows, questioning his motives. There are many reasons to despise Rebel Moon, but here are 10 things that sci-fi fans (and even Snyder fans) just don’t like about Snyder’s franchise.
Rebel Moon
1.5/5
- Release Date
- December 22, 2023
- Studio
- Grand Electric, The Stone Quarry
Snyder Copied So Many Established Sci-Fi Icons
Let’s start with the way that Rebel Moon masquerades under the auspices of originality while obviously cribbing from the greats. Some directors have nods to certain shots or costumes from films they love. Snyder takes characters and scenarios whole-cloth and, despite small twists, they no longer feel like imitation, but outright theft. He draws from a variety of better films, including Seven Samurai, Star Wars, Gladiator, Harry Potter, Conan the Barbarian, The Matrix, and Dune.
Emulation Requires Understanding
One of the hardest things for Snyder fans to get their heads around is the fact that Snyder doesn’t seem to understand the nuance of what is happening in the movies he is attempting to emulate. For example, Snyder decides to hold one of his first scenes in a Western-style bar. It is a dive bar with a variety of different alien species. It is something that has been done many times before and it holds no new information other than to show that he has a costume and VFX team that can come up with cool creature effects.
There is no reason why this planet, which we’ve been told is populated by farmers, already has a hopping place where these types of species would come together. In Star Wars, Mos Eisley was a backwater trading post, so it made sense; likewise, The Magnificent Seven featured an actual Western town populated by townspeople. Snyder didn’t even learn from The Force Awakens, which tried to copy the original cantina scene with similar results to his own. It’s an arbitrary, illogical decision that just introduces a bunch of characters we’ll never see again.
Snyder Desperately Wanted to Make a Star Wars Film
Rebel Moon was pitched as a Star Wars movie. We can start there. It’s obvious, it’s plain as day, and he didn’t do much to hide it. However, it seems like even the folks at Disney were concerned. Snyder explained it himself to Empire:
“I was like, ‘I don’t want any of your characters. I don’t want to do anything with any known characters, I just want to do my own thing on the side.’ And originally I was like, ‘It should be rated R!’ That was almost a non-starter.”
So it sounds like he was given an audience, made his pitch, and was soundly rejected. But he was also far enough into his own idea that he refused to give it up. A few token changes led to what we now see as both parts of Rebel Moon.
Zack Snyder Can’t Let Go
Some of the best Star Wars content this century happens off to the side. Rogue One, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and The Mandalorian have all been hailed as great pieces of universe-expansion. However, Snyder wasn’t allowed into this clubhouse. His ideas were either so over the top or so off-brand that Disney felt he wasn’t qualified to even give it a try. This has obviously led him to simply take what he wants (including light swords) and use them anyway. He thinks his work is comparable and it shows.
He Seems to Believe Everyone Loves His Style
Do you like slow-motion action scenes? How about overtly sexual connotations? Have you ever thought that dark, rainy sets and high-contrast visuals were perfectly suited to every situation? If you answered yes to these questions, then you may be a fan of Zack Snyder’s work. Snyder brought us hyper-stylized films like Suicide Squad, Army of the Dead, and Sucker Punch. He pulled the DC Universe into such literal darkness that it was sometimes hard to see the actual action. He made characters brood and gave them extreme personalities to the point of not actually having redeeming qualities. It’s certainly a choice.
Pow! Pow! Now in Slow-Motion
One thing to say about Snyder is that he loves a good action scene. He’s also not bad at them. However, he refuses to film them in any kind of streamlined and coherent manner. People say, “Why not shoot it normally?” and Snyder thinks, “Go f*ck yourself, slow-motion looks really cool!” And good for him for sticking to his guns, but it isn’t helping him in the eyes of viewers and critics. Many different directors have used slow-motion, but never to such an egregious level as Snyder’s. Snyder is to slow-motion what Woody Allen was to New York. You just know that when you see a Snyder movie, someone is going to shoot a gun in slow motion.
Rebel Moon Underutilizes Anthony Hopkins
Regardless of what you think of him, Snyder can pull talent. He does not pepper his films with great actors, he fills them to the brim. It is one thing that works in his favor and something that he promptly squanders. Rebel Moon has a stacked cast, many of whom have independently carried their own movies at one time or another. But Sir Anthony Hopkins as JC-1435 (Jimmy) is a less-than-stellar part for an absolute legend of stage and screen.
A Bland Simulacrum of a Narrator
Hopkins not only voices the last mechanical knight, he also narrates the films. However, even in this way, Snyder cribs from the best. Compare the opening narration from Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire to Kenneth Branagh’s Thor: The Dark World. Hopkins’ narration is identical, down to the pacing and cadence with which the two stories are told. If the two were edited together, there would be no way of telling which pieces came from which movie.
Hopkins has branched out into some strange roles in his late career (Transformers: The Last Knight) and it would not be a surprise to learn that he took the job because it allowed for voice acting instead of having to be on set for the full 152 days of production. But it feels like such a waste.
Snyder Builds His Team Backward
Snyder may also be taken down for his neglect of narrative structure. There is something to be said for stretching or even breaking the rules, but there is also a reason to stick to the particulars of storytelling. In Snyder’s case, he took the time in Rebel Moon Part One to bring together his team. However, they were not given any personal narratives or backstories. It was simply, “Hi, join us,” and. “Okay.” The team came together quicker than two atoms in a collider, with very few questions and a tiny bit of exposition that amounts to, “We could really use [fill in name] because they are a true warrior.”
Rebel Moon 2 Tells What Should Have Been the First
In Part 2: The Scargiver, we get far more backstory on each character, but it is of the too-little-too-late variety. The idea should’ve been to form your team in a way that we, the viewer, get to learn why these particular bad asses are being brought on board. There is a literal universe of characters to pull from, and we have zero indication as to why they’re being brought into the fold. When the second film finally gets into some backstory at a time when we should be diving directly into the action, it feels like the worst kind of afterthought.
Grain Farming Is Not Great Action Cinema
There is something so beautifully relaxing about watching people farm. It is a reminder that there are still those who make their living from the soil, who provide for the rest of us, who can sleep at night knowing that the world is grateful for their service. It is also something that has no place in what is supposed to be an action sequel set in a new and amazingly diverse universe. Yet Zack Snyder seems to think that this is what viewers want. The Scargiver needs to push, it needs to hit the beats of a sci-fi action thriller. Yet, instead, we are given prolonged scenes of harvesting.
Did We Mention All the Slow-Motion?
They literally harvest the grain in slow-motion photography. Zack Snyder has become so obsessed with the use of this particular “art form” that he employs it during the harvesting of grain. Literal grass-growing. The thing that every nature documentary speeds up to make it look cool. Snyder has a few hours to fill, so why not use some of it for slow-motion grain harvesting instead of fast-paced spaceship chases or nefarious bad-guy monologuing? Nah. Grain is just as compelling.
We Get It, They’re Nazis
You know what is scary about galaxies far, far away? Enormous armies of troops dressed in matching uniforms amassed in perfect rows and showing the sheer power of a fascist regime. Star Wars did it with stormtroopers and Dune did it with battalions of Harkonnens. It is something that evokes fear in generations of people who have seen the footage from World War II and the German Gestapo marching through the streets of Europe. This theme is not always subtle, but it certainly has weight to it. There’s no real reason to make it any more overt than it already is.
Subtlety? No, They’re Definitely Nazis
Zack Snyder disagrees. He literally gave them outfits that looked like they were specifically designed by Hugo Boss: normal neckties with Windsor knots, oddly specific hats, etc. It is so emphatically descriptive of Nazi regalia that it seems difficult to explain to Zack why they don’t need to be wearing iron crosses. Where other directors know that allusions are a fantastic form of art, Snyder didn’t seem to get the memo. He is someone who needs a joke explained to the point of completely ruining it. The problem is that, being a mainstream blockbuster director, he has brought his audience into his rare form of drooling idiocracy.
Huge Scope, Stupid Stakes
When the galaxy is mired in conflict, the only thing that will stop them is one grain-producing town. That’s the scope of the film. It’s not even that the little guys are taking on the big guys. It’s that the big guys want flour and can’t find food anywhere else in the universe. Sure, they can cut holes through space-time, but man, do they need that sweet, sweet grain.
Now, could the Motherworld have sent a few ships to monitor the village and have the grain packed up, all nice and easy? Sure they could. And they wouldn’t have to worry about getting their top generals involved. But instead, a very tiny village must send out for elite warriors to help protect them and their fields. Fields that will feed… a few hundred Motherworld troops?
We’re Not Destroying Planets Here
Remember when the Death Star blew up Alderaan and millions of people died? And how it spurred an entire galaxy to finally decide that they should rise up and fight their galactic overlords? That was huge. Years of rebel planning to fight a monstrous force that has been unleashed. But Zack Snyder saw that and said, “Wait, wait. What if the thing that sets off the rebellion isn’t even a planet, it’s a town on the planet!?” Pen down, Netflix contract signed, four hours of the lowest stakes you’ve ever seen.
Snyder’s Just Going to Do a Director’s Cut Anyway
When a movie hits theaters, it is often a version that is the best the director and studio could come up with. Often, these films are between an hour and a half and three hours and tackle all manner of subjects. Sometimes, after these films are released, they also receive a director’s cut because there were scenes that didn’t fit or that the director thought could make things better, but the studio demanded they be cut. These director’s cuts may be released on their own or as a part of a larger set.
Zack Snyder didn’t release his Rebel Moon films into theaters. They were put directly on the Netflix streaming platform. This means that people had all the time in the world to sit and watch. In fact, they could pause it and come back later. So why on earth would he need a director’s cut? It is complete and utter vanity because, unlike his DCEU, the studio wasn’t screaming for cuts. He just wants to show that his genius cannot be contained.
Don’t Watch, Just Wait
If you are a fan of Snyder’s work, or even if you are new to it, why would you bother with the version of Rebel Moon that isn’t the director’s cut? Don’t you want to see what a director has to say without someone stopping them? Snyder seems to think you want to watch him in chains and then watch him with freedom. The real truth is that audiences just want to see a fully-formed vision and be carried away by the story and action.
Zack Snyder is no longer making movies for audiences. He is making them as if preaching to a true-believing crowd of acolytes. The Snyder Cuts have created Snyder Nuts. “You see what they’ve done to us?” he asks, “You see how they tell us to hold our tongues and do it their way? Well, no more!” When, in fact, nobody is holding his tongue, nobody is holding him back, and the only person forcing him to make sub-par science fiction is himself.
