As an old fan of space operas I was looking forward to this one, despite terrible track record of movies in the past decade. And to be honest, I did kinda liked it but it’s overwhelming flaws still deem it a failure.
The Rebel Moon was said to be Snyders Star Wars as it did, ironically, came out of the movie pitch rejected by Lucasfilm. To expect “a new Star Wars” from anyone would be very naive, especially Snyder. I did however, hoped to see the good space opera, as a big fan of Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars.
The idea for the story I actually liked. Sure, it’s painfully basic and black & white, but that’s the part of the course. The execution is where it completely stumbled, but let’s go for the positives first.
The Audio Visual quality is top notch. While soundtrack isn’t near the John Williams level it still does a good job portraying the grandeur on the scenes and the end sounds epic. It is very CGI heavy, like expected, but I don’t have a problem with it. Then again, I liked wallpaper-model combo from Flash Gordon so… There are however lazy cheap uses of insense lens flares, not to mention the Snyder trademark painfully long slow motions, but that is stepping into the direction category.
The direction was bad. It’s like Snyder compiled the list of his flaws and threw them all in. The exposition scenes drag the story in terribly predictable way, and that’s what bad storytellers do. Details from the past can be inserted skillfuly as details in dialogues, hints such as character dynamics or even revealing non verbal scenes set in present. But no, let’s do it the lazy way. Things like these make me wonder if there are good directors at all or are they all hacks.
Another example of lazy directing is criminal over reliance on slow motion. I like the epic, slow shots as much as the next man, but doing it as the only substance (dancing and posing for the camera) completely detached from the context or making it almost entire battle is clearly an overkill.
Stuff like this makes you think he couldn’t direct a proper scene to save his life. On the other side there are good scenes but those are ruined by weak dialogues and poor storytelling.
The biggest plot hole are the farmers as the central point which kicks off the story. First, they are just simple small community with low income, but suddenly when the plot demands it they are rich enough to buy anyone and anything and to be valuable as the primary target. Sure, The Empire has its own share of holes but at least it makes sense as the story entity.
It is a sad state of movies when you have to point out a normal character as a pleasant surprise for a change but yeah, there are some. The father that adopted Kora, main protagonist is a caring, stoic man that isn’t a good for nothing deadbeat dad for a change. Her friend zoned colleague also turned out to be genuinely good and brave man despite being looked down in the beginning and literally grabbed by the balls in the cringe homo sexual harrasment scene.
Ok, so, what’s woke? The main protagonist, Kora is another Mary Sue, that has a such plot armor that enemies will literally get out of their way to lose every fight. She’s presented as moraly superior despite being deceitful, smug, demeaning, immersion breakingly stoic, self-absorbed and a hypocrite. Another role model of the moral rot that is modern feminism.
The only female villain is portrayed as a victim of circumstances. Her evil is justified by the fact that she suffered terrible losses. That is the grace that has not blessed the male villains though. They are over the top evil maniacs with no rhyme or reason, that make the Mad Max lunatics mild by comparison. Also brought to you from the tunnel visioned prism of modern feminism that looks at all men as a ticking bombs and potential criminals and sex offenders.
On the other hand, the main gang leader that was used as a mcguffin and was constantly mentioned throughout the film was, of course, presented as a brief tool to be discarded to make way for another boss babe while going down like a complete moron.
Of course, here is also the forced diversity (which I didn’t mind, ironically) to complete the racist DEI regulation which makes it woke by fact.
As far as woke propaganda goes, the movie isn’t that bad actually. Many others went much further but still, it’s a shame that it’s also tied to the same octopus of corruption.
And in the end there is copying the classics: From Dune and Star Wars to even Battle Beyond the Stars and Beastmaster.
But let’s say even if everything was good. Could have Snyder make the proper space opera in the first place? You see, I am not completely sure. Where he thrived were movies where the stories were set as a disconnected fantasy or a dream like the Sucker Punch and 300. I loved those. Space Opera however, does require at least basic ruleset of reality, to be immersive, just like a good fantasy.
Ironically, even woke mainstream media trashed the movie for some reason which left me puzzled. It is not that bad actually. Nowhere near as bad as Rings of Power for example, but even that found its audience. So I have no doubt this one will too. But I have also no doubt in the negative box office results, as with many such… lackluster media.
Non critical viewers may enjoy it as the dumb fun, and looking forward for more.
POPCORN LEVEL 5/10 🍿
MarkaN's BLog 