REBEL MOON Review and ENDING EXPLAINED - Was Child of Fire Any Good?

what about revenge y Rebel moon is a Zack Snider movie whatever you think of the movie itself it is 100% quintessentially Zack Snider it's got characters who rage against Conformity who strike god-like poses and look iconic in nearly every shot but was this a good Zack Snider movie and what's up with that really weird ending so I'm going to give you an honest review and explain the ending welcome to screen Crush I'm Ryan Ary now a little bit later I'm going to be joined by Matt singer and Rachel Lehman for their takes but first here is what I think now a lot of you who watch this channel probably think that I hate Zack Snyder because I'm always talking about how he did a bad job interpreting DC heroes for the big screen his Superman was a moral he turned Batman into a killer and his Watchman was toned deaf and lacked any of the subtlety that we saw in the HBO sequel series and the original text but I don't hate Zack Snider or his movies I love 300 and I think that Zack Snyder is one of the few directors working today who have an instantly recognizable signature style you can look at one frame from a Zack Snider movie and you know who directed it in fact the other director I think who has that kind of signature style is Wes Anderson so I walked into Rebel Moon expecting a good time with like a little bit of self-indulgence I mean the movie started off as a Star Wars pitch that Lucas's film turned down so like I was expecting a Star Wars tale so dark so gritty that Disney wouldn't let it see the light of day and in those first few shots Snyder shows us what his Star Wars could have looked like the first image is of this ringed planet with Kora working to plow in the foreground it is an amazing shot that combines the celestial with the simple like with Star Wars it's high adventure and like agrarian at the same time and the movie is filled with these stunning visuals whether it's a character leaping onto a hippogriff or whatever that bird was or a laser sword wielding Ronin taking down a Spiderwoman Zack Snider always wants to create a striking image in his frames he always wants to show you something you've never quite seen before now maybe this is because his mother was a painter and that importance on visual moments was imprinted on him throughout his entire life I also thought that for a movie with high Fu and sci-fi Concepts Anthony Hopkins summed up the world very well in the prologue dead King evil Senator bad guys good guys done Star Wars but not Star Wars and I loved everything that happened on the moon seeing this culture that like chooses to be primitive they don't want to sell their excess grain they like how they live the way Cory stall was able to tell us about their culture with very light Exposition it was a great way to balance showing and telling but as we'll talk about in just a bit Zack Snyder kind of blows it when it comes to showing instead of telling but before I talk about what I don't like I just want to keep talking about what I really did like in this movie for a while it seemed like every scene was filled with like new imaginative elements like how they bring us into a Star Wars Cantina scene but then they add in this weird brain puppeteering this guy or how like all the Imperials have this intricate armor that looks like at one point it might have been shiny and gilded but now it's covered with dust kind of like how the Fallen King's Empire has become tainted by the Senator's Rule and there's also the really weird priests who seem like they're actually in charge of things behind the scenes and I loved their designs and the design of that sacred wacking stick it looks like it's fashioned from a thigh bone I mean much like Star Wars it feels like you know this is a lived in Universe even the Anthony Hopkins robot like when it washes itself in a river that tells a story about the this universe that ju position of technology and nature that's actually really symbolized by the final shot so when Zack Snyder creates images like these the movie excels the problem is it's like a Fab egg very beautiful very expensive but Hollow so now let's talk about why this movie was almost great but then became a typical Netflix movie that's good for putting on in the background while you play rage Shadow Legends on your phone in the movie the bad guys have this machine that blocks off part of your brain and I kind of feel like you would need that machine to truly appreciate this film because as soon as you start trying to actually get invested in the character or figure out what's going on or why people are doing things you just get bored I don't want to think about it what do you mean by that well early in the movie I was really into the character of Kora like that scene where she killed those bad guy Soldiers with an axe it was amazing and by the way the action scenes in this were pretty great that was my favorite action scene nobody can speed ramp like Zack Snyder but then after that scene she starts with the exposition boring every single aspect of her life is told to us through flashback problem with telling someone something is that we don't really empathize with a speedrun through somebody's life like okay she fell in love we see her kiss a guy but we don't get to know anything about their love why they fell in love who this guy was why should we care I don't care I don't care like we never actually see her have like an intimate moment with her adoptive father she just explains everything to us over and over again we're told things like I've been here two seasons I know a mother's Pain by the way that guy's a prince she was called the lifegiver because she gave life like it would be like if in Star Wars Luke Skywalker met obiwan and was like oh hello actually I was an orphan and I want Adventure instead we got the argument between Luke and Uncle O and Aunt baru where we see that he's frustrated where there's direct conflict and conversation between two different characters and that is followed with the perfect visual of him daydreaming at the binary Sunset like a great picture can speak a thousand words but Snider's pictures only say one cool cool Co cool so let me harp on this point a bit more the movie starts off with this simple quest with a ticking clock get help before the bad guys return it's the Seven Samurai but then as soon as they leave it becomes so repetitive Charlie hunen who is an obvious traitor from the start leads them to one one video game level after another where characters are introduced showing off their skills skills which they will not use later on in the movie The pointless the prince tames a bird which by the way why didn't the Rancher who like had a contract with him just make him tame the bird seems like he could have done that like the bird sequence is also very cool looking but why does he also tell the bird oh you're like me you hate yourself the bird doesn't hate itself it's a bird or like on the Gladiator Planet General Titus joins them way too easily there's no battle to win him over or anything like that everybody just immediately agrees to come along and the movie feels like there are a lot of missing scenes in fact I think the movie would have worked much better as a weekly series or like okay Commander blood X he joins up immediately and our production manager Harriet lingal Enright even pointed out to me that he gives this speech where there's this tense pause to see who's going to join him but we just met these Rebels why are we supposed to know or care at all about their backstory with this random guy and also the moment when the heroes are all captured is like when it felt like act three should start but then the heroes Escape way too easily and there's a showdown with the main bad guy felt like the middle of the movie oh and that is also when we randomly found out that the bird Tamer was a prince who knew yeah like you know like what's the rest of his story right now in the end I feel like Zack Snyder he's a lot like one of the great comic book artists like Jack Kirby or Jim stano those guys are amazing revolutionary artists who brimmed with new ideas and visuals for stories but when they actually put pen to paper and had to write dialogue like you really saw the limitations of their Artistry and of course the movie ends with all setup the heroes Return To The Moon presumably the titular Rebel Moon so I guess they're going to raise an army there now so I'm going to explain the ending and my thoughts on this a little bit later but first Matt singer what did you think about this movie well I thought it was a bit of a a mixed bag you know watching it it has enough kind of visual panach interesting creatures and character designs and production designs uh design heavy on the design where I wasn't necessarily bored watching it because every scene there's something interesting to look at oh there's a spider lady now that's kind of cool boy she's F of fun to watch fight um I don't know if I've seen that before or certainly not in a while that's really cool or you know those weird torture devices that kind of they reminded me of the uh the scene in Beetlejuice where the sculpture comes alive and grabs somebody kind of it's like someone said can we turn that into a robot um those were kind of fun there's just lots of like bits like that lots of bits lots of visual ideas so while I was sitting there watching it that at least kept me engaged it's like what weird Critter are we going to see in the next scene um the problem is like everything else around that stuff is just so formulaic and rehashed and familiar and I just and half of a movie and it really feels like it literally half yeah yeah I it we we have definitely seen several halves of movies this year like spiderverse and Mission Impossible but they felt a little more like you got a full meal of a movie you got a full experience even if the story is going to definitely continue in a year or whatever here I did not feel like I got a complete experience at the movies and I was actually lucky enough to see it in a theater on a big screen it felt like I had seen half of a movie and when it was over I had only gotten half of a story or maybe even a third of a story because it it really does feel to me like it's a very very long First Act and I know Zack Snider has already talked about doing an even longer director's cut and it's like I don't want more of this I want to see a like I want to see a shorter version of this why not just put it up the whole thing you don't have to do director's cuts for something that's on streaming very weird and a lot of it felt like to me that things were cut out like throughout the movie like weird backstory things and all of a sudden we we at this place it felt very disjointed like you said half a movie right because he saved clearly saved a lot of stuff for the second half like the full explanation of kora's backstory and like you said some of these characters their backgrounds are they're they have no backgrounds you know we barely understand who they are and so yes it's sort of this weird thing where it feels incredibly extended beyond the point that it needs to be and at the same time you walk away going well I didn't really get everything that I wanted so it's a it's a frustrating movie because again visually I I had a good time with it I I I mean Zack Snyder makes interesting looking movies it's just he does it's it's it's it's the characters and the stories here that I felt were were kind of a let a big let down yeah when we got to the third act when like they captured them I was like oh this is the middle of the movie we at the belly and then though it was the end of the movie I was prettyy shocked Matt singer by the way is the editor-in-chief of screen crush.com his review for Rebel moon is on our website and he is the author of this excellent book opposable thumbs house Cisco and Ebert change movies forever I highly recommend you pick up your own copy and read it and keep it on your shelf it's it's essential reading for any Cen aile uh Rachel leechman assistant editor at the Mary Sue what were your thoughts on Rebel moon I I had fun but I also went in I I said I was just vibing the entire time I went in not EXP it to be anything other than just like a movie I was going to just on the surface enjoy so I didn't have expectations of like this is going to be the new Star Wars which is I know what everyone kind of labeled it as so like you know all of the current Bots being like this is perfect this is Star Wars on Rotten Tomatoes I'm like sure you can tell yourself that that's what it is like I love that there is a robot named Jimmy with a flower crown voice voiced by Anthony Hopkins I think that it's amazing very funny but like I I think this is one of those movies that like yeah it's absolutely offthe walls like nonsense that does not need to exist like why is Charlie hunam in a chang top on a spaceship instead of giving me any exposition to this character because they're like he's mysterious I'm like no you didn't give him any backstory he's not mysterious you gave me no nothing about this character until the very end just because you were like oh we have to explain who this character is because and that's and that's right right before his Hill turned we finally hear a little bit about him and I I don't know if you guys agree with me on this I was like why are they trusting this guy right why are they he's he's he's like he's clearly said from the beginning I'm a rogue and then they trust him it's very a lot a lot of things happen because they had to happen sorry Rachel yeah no but and I like which kind of does happen in Star Wars because it's like when you think about it why do they go with Han and it's because they were like ah someone told me we should trust this guy and that's what they do and so it's it was him doing the same kind of tropes that we did see within Star Wars we just know those Star Wars characters so well that we had just never questioned it we have now learned as people who love cinema and movies that you don't do that and you you have to kind of give me some kind of exposition or why we need to trust this character who this character is and it's 2023 and Zack Snider's like no I don't and I'm like well kind of do cuz now I'm questioning why they're with any of these people what their deal is I wish like he did enough that now when I went and did the Press junk it and all of us had theories we're like there's no way sure Ray Fisher is done there's no way this and so like he did a good job in that way that we all have theories about this movie so it's not that bad because enough of us cared to be like well that character is coming back this character isn't done like so we all cared at least that much that we like think well it has theories because it didn't explain anything you know like when you leave things hanging that much and I by the way I do have theories about like what actually happened with The Prince and the scar giver and all that that I'm going to talk about just a little bit later in the video but you know what you brought up you know everybody's comparing to Star Wars all this was Zach sniders pitch this like I said earlier it's the Star Wars that was too dark for Star Wars the thing about Star Wars is though I talked about this a little bit ago with Luke Skywalker you don't he doesn't have to say gosh I'm frustrated I have I'm an orphan when he looks at the binary Sunset you understand the character when Han Solo shoots greo you understand the character he was Lucas was able to just tell the story visually and move us from point A to point B whereas Snyder like Matt you were saying creates these stunning visuals but then just pumps the brakes really hard for these Exposition scenes that just I I kind of prefer if the movie would have been no dialogue just like just music the whole time and like more of an art housee film Matt you the thing you keep pointing out like this is part one of part two right it's very weird to Market a movie as part one and you see this a lot with franchises the Dark Universe things like that that are trying to put the cart before the horse do you think this kind of thing is like emblematic of franchise film making where filmmakers are going oh don't worry it'll be in the next one we'll explain that in the next one well it's sort of two different things because in this case it was it was one thing that they have kind of literally chopped in half I mean he made it as a a movie and just I think it's more atic in this case of Netflix as a company wanting you to watch as much Netflix as possible and so here there's no downside for them of oh you want to make instead of making a movie you want to make a 4-Hour movie okay you want to make it multiple Parts okay you want to go back and release a director's cut okay because every time they extend it and make multiple versions that's more reasons for people to subscribe stay subscribed resubscribed so for them it's all it's all a win they're not worried about how many Rebel Moon screenings can we cram into a day in our movie theater they're just thinking how much time can we convince people to watch Netflix and I guess if the movie isn't great or people don't care that might be a problem but the length is theoretically not a problem I would say to me the issue is like um why not just I totally get making it really long making it multiple Parts because again it's Netflix it doesn't matter if it's a movie or a miniseries or whatever but why why not unless it's not done I don't know why not release the whole thing at once because this is the kind of thing where when it was over I I guess I kind of want to see how it ends but I'm also not like I don't know I'm not dying if if I could have watched the rest right then maybe I would have or the next day when you when I when in four months am I going to remember these characters and who they were I could barely remember them now like 48 hours after I saw it so that's going to be a problem like okay yeah right so she was a she was an orphan and she was then taken in by this bad guy who has a crazy beard who's different from this guy who has a weird beard who's but he's not that guy who has a cool beard and feathered hair it's like the characters are so generic and interchangeable that it's I feel like it's going to be really hard to watch this in two separate chunks well and not only are they interchangeable but the characters who aren't interchangeable like Nemesis you know who has the flaming swords and fights a spider lady and the prince they're very distinct looking from the other characters but we don't know anything about them like that really struck me as weird that we found out more about them after they've been held captive that nobody has a conversation with one nobody talks to anybody who's not Kora like she's always at the center of everything and we for building this Seven Samurai type cast we never really got any details and everything's so easy Titus have you ever thought about revenge never thought about revenge I'm going to go with you everybody's recr recuited very simply just to move us from point A to point B and you know Rachel talking about movies that have been split in two this kept reminding me of Kill Bill where Clinton tantina wrote this long sprawling screenplay and the studio said okay cut that in half and he made it work what do you think the difference would be between what made Kill Bill work as opposed to Parts one and two or especially part one as opposed to Rebel Moon part one a child of fire was that it child of fire is that what this cool um well I think this one is artificially manufactured to try and get us into like and I'm not the first person to ever to have this thought but uh it's artificially manufactured to try and get like Netflix their like Snyder cut hype so I think like the splitting it into two parts the director's cut the the like we're going to give you all the cuts so you can see all the different versions of like SN Zack Snider's vision and like all this stuff is their like way of manufacturing the hype that came around with like the Justice League thing while again I had fun I do like Rebel Moon my entire website I work for is all like maybe this movie lowkey rules because it doesn't make any sense and like watching Cory stole be like everyone go have sex with each other we live on a fertile land let's let's rule I enjoyed all that that World building was great as soon as they left that Village though I slowly got more and more bored as the action ramped up I the best action scene I will say this for Zack Snider Snider can do an action scene he can nobody does a speed ramp better than that guy like especially the fight with the hatchet and the evil soldiers fantastic stuff and Matt going back to what you said I do think it boils down to like I I I do think like Zack I don't think Zack Snider bothers to make anything it's not in some way personal for him I'll just throw that out there and I do think that like I said earlier he's one of those true artists you look at any Zack Snider visual you know who made that movie and you know there are very few filmmakers like that Wes Anderson is one that comes to mind um I do think though that what Matt said earlier about okay well Netflix knows they just need more stuff kind of reduces this to content and looking at okay why is it coming out in February or March well that's q1 of next year and this way they have a SNY movie in Q4 and I think with Netflix it really does boil down to a demographic game and them saying Okay so we've got the Maestro coming out so that gets us this crowd and we've got this coming out and this coming out so we I think they're just always trying to slot in each quarter so they can keep their subscriber number steud steady and growing it's a cynical way to look at it but it's kind of I think they're doing Matt what about you are there any elements of certain part ones and part twos that you know you think make them work as opposed to what we ended up seeing in Rebel Moon I think the secret is you have to make a an experience that feels complete on its own you know like AC cross the spiderverse felt like a complete experience it ended on a cliffhanger but you didn't feel like you had gotten half of a movie there you walked out feeling like wow I've had this incredible experience um you also had like really interesting characters and conflicts and like a story you could really sink your teeth into none of which I think is is here um so that's that's the thing that's sort of missing and you know you said uh earlier something about you know you wished it was a silent film and the thought that I had and wrote in my review was like this movie um as a movie is a mess but I bet the art of Rebel Moon book which of course they will make at some point will be really cool because you'll just be able to like exp like examine look at all the detail in the spider lady's legs and her torso and the way that her body moves and you can you'll be able to just enjoy all of the um Imagination and creativity that went into all of that design work um because there is a lot there like it feels like there's so much care that went into designing every world and every character and what they're wearing um uh you know the way that the that creature that's like a griffin or whatever it is flies around and moves you know really cool like and and uh it feels like it was made for that book to be really awesome but the problem is that then in a movie you need characters and dialogue and getting really wrapped up in what these people are doing and again as we've already said like the characters are such kind of blanks and types that um you don't really care about what they're doing because it's just sort of very formula stuff and I just kept thinking like you know if this was a pitch that was I I apparently was rejected multiple times it's like well maybe that was the thing that was missing from the pitch like yeah it's got great visuals it's a great pitch on on that level but the hook that's missing are like why do I care about Kora or Nemesis or that Prince or any of these people Beyond well you know they're The Magnificent Seven in space they're battle beyond the stars I mean we've already gotten this movie once before on a much smaller budget um and we've gotten these characters before too everybody's an archetype that we've which is not again Star Wars is also archetypes but they didn't give us any reason like there's a moment in Star Wars where hans's like I don't believe in the forest I've seen a lot of stuff I never seen anything it you understand who Han Solo is and what you think but nobody in this movie ever has convers unless it's likee hun and talking to before he betrays her a conversation that should have come earlier just felt to me like a lot was cut out right or him saying I'm ready to become a hero now and before I do it though I must deliver this one last thing even though the fate of your planet rests on speedily returning to protect it do we have time for me to make one last trip and say goodbye to the this terrible life and I'm sitting there in the theater going well that's obviously a trap like why would anyone and why would anyone go along with that why would she say yes let's do that as opposed to say hey could we maybe go save my Planet first and then deliver whatever your whatever Goods you have in the back of your drop us off and then you can come back for us yeah exactly and that's not what so those are the sorts of conversations where like it's just B like that they just are so clunky and and like openly moving the plot in ways where you feel the hand of the writers so yeah all right thanks both of you for joining me you can find Matt and Rachel's Social Links down below so let's talk about the ending in that cryptic shot of Jimmy the Robot wearing a crown of antlers and flowers so the movie doesn't outright say exactly what happened to the good King and his family we know that Kora was their bodyguard and that now she is an outcast and they call her the scar Giver we also know from Jimmy's narration that the king and his family were killed and it seems like they were darn nice people my guess is that belisarius kora's dad ordered an assassination of the king so he could take power Kora likely refused to assassinate him but the assassination was still carried out and now Kora has been framed for that crime I also think the lifegiver that little girl is not dead and that belisarius is holding her captive to use for his own ends like she is Magic after all so maybe he's even tried to adopt and convert her like he did Kora but I also think the bisaria subscribes to some kind of ancient magic religion which is why these priests serve him so Faithfully in fact it could have been the pr who orchestrated his rise to power and this magic religion is also somehow fused with technology and allows bellarus to communicate with Admiral attacus in a kind of mental cyers space it also wouldn't surprise me if attakus and several other members of the military are secretly cyborgs in fact maybe Cora has these cybernetic implants as well that were put in her after she reached adulthood now Jimmy the Robot remember is a hardcore believer in the Fallen King and in the old ways the ways of the lifegiver and the ways of the lifegiver are tied to Nature and the people on this Rebel moon are also steeped in nature they grow crops they live in Cycles with the Harvest so it is fitting that this Moon which Embraces nature becomes the antithesis of the evil empire and that this is like the last Bastion of the old ways of the lifegiver so Jimmy being adorned with a crown of antlers and flowers shows that he is now like of these people and if the moon is the start of the new Rebellion it hence that this new order will overthrow the evil Senator and this new order is based on love of Nature and it will embrace the magic of the lifegiver so as the part one of this title hints they have actually mapped a wide universe here with spin-offs and sequels already in the works I think the franchise is off to kind of a rocky start with this movie but there is still a lot of potential in this franchise and I'm very curious to see where they go with it next so what did you guys think of Rebel Moon do you even want to see the next installment do you have any questions let me know your thoughts down in the comments below or at me on Twitter and if it's your first time here please subscribe and smash that Bell for alerts for screen Crush I'm Ryan [Music] Ary [Music]

Channel: ScreenCrush

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Id: 9oPvVUeThaI

Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 22 2023