With Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, Zack Snyder promised a more “mature” take on Star Wars. Unfortunately, it’s more “Star Wars for people who think those movies are too political and don’t feature enough sexual violence”. The director’s two-part Netflix epic (Part Two: The Scargiver will release in April of next year) stems directly from an old pitch made to Kathleen Kennedy back when she was the co-chair of Lucasfilm, shortly before it was acquired by Disney. It’s a film populated by some of the Zack Snyder’s Justice League filmmaker’s worst impulses: a mess of imagery, some of it attempting to shock, congregated largely around the idea of what might look good in a trailer.
Rebel Moon, co-written with Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten, is a Seven Samurai riff in which the space-viking homestead of Veldt is visited upon by Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) and the evil Imperium army. What follows is an unnecessarily long debate with farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) about wheat yields. Atticus demands food and submission. Kora (Sofia Boutella), an immigrant to Veldt whose history leads back to the Imperium, decides to fight back. She and Gunnar then potter around the galaxy, collecting weary warriors for the cause: namely Titus (Djimon Hounsou), Kai (Charlie Hunnam), Tarak (Staz Nair), Nemesis (Bae Doona), and Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher).
