Index – Culture – Real industrial waste became Netflix’s new sci-fi movie

Is there anyone else on Earth who considers Zack Snyder a competent filmmaker? I’m bound to believe it, especially after Netflix released its new sci-fi series Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Wounder on April 19th, which not only failed to become the next Empire Strikes Back, but still managed to underperform the first part in a bravura way. Child of fire too. I prepared to see the wounder with about the same queasy stomach as when you have to sit in the waiting room before a particularly long and cruel dental treatment, and I was not far wrong in terms of the end result. Rebel Moon 2 is proof that you can’t build a castle on weak foundations, and if a new franchise’s launch film is in the unwatchable category, then the sequel won’t change the world either.

With the concept of Rebel Moon, the director went around the biggest studios, tried to sell it as a Star Wars film to Disney, tried to force this sci-fi universe down Warner Bros throat as a film and as a video game, before reaching Netflix with endless money, who then they nodded and left the creator to do what he wanted. So at the end of last year, we got a two-and-a-half-hour introduction that turned out to be a cheeky Star Wars knock-off, with papier-mâché characters, drama, a weak main villain, but at least a lot of time-slowing and ugly visuals.

I watched Rebel Moon 2 in such a way that if I had my life over it, I wouldn’t have been able to say the names of any of the main characters. Yes, our heroes got such a good foundation, Snyder made them so memorable, bravo, good start! The film’s story takes off when Rey, I mean Kora (Sofia Boutella) married the Space Nazi Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein), but to such an extent that one could believe that the Imperium commander left his teeth in the battle. . The celebration is coming, the space warriors gather again on the planet Veldt, only to hear the news: Noble is alive, his revenge is coming and the village has five days to prepare to defend itself.

What worked in Kurosawa’s classic, The Seven Samurai, or perhaps in its American adaptation, The Seven Sniper, fails miserably in Rebel Moon 2. Here, instead of building tension and preparation full of terror, we get such unnecessary and inappropriate scenes as when in the film the people are reaping for at least 10 minutes led by the super soldier Titus (Djimon Hounsou), then they begin to practice shooting with rifles with great difficulty, and they hit everything right away.

As for the use of slow-motion, the new Rebel Moon goes too far even compared to the first part, specifically there is a cut where one of the characters draws water in his water bottle in slow motion. The fights are at least spectacular here and there, although Snyder overdoes this move even in the battles, Rebel Moon 2 would be at least 30 minutes shorter if it had been filmed properly, not slowed down like this. And this is no joke.

One of the great strengths of the Star Wars films in the era led by George Lucas was that they felt like they were made with heart and soul. They had a kind of magic that you could feel from them. In Rebel Moon 2, there is not the faintest sign of this, although they try to tell Kora’s background story here and there and expand the world in a meaningful way, but Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten are simply too big cockers to write a working script.

The golden rule in filmmaking is to show what you can, and not let the characters tell you about their past experiences. Compared to this, we get a conversation scene when the heroes sit at a table and without any experience, as if they were playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons, talk about the traumas they have suffered so far because of the Imperium. There are background sequences, but perhaps this is where we can experience the biggest low point of Rebel Moon 2, as the film kills a monster before our eyes.

And the joke in it all? No matter how hard the Snyders try, the main characters don’t get closer to us emotionally, we don’t care about anyone’s fate, and when someone bites the grass, the dramatic twist doesn’t really shake you. Who is this anyway? What’s it called? Oh, that he has that red lightsaber, and there was also some giant spider, which was also just thrown in and left to fade into oblivion as an idea…

In total, Rebel Moon 2 has two more interesting elements, one is the robot knight, Jimmy, voiced by Anthony Hopkins, and the adopted daughter-father relationship between Kora and Balisarius, but the makers forget to explain both. Just as they forget that even though they have such a good actress as Sofia Boutella in the lead role, if they don’t write her a strong character, and that the viewer should like Kora because she is a tough rebel, with increasingly stupid hair from part to part, that’s not enough.

On some level, it is tragicomic that Zack Snyder and his brigade were able to take down even the lightsabers from Star Wars, but not only Disney could sue them, but Warner could easily sue them as well. After all, quite serious motifs were drawn from Düne as well – but at least Frank Herbert was a good enough writer to explain the importance of spice in his novels. Here, in Rebel Moon 2, we are talking about simple grain, produced by ordinary farmers, and the evil empire pretends that there is some real stake in whether they will take over the village.

Ultimately, that’s why Rebel Moon 2 bleeds because it lacks any stakes. The main characters are the same paper mache as before, despite the additional 120 minutes we spend with them, their personalities and background stories are not deepened, nor do they become likable. There was zero drama in The Wounder, except that it covers the whole house of cards, and the actions are not interesting because of this, even though they are spectacular. The new Rebel Moon could still hold its own in the form of a slide show, highlighting certain clips, but it’s actually an anti-film here. About industrial waste, which maybe even Netflix would prefer to deny in a few years. In spite of the fact that there is no humor in Rebel Moon 2, we got a typical Zack Snyder’s serious sci-fi. But then, we are talking about a creator who was able to make Superman, who symbolizes hope, dark in The Man of Steel, so why the surprise?

Who knows how long the Rebel Moon train will continue to rumble on, you can read that the producer is planning for six parts, but then the Force should really be with us, because even watching this film requires an inhuman amount of patience. But don’t let anyone fool you into believing that it can’t get any worse than this. Both Zack Snyder and Netflix have a knack for going deeper and deeper. That particular rabbit hole is pretty deep, alas.