Rebellious Moon

 There are no do-good evil-fighters, only celestial bodies.

Hark, doth mine mortal ears deceive? Else be it true that dear Snyder, of the Zachary house, hath conjured with his labours his ownst copiee of the Star Wars? Ist true, one should be beholden to insist, how 'Rebel Moon' carries vast shades reminiscent of many a lament property within her make. Star Wars for one, Warhammer 40k for another, onest might even detect some rogue splash of Battlestar Galactica shouldst they delve some layer deeper. Truly thou hast brought the very culmination of their influence, mild and wild, unto a most potent broth. Whomst could forsee how such a concoction wouldst last in a world of forever sequels and forever franchises? What new nugget of brilliance hast the house of Zachary to offer the belated and beleaguered realm of action fiction, which ist had not before? Well hark well, friends, I hast the answer!

Boredom. That is what Zach thought our worlds of Sci-Fi were so desperately missing in his grand journey to ruin quite literally every last piece of goodwill he had amongst that ever shrinking portion of the world with their frontal cortex's mostly intact. Zach sat down and though- "Yeah, all these high flying sci-fi movies with their incredibly evocative and tangible worlds, strong and pervasive narrative themes that reflect deeply in the personalities and actions of the core cast? What a waste of effort! Effort- that could be going into exposition!" I truly believe that Snyder genuinely does not understand the point of storytelling from a basic level, and yet fell into the position of 'writer director' by basic merit of the 'fail upwards' society that the already successful enjoy over in the states.

I say this because that is the only real explanation I can stomach to explain how one takes the story of The Seven Samurai, a story told countless times in every medium, from movie to comics to books, (I'll bet there's a game or two that mimics it too) and utterly screws it up. It ain't that hard to do! We're talking a story about gathering a group of colourful characters with unique talents that come together to save a small community struggling under the boot of oppression. That's as basic as basic gets. Yet not only does the Zack manage to make this last 4 hours, but he fundamentally misses the mark on every single marker of this story that he possibly could. It is as though he set out to make a movie that purposefully mocked the very idea of a Seven Samurai setup, only he forgot the sarcasm to make it all stick.

Zack is enamoured by the spectacle of 'style'. He wants to be behind the scenes crafting this expansive and visually arresting world, whilst being in front of the charge setting up the piece for iconic scenes fuelled on the richness of that built world. It's a very specific art to master which he absolutely cannot get to grips with. All of the first movie is wasted telling us about how great and cool the various stragglers are who lump themselves with Cora (The only person who's name I remember) in her quest to find some rebels that might help them fight off 'The Imperium'. These stragglers seem to exist only as words of exposition, because in person they are drab, personality drained, occasionally barking, background clutter. No one interacts with anyone else in a way that highlights their traits or desires, it's all as sterile as a doctors ward.

Bring us in to the substance of narrative, birthing and growing characters, and you'll stump Zach blind. All he can do is write backstories that are spoken with perfect bluntness, as though reading the bio-section of your own top trump card, as within those overbloated narratives we're supposed to independently derive passions, goals, relationships, struggles and ultimately their lessons too. When the sword woman reveals that her family was killed, we see that as a perfect excuse to set up her coming to grow close with the people of the village as a surrogate. Instead, one of the kids tries to bug her with a bit of wheat once. They're best friends now, she thinks of this kid as her new son. Would you believe me if I told you that was the single most developed relationship these two movies present? Cora and her brainless boytoy are so pathetically underexplored I cannot even tell you a single character trait about either one that these characters could have been attracted to in theory, let alone what actually makes them a decent couple!

Action, Zack's one forte, is smothered under his ridiculous obsession with getting the 'trailer shot', which feels like his intention behind every scene. He's so desperate to get that one crazy moment where the hero is writhing in the midst of battle, slaying their foes whilst chaos reins around them in a highlight of their whirlwind frenzy, that this becomes every shot. Every character is launching themselves out of cover in every scene, standing right in the middle of a hail of laser fire that doesn't even land close to them, as they charge the ranks like children on a playground. You'd think our heroes were actually invisible for the way they never seem to be in actual, or even potential, danger of being shot at any time ever. They lay under the tanks, begging to be shot, and all the carnage would sail above them hitting... well... nothing actually. It's amazing how few good guys we see in any actual danger ever. I can remember maybe two or three villager deaths. We don't even see that many background extras being blasted. So what are the Imperium dunces aiming at, if not the heroes? Are they trying to off Zack in order to escape this movie? That might be it...

And can you believe I've touched on all that without even bringing up slow-mo yet? I never really thought something so trivial could be used as such a crutch for dynamic pacing- but here we are. Zack actually thinks the way you slow down a scene is by literally slowing down the footage. I know it's been memed to death but that mockery comes from a point of reason! He throws slow-mo on footage of grain being chucked around, on water being drawn out of faucets, of a man throwing a handful of dirt as he trips over, of a man jogging in the moments before a climatic jump. It seems almost insane to have to point out that such a technique is designed to highlight moments of excitement, drawing out moments and stretching that tension ever more thin before the bow snap of the payoff. He simply doesn't understand what tension is and how Slow-mo effects it. At all. And that is his one trick. He's not a one-trick pony. He is a no trick pony. Zack Snyder is an actual class clown who accidentally fell into a position of tortured regard! He is a hack.

But I will say this for the man- he is entertainingly awful. There are so many directors out there who put out movies that are frankly unwatchable, but the bare basics of movie making are not lost on the man. He can frame a great shot, construct a visually arresting scene and direct a fine looking sequence or two. The man is a cinematographer and very much should have stayed as such, but some moron told him he would make a half decent director and here we are! If only he could write just a little bit better, his movies could be a bit more memorable too. Still, Rebel Moon did manage to score the Netflix top box office awards so who knows- maybe we'll get our 'trilogy of six movies' following the world's most boringly cool-looking sci-fi series. I actually morbidly hope we do.