My Thoughts on "Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire" AKA "Rebel Moon – Chapter One: Chalice of Blood"
I just finished watching Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire AKA Rebel Moon – Chapter One: Chalice of Blood, the latest Zack Snyder movie straight to Netflix, and I'm ready to write about it. Now, this is a 2023 movie, so I won't count as a New Movie That I saw in 2024. I will count Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver as a 2024 movie since it actually coming out this year, in April. I will also write a review of that when it comes out.
I did not immediately watch it when it came out back in December because I was focused on reposting all of my 2023 reviews in time for my New Years Eve Recap, as well as squeezing one more movie to write a review of, and include in my 2023 Recap. I chose Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 🐢🥷 as the last movie I would watch for 2023, and I figured that I could save this movie for the New Year.
I didn't even know this movie was coming out until the first trailer dropped on YouTube in either November or December. I think it might've been December because I remember as soon as this trailer dropped, it was already out. Zack Snyder was all over the place doing interviews talking about this movie and promoting this movie. But, like I said, I had so much on my plate that month that I just couldn't make the time to watch it. What I knew going in was that it poorly received by critics.
The critical reaction to this movie really is not that surprising. People who already dislike Zack Snyder and his movies hate this movie, and people who already like Zack Snyder and his movies like this movie, for the most part. If you were in either of those camps prior to this movie's release, then this movie won't change your mind one way or another, and if you're on the fence about Snyder and his films, then is movie probably won't convince you one or another either.
This is a case where you know what you're getting and you should know by this point whether you like it or not. Most of Snyder's movies have been polarizing except for Dawn of the Dead 🧟♂️ (2004) and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole 🦉. But this is the first instance I can think of where a Snyder movie was as close to being universally hated as this. Maybe, Army of the Dead 🧟♂️🎰, but it seems like this movie has gotten more hate than even that movie did.
People have said this movie is Zack Snyder's attempt at making a Star Wars movie. Like, he originally pitched this as a Star Wars movie, but Lucasfilm rejected it because it wasn't family-friendly enough or it didn't coincide with the brand of Lucasfilm, Star Wars, and Disney. So, he just decided to make it its own original thing, just cross out all of the Star Wars names and replace all the Star Wars iconography with completely new and original stuff. Just to make it different enough to not get sued for plagiarism. But, there's still enough similarities to Star Wars and enough Star Wars-y type stuff in here that you can tell this movie's origin as a Star Wars project.
Like, there's straight up lightsabers in this movie, or things that look and function like lightsabers but aren't called lightsabers. Like, this character has these swords that can function like regular swords, but she can superheat the blades so they can cut through more things and cauterize flesh on contact, sort of like the Silver Samurai's swords in The Wolverine. But, they look more like lightsabers when she does this, like they light up red like red lightsabers when the heat is turned on.
Honest Trailers and others have sort of tried to spread the narrative that the reason Lucasfilm rejected Snyder's pitch for a Star Wars movie is that it was terrible, even for them. But, I really don't think that's the case, even if all the Snyder haters like the Honest Trailers writing team want that to be true. I think it really was a case that the movie was too "adult" and not family friendly enough.
This is not Lucasfilm under George Lucas, this is Lucasfilm under Disney, and Disney really wants all their major brands to be family friendly, at least, the ones that aren't under the Twentieth Century Studios label, which has become their de facto label for more adult-oriented movies which was what Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures were for. God, I miss Touchstone, those were truly simpler times. So, of course, they would reject a movie pitch from Snyder, a director known for making R rated films filled with blood 🩸, gore, and sometimes sex and nudity. All things that Disney likes to steer clear of in their movies. Sure, Rebel Moon – Part One is rated PG-13, but there's an R rated cut of this movie, meaning that they edited it down to make it PG-13. So, it still counts.
I will watch the R rated version when it comes out just before I watch Rebel Moon – Part Two. I don't entirely understand the rationale of releasing a PG-13 version of the movie, and then releasing an R rated version a few months later. This is Netflix we're talking about. It's not like this is a theatrically released movie, and it had to be PG-13 to gain a wider audience or anything.
I mean, it had a limited theatrical release only for a week before its wider streaming release, but it wasn't a wide theatrical release, where it was in theaters for months and then went to streaming and physical media. Most of people who watched this movie watched it on Netflix, not in theaters.
So, they could've just released the R rated version right up front, and not have even bothered with a PG-13 version.
The only reason for why they did that I can think of is marketing reasons. They could release this watered down PG-13 version, and then release the R rated version to entice people to watch the movie again. Like, "Hey, come watch this new version of Rebel Moon, with all the blood and gore 🩸 and potentially sex and nudity that we chose not show last time. We could've shown all last time, but we needed the extra money 💵 to squeeze out of you."
Even though, streaming movies don't really make money 💵 the same way theatrical movies do or movies released on physical media like DVDs and Blu-Rays 📀💿 do, in fact, these streaming service kind of bleed cash 💵. The streaming model really isn't all that profitable, and it kind of unsustainable the way it is. But, you get what I mean. They're only doing this for marketing reasons to increase the viewership on this movie by releasing new version with more blood 🩸 and potentially more sex. Because there is a tentacle sex scene in this movie. We don't see it, we just see the beginning parts of it, and I'm sure we'll see more of it in the R rated version.
With all of that said, what did I actually think of this movie? I thought it was pretty good. I understand the hate the movie gets, like I understand why a lot of people don't like it, I just don't agree or feel the same. I think this movie is a lot better than people said it was, and it's no where near as bad as people said it was. There's plenty of good action, and some awesome visuals. If there's one thing Snyder knows how to do it's make a movie look good. Some would even say that it's the only thing he knows how to do, but I don't really think that. I feel like people who say or think that, don't really give Snyder enough credit. Like, he is a better storyteller than a lot of people give him credit for I would say.
I will say that this movie looks a lot more polished and slicker than Army of the Dead 🧟♂️🎰 did. I mean, I get that was partially intentional because Army of the Dead 🧟♂️🎰 took place primarily in a desert, and was supposed to look grimy and dusty, like everything was covered in sand. Where this is a space opera movie with aliens, spaceships, laser guns, and swords that can heat up. It has to look different. But, there were aspects of the cinematography in Army of the Dead 🧟♂️🎰 that were definitely not intentional. The fact that Snyder chose to do the cinematography himself again on this movie really shows how much he has improved as a cinematographer. At least, he can keep everything in focus this time.
Even though, it's clearly inspired by Star Wars, I did like the sci-fi space opera world that Snyder created for this movie; I say "movie" since Rebel Moon – Part One and Rebel Moon – Part Two are one movie split into two parts. There were a lot of awesome aliens and creatures in this movie, like I especially liked that one creature in the bar seen that has tentacles wrapped around this guy and he's controlling him and talking through him, sort of like the aliens in Independence Day. It's a very unique concept, and something that we haven't seen in Star Wars to my knowledge. I liked King Levitica, I liked his design, his voice, and his alien language. I also liked that spider lady ♀︎🕷️ that Nemesis fights, she was pretty cool.
Not all the creatures in the movie were winners, like I thought those horses that they ride on Veldt were pretty lame looking. Like, they were just horses with like horns on them, they weren't alien-looking enough for me. I feel like they could've come up with a more unique design for that creature. Something that's domesticated and can be ridden like a horse, but it isn't a horse at all. It's the same issue I had with the six-legged horses in the Avatar movies. They looked way too much like regular Earth horses, but with some minor alien features.
But, wasn't just the horses, this movie has other Earth animals like there's a regular dog 🐕 and a regular bird 🐦⬛ in one scene. And I just can't really get on board with that griffin that's in the movie during Tarak's introduction scene. This world is kind of weird and inconsistent in that way, but whatever. It's Snyder's world, he can do whatever he wants with it. This is not pure science fiction, this is science fantasy, and I'm okay with that.
Now, this movie was heavily inspired by Seven Samurai, an Akira Kurosawa movie. The plot involves this woman ♀︎ named Kora (later revealed to be named Arthelais) who's living on this moon called Veldt, inside this small agricultural village. Her backstory is that she used to be apart of the Motherworld's military, the Imperium, and was adopted as a child by an Imperial general named Balisarius, who had lead a brutal invasion of her home planet, and killed her real parents. He was the one who changed her name to Arthelais. I assume the title of both parts, A Child of Fire and The Scargiver both refer to her, especially when Kora calls herself a "child of war," hence a child of fire 🔥, and the main villain of the movie, Noble refers to her as the "Scargiver" towards the end of the film. She landed on Veldt sometime before the events of the film, and has broken off her allegiance with the Motherworld and renounced her old militaristic fascist life as a soldier or an officer within the Imperium. Now, she just wants to live a simple farmer life.
But, one day, the Imperium comes a knocking, and starts stripping this village of all of its natural resources, and just generally abusing the local population within this village. At first, Kora tries to run away because she believes the Imperium is too powerful, and that fighting them is futile. But, as soon as she tries to leave, she happens to see this one village girl ♀︎ almost get raped by a group of the Imperial soldiers, and she decides to go save her.
She manages to kill all of the asshole Imperial soldiers trying to rape the girl ♀︎ with the help of a good Imperial soldier who hated what his comrades were trying to do and the robot voiced by Anthony Hopkins. He just shoots the commanding Imperial officer, and just runs off, and isn't seen again until the end of the movie where he's sporting some antlers on his head. He was wearing a headband of flowers 🌼 that the girl ♀︎, and then by the end of the movie, he's wearing antlers on his head to show that he's embraced his warrior side once again. The robot isn't the movie that much, but he does make an impression. A lot of that has to do with his design and his voice. Anthony Hopkins did a great job voicing this robot. I definitely want to see more of him in Part Two, which Snyder has said that we will. This is one of the scenes in the movie that would definitely benefit from the R rating because there are a lot of clear moments where you can tell they cut right there, or they digitally removed some blood 🩸. I'm sure this fight scene is way more brutal in the R rated cut.
After this, Kora finally commits to fighting against the Imperium, and decides to go with her caretaker's plan of assembling a team of warriors and an army to defend the village. And that's what the rest of the movie is, it's Kora and this guy named Gunnar who kind of screwed the village by opening his big mouth, going around the galaxy, which is referred to as the Realm, recruiting different people to join the fight against the Imperium and defend the village on Veldt.
Now, lot of the people who hated this movie unfavorably compared to it Battle Beyond the Stars, a Roger Corman movie from 1980 that supposed to be a Star Wars rip-off. The reason why they compared this movie to Battle Beyond the Stars, is that like this film, Battle Beyond the Stars was also inspired by Seven Samurai, like it's basically a space opera version of Seven Samurai just like this movie is.
As many Star Wars fans and Star Wars historians no doubt know is that Star Wars itself was heavily inspired by the works of Kurosawa. The very first Star Wars movie, Star Wars, Episode IV – A New Hope (known as just Star Wars when it originally came out in 1977) was essentially a space opera retelling of The Hidden Fortress. So, when Corman did his Star Wars cash-in 🤑, he decided to base it off another Kurosawa movie, Seven Samurai, to draw from the same source as Star Wars, but not base the plot directly off of the same film.
Now, a lot of the people who compare Rebel Moon to Battle Beyond the Stars, say that Battle Beyond the Stars is better. But, even though I haven't seen Battle Beyond the Stars besides what I saw of it in Brandon Tenold's review of it, I don't think that's in any way a fair comparison. Even though these are both space opera movies, and they're both based on Seven Samurai, they're two completely different movies trying to do completely different things. Like, just from a tonal perspective. Battle Beyond the Stars is a much more comedic and lighthearted film that doesn't takes itself all that seriously, taking an almost tongue-and-cheek approach to the material, whereas Rebel Moon is a much darker movie that wants to be taken more seriously as a straight up action film.
I liked all of the warriors they recruit in this movie, like I like Tarak, I like Titus, and I like Nemesis. Nemesis is one with the swords I was talking about that glow red when they're hot. She's played by Doona Bae, she played one of the bounty hunters in Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowskis' space opera movie, and she was in another Wachowski movie, Cloud Atlas, and in the series, Sense8, which was a Wachowskis project. She is a pretty frequent collaborator of the Wachowskis if you hadn't noticed. I didn't know this until I read her Wikipedia page for this review, but she was in The Host (2006), a monster movie from the same director as Parasite (2019), Bong Joon-ho, because she's a South Korean actress 🇰🇷. In case you don't recognize her, or remember what part she played, she played the archer aunt, the one who won a bronze medal 🥉.
I can't believe I didn't snap that it was her until now. That's happened to me a bunch of times where I'll go and watch a movie or look it up on the Internet, and there are all these actors in them that I didn't realize were in them before, like it happened to me on the 2000s Fantastic Four movies how I didn't realize that it was Chris Evans playing Johnny Storm/The Human Torch 🔥. Or I didn't realize that Jason Statham was in the 2006 Pink Panther movie (the one with Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau), like he's that one guy wearing that Pink Panther diamond ring who gets killed at the beginning and sets the events of the film in motion. I also didn't realize that Kevin Kline was in that movie either as the hapless Inspector Dreyfus, the boss and foil to Clouseau who is always getting frustrated and embarrassed by Clouseau's stupidity, and who always ends up getting hurt or humiliated by Clouseau's antics.
I didn't realize that it was Gerard Butler in the lead role as Leonidas in 300 until years later. I didn't realize that Djimon Hounsou, an actor in this movie, was in Blood Diamond 🩸💎 until years later. I didn't realize that John Cho was in Evolution. I knew Jerry Trainer was in that movie because I recognized him a lot sooner, but it took me many years to realize that John Cho was in that movie too as one of Ira's students. I didn't realize that Jennifer Connelly was in Ang Lee's Hulk (2003) until years later. Speaking of the Hulk, I didn't realize that Edward Norton was in Fight Club until years later. I didn't realize Meryl Streep was in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I didn’t realize that Bryce Dallas Howard and Common were in Terminator Salvation.
I didn't realize that Vera Farmiga was in The Departed until years later. I didn't realize that Mark Ruffalo was in Shutter Island until years later. Speaking of Martin Scorsese, I didn't realize until recently that it was Martin Scorsese voicing Sykes, the pufferfish character 🐡, in Shark Tale 🦈. Same thing with Nick Notle voicing the bear 🐻, Vincent in Over the Hedge. BTW, they used the same character model for Vincent in Bee Movie 🐝 a couple of years later.
I guess it's supposed to be Vincent in that scene in a brief cameo, but they don't really do anything to indicate that it's supposed to be the same character. I didn't realize that Rosie O'Donnell voiced Terk, Tarzan's adopted gorilla cousin 🦍 and best friend in the 1999 Disney animated version of Tarzan. And I didn't realize until years later that it was Stephen Colbert voicing the President in Monsters vs. Aliens. There's probably a whole bunch that I'm not naming because I can't think of them right now as I'm writing this. I'll probably add more later if I think of any more, even after I post this.
Anyway, back to the movie. I even liked Kai, even though he turns out to be evil in the end. I mean, it really isn't that surprising that Kai double-crossed everyone and sold them out to the Imperium in retrospect, but it does make sense. Like, they established that this guy's kind of a crook, a thief, and not exactly the most trustworthy. So, it's in-line with his character to betray everyone and sell them out to the Imperium to make a quick buck.
But, it also kind of subverts expectations because you kind of expect him to be the suave roguish type who ultimately does the right thing in the end, like the Han Solo of the group basically. But no, this guy is just an asshole through and through with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And he ultimately gets what he deserves when Gunnar kills him with that device they stab people's brains with. Plus, it was pretty amusing to see Charlie Hunnam try to put on an Irish accent.
I really liked the final battle scene. Sure, it wasn't where I expected. I expected it to be on Veldt, with them actually defending the village from the Imperium, but I guess Snyder's saving that for Part Two. But, the final battle in that docking area is still pretty cool. I liked that moment where Darrian Bloodaxe (who's played by Ray Fisher BTW) jumps onto that Imperial ship, and stabs the pilot while the pilot pulls out a gun and shoots him.
He's the one who ultimately saved the day because he brought down an important ship in the Imperium's fleet, and he prevented Noble from escaping, allowing Kora to kick his ass, and kill him. However, he doesn't stay dead for long, as he's brought back to life through the Motherworld's advanced medical technology. Again because Snyder has plans for him in Part Two I guess. All in all, I would say that I really enjoyed this movie and I don't think it deserves any amount of the hate that it received. I will be tuning in for Part Two and the R rated cut for sure.
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