Movie Review: Rebel Moon (part 1)

On Friday, my older son and I watched the new Zack Snyder film on Netflix, Rebel Moon (part 1). 

For those who don't know, this started out as a pitch for a Star Wars film that Lucasfilm rejected. 

And for those of you wondering if it has curse words, not really. Other than the violence and one attempted rape scene (no nudity), it's pretty kid friendly. 

Now I'm not a huge Snyder fan, but I've enjoyed some of his works in the past. So I was curious to see what he would have done with a Star Wars film. Obviously, this film has been changed. The serial numbers have been filed off, but I also assume some things have been changed story-wise as well since it was pitched to Disney/Lucasfilm. But the curiosity was there. 

While watching, at first, Flynn kept puzzling over what era of Star Wars this would have been set in, if LF had picked it up. Was it Palpatine's Empire? The Sith Empire? Some future era? The opening narration tells us that it happens after 100 kings had ruled (or was it 1000?) but that could easily have changed from the original SW version. Were the Bloodaxe siblings originally Luke and Leia? Probably not. We never could figure it out.

Anyway, about the film itself: we were both disappointed by it. 

I don't want to spoil things, so I'll just say this: the pacing was slow and plodding, which you'd expect from a more character driven piece. But there was little to no character development, and most characters were introduced in a way that didn't give us much emotional involvement with them. The ending wasn't a surprise, and didn't really leave me thrilled to have spent two hours watching this thing. 

Snyder is known for his cool visuals, and this film was lacking in that as well. The CGI and the settings looked OK, but they used camera settings that hyper-focused certain things and left the periphery looking like vaseline was smeared over the lens. At first, I thought it was my eyes or a smudge on my glasses, but no, it was the way the movie was shot. And when there were big action/adventure set pieces, they weren't that amazing. Fairly run of the mill, really. 

I'm not sure if I'll bother with Part 2 when it comes out in a few months. 

Would I recommend it? Not really, but if you're already paying for Netflix and you've got a few hours to spare, it's not the worst thing you could watch. There are a few things you might be able to pull from it as gaming inspiration, but don't expect to be taken away to a place long, long ago in a galaxy far away.  For all of George Lucas' faults as a writer/director, the worst of his Star Wars movies are still better than this.