It’s no surprise that the trailer for Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder’s new sci-fi epic hitting Netflix in December, looks so Star Wars-y, with all the expansive alien worlds and not-lightsabers and such. According to Snyder himself, the origins of his Charlie Hunnam-starring two-parter can be found in a Star Wars movie pitch he made to George Lucas back in 2012, before he did Man of Steel, and before the Star Wars sequel trilogy resuscitated the franchise post-Revenge of the Sith.
“It was Seven Samurai in space,” Snyder told film magazine Empire about the bit of blue-sky thinking that would become, eleven years later, Rebel Moon — inspired by the very same Kurosawa classic that earlier went on to inspire Pixar imagineers (A Bug’s Life) and John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven) alike. “And a Star Wars movie was my original concept for it.” It would’ve been R-Rated, and no characters from the previous Star Wars movies would’ve returned. Alas, Snyder’s Star Wars was given the Death Star treatment (read: obliterated) when Lucasfilm was sold to Disney, and Snyder went off to do Superman. Now, here we are.
The pitch now, then, going by the trailer, is a simple one, and one that will surely call out to the denizens of Kendom. It’s Star Wars, but Zack Snyder-fied!
The first part, subtitled “Child of Fire,” arrives on Netflix on 22 December, a perfect sharing dish for your pre-Christmas feast. Part two, “The Scargiver,” is set to arrive on 19 April, 2024. Here’s everything else we know.
Rebel Moon: part Star Wars, part Dune, with a healthy handful of Snyder-seasoning — and Space Viking Corey Stoll(?)
You’d be forgiven for feeling a little lost watching the trailer for Rebel Moon, which clocks in at three minutes and forty-two seconds but somehow still doesn’t feel long enough for all of the exposition it’s trying to cram in (this is an entirely new movie world, after all).
Truth be told, there are six or seven movies worth of influences, aesthetics and vibes here: one shot evokes something like a space-age Braveheart, then we get a shot of burning (space) rice fields a la Apocalypse Now, then there’s a sprawling, stacked-’em-high metropolis straight out of Blade Runner.
This isn’t to say it doesn’t look cool, but there’s a lot. Honestly, we’re just getting over the image of Corey Stoll with a braided Viking beard (one minute, seven seconds). Damn it Snyder, you’ve done it again!
As for the rest of the cast, Snyder has assembled an all-star team of perpetually underrated character actors.
Djimon Hounsou (who you can see performing his signature scowl in the trailer) portrays “General Titus, former general of the Imperium recruited to lead the fight against the Imperium,” which will assuredly mean something once we’ve all seen the film.