Release the Snyder Cut of ‘Rebel Moon’

From the first moment of Rebel Moon, frustrated visionary Zack Snyder’s abandoned-then-rescued would-be Star Wars film, it’s clear something is amiss. A ragamuffin Sofia Boutella (affectionately known best for her role as the Dark Universe’ Mummy) runs the red soil of an alien world through her hand, ringed gas giant in the backdrop. It’s clear the land she stands on means something to her. But instantaneously, one can’t shake the feeling that we should already have some sense of what that is. 

Indeed, Rebel Moon is yet another instance of a pre-directors cut mess from Snyder. Those in the know have witnessed some of the greatest films of the century, full stop. Grandiose myths with the full weight of history upon each painted frame, the abstract emotion in each image breathtaking when placed in sequence. Tactile grounding elements wisely interrupt his lofty tone and shimmering textures: destylized extreme closeups in Sucker Punch’s keystone Jon Hamm the High Roller climax, Lois Lane’s attempts to dive for a worldsaving staff of power at the bottom of a pool given the grit of handheld and choppy waters, or even here, space helicopters kicking up a sandstorm that beats down poor villagers, an effect he clearly achieved with industrial fans.

He’s not just a One Perfect Shot CGI beautician. He has a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between visual possession and internalization of an image, objectivism and objectification. The gap between his vulgarity and the true thematic core of auteurism is wider than with any other director. 

He’s one of the most Platonic of all filmmakers, but can only achieve these heights when he has the time to give us the necessary connective tissue. In Rebel Moon’s truncated initial iteration, this is sorely apparent. It establishes no emotional connection is  to Boutella’s Kora or her farming village under threat of Stalinist collectivization. The movie hauntingly presents an inability to requite a lover’s gaze, as an immigrant and “child of war”, which is compelling, but only on paper.

Telling rather than showing your lead character’s traumatic disconnect is bad enough, but as a motivation it also proves irrelevant to the full narrative, as does her questionable desire to defend the village. Is her connection not tenuous after all? Why not? His aims are just too big for the emotions Snyder must constantly summarize in shorthand, and this handicap truly does make him look like the idiot too many make him out to be. 

Even as Rebel Moon leaves its Star Wars pastiche mode (which reads pure ripoff when paced the same) into the second act, this central problem grows even more apparent. Kora gathers amurai, er, warriors to defend the village, each with less characterization than the last. Second billed Digimon Hounsou’s General Titus is especially egregious: appearing as a washed-up homeless drunk, convinced to fight in the span of one scene, then shooting a gun in one later shot.

The rest of the Magnificent-ish Seven-ish at least get a fight scene each for character, though essentially nothing else. Who are these people? Action is character doesn’t literally mean Action in a genre sense (it can in something like a 90-minute Johnnie To burner, but not a space opera), it means what the characters Do, and they don’t do much but slash and gun weightlessly. And again, this is a tiny farming village they’ve joined up to defend, which the movie has formally divorced us from for over an hour by the time the team is complete. But we have no idea what anyone’s motivation is.

Snyder will faithfully answer any misgiving in the already-teased Director’s Cut, but this whole affair begs the question, why does this keep happening to him? What is Netflix’ reason for not simply Releasing The Snyder Cut outright? Is the boost in revenue from R to PG-13 really worth it within the tiny pre-streaming theatrical release window? Is the scheduling obligation worth the sordid press, for both Netflix and the weary Snyder?  What if he actually prefers his unique model, wherein he’s panned by the broader audience as a hack for his hacked-to-shreds theatrical cuts, with a devoted cult left waiting for a home release?

For such an ambitious guy, that doesn’t seem likely. But if you’re a member of that cult like I am, I have to imagine you’ll still be as miffed as me paying for this turgid feature-length trailer for the real thing. It’s quite literally only two-thirds of itself, but at least this gibbous Moon will eventually wax full.