While Zach Snyder’s (Army of the Dead, Watchmen, Dawn of the Dead) relationship with Warner Bros. officially ended with the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (i.e. the 2021 Snyder Cut), a certain subset of extremely online diehard fans have refused to let sleeping and/or comatose superheroes lie. With dimming fervour, the same fans have unrealistically pushed for Snyder’s return to a corporate-branded superhero franchise, refusing to take reality for an answer. Not coincidentally, Snyder’s incredibly ambitious franchise starter/wannabe, Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire, will be released on streaming giant Netflix the same weekend as the final entry in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, arrives in movie theatres.

Ambition is the key word here as Snyder, one of the premier visual stylists of the twenty-first century but also one of the least subtle, envisioned not just a world but a standalone universe of its own. One that would generate all manner of related properties, from spinoffs to direct sequels, a prequel here or there, and possibly even a series set somewhere within the boundaries of Snyder’s future-set space opera. Netflix seems to think so, too, since they’ve invested untold sums to allow Snyder to fulfill his vision. Though it’s certainly questionable whether they should have or—at a minimum—demanded more rigorous attention to screenplay quality and/or a more streamlined editing process aimed at coherent, compelling storytelling rather than what we ended up with here (i.e. the exact opposite).

Much of that may be a direct result of Snyder and Netflix’s decision to release Rebel Moon as a two-part film (Part Two: The Scargiver is due next spring) but also as separate Snyder cuts for both halves, each one longer than the original by at least an hour. That length is presumably there to deepen character development, add missing exposition, and include Snyder’s favourite stylistic flavours (e.g. slow motion/speed ramping, etc.) and thematic preoccupations like the conflict between libertarian-leaning personal morality and authoritarian political structures, the responsibilities and duties of superheroic and ordinarily heroic characters thereof.

That fight or flight response fuels Rebel Moon: Part One — The Child of Fire and its central character, Kora (Sofia Boutella), an ex-Imperium officer turned dirt farmer on the “rebel moon” of the title, Veidt. Saved from a mysterious crash two years earlier, Kora’s life took a turn for the better when she was welcomed by a romanticized, idealized pre-industrial, agrarian community. She has everything she could need, from a physically demanding, if otherwise fulfilling, life. She even has an occasional bedmate to satisfy her other physical needs.

For Kora, it’s the first real home she’s had, the first home outside of the brutal, world-conquering military machine led by her surrogate father, Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee), a likely usurper to the centuries-old monarchy abruptly ended by an unseen assassin. As dictatorial, however, as Balisarius might be, he’s only slightly worse than the Roman-inspired monarchs he replaced. Each ruled through the force of arms and the threat of violence, using both to win (and lose) worlds across the galaxy.

Kora’s brief peace doesn’t last long. When a fascist in a black tie, black suit, and a severe haircut appears one afternoon, newly disembarked from the Imperium Dreadnought circling overhead like a shark that hasn’t fed in weeks, it’s easy to surmise what HR reps the world over like to call “next steps:” The Imperium wants the grain from the next harvest in the 9-10 weeks, to murder a high-ranking member for the community in cold blood publicly, and leave a small contingent of ill-mannered, unprofessional soldiers to monitor the community’s progress over the next three months.

The Imperium’s plans don’t remain in place for long, leaving Kora as the de facto leader and resistance organizer. In rapid, linear succession, Kora and her second-in-command, Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), acquire the help or the promise of help from Kai (Charlie Hunnam), a black market smuggler, Tarak (Staz Nair), an ex-nobleman turned blacksmith’s assistance, Nemesis (Bae Doona), a double-sword carrying mercenary, Titus (Djimon Hounsou), a disgraced general turned gladiator, Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher), the co-leader with his sister, Devra Bloodaxe (Cleopatra Coleman), of a resistance group large enough to get the Imperium’s attention.

At various times, characters spontaneously bring up the words “rebellion,” “revolution,” and “insurgency” as if they’re interchangeable terms. They’re not. Far from it, but the mixed-use suggests more than muddled dialogue. It suggests muddled, unfocused storytelling by either a confused, bored, or even indifferent screenwriter or screenwriting team. Either that or somewhere in the cut, soon-to-be restored footage for the director’s cut, several characters sit down for a political discussion and iron out what they mean when they use those words in any relevant or possible context.

Not surprisingly for an unoriginal, derivative work like Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire that takes inspiration or — less charitably — borrows freely without attribution, from highly popular, well-known 20th-century works of commercial art like Flash Gordon, the Foundation trilogy, Dune, and Star Wars (itself a product of many influences), before borrowing the premise wholesale from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. (Roger Corman got here decades ago, releasing Battle Beyond the Stars four years after Star Wars broke box-office records around the world).

In moderation, influences, callbacks/shout-outs, and fan service are fine, maybe even more than fine, but when those influences are always surface-deep and constantly call attention to themselves via narrative echoes, it’s a surefire way to ensure your audience is more engaged in spotting references and patting themselves on the back than caring about the sketchily developed characters onscreen or their individual and collective fates. And at least in this truncated iteration of Snyder’s latest franchise wannabe/starter, we don’t.

Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire hits Netflix on Thursday, December 21.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fhr3MzT6exg%3Fsi%3Ddavq23X6SzTq84LP