Film Review
Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) — Snyder’s sci-fi epic is far from a new hope
When a peaceful settlement on the edge of a distant moon is threatened by a tyrannical force, a mysterious stranger becomes their best hope for survival.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Zack Snyder definitely didn’t rip off Star Wars (1977) to make his magnum opus Rebel Moon. Of course, that isn’t an entirely fair imputation. After all, Star Wars borrowed heavily from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), and its iconic tropes echo a hundred different film serials like Flash Gordon. The derivation isn’t a sin, not as long as your voice resonates through the borrowed beats. As the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, could attest, many of his plays drew on recycled plots and characters from the same creative well that now-forgotten writers shared. It’s only when the voice behind the familiar elements falters, lacking both spark and originality, that a story truly earns the “derivative” label.
Enter Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire.
This new space opera focuses on the eponymous child Kora (Sofia Boutella), an ex-soldier living on a farming moon. Her peace is shattered when the cleverly named King’s Gaze, an imperial warship seeking revolutionaries in the wake of the royal family’s assassination, arrives from the Motherworld to demand grain for its troops.
(The genre’s medievalist roots clash with its sci-fi trappings here. Why would an interplanetary government boasting gigantic warships and space stations, brimming with futuristic technology that would appear magical to us, rely on bushels of grain to feed its troops? It’s a well-known saying that an army marches on its stomach, but if a present-day pauper can order pizza from their phone, surely future generals could provide more than basic grain rations. Despite this familiar trope, the screenplay could have had the bad guys bartering for a unique type of ale or some rare element, adding a touch of believability and intrigue to their motivations.)
Initially hesitant to confront Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) and his imperial forces, Kora’s resolve hardens when she’s forced to kill a team of soldiers. Fueled by anger and a thirst for justice, she embarks on a galactic odyssey with her fellow farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) to assemble a rebel force. Their ragtag crew is comprised of seasoned ex-general Titus (Djimon Hounsou), the enigmatic cyborg swordswoman Nemesis (Doona Bae), the ferocious warrior Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher), and the charismatic mercenary starship pilot Kai (Charlie Hunnam). Meanwhile, Anthony Hopkins lends his voice to a whimsical C-3PO-esque creature dispensing lore, while Cary Elwes appears in flashbacks as the fallen king whose legacy inspires the rebellion.
None of the acting performances are remarkable, though that’s not entirely the actors’ fault. Anthony Hopkins, perhaps, stands out with his dignified tones. Kora at least has a more coherent backstory and motivation than Rey from the Star Wars sequels (2015-19). However, her iconic outfit and poses seem to be all the filmmakers care about. Hunnam delivers a somewhat convincing rogue, an archetype he appears to have mastered, while Skrein twirls a moustache with practised ease, a role that he’s inhabited before.
At his core, Zack Snyder remains a comic book writer. His character and scene ideas spring from pop iconography, their essences rooted in stylisation as opposed to deeper psychological motivation or themes.
What ultimately frustrates me about Rebel Moon and other Snyder films is that they, at times, flirt with genuine depth. For instance, Kora’s recollections of the royal family hint at a missed opportunity — how the king leaned on his daughter’s compassion as a future leader could have explored the complexity of legacy and responsibility. Similarly, the film’s undercurrent of colonialism had the potential to blossom into a truly powerful commentary.
Snyder fixates on the surfaces of things, however, rarely exploring beyond appearances. His mode is juvenile; he confuses “gritty” pseudo-realism for complexity and seems to think that jadedness and sadomasochism in his characters are enough to give them depth.
The trope of rape in fantasy fiction has sparked extensive debate, with a broad consensus forming: if the story can be told without it, then it should be. The rule arguably tends to ensure that rape is only used as an element when the story is about it, and thus has something to say. Snyder has nothing to say about rape, using it first as a “call to action” in defence of innocence for a previously jaded protagonist (an idea borrowed from countless Westerns), and then in an unfortunate callback to the homophobia of David Lynch’s Dune (1984). In a riff on the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars, we see a grotesque and rotund alien man try to purchase one of the human heroes as a gay sex slave. This is all needless. Star Wars evoked the seediness of Mos Eisley without resorting to tasteless allusions to gang rape, trafficking, and so on. Meanwhile, lines like “I’ll make you watch as I turn a farm girl into a whore” belong in films with actual opinions about such attitudes and how they drive human cruelty.
This and much of Rebel Moon represent a teenage boy’s idea of adult fiction: a mashup of heroic fantasy tropes and callow miserabilism. What Snyder and his team (including co-screenwriters Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten) fail to grasp about their source materials is that science fantasy stories like Star Wars succeed because of their fun tones and likeable characters. Luke Skywalker was a vulnerable, hopeful protagonist; Darth Vader an exciting and mysterious villain; Princess Leia a spunky heroine; Han Solo a charming rake, etc. Star Wars had humour, joy, and suspense. Where is the joy in Rebel Moon? The mystery, the charm, the sense that this is a galaxy where something wondrous and unexpected will unfold?
While heroic fantasy might provide fertile ground for epic narratives, I’d argue that it simply can’t sustain the suffocating nihilism that Zack Snyder embraces without exceptional character development or other redeeming elements. Heroic fantasy thrives on the existence of, well… heroes. Yet Rebel Moon’s tagline, plastered on the poster, proudly declares: “There are no heroes. Only rebels.” Without aiming for malice, I can’t help but see a 15-year-old raised on sci-fi, yearning to create art, taking familiar tropes and layering them with vaguely understood adult themes like war, oppression, revolution, sexual assault, and existentialism, gleaned from snippets of overheard conversations rather than genuine comprehension. It’s important to note that Zack Snyder is, in fact, 57.
On the upside, his basic storytelling exhibits a touch more elegance and visionary flair than his detractors acknowledge. While watching Part One: A Child of Fire, I repeatedly felt that I might have enjoyed or at least admired it more deeply as a graphic novel. Many shots seem primed for vibrant comic book panels or dramatic splash pages. With their exaggerated movements, the slow-motion fight scenes and kills even evoke those “live-action” comics where panels offer a hint of animation (wind billowing the hero’s cape, for example).
Zack Snyder’s films often remind me of the bombastic, hyper-stylised comics that flooded shelves in the 1990s. Sure, these weren’t the works of legendary storytellers like Alan Moore or Frank Miller at his peak, but they overflowed with outlandish “extreme” concepts. Watching Rebel Moon feels akin to flipping through a Rob Liefeld or Todd McFarlane graphic novel (those names will spark groans from seasoned comic book fans). It’s big and flashy and crammed with grim-dark violence, moody speeches, and nihilism… but signifies little except itself.
USA • HUNGARY • SWEDEN • DENMARK • UK | 2023 | 134 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH
Cast & Crew
director: Zack Snyder.
writers: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad & Shay Hatten (story by Zack Snyder).
starring: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Bae Doona, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunnam & Anthony Hopkins (voice).
Originally published at https://www.framerated.co.uk on December 29, 2023. All copyrighted images come under Fair Use doctrine in US & UK law.
