Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire

I think Zack Snyder didn't really do much research into this one. Maybe it's because it's a Netflix thing, I am not sure. There's so much borrowing from several other popular movies that I just wasn't invested in the story because it was all tooo basic and predictable.

You had the Thanos and Gamora moment in there, you are the Starwars Resistance vs The First Order moment in there. You had the Darthvader type figure in there. You had the Kylo Ren character in there. And the worlds looked like something from a Starwars episode.

Also the whole story was just weak, too weak for a director like Zack. I mean we've seen it done so many times from Lord of the Rings, to Game of Thrones, to even The Avengers. You are threatened by a bigger force, so you go around recruiting people to help you fight this force. That's basically it. There wasn't any rich subplot like we see in eg. Dune. Just very basic.

Does it warrant a part 2, I strongly don't think it did. It's lazy writing and directing and shouldn't be encouraged.

All in all, it's an ok movie. It's not bad like some reviews are saying. The effects are spot on, I loved the cinematography. The only drawbacks for me were the weak storyline, the awful fight sequence, the casting could have been better and the all too familiar scenes.

Like many others I was hoping for something good and a bit different and felt a bit let down. I found it lost itself in connection, there just seemed to be something missing however I now know what was missing and what was missing was literally half the movie. I decided to watch the directors cut out of curiosity as I felt it may have added what I felt was missing and wow just like magic it all seemed so much better and made a lot more sense almost like it was an entirely different movie with some character and story background. I think the short version was an attempt at trying to cater to a commercial audience but in reality the long version should have just been the original. Much better 7-6 stars for the editors cut but only 4-4 for the original. Although it's much better, still lacking something.

A test of the degree of imagination shown in a sci-fi film is whether it could equally have been done as a cowboy movie. "Rebel Moon Pt. 1" could have, and the movie would have been "The Magnificent Seven" (1960, 2016, 1998-2000 as a TV series, or indeed "Seven Samurai" of 1954), because the plot is err.... identical. And I expect the plot of the second half will be identical too. So if you have ever seen any of those and a spaceship taking off, you don't need to see this movie (OK, some of the spaceship imagery is very good). But I have to wonder whether anyone was actually paid for "writing" the script :-)

It is all over the place. No character connection. Vulgar scenes to force emotions. Weird cheap cocktail of Star Wars and Dune. Felt like fan-made university project with a multi-million budget that was only spend on slow motion CGI scenes. I doubt that the extended edition will have more movie magic since this one already fails in every sense.

Not even the world-building or the design felt worth watching since it felt like the characters were in costumes rather than authentic dresses. No scene composition gave the feeling of a profound world with deep history.

Too many unoriginal ideas that were thrown together with the hope of "Let's hope it will be the next movie success".

I wouldn't say that the actors were weak, rather the error or lack of writers in the writing process of the movie show how important dialogue, character building arcs and real emotional value are in movies rather than gross tasteless blood baths, torture, explosions and one-dimensional characters.

Watching this film, it felt like it was created by committee and written for an audience that the director thinks is not particularly clever.

There were so many elements in this that seemed like they had been added because someone thought "hey wouldn't it be cool if there was a... *cool flying bird you can ride* or *a bar scene that looks like the one in Star Wars*

The script also needed some work. The parts of the story were just thrown in as backstory or someone explaining the bleeding obvious. A little more respect shown for the audience would have allowed us to know some of that through watching, understanding or less didactic dialogue.

On the plus side, it looks great. Visually there is always great depth and detail. I enjoyed it enough to want to see the next one, although I suspect my guesses about major plot developments will be correct.