We Agree: Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire

2023, Zack Snyder (Sucker Punch) -- Netflix

Full disclosure, and my usual disclaimer -- I am the guy who enjoyed Sucker Punch. Kent, not so much. It was one of the earlier posts in this blog, where we did "the back n forth thing".

That element may be where this other (me), often a contrasting voice, comes from.

Really? To quote me, "Shaddup you." (Me)

Anywayz, like in the movie mentioned above, I also said out loud to people, that I would probably love this movie. I was wrong. I did not love it. I did, however, enjoy myself.

"I don't hate Zack Snyder. He seems like a nice guy. He's got a great eye for composition. But he's an awful storyteller..."

Thus spake Kent. We Agree.

This is a great looking movie, so full of inspiring, emotive, beautiful scenes and set pieces. We Disagree on the idea that Snyder "lacks any ability to inspire awe and wonder...", because I love his imagery and if I was 20sumthin again, I would be inspired to steal so many of his images for my RPGs. Much like he has stolen so many of his images from other sources. No, not stolen. Nothing is directly lifted but almost everything looks familiar, built from the palettes of a thousand other genre properties. The problem is that the only thing there is those images. Standing alone, they are wonderful. The image of Kora plowing a sandy field under the reflected light of a massive ringed planet, of which world Veldt is just a moon of is staggeringly beautiful. And so much of the movie draws on scenes like that. But with little long lasting effect, as the story falls flat. And it doesn't deserve to fall flat, as it draws upon one of the most basic heroic storylines available -- the plot of The Seven Samurai. 

rewatching

I love the opening. The fantasy village, the tradition of fucking to inspire the harvest, the long house. I used to be annoyed to no end by the mixing of fantasy elements & scifi elements, but I have tempered with age, like fine chocolate. I love this setting. 

And then the Space Nazis arrive. What else can we call them? There are hints of Dune, there are hints of Warhammer 40K as well as a dozen other standard Space Nazi elements. What I am not sure of is whether this is just one dreadnaught in a fleet of such, one such mega-dick Space Nazi in a fleet of such, and one grain laden village on a moon full of them. For a galaxy conquering empire, there seems to be a lack of ... everyone. In my initial watch, I had assumed there was a full fleet of warships of which this was but one, doing its thing, investigating rumours of the rebels out there on the fringes. Now, not so sure.

But at least this opening answers the questions that emerged in my first viewing, as things progressed. She (she? are you even going to explain who the "she" is?) is forced to kills a bunch of Space Goons, and thus is inpired to Fight Back. But to go against an army, they will need an army. So, she is going out there to find a disgraced General and his men, as well as find the Rebels, to ask them to help here. This is not yet The Seven Samurai; this is just a story, like so many others, about raising an army to fight against The Bad Guys. I am on board.

Of note, these "answered questions" are downed out by even greater questions left unanswered.

Also, I love Space Robot Anthony Hopkins.

Some people commented on the lack of stereotypical Snyder slowmo. Nope. Nuh uh. Its there is pretty much the entirety of the fight scene, including the now commonly used "punch someone down so hard, they kick themselves in the back of the head" scene. And also, there is slowmo that... slows down. Pretty hardcore slowmo if you ask me. And it continues, continually, throughout the entire movie.

So, yeah who are the main characters? We have aforementioned Kora (Sofia Boutella, The Mummy), a refugee on the grain laden moon of Veldt. The village is led by Vikings meets Peaky Blinders Sindri (Corey Stall, Ant-Man), who gets killed by the Space Nazis almost immediately. He was at odds with grain SME Gunnar (Michiel Huisman, Treme) who should have kept his big mouth shut, and so now has to accompany Kora off planet to find help. Of note, there is enough initial exposition to understand that Kora crashed on the planet under mysterious circumstances, and has been quietly making it her home. But on the way to the port city, she exposits in grand detail to Gunnar (again, under the lovely light of the ringed planet) how she was this movie's version of Gamora, adopted by Head Space Nazi General Balisarius (Fra Free, Hawkeye) when he killed everyone on her planet (not just half). She was raised to be a Space Nazi herself until she had just had enough...

OK, so where was I. Oh yeah, .... Raising An Army ends up being about wandering around the galaxy collecting weirdos. Again, I was on board with finding the General (and his army) and finding the rebels (and their army) and bringing them back to Veldt to fight the Space Nazi with the Bad Haircut (ohhh so bad; and, and their army), Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein, Deadpool), but this whole shoe-horning of The Magnificent Seven into the story? Ehhhhnnn?

But before we get there, we go to Mos Eisley and its army cantina. Sorry, the space port city of Providence where they meet the smuggler Kai (Charlie Hunnam, Pacific Rim)... in the cantina. To be fair, I loved the look of the city... cyberpunk/space opera meets Japanese period action flick. And Kai, despite him doing a bad (apparently, intentionally bad) Northern Ireland accent (why not just have him do his natural Geordie?), is a pretty cool, albeit cookie-cutter, character. At least they didn't have him wear a black vest and have a furry co-pilot. But the bar is filled with the requisite amount of weird looking aliens and human thugs, including the one that Obi has to cut his arm off... sorry, and get roughed up by horny alien who wants to bump uglies with Gunnar. And we mean ugly. When he's rebuffed, he comes back with friends and we get an Old West Shoot Em Up, all in PG13 slowmo. Kai is there to save the day and off they are in his garbage scow of a spaceship. I think it can do the Kessel Run in 13 Parsecs.

BUT before we go to get the General, we have to make our first weirdo pitstop. Why? Even in second viewing, I don't know and don't care (I mean, we end up knowing why KAI did so but....), but sure, we have to stop on some planet to pickup Conan the Barbarian (Staz Nair, Supergirl), but not before he has to break a griffon to gain his freedom. The entire segment is minorly cool looking, but entirely extraneous. It doesn't even establish that Conan the Barbarian could be helpful in a fight against Space Nazis. Unless said Space Nazis happen to be riding griffons? Whatever, let's move on, we have more weirdos to get to.

Next up, Nemesis (Doona Bae, Sense8) who is ... what? Whatever she is doing on the horrible mining planet, we just get a brief introduction with her killing a spider-lady (Jena Malone, Sucker Punch), who kidnapped a child, with her laser-swords, that she only makes laser-swords at the very end, for a bit of flourish. Maybe she was hoping spider-lady would surrender? No matter, they don't have to ask her twice to join their little rebellion, so she and her hat and her laser-swords pile on with the rag tag band. She also cautions Kora against doing things solely for revenge.

Exposition Drop! Kora explains to Gunnar the story behind the king's daughter, a beautiful, blonde princess with super powers, and possibly the redemption that the King of the Space Nazis need. It was her that inspired Kora to become ... better. LOTS of foreshadowing in this scene.

Next, we arrive at the Planet of TV's Spartacus, where Snyder gets to resurrect some of his colour palette from 300. This is where General Titus (Djimon Hounsou, Shazam!) was "hiding" -- in a gladiatorial ring. He's drunk, and stinky, and despondent, but Kora inspires him to fight along side her wild bunch with tales of REVENGE ! Uh, Kora, didn't you hear what Nemesis just said? Also, General Titus is alone. No army. All his men are dead. So.... why seek out a lone washed up soldier again? Oh yeah, trope magic.

NEXT ! The planet where the Blood Axes (the rebels NOT of the moon) are laying low, or at least seeking some post grain laden Veldt respite? Their king who has a planet that hasn't yet pissed off the Space Nazis despite being all about honour and charity, has given refuge to the brother & sister team of rebel leaders. With a rather quick and not entirely inspirational speech, Kora convinces Brother Blood Axe to join them. Oh, also guilt -- if he hasn't bought grain from Gunnar, then the Space Nazis would never have come a knocking. Really? I am pretty sure Space Nazis wander around taken grain from wherever they wish. Anywayz, sure Kora, Brother Blood Axe is on board with his army dozen or so soldiers?!?!?! I thought they were seeking these guys out to get an ARMY ! 

MEANWHILE, the Space Nazis have come calling to the planet whose king has now pissed them off. Not sure why he didn't expect retribution. Maybe the ego of 10,000 years of honour & charity? Either way, the rebels are gone, so all that's left is to punish them for harbouring the enemy. Entire planetary annihilation is not going overboard is it? Nahhhh... 

Now, before they go back to Veldt to get their collective asses kicked, Kai wants to make a pitstop on an "unregistered trade depot" so he can offload some cargo before he dumps the smuggler life to become an Honourable Rebel. He does a meet-cute speech with Kora about how she's inspired him to give up his smuggler ways and... <rolls eyes> she is kind of convinced. She's a real bad judge of character. You would have thought the first time they see Space Orcs (didn't mention these guys before, but their look is literally the Uruk-Hai makeup from LotR movies) she would have caught wind that something was going on, but nope, not until the Big Grey Boxes turn into walking pillories does she catch on. Kai's been selling them out all along, and the big bunch of weirdos was all part of his "make more money selling rebels" plan. At least now all that makes sense in-world. I guess the rebels gathering the rag tag bunch was just the reinforcement of Good Guys Are Stupid? No matter, Space Nazis !

I have watched this movie both times with the Netflix subtitles on it does call the spaceship that Noble arrives on the "King's Gaze" but there is no way this is the "King's Gaze". In fact, an earlier scene has Noble asking them to ready the "hyperlaunch" so he can go ahead and meetup with someone; the "King's Gaze" will meetup later, after it razes the planet of honour & charity. You would think Netflix would know its own internal plot logic.

Anywayz, Gunnar steps up and releases Kora as Noble is gloating, giving us a big ol shoot em up between Space Nazis, our buncha weirdos and the surviving count-on-one-hand Actual Rebels. Brother Blood Axe sacrifices himself to take out the Totally Not the King's Gaze big spaceship (I am not quite sure how causing someone to lean on the gun turret joystick causes the big spaceship to crash but....) and dumping Noble and Kora onto some sort of floaty platform so they can duke it out. Kora kicks his ass, breaks his bone-stick and everyone (well, everyone left)  flies back to Veldt.

Kora has explained that the King's Gaze and all its soldiers will run back to the homeworld with their tails between their legs because an Admiral was killed. She seems to be thinking this removes the need for them to fight over grain. Yeah, sure, whatever. We have a whole other movie to do, and a Seven Samurai battle where almost everyone has to die. And we have a bunch of questions to answer.

Who killed the King who seemed to becoming Not a Space Fuhrer as inspired by his beautiful blonde magic daughter?

What is up with Space Robot Jimmy left behind on Veldt and now wearing a crown of horns?

What was Kora's role in the death of the King?

If you read above, you may say I didn't come off as enjoying the movie, but to be honest, its just as much fun to pick apart as it is to watch the movie. You can do that with the Star Wars movies as well, but we all just watch them for the fun. Oh, I am not comparing, despite this being Snyder's two-finger-salute to the creators of Star Wars. I just am still able to enjoy this movie for what it is, and not what it could have been.