Welp, Saturday's here. Time to get drunk and watch Zach Snyder's Rebel Moon, I suppose
Disclaimer:
Rebel Moon is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to an actual Star War, living or dead, is purely coincidental
It wasn't the worst movie I have ever seen, but I was constantly distracted by how derivative everything about it was. I was laughing at parts that were meant to be serious because it was just so ridiculous.
What I said when the movie ended was: "it's not exactly bad".
Instead, it's something else. It's not good either. But the one thing I know for sure is that it has enough time to add another half-a-dozen cliché short-stories that don't add anything to the main line. It could have pulled 2 or 3 good one from Matrix.
You make it sound the movie was created entirely, from start to finish, with some form of AI.
I thought Jupiter Ascending was kinda half decent, though super uneven and sometimes distractingly bonkers. I thought Valerian had its moments and different casting could have made it into something. I even liked "65" once I realized it was just a small-scale rumination on fatherhood and loss, an acting exercise that happened to have dinosaurs and a light glaze of bad sci-fi.
I made it through 45 minutes of Rebel Moon.
Oh I've seen it, I actually like quite a number of bad movies. They have a certain charm about them.
This? There's a total of 4 hours that we weren't given - for part one. Characters are setup as a focus then literally never seem again. The overaggressive use of slowmo in all but one fight scene, the complete inconsistency of anything at all whatsoever, from the use of slowmo, camera angles, costuming, accents, weapons & sfx, aliens, character motivations, literally everything. It's all meaningless and it just exists solely because it can. I'm generally supportive of do what you can when you can and why not, it's fun. This was... Not fun.
The only merits this movie has are a couple of decent monologues that posit some philosophy. It is completely devoid of meaning and intent, gives no original takes from its "inspiration" down to straight up stealing scenes from SW and Seven Samurai. And then the movie just sort of ends after the most predictable event and the heroes literally rode off into the sunset.
Some movies are bad, be it on purpose or just as a consequence. Many times these bad movies can still have some merit, be it a certain charm or aspect that makes it particularly humorous.
What makes this movie so, so awful is the fact that it's not trying to be bad. It's fully ernest in how it presents itself as a science fiction film. Z.S. had full control and still couldn't make cohesive narrative in 2.5 hours and we have a 4 hour version on the way. For part one!!! For fucks sake!
I have never felt such disdain for something. I finished it because I was watching it with a friend. At a certain point I just needed to confirm it legitimately was that bad.
There are many, many terrible movies that are far, far better than Rebel Moon. Made by people far less prolific than someone like Z.S.
FWIW - I liked the Z.S. J.L. because it's self indulgent for a reason. This?
Eh I like campy scifi space opera movies and it delivered. We don't get that many.
It was way too superhero for me, but I didn't realize it was a Snyder movie until I looked it up.
I typed out a huge rant in response to this, absolutely hating that series for reasons I can't get started on without spiraling into an unhinged rant again, and decided that was way too negative a response for some casual excitement about an upcoming series.
All I'll say instead is I hope the show is better about staying on theme than the novels were.
And, hey, best case scenario?
We finally get a good Definitely-Not-Space-Marines show.
In all fairness I just started the 3rd book and I’m unsure of where they’re going with it right now… but the first two were great reads. The whole class color system is a bit weird at times I have to admit but it’s still great entertainment. I’d also be interested to read your opinion more than a rant about it if you feel like it.
The problem in that case is I absolutely can't talk about the problems with it without spoiling the ending and quite a lot of the drama from the third book, but I will say I enjoyed the series quite a lot, teen drama and all, until #3.
I'll also say if you loved the combat in the second book you'll love some 40k Space Marine novels because it was basically just a typical Astartes drop pod assault, including the MC melting a guy's face with definitely-not-a-Betcher-Gland.