Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon was certainly an interesting film. Hyped up to be the adult version of Star Wars, there were a ton of buzz when the project was announced. Snyder was in the good graces of fans following his Snyder Cut, which got a better reception than the Justice League film that was released in theaters. Then Rebel Moon was finally released. The critical feedback to the film was extremely poor.
The general consensus surrounding the project was it was a bland and unoriginal Star Wars imitation. Rebel Moon currently supports a low 21% on rotten tomatoes. Now fans are a different beast. Sometimes fans and critics don’t see eye-to-eye, but in this case, the opinions of critics similarly aligned with audiences as the fan score on the review website isn’t that much better. When questioned about the feedback to Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder had a typical response:
“I don’t really have a rebuttal to the reviews. For whatever reason, the reaction to my movies is very polarising, and it always has been,” Snyder admitted. “The movie, it doesn’t seem like there’s that much in it that would warrant such visceral responses.”
On one hand, Snyder wisely didn’t attack the fans and critics for their view on Rebel Moon. On the other, he doesn’t seem to hold any value to anyone else’s opinion on the film. Snyder has had a polarizing film since 300 set him as a high profile filmmaker. However, Snyder ignoring the feedback to his films could come back and haunt him down the line.
Zack Snyder Doesn’t Have To Blindly Listen To Every Critic
Here’s the thing, I don’t think filmmakers should blindly listen to every criticism that they receive. Not everyone LOVES one film. The Terminator, Toy Story, Singin’ in the Rain all have perfect 100% score on rotten tomatoes from critics, but the audience score is not 100%. A singular movie isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and it would be foolish for an artist to take every single criticism to note. Everyone has difference ideas and concepts that they think said movie should be that taking advice from random strangers isn’t going to help in the long run.
That doesn’t mean criticism isn’t valuable. There’s no denying that Zack Snyder is a talented filmmaker, but there’s also a reason why people think his films are more style over substance. Having that distinct visual flare works for a movie like 300 or Army of the Dead because those aren’t films that are meant to be complex and thought-provoking. Though you can go deeper into the themes that each film touches on, those are best at being an action filler that doesn’t overcomplicate things. Rebel Moon, on the other hand, is more than just about the action.
The Importance of Making Style and Substance Work
Going over to Star Wars, the original George Lucas films were far from perfect, but there’s notable themes throughout the series that have resonated with the masses. If Snyder really wants to introduce this complicated world then he has to understand how to properly showcase it’s strengths in it’s story. It feels that Rebel Moon is going through the motions, blandly traveling from planet to planet without much conflict standing in the way.
Rebel Moon is a gorgeous film. In fact, it would be an eye popping beauty in IMAX. However, Rebel Moon is not the film where style comes over substance. Movies in general should be simply enough for the audience to understand, but complex to the point where it challenges someone perception of the world. As previously mentioned, certainly films can lack in one arena. The most notable genre that does is action and horror; the sell is the incredible action choreography and kills, so a deeply layer story isn’t necessary.
Zack Snyder needs to start figuring out how to make moments between the action set pieces more exciting. That was actually a big criticism of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The action was exciting, but the drama was boring. Making the themes and story engaging helps the sell the action better. The drama and tension that often comes from the action is our connection to the characters and story. If we don’t care about either then it’s hard to get into the action because there are no stakes in the mind of the audience.
The Financial Aspect
Criticism is an amazing tool because it helps you understand how others see the world under your vision. Snyder has a huge selection of fans, but ignoring the critics can turn him into box office poison. Just look at Marvel and Disney. The lack of quality content has severely damaged the brand. For some strange reasons, the studio decided to add blatant politics into their content. That garnered backlash amongst the fanbase and the box office returns have not gone well for the brand. But it just isn’t Disney.
The Transformers franchise has been unable to recover after Michael Bay’s string of terrible films. Star Wars itself is in danger due to the failure of Solo and their overabundance of mediocre Disney Plus content. The point is, fans will be stop supporting Snyder if the same amount of complains continue. Snyder just needs to hone his craft better where the style and substance are on equal footing.
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