Summary

Rebel Moon director's cuts fail to impress critics with 33% rating, audience score rises from 47 to 67.
Zack Snyder's decision to release director's cuts for both parts of Rebel Moon franchise receives mixed reviews.
Despite lukewarm reception, Snyder may have more opportunities at Netflix following Rebel Moon's release.

Rebel Moon hasn’t been the runaway success that its creator or the company that greennlit it were hoping, and the rollout of the director’s cuts, touted as a revelation of the original vision and the complete experience, isn’t doing much to help according to the first few reviews.

Rebel Moon was conceptualized by franchise creator Zack Snyder as a darker, grittier corner of Star Wars’ galaxy far, far away, and while he initially pitched it to LucasFilm as such, the purchase of the company by Disney would bring an end to what was likely already an unlikely collaboration. After shopping the idea around and departing more from the Star Wars IP, Snyder would reteam with Netflix to bring Rebel Moon to life in 2021. Declaring his disinterest in returning to the superhero genre, Snyder would focus fully on the Rebel Moon franchise, an expansive project that he implied would span several projects, genres, mediums, and years of strong worldbuilding and intrigue.

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By Aya Tsintziras

Snyder's Rebel Moon was getting too many spin-offs for an untested franchise even before the release of the first film, but more concerning at the time was the announcement that both parts of the film would be getting director’s cuts. This news became far more pertinent when both installment of the theatrical version failed to impress audiences and critics across the board. Now that all versions have released, the verdict is in at Rotten Tomatoes, where Parts 1 & 2 of the theatrical version of Rebel Moon currently sit at 22% and 17% critic scores respectively. Unfortunately, things aren’t much better now, with both director’s cuts sitting at 33% with critics at time of writing.

There’s a more impressive increase in the audience score, with the two Rebel Moon films going from 47 and 56 for the theatrical releases to 67 and 69, respectively. However, this means little other than Snyder’s hardcore fanbase enjoying a film made specifically for them more than the version they were specifically told was incomplete. It was clear from the time of the original announcement that Zack Snyder's upcoming director's cut might be his most perplexing move yet, but back then, the general idea was that it would at least work out well. Promising nearly two hours of added content across both films and an increase from a PG-13 rating to an R-rating to accommodate for the newly introduced brutal, bloody violence and gore, sexual content, graphic nudity and language, it was implied that this version would have much more narrative value and be Snyder bringing his absolute best. However, now it seems like the move might have been just as perplexing and ill-advised as it sounded from the beginning.

Before Rebel Moon came to fruition, the idea that Zack Snyder was trying to make the director's cut his entire brand sounded a bit like hyperbole, and maybe it was. However, that’s a point any casual observer would have a hard time refuting with the latest addition to the franchise. The idea that a filmmaker with full creative license from a streaming service like Netflix would need a director’s cut of a film was already pretty ludicrous, made even more so when it’s two movies, and it becomes clear that the director’s cut was part of the plan from the very beginning of the project. With the effect that this decision had on the limited theatrical premiere of the franchise and subsequent interest in the release version when it debuted on Netflix, it has become the case that Snyder sacrificed returns on investment for Netflix to galvanize his own reputation and looks set to fail at that.

Unfortunately for his detractors, it seems the reward for Snyder’s catastrophic failure to deliver on Rebel Moon will be more opportunity, as the embattled filmmaker might be attached to an exciting upcoming project in addition to the plethora of other opportunities still open to him at Netflix. Whether or not any of his upcoming work will be able to redeem him in the eyes of the viewing audience or if it will dig his public image as a filmmaker into a deeper hole remains to be seen.