If Zack Snyder’s new Netflix sci-fi movie epic, Rebel Moon, looks and feels a lot like a Star Wars film, that’s because it was originally pitched as one.
From its humble villagers in a far-flung galaxy battling planet-destroying imperial overlords, to its superheated swords, and even its title, the similarities with George Lucas’s creation are inescapable.
When Snyder’s pitch to Lucasfilm a decade or so ago didn’t work out, the director went ahead and created his own sprawling, mythology-packed universe instead – something that he now sees as a huge blessing.
“When it turned out that wasn’t gonna work out, my wife and producing partner Deborah said to me, ‘This is the best news that you possibly could have gotten,’” Snyder recalls.
“The double-edged sword of IP is that, on one hand, it’s familiar, everybody knows what it is,” Snyder jokes. “On the other hand, it’s familiar, everybody knows what it is.”
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire will be released on Netflix on December 22, with a second movie out in April.
It follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger who crashes her spaceship in the furthest reaches of the universe, and finds herself defending the peaceful villagers who took her in from the tyrannical Imperium.
She and naive farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) assemble a team of fighters, from diehard insurgents to a cocky mercenary (Charlie Hunnam) who owns a speedy spaceship and values his own safety and fortune over the fate of the rebellion.
If some of those characters sound familiar, cast members insist that they are far, far away from a certain well-known galaxy.
“I don’t think anyone said the words Star and Wars on set,” says Ed Skrein, who plays the villainous Admiral Atticus Noble. “We never mentioned it.”
Snyder devised detailed backstories for every character, planet and even the spaceships’ machinery.
The filmmakers created three unique languages for their universe’s various cultures and creeds.
My dream for it on one hand is to follow the story all the way
“It was pretty clear to us from the beginning that Zack had this whole world and this universe that he wanted to create, that he’d been working on for decades,” Huisman says.
“This is a new original. This is Zack’s new world.”
One early scene takes place in a vividly imagined brothel.
Those themes will be even more prominent in a “director’s cut” to be released next summer.
“Right now in the current version, it’s more as a texture of danger, or an element of the exotic,” says Snyder.
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“In the director’s cut version, those are very front and centre. Really, that’s what it’s about.”
Netflix has already announced a companion video game, and a graphic novel and an animated film are also in the works.
Snyder’s hope is that the franchise can take on a sprawling life of its own, just as Lucas’ once did.
“My dream for it on one hand is to follow the story all the way. That’s the main thing that drives me,” he says.
“I feel like there’s a whole universe of comic books that I’d like to create for this world.
“My hope is that it’s an inexhaustible thing.”