Highlights
- Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon faces disappointing ratings, prompting bold move to release R-rated director’s cuts with explicit content.
- Both parts of the Rebel Moon series will be given the director’s cut treatment, featuring graphic violence and nudity for a darker experience.
- Despite initial backlash, Snyder aims to revamp the franchise with extended cuts, setting a new release date for the summer of 2024.
While Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon has been embattled since its debut, the creative’s signature move is about to be invoked on the sci-fi newcomer, and this might be the most radical application of this creative choice yet.
Rebel Moon is the latest project by popular filmmaker and former DCEU mastermind Zack Snyder, with Snyder teaming with Netflix for the Star Wars-inspired project that he initially pitched to LucasFilm before its Disney acquisition and subsequent revitalization of the franchise. Envisioned as a darker, grittier story set in the galaxy far, far away, Rebel Moon would find confidence at Netflix, setting an initial release that would eventually be announced as two films, Rebel Moon-Part One: A Child of Fire & Part Two: The Scargiver.
Despite the hype, both films were released to disappointing ratings among both fans and critics, with the general consensus being that Zack Snyder’s signature style works against him on Rebel Moon. However, the director announced that both parts would be getting his now-infamous director’s cut treatment to give fans the definitive Rebel Moon experience, and recent developments seem to suggest that this might be his boldest move yet. As seen on Film Ratings, the extended cut for Rebel Moon-Part One: A Child of Fire has seen quite a few changes already, picking up the new title Rebel Moon – Chapter One: Chalice Of Blood and an R rating due to “brutal, bloody violence and gore, sexual content, graphic nudity and language.” This change will likely also be seen in the second installment as well, marking a massive departure from the original PG-13 rating of the first releases.
While it was made known that Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon director’s cuts won’t just be deleted scenes due to Netflix okaying them from the get-go, this new rating and even the more graphic title switch seem to indicate that Snyder’s upcoming extended cuts will be his most ambitious move as a director to date. Taking the PG-13 films and making them both R-rated while also adding a reported hour or more to the runtime of each seems like a surefire way to change the nature of the fan experience entirely. However, there’s no ignoring the elephant in the room that is the terrible reception to the original releases, with criticism touching pretty much every part of the projects. Taking this issue into consideration, it might be the case that the purported changes and additions might not be enough to change the fate of the franchise. Snyder would have to craft a fundamentally different story that casts the performances and plotlines already seen in a whole new light, and that’s a demonstrably herculean task.
In the end, the idea that Snyder’s Rebel Moon looks like too much and not enough at the same time has been widely agreed on since before the first film was released, with that coming to fruition in the massive scope of the project undercut by a lack of substance that appeals to viewers. Fans can really only wait to see just how much more Snyder’s vision has to give and what this new release will do for a franchise that’s gotten off to such a rough start while simultaneously promising much, much more to come.
The Rebel Moon franchise is currently available to stream on Netflix, while the extended cuts are tentatively set for release in the summer of 2024.
Source: Film Ratings
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