Zack Snyder might be the most controversial mainstream director working in Hollywood today. His fanbase is an unsavory cult that ruthlessly attacks dissenters. His haters dismiss every aspect of his creativity as toxic garbage. His presence in the DCEU created an impossible schism during which half of the audience was angry at any given time. Snyder is finally moving on and making his franchise with Rebel Moon, but his newfound freedom might be a curse.
Franchise filmmaking is at its worst, and audiences are starting to get sick of it. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was license to print money less than a decade ago, but its ongoing decline mirrors a trend in the industry. Most of the MCU's competitors failed because they didn't have the patience to build an appropriate franchise. Zack Snyder is partially responsible for the DCEU falling apart. Will he make the same mistake again?
The Rebel Moon trailer has a lot going on
The trailer for Rebel Moon is almost a minute longer than the most extended trailer for Dune: Part Two. It's a massive, bizarre mess. An unseen narrator tells half of a story about a princess. Some spaceships invade a planet. A man trains a griffin in a slightly more dynamic version of a scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Characters are introduced before swiftly dying. Three or four wars are going on at any given time. There are a few fight scenes of varying scales. A lady talks to a giant spider woman before firing up a pair of legally distinct lightsabers. It's a maelstrom of colors, faces, and details that offers a slim impression of the film's narrative. Snyder is often celebrated for his striking visuals and denigrated for his storytelling decisions, so this could be an effort to put his best foot forward. Modern movie trailers tend to be less story-driven but are also usually intelligible as narratives.
What happens when Zack Snyder has full creative freedom?
Sucker Punch happens. Zack Snyder has directed ten feature films since his debut in 2004. One is a remake, six are based on comic books, and one is based on a children's book series. That leaves two original films directed and co-written by Zack Snyder. The man prefers to work in adaptation. That's perfectly fine, but it does leave his original work in a strange limbo. When he has source material, fans can discuss his skills as a visual interpreter and his love of certain stories. His take on Watchmenor 300 might not refine or even accurately deliver the narrative, weight, or themes of the original, but he uses his massive budget to give fans live-action recreations of iconic shots. Without that, he's forced to rely on his writing.
Sucker Punch was Snyder's first attempt at a passion project and second screenwriting credit. It's popularly considered his worst film and one of the worst pieces of media to come to the big screen in the 2010s. It underperformed at the box office, barely earning back its production budget with nothing to cover marketing. It holds a scathing 22% positive score from 218 critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Time has not been kind to Sucker Punch, with many contemporary viewers noting its abysmal treatment of women and obscene ending. Some were credulous enough to pretend Snyder had something to say with Sucker Punch, but reading it as a brainless compilation of schoolbook doodles is the more charitable interpretation.
His second attempt, Army of the Dead, fared much better. It was bland, generic, derivative, and ultimately pointless, but that was an improvement. 67% of critics found something to like in Army of the Dead. Even the most positive reviews took time out to criticize the soulless characters and tiresome writing. The most celebrated performer in the piece was stand-up comedian Tig Notaro. Notaro wasn't originally in the film, she was filmed in front of a green screen and digitally inserted to replace a different comedian accused of sexual misconduct. The film was a mixed bag, but it retains some of Snyder's problems as a filmmaker.
Is Rebel Moon already trying to do too much?
The final moments of the Rebel Moon trailer reveal that the film is broken into two parts. The first, subtitled A Child of Fire, will come to Netflix just before this Christmas. Snyder and his co-workers talk non-stop about the franchise potential of this unreleased film. Its plot may be overstuffed, but the real problem is the weight of expectations laid upon it. Rebel Moon was originally a pitch for a Star Wars film. All the pieces of the franchise Zack wanted to play with are still in the trailer. It's technically an original concept, but it's inextricable from its inspirations.
Will Zack Snyder's $166 million Star Wars fan fiction spark enough fervor in audiences to support a cinematic universe? There's no way of knowing until it comes out. Will packing it to the brim with seemingly pointless detail help? Probably not. Snyder continues his unending streak of making creative decisions around whatever he thought was cool in high school. Maybe it'll work out this time. At least his fans will be happy.