Zack Snyder is a man who needs no introduction. Between hits like Watchmen and Man of Steel and busts like Sucker Punch and Netflix’s Rebel Moon, Snyder is equal parts artistic and controversial. True to form, he’s making waves again, but this time in a way that’s a bit… unconventional.
Netflix just did something pretty rad (or so it seems to think). The streamer has made Snyder the first director ever with a profile icon on its platform. So, for all those Snyder fanboys out there, you can browse Netflix with Snyder’s mug as your profile pic, and double down by watching Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire on repeat for the tenth time.
Look, we all know this is a marketing stunt by Netflix to try and cover up the massive blunder it made to give Snyder an absurd amount of money for a film that no one’s going to watch the sequel to. Rebel Moon was far from the ambitious space opera Snyder hyped it up to be. There are times when a film is review-bombed by haters, and unfortunately for Zack, this was not one of those times.
Even I, a fan of Zack’s better works, couldn’t stand the first entry of the Rebel Moon franchise. There’s nothing there that makes me think Snyder has found a story worth telling. The mere fact that it was initially a Star Wars concept makes me want to give it a 0.5 rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Snyder explained the decision to split Rebel Moon into two as a carefully thought-out strategy to focus on world-building and give the characters depth in the first film. The idea behind this is audiences could relate to the struggles our heroes were facing and become emotionally invested in them as they go up against the space colonizers in the sequel.
Unless Snyder gave Netflix the wrong copy of Rebel Moon – Part One, everything he said in that interview was rubbish. Not Kora, Gunnar, or even Djimon Hounsou’s general Titus could get me to care about their plight. It shocks me how Snyder failed to inspire us when he had Bae Doona’s talents at his disposal (those who’ve watched Cloud Atlas will know what I’m talking about).
I digress. The point of my wordy rant is that no matter how much Netflix wants us to think Snyder is iconic (pun intended), he cannot escape the shadow of his latest space dud. I would much rather see Guillermo del Toro, whom Netflix is contractually tied to, get his own profile icon. At least his films don’t make me want to cancel my Netflix subscription.
