After the abysmal reception to the first part of the Netflix sci-fi epic, Zack Snyder’s release plan for the director’s cuts of Rebel Moon is a surprisingly promising sign. Split into two separate volumes, Rebel Moon is essentially Seven Samurai in space. The film’s fictional universe draws influence from Dune, Star Wars, Warhammer, and just about every other sci-fi and fantasy franchise out there. The story of Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire sees a group of mercenaries banding together to protect a small farming community from the imperial forces threatening them.
The initial release of Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire was a PG-13 cut, but Snyder always planned to release an R-rated director’s cut as a supplementary material. It was strange that Snyder didn’t drop the director’s cut of Rebel Moon’s first volume on the same day as the PG-13 version, since the whole novelty of releasing two versions is to give the audience a chance to compare and contrast. But it’s been almost three months since Rebel Moon was released and the director’s cut still hasn’t appeared on Netflix.
Rebel Moon Just Proved How Big Another Netflix Release Truly Was
Rebel Moon has been a big success for Netflix, but its place in the streaming charts highlights just how much more successful another movie was.
Rebel Moon Part 1 & 2’s Directors Cut Will Probably Release On The Same Day
Since a director’s cut had been announced to be made simultaneously with the PG-13 version, it was odd that Netflix didn’t release the director’s cut of A Child of Fire alongside the sanitized cut. The first movie had a lot of pacing problems, as its many negative reviews pointed out, so releasing the better-paced version as quickly as possible would be a good way to combat that negativity. If the R-rated version is better – and it sounds like it’s at least more coherent – then releasing it alongside the PG-13 version would’ve allowed a few more positive reviews to roll in.
Fortunately, it sounds like Snyder has a more promising plan for the release of Rebel Moon’s director’s cuts that might actually be better than having released both versions of A Child of Fire at the same time. While there’s no official release date for the director’s cuts of the Rebel Moon films, Snyder teased they’ll be released on the same day. Snyder said that the director’s cuts are each about an hour longer than their PG-13-rated counterparts, and promises it’ll be interesting for audiences to watch the entire six hours of R-rated Rebel Moon content back-to-back.
Why Releasing Rebel Moon’s Director Cuts On The Same Day Is The Right Call
The whole reason for releasing R-rated director’s cuts of the Rebel Moon films in the first place is to offer audiences the novelty of watching the same movies a second time with much more blood, gore, and adult content. By the time the director’s cuts are released, both parts of Rebel Moon will have been released in their PG-13 form, so audiences will know where the story is going. There’s no point in replicating the release strategy of the PG-13 versions, because there won’t be any narrative surprises to conceal.
There’s nothing to be gained from maintaining A Child of Fire’s cliffhanger in the release of the R-rated versions of the duology. The resolution of that cliffhanger will have already been revealed in the PG-13 version of The Scargiver – not to mention the fact that it was already a pretty weak and uninteresting cliffhanger to begin with. Dropping both R-rated Rebel Moon movies on the same day will give audiences the chance to binge-watch them, a model that has worked successfully for Netflix’s past releases.
Netflix Shouldn’t Take Too Long To Release Rebel Moon’s Director Cuts
Netflix shouldn’t hold onto the Rebel Moon director’s cuts for too long. The R-rated versions should drop shortly after Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver. A lot of the discourse around Rebel Moon has been negative, pointing to the one-dimensional character development, recycled plot points, and ugly, oversaturated visuals. That discourse won’t get any more positive unless Netflix gives audiences a radically different version of Rebel Moon that suits Snyder’s ultimate vision. Rebel Moon’s goal is to launch a cinematic universe, but that won’t happen if audiences have no interest in exploring this world any further.
The director’s cut of Justice League – dubbed Zack Snyder’s Justice League – was much more well-received than the theatrical cut by both audiences and critics. Rebel Moon is a slightly different situation in that the original cuts were made under Snyder’s creative control, unlike the theatrical cut of Justice League, but the R-rated versions are likely to meet a warmer reception than the butchered, sanitized PG-13 versions. Netflix shouldn’t waste any time getting those R-rated versions down the pipeline and onto their streaming library in a last-ditch effort to pique audiences’ interest in this franchise.
Rebel Moon
From director Zack Snyder comes Rebel Moon, a sci-fi action movie set in the depths of space and following a colony that is facing the threat of Regent Balisarius. Sofia Boutella plays a warrior charged with recruiting others in the fight against the tyrant, and his unstoppable forces that are dead set on conquest.
- Director
- Zack Snyder
- Distributor(s)
- Netflix
- Cast
- Djimon Hounsou , Sofia Boutella , Charlotte Maggi , Ray Fisher , Jena Malone , E. Duffy , Staz Nair , Doona Bae , Sky Yang , Charlie Hunnam , Cleopatra Coleman
