Released at the end of 2023, Zack Snyder’s would-be sci-fi epic Rebel Moon: Part One turned out to be such a non-event that I half-expected Netflix to quietly scuttle the sequel without making a fuss or drawing attention to it. Honestly, would anyone have even noticed if it simply never showed up when originally announced? I tend to doubt it. Nevertheless, I suppose the streamer had too much money invested in the thing to dump it outright. That being the case, Rebel Moon: Part Two arrives on schedule four months later to finish the story nobody cared about.
At the time of its release, Netflix claimed huge viewership numbers for Part One. Of course, Netflix claims that for everything, and without outside validation, its boasts are difficult to trust. (How many original series has Netflix canceled after just one season despite allegedly shattering streaming records?) What can’t be denied is that the first Rebel Moon scored some of the worst reviews of Snyder’s career, and Part Two is faring even worse in that respect so far. Even the director’s faithful fans seem to lack much enthusiasm for this one.
| Title: | Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver |
| Year of Release: | 2024 |
| Director: | Zack Snyder |
| Watched On: | Netflix |
I didn’t care much for Rebel Moon: Part One, but I didn’t loathe it, either. As dumb and derivative as the movie was, I didn’t find it unwatchable. I suspect that most of the vitriolic reviews were a case of critics piling-on against a director they felt had it coming. I think that’s probably the case here as well.
In some ways, Rebel Moon: Part Two is a slight improvement over Part One. In others, it’s slightly worse. Mostly, it’s just more of the same. If you felt really invested in seeing how this story ends, well, here you go. On the other hand, if you found the first part borderline insufferable, don’t expect anything in this one to change your mind.
Intended as the climax of the story set up in the first part, the plot of Part Two is quite simple and straightforward. Despite being killed in the last outing, evil Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein) is immediately resurrected through science magic and is hell-bent on revenge. Badass warrior Kora (Sofia Boutella) and her small band of rebels return to the farming moon of Veldt and have only five days to train the villagers how to fight and prepare them to defend their home. Once they do so, the movie ends with a very prolonged and very loud battle between farmers and Space Nazis.
In other words, Snyder plays out the rest of his Seven Samurai narrative exactly as he set it up to without much of any deviation from the plan and little to no surprises.
For my money, the most amusing thing about Rebel Moon: Part Two is the description on the Netflix menu page that credits: “Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins as the voice of Jimmy.” Yes, the two-time Oscar winner returns to provide some additional voiceover narration and do the voice of a completely extraneous robot character (named Jimmy!) who contributes virtually nothing to the story.
Both Rebel Moon movies have a lot of narrative dead-ends like that. The second half in particular has a long section in which plot momentum stalls so that backstories can be awkwardly doled out for each of the main characters in a way that suggests Snyder probably filmed enough extra footage to make a whole season of TV episodes before condensing it all into two movies. In support of this, the IMDb cast page lists several actors (including Ray Fisher and Jena Malone) who were in Part One but don’t appear in the sequel at all.
Snyder has already threatened to deliver extra-long and extra-violent Director’s Cuts for both Rebel Moon movies. Should those materialize, perhaps those scenes will show up there to flesh out his original ambitions. He’s also been talking up making more sequels, as if this is Snyder’s personal Avatar and the project he intends to devote the rest of his life to. Personally, I don’t think I have the patience for any of that. This is about as much Rebel Moon as I can take.
Video Streaming
Netflix streams Rebel Moon: Part Two in 4K HDR. The movie looks much like Part One did, though Zack Snyder filmed far less of this one with the weird affection of shooting half the frame deliberately out of focus. The CGI quality is also generally better. However, the 2.40:1 image still often looks a little softened to blend with the visual effects. Despite this, the picture is at least reasonably sharp, and has pretty nice HDR highlights in things like laser blasts and explosions (of which the movie is filled with plenty).
Unlike Part One, the sequel has no subtitled alien dialogue poking into the lower letterbox bar to cause issues for Constant Image Height projection viewers.
The Dolby Atmos soundtrack has decent bass and lots of it, but I wouldn’t say it extends to the deepest registers. Sound effects are good and strong. Gunfire and laser cannons and whatnot sound great during the action scenes, but musical fidelity is once again dull and the movie has next to nothing of interest going on between the action. The Atmos format is largely wasted, as the battles themselves mostly devolve into a mass of noise with no clear distinction of where individual sounds are coming from.
The Video File Blog 
I can’t even bring myself to get mildly interested in any of the new _actual_ Star Wars content, much less this apparent knock-off.
I for one am glad to have you around to suffer through watching this stuff for me.
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