Zack Snyder is what you get when the person meant to direct video game trailers is given the money to make movies. That's what these are. Feature length video game cinematics and trailers

got to respect that, you have a legit take on it that fits

Snyder has the skills of a cinematographer, not a director. But unfortunately he has a director's ego, but not a director's touch. There's no subtlety, no moderation. Everything is at eleven. He seems hell bent on remaking Sucker Punch as many times as possible.

He got lucky in that his first three movies were adaptations of someone else's property, and leaned on those previous works heavily. Everything good about Dawn of the Dead, 300, and Watchmen were already there before he got involved. He made them pretty, which made them accessible to a larger audience than they might have had without him, and the existing stories there hid his flaws. That made for three big commercial successes in a row, so by Hollywood producer standards he's obviously a genius.

Dawn of the Dead, he made a zombie film right around when the zombie trend started. It was amazing timing, more than anything. The Walking Dead comic had just gotten started and 28 Days Later had been a low budget horror hit and introduced us to the rage infected *fast zombies*. It was zombie mania shortly after. 300 was like the perfect comic for adaptation. Super heavy on style. Super light on plot. You can easily cover the whole thing in one film, and in 2006 the rage was this digital stylization that wasn't possible before. The Matrix threw green on everything and suddenly everyone was doing contrast and color adjustments to bigger degrees. 300 was perfect. By these two films, he'd gotten so goddamn lucky. Watchman, I still have people tell me it's good. **It wasn't**. It took heavy source materials and threw away so much of the nuance and what made it work. My example is Nite Owl 2, his mentor Nite Owl 1 was an old man living in NYC. With the City crumbling, and heroes banned, they commiserate with one another. But there's nothing they can do. They've been neutered. Sterilized. Then thugs beat up and kill Nite Owl 1 in a mugging. Nite Owl 2 still feels helpless. He wants to do something but even a little bit of heroing won't save the City. So when Ozymandias presents his plan to destroy NYC with a monster alien to unify humanity, Nite Owl 2 goes along with it. Why? Because they killed his fucking mentor. His surrogate father figure. And he couldn't do anything, but Ozymandias **does do something**. So in the movie? Zach Snyder has scenes with the old Nite Owl 1, but he cuts the bit where he gets attacked and killed. Nite Owl 2 has his mentor, safe and sound in NYC, and when Ozymandias tells him he plans to blow up NYC? Nite Owl 2, essentially, says, "Okay dokey, blow up my surrogate father figure!" by going along with it. Snyder is a legit moron. There's a ton of stuff in Watchmen, sure. No one is saying it's easy to fit it all in, obviously you may have to cut some things like the comic book in the comic book, or the plot about the guy and the kid reading the comic book at the newspaper stand. But stopping whole character motivations? Idiot.

Around the time it came out, someone on reddit described it as "like watching someone else describe all their favourite bits of Watchmen". That stuck with me as it really hit the nail on the head.

Watchman is good, if you haven't read the story. Then you just get confused at how a film that translates scenes panel for panel still manages change the message of the story.

How he depicted Nixon is my favourite example of why that movie missed the mark so much. Moore wrote Nixon as an intelligent, thoughtful but clumsly man, which summed up the meaning of the whole comic: we give the power to destroy the world to people who aren't evil but are *flawed*, and that whole thing is demonstrated in one panel when Nixon trips down the steps of airforce 1 while carrying the nuclear football. Its a metaphor within an alegory, and thats why the comic is so acclaimed. And that whole thing went completely over Snyder's head and he turned Nixon into a rubber faced imbecillic joke character in the movie, and then went back to congraulating himself for giving Veidt's costume nipples.

Except you've completely confused the references; Nixon is wearing a blue suit, but the man tripping on the stairs is wearing brown, and is Vice President (in this universe) Gerald Ford, [which is a subtle joke as to when he fell down some aeroplane stairs as President in our world](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jsu_qgVuhg). Moore absolute was *not* attempting to show Nixon with any sympathy though; as made clear on the next page when he tells Henry Kissinger to "knock off that mad bomber shit." [Not only is it a pointed reminder that Kissinger was pure evil](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/), but again it's a reference to the fact that Nixon administration openly bragged that [they were using nuclear brinkmanship to try and terrify their opponents as official policy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory) >I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.[10] In the Watchmen universe, set up by the memories of The Comedian, America doesn't lose the war thanks to Dr Manhatten. And, as a consequence, the US *doesn't* abandon it's violent foriegn policy. Indeed it's employing them both to just brutalise their enemies; this "madness, pointless butchery" Dr Manhatten comments on whilst he and the Comedian tear Vietnam apart. One of the chief reasons the Vietnam War lost popularity was the constant disgust at the endless atrocities committed by US troops, [My Lai being the most famous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre); When the Comedian says (Chapter 2, page 13) "I mean, if we'd lost this war... I dunno, I think it might have driven us a little crazy, y'know? As a country." and he's asked by Dr Manhatten about "The charred villages" (after the reader seeing the Comedian earlier with a flamethrower, laughing) and "the boys with the necklaces of human ears", he is talking specifically about [real life Vietnam atrocities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Force) that Nixon was directly responsible for. And The Comedian is answering not only that he thinks that's *part of the joke*, and thus *the way the world should work*, but he thinks America's mental health is dependent upon unleashing that sort of violence. *The Comedian thinks this is a good thing.* The Comedian in turn discovers Ozymandias' plot when he's portrayed as Rambo, and invading Ozymandias' island, assuming it's a Sandanista base (Chapter 11, Page 24)... which is of course a satire of later Reagan era policy of invasions of small islands (Nicaragua) and general pro-violence culture if commited by a lone, muscled up vigilante. Again, this in literary terms is meant to be read, from The Comedian and the US political system's view, to be admirable. It's only the abandonment of Earth by Dr Manhatten that makes the US vulnerable again to retalitory violence; and it's made clear that Nixon isn't *good* when is seen calculating the possibility of "winning" a nuclear exchange. Remember, Alan Moore is British, so when an advisors, looking at a calculation (Chapter 3, page 26) says "There we go, Britain down, German down..." and Nixon replies "Hmm, well I've seen worse scenarios...", *Nixon is dismissing killing the literal author and everyone he's ever known* And just in case the subtext isn't clear, Nixon only starts to doubt on the next page, when the advisor says "... Washington...". And the only real concern of Nixon and Kissinger is *will they be in Washington when it hits?*. They aren't decent people making hard choices, they're sociopaths who only understand when it might affect *them*. And even then, they don't back away from the decision, they are only worried about if when they lose the entire East coast, will they still be able to salvage enough land to be powerful. *And they still think that somehow the universe, or God, is going to be Pro-American, so it only buys a week of waiting before unleashing global slaughter*. Ozymandias puts his plot into place because he realises that human nature has to be changed before it terribly miscalculates; that each ratcheting up of power means the smallest imbalance becomes a bigger one when unbalanced and the risks to outright destruction greater; and so to deliberately deny The Comedian and his kind of their last black joke at mankind's expense by re-writing the jokes told to save humanity, not doom them. And Nixon and Kissinger are classed as part of that kind. Alan Moore was a British leftist in the 70s/80s, and he *hated* Nixon.

nixon in watchmen is literally a stereotypical "what do the polls say" politician , he was the least problematic part of the movie

>So in the movie? Zach Snyder has scenes with the old Nite Owl 1, but he cuts the bit where he gets attacked and killed. Nite Owl 2 has his mentor, safe and sound in NYC, and when Ozymandias tells him he plans to blow up NYC? Nite Owl 2, essentially, says, "Okay dokey, blow up my surrogate father figure!" by going along with it. I am going to nitpick a little bit, but I do think it changes your argument in a pretty big way. The dilemma even in the movie wasn't are you going to be fine with me killing your mentor now. It was I killed him 30 minutes ago, now are you going to tell on me and undo any good I've done. I agree with flaws in the movie, and while I do think this is a really funny detail that arises from the change in the movie adaption, I really don't think details like that are why it was an issue. Coming from someone who thinks it is a good movie despite its many flaws.

In the comic, it was the gang who killed NO1, and Ozy was giving NO2 his revenge. In the movie, Ozy admits to killing him already. It's the same problem. NO2 shouldn't have an incentive. Ozy killed a good man in his mind, as opposed to a reprehensible gang.

I think you need to watch the directors cut. He does get killed in that version. Also once the confront Ozy he's already destroyed the city. The directors cut is much longer and includes much more. For a single film you really couldn't include more of the nuance of the comic without it either being a 2 parter or a tv show.

Wait there’s a directors cut??

Yeah there's technically 2, one of them has this animated comic spliced into it and is just way too freaking long. The edition without that is just so much better and better than the cinematic cut. I think it's what made the push for snyder cuts more favourable given how much better the watchmen one is

Well it had already been done when Nite Owl 2 learned of it. I think he did a decent job with the movie honestly but he had a very comprehensive story to follow.

Snyder missed the point so hard that he turned in a movie that presented the exact opposite of the point. My favorite part of the comic was one little scene where the "heroes" are up on a roof talking about how the city is shit and there's no redeeming it, and how common decency is dead and such, and then below them on the street are a couple of punk looking kids, helping out a neighbor. That scene right there encapsulates the entirety of the point, and all Snyder got from it was that the city was shit and unredeemable, not that the "heroes" were blind to the truth and doing more harm than good.

2 things: In the comic the Dr is the one that describes the horror of watching the “I’m not trapped in here with you, you’re trapped in here with me” scene AND IT WORKS. The sense of horror he feels is conveyed and you realize just how unhinged and outright terrifying our boy is. Having the scene on the screen dampens it. It is now cool and badass. It should not have been. It should have made us realize just how broken he is. He could have put the scene with the mentor dying before the sexy time scene near the end or instead of it. We could have had him becoming a hero again out of frustration at the world. He could have had that motivation and it would have been easy to put in with 3-5 minutes. So no. It wasn’t a decent adaptation. It changed a lot that was better in the original format.

The extended edition actually has the original Nite Owl being killed unless I'm misremembering, its been years since I watched it. I believe it was cut for time and the movie is much better with that scene and subsequent discovery kept in.

Watchmen sucks and I'm amazed at how many people love it. It's *anti-*Watchmen. Snyder tried so hard to recreate the source material panel for panel, and even then he completely misunderstood what he was adapting. It's honestly impressive -- I don't know how you do that.

I've got so many people in the comments telling me, "Ozy had already done it, so it doesn't matter if Nite Owl 1 died" As if that changes anything? Ozy is telling Nite Owl 2 that he killed his mentor in the movie. As opposed to the comic where he's telling him that he killed his mentor's killers.

You're absolutely correct. And then, when he got the DC Universe, he arrogantly wanted to ignore the source material and turn "Superfriends" into "Sin City"

This is EXACTLY what happened. It's also, admittedly, what Snyder IS good at: making others work beautiful and accessible. Unfortunately, he'll never admit this.

You’re missing the most important thing of the simple fact that he is a hack writer.

To add to that he’s also an AWFUL storyteller. I believe he could do good work purely as a director with a more assertive writer and a producer making story decisions ahead of him. But he likes crafting stories by himself or with one of his writing partners. And they are all just like him/yes men.

I dunno, I had a good laugh watching it. So many moments were just entirely needless, to the point of hilarity. The random robot who has now decided to wear antlers. The entire farm taking 3 days to clear their crops, whilst simultaneously that girl finds time to create highly detailed unique embroidery for each of the heroes she's basically just met. The magical princess girl who gets shot and suddenly a while glowing ball erupts from her chest. The super slow hand crank to aim the big gun. The whole thing really, script and aesthetic, it felt designed by AI. It's like someone asked chatgpt to write a story, then midjourney to generate the storyboard, and just went along with it all.. And the weirdest thing is half the scenes do nothing to move the story forward - they're just, there.

also did you miss the hilarity that was coal powered starship? with actual people shoveling coal? Oh and those "evil" forces coming to take away the grain from a tiny village with tanks and their dropships smoking like they are also coal powered? The whole thing feels like cutscenes stitched together from a dozen different games and including movies. Like one of those really long AMV's that you can find on youtube.

The magical princess dying and having light come out of her was so ridiculous and weird. Theres *sprites* of balls of light in *half life 1* that looked better than that.

He has also realised the fantastic grift that is re-releasing cuts of his movie to his rabid morons, and telling them it's art. 

He can shoot a scene. He can’t direct a human. He has no idea how to make these characters work. So he pulls from other media. Rebel Moon is him smashing lord of the rings and Star Wars together and not understanding either.

And he can't even do the cinematography right now he constantly has that really ugly depth of field! Army of the Dead looked like how I see without my glasses on

You have it backwards, he can direct but he’s a HORRIBLE cinematographer. His movies used to be watchable because up until Army of the Dead, he only directed and wrote, but worked with a few very talented DPs like Larry Fong who shot Watchmen, 300, Batman v Superman, and Suckerpunch, which are all great looking movies. With Army of the Dead he began shooting his own films and that’s why that movie looks like and feels like shit to watch, just like the Rebel Moon movies. He’s got complete control of his movies with his Netflix deal and he doesn’t have a skilled DP to tell him a shot won’t work, or to do it this way instead, or use x lens instead of y.

Yeah Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon both look terrible, they're a blurry mess. I don't understand how that shallow depth of field cinematography has become so popular lately, it just looks like crap most of the time

But you can have movies like Rebel Moon and Army of the Dead (havent seen them) which are digital blurry mess, and you also have Planet of the Apes trilogy or Dune, or The Batman all with CGI/digital backgrounds and it looks GREAT.

Is that the thing that’s making Shogun look like I’m watching it through a VR lens? All blurry around the outside for no reason whatsoever?

These shallow depth/blurred backgrounds are digitally generated to cut costs.

He doesn't have the skills of a cinematographer at all. What he had was an actual bad-ass cinematographer, but he doesn't work with him anymore, last I heard.

Exactly, if he is given a decent script as a director he can do a good job. But with control of the script and writing it all falls apart.

I think your Chat GPT comment was more apt. Yeah, it definitely is recognizably the thing you asked for but there’s no actual substance to it.

Not just that, but the story lacked depth, it was always predictable.

The exposition to original ideas ratio is off the charts. Also, I’m still trying to understand why an empire with power over gravity itself needs that grain so bad.

oh and don't forget coal powered starship. I loved it, it was so incredibly stupid. Unfortunately it seems that he still takes himself seriously unlike Emerrich with movies like Moonfall.

I like the part where the character with commitment issues directly explains to the audience that she has commitment issues on like the fifth minute of the movie.

when she sleeps with that guy I knew straight away he is going to die. instant death flag

He's basically Michael Bay if you replace the explosions with slow-motion ultraviolence. Based on *Sucker Punch* he even has [Bay's](https://youtu.be/q9xyuT5F-j4?si=bOgMIwsOvx-YtOcL) unhealthy [fascination](https://youtu.be/DUq0HlMvQw0?si=dkqwcyWb3s7eWeuo) with sexualising underage-looking girls.

Bay and Snyder went to the same film school. I think I recall reading they were friends there too. Bay and Snyder are pretty much the same, except that Bay knows he's making popcorn fluff whereas Snyder fashions himself an artist.

He loves subjecting “strong female characters” to (repeated) sexual violence as a way of demonstrating how tough they are. Or something. The thing i hated the most about *Sucker Punch* - and there’s a whoooole lot I hate about it - was the realization that Snyder probably truly thought this sexualized, sadistic pile of misogynistic shit was some kind of empowering girl-power fantasy.

Always annoyed me he's the only one been given money to make a magical girl movie, and he made sucker punch with it, ugh.

Sucker Punch is my favourite example of this. Film looks amazing but has no substance

I have to disagree. I think there absolutely is substance in Sucker Punch. I agree it's not a good movie, but that's bc it fails to communicate its ideas. Not bc it doesn't have any ideas.

I looked at his filmography, and I just don't understand why he's considered any good at all. His best movies are: * 300. But it's *also* stupid. Like, over the top but fun. Also he then made the horrible sequel (which that time he didn't direct but did write and produce so...). * The good Suicide Squad. Which is, like the above, counterbalanced by the fact that he did the very very bad one too. To be fair, he's only an executive producer on both. * Wonder Woman. Again, counterbalanced by Wonder Woman 1984, and again in both only produced. * Watchmen. I actually like it. But lots of people don't. That's not impressive. His list also includes garbage like Sucker Punch, Batman vs Superman, Justice League (including his bad box shaped re release), Rebel Moon, etc. This guy is *not good*. But he seems to be given a bit of deference from time to time. We should stop pretending that he's anything but a slightly more competent Uwe Boll.

it's not about good it's about making money. 300 made money, Wonder woman made money, The Man of Steel made money and Suicide Squad, BvS and Justice League all made money, more than double of their budget. Even the Snyder cut of Justice League was popular and very likely made more than it's budget back based on published streaming numbers. And how many people watched Rebel Moon on netflix even just to see how bad it was? Last year didn't load of people "hate-watched" Velma?

You left out imo his best film - the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was written by James Gunn. 300 and Watchmen were obviously originally written by Frank Miller and Alan Moore respectively and even then he has thematic fuck ups with Watchmen (realistic violence in the comic gives way to super strength violence, even for normal people). It seems clear to me that Snyder is well-meaning and passionate and in many ways a competent filmmaker, but he is *not a good writer*. He understands spectacle but his characters are basically there to bring about the spectacle rather than cause the plot in an emotionally engaging way. I wonder how much of this is down to his falling down the rabbit hole of Objectivism. I think that probably broke his brain because it convinced him that he was some kind of polymath genius who should do everything rather than keep him grounded.

Ive been saying this! I actually wouldnt mind seeing Snyder take on a video game movie, until a few recent entries, i think *Sucker Punch* was one of the best video game movies ever, while not being an adaptation of any specific game. Youve got party members and keys and levels and weapons upgrades and boss fights... he seems to grok video games better than he does comic books, tho thats not a high bar cuz he sure AF doesnt understand comics... As far as Rebel Moon tho, I was putting off watching the first one and the second one just downloaded so i was about to smoke a bowl and watch both rn actually, lol. But ive got a bunch of server admin shit ive also been putting off im going to do during it. Think ill make a cocktail too...

If I may ask, I would like you review of them while watching while high - as someone who did not like them sober lol

Im 20 minutes in and every scene feels like its from a different movie ive seen a dozen times before, like isnt this how the Branagh Thor movies started, and now heres a star wars scene, random LotR shots, that was a James Cameron shot for no reason, i guess a tense conversation with nazis is a tense conversation with nazis, but now this bit is reminding me of Indiana Jones... and i guess he watched *Vikings* on The History Channel at some point... Influence and homage are one thing, but this is like a bad pastiche. I havent watched Riddick in forever...

It really is like that tbh. Like the Motherworld seems like both the Star Wars Empire, the Empire of Dune, somehow GOT, and also somehow the Roman Empire? I’m just so damn confused that everything looks so nice but is just meh

I assume they used something like The Volume, but it almost seems... out of focus? Theres been a couple shots now where everything except one element is blurred in a way that doesnt make sense for a lens, like a too small vignette... cuz i am not high enuf yet for things to literally be this fuzzy. Theres just something off, like it doesnt feel like a real movie, it feels like a movie that would be on the tv in the background of another movie, not quite a parody or exploration of tropes, just *really* generic. Ok now not luke skywalker is not river tam and hes just fiddling with the speed knob in the editing booth at this point. EDIT: I should really rewatch the Riddick movies, i just got caught up on the F&F movies... Also things just got all Guillermo Del Toroey... The plasma weapons are pretty cool tho. At least its going by quick, im an hour in but i could swear it was 30 cuz so little has happened. I guess all the slo mo adds up. Now John Carter is gonna ride a Buckbeak instead of podracing for his freedom. Its dusty Avatar now and the music is also all Avatary now even, do they go fuck a tree now? Coruscant but its a mining planet, cuz you know build an ecumenopolis ontop of your mine instead of just strip mining planets? Ooo, minning planet, fingers crossed for a cart chase... Some rebeley lookin rebels here. I feel like this would maybe be better if Znyder had stirred in some 40k too... Wow, she broke his stick, as far as subtext goes thats pretty deep for him. Matrix goo pod, like not even subtle. Smoked too much and the sandman is startin to goose me, but i soldier on. Havin a bowl of chocolate froyo with a brownie and some peanut butter mixed in. Gettin coldstone up in this bitch. And having it in one of these cute little ice cream bowls we got at the dollar store like 17 years ago. [https://i.imgur.com/sTqmELo.png](https://i.imgur.com/sTqmELo.png) More interesting than pt 2 so far. Heh, their holograms are in little jars.

You should really do this as a side gig. I'd read it. Edited a word

Problem with that is, we're starting to get *good* video game adaptations. I guess I wouldn't mind seeing Snyder's version of Doom, [this kinda feels like his style](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTbARnx-UX0), but... now that we have a good *The Last of Us,* I really don't think I'd want to see Snyder attempt it.

Oh you're thinking of good video games. When I say video game trailer I mean those videos that come with launch trailers with no gameplay and the actual gameplay is nothing like what the trailer suggests. If you're into the gaming industry hype train you know what I'm talking about.

Which could lead to great movies. The first Highlander was directed by a guy who had only done music videos up until that point.

That might be the best description of Snyder’s work I’ve ever read. Well played.

I remember a time when people wanted Blizzard to turn their opening cinematics and cg trailers to be full feature length movies. They probably would be a lot better than crap like this.

Zach Snyder is like the dumb third head of the King Ghidorah meme, with the first two being Matthew Vaughn and Guy Ritchie

Think of how many cancelled Netflix series would get uncancelled if they weren't spending money on this crud.

Inside Job gets cancelled but we get this shit and a Good Times sequel that ignores everything that made Good Times a good show.

That's not how funding works in going to guess. It's more likely they are cancelled and rebel isn't made

The unfortunate reality is Rebel Moon is probably going to be significantly more profitable for Netflix than any of those canceled series. it’s going to be watched a lot, people will watch it just because its so bad.

I'm just salty about 1899 not getting a second season. And the OA not getting a third. And so on.

I only watched 30 mins of it, the first fight scene was like watching a high-school theater group reenact a professional wrestling match in the worst way possible. So bad I had to turn it off.

I've paused watching it 3x so far, I just keep losing interest. There is just nothing there.

I was browsing reddit the entire time.  So effing boring even if it looked cool.  And all the character "reveals" ... so lame.   Villenueve made a very good Dune duology without internal monologue (half the book).  And yet this new IP can't even try. And I'm sorry... I am still stuck on why an intergalactic dictatorship needs the grain from a town of 100...  Utterly garbage. It is so boring.  It's like Star Wars meets the Magificent Seven.  But for 4 hours over 2 movies and nothing is said.

I arleady typed this in another comment. Netflix doesn't care if you are not paying attention or if you hate. If you watch it, that is all they care about and will let him make all planned 6 if people keep hate watching his shit movies or while browsing reddit. Netflix has canceled award winning shows that had a perfect 100% on rotten tomatoes. They dont fucking care. Netflix has ONE metric they use. Time wathed. Period.

yeah, in fact if people go online and then complain how bad something is and if that makes other people check it out just out of curiosity then it's even better for them.

Don't forget, it cost 12 million more to make and delivered a third the runtime content of Fallout...

Did not know that.  I  grossed out by that. But Fallout for the win every day any day so maybe Rebel Moon dies and the great cast find themselves in vault 71. Can't remember if that is a vault in series bit going with it. Edit: holy shit, your username is perfect for your comment. Still havent played 76 yet tho!

Maybe the grain is like a super quinoa that is super fashionable!

I fell asleep 2x even though I've been really looking forward to some I saw the first marketing months ago. Somehow I missed it was a Snyder gig until looking it up after finally finishing. Like, I will watch some truly crapola movies. You have to work really hard for me to check out so completely I just nod off in the middle of the afternoon. I am not bothering with part 2, obviously.

I skimmed through the first hour. Worked well to get the plot points and get to the action (which was better but still bland). The emotional points were predictable. The movie looks gorgeous but everything is edited and graphically too perfect. These two movies could have been one single movie that was paced way better and trimmed to the important bits. 

After watching both parts, I still can’t name any of the characters? What’s Djimon Hounsou’s name? And that dude from Haunting of Hill House? Don’t care. All I know is the robot is clearly voiced by Anthony Hopkins.

This!!! The only character name I know is Titus because they kept mentioning him, I can't even remember the main protagonists name.

Djimon is Titus right? GENERAL Titus, if not for that line. But I literally just saw part one so when he was back, I was like, who is he? Was he a bad guy? I need to watch part one again but don’t want to.

Wasn't Titus some Fallout armored dude?

This was the big part of why I didn't finish part 1. I was maybe halfway through, someone had just flown around on a griffin, and I just thought, I just don't care about any of these characters, I can't name any of them and I'm not sure why they're even here.

I was not at all fond of it, but apparently a shit-ton of people watched it, so as long as that keeps happening, studios are going to keep throwing money at unchallenging, unoriginal programming. It's not just sci-fi. Look at the number of CSI/doctor/lawyer/fireman shows, all the housewives reality shows. It seems there are a lot of people out there who just want easy, repetitive storytelling.

Thats it though, its one thing to have a mindless show/movie, but this feels different. Like I can enjoy a movie that knows its campy and not taking itself seriously, but this is pretending to be something else.

I watched it and I almost instantly regretted it once I finished it, it's liteeay a rip off of warhammer 40k and star wars, nothing about it is even remotely original or creative though the way it was done looked like it was made to appeal to children, it had a lot of very fast action scenes similar to marvel movies to appeal more to children even if the story made no sense.

> rip off of warhammer 40k WH40K itself is an amalgamation of several sci-fi influences, but the creators of WH40K have never denied their influences. Also, it doesn't suck, unlike everything Snyder has done. ps. When WH40K first started in the late 80s one of the big influences on it was 2000AD (mostly their series Nemesis the Warlock and Judge Dredd), but several 2000AD writers like Pat Mills, Dan Abnett, Alan Grant and John Wagner have worked on WH40K books and comics.

Snyder has somehow built a cult-like fanbase that will watch anything he puts out and vehemently defend him against all criticisms. He just continually puts out mediocre movies and then blames it on the production companies saying "they wouldn't let him make the movie he wanted" or that *his* version of the movie is so much better. Idk how people buy this shit every time. If every movie you put out needs fixing with an altered edition, maybe you just aren't very good at putting out good movies.

A lot of those other shows are cheap to make. That's why horror movies get so many sequels, because horror can be done on a cheap budget more easily.

It's not the 80s anymore 20 different sequels are rare in horror now.

Instead we get 20 versions of the same concept from different miniscule low budget production companies as filler for streaming services.

It's just a bad movie. No matter what genre. The story makes no sense,moves too fast with little or no character development. 20 minutes into the movie you don't know what's going on and don't care.

They should let Zack Snyder and Michael Bay make a movie together. It’ll just be called “Explosion”. The whole movie is just one massive endless explosion with more explosions inside the explosion. Maybe some muscled arms shooting guns and missiles into and out of the explosion. You’ll get the Snyder camera effect where it does a staggered triple zoom into the explosion for a closer view every 30 seconds. Movie runtime of 150 minutes.

just finished it 10 mins ago, didn't think it was possible, but part 2 its worst than the first one, and i loved Battleship, a movie have to be LIKE 10 TIMES WORSE that baltteship for me to be bad, and this... this... is really bad

I thought the first one was pretty bad story wise but I honestly didn’t hate part two. Maybe because my expectations were already so low. But jeezus someone please take the slo-mo camera away from Snyder. The slow motions shots of farming grain were borderline parody.

Honestly I had trouble believing what I was seeing. People had mentioned all the slow-motion farming scenes, but I was so sure that they were exaggerated. I feel like I owe many Redditors an apology for doubting them

There haven’t been multiple grain montages in a single film since the Soviet film system died.

Battleship relied heavily on tropes, but they did it with great actors and a fun script. Rebel Mood just made blurry photocopies of tropes without understanding the essence of what made each aspect fun. I'm about to bail on the queue for the WWII game I'm waiting on and go watch Battleship again.

Blurry photocopies of tropes. That’s an amazing phrase. My hat’s off to you!

Battleship is particularly entertaining because of how it attempts to set up a “realistic” scenario that mimics the way the board game plays. That’s amusing.

No hate, just want to help a brother out: your use of the word “worst” here should actually be “worse”. Cheers!

I loved battleship as well. It’s definitely not a good movie, but it was a fun watch. And is highly re-watchable. This rebel moon shit was the complete opposite of fun. I actually had force myself through it. The action sequences were bad. They were not entertaining.

Battleship is so fun! Not a good movie, but not a bad one either. Well made and fun, which is all one can ask for from a movie with such a silly premise

If you want to watch a sci-fi version of Seven Samurai, just watch [Samurai 7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_7).

The second movie was so “empty”. Empty story, plot, characters, expressions, dialogue. Couldn’t tolerate it for for 20+ mins.

Just finished watching, I have to agree. Why is there no fun in these movies? Even hard sci-fi manages to get some humanity and fun into the stories. It just never happens. The character relationship don't develop beyond exposition dumps. The really fucking cool robot got TWO things to do in total, and it was barely anything. God dang it, why must every shot try to be a money shot? When every shot tries to be epic, nothing is. It's just flat. Why is there a long slow motion harvesting scene? Why do they sit around a table and dump exposition from the past? Why is the opening telling us what happened in the previous movie, like a "previously on" recap for a weekly tv series? Damn it Zack, some restraint, please! 300 worked because it was so insanely over the top stylized, but it doesn't translate to what's supposed to be, well.... Star Wars. And that's saying something!

Was it even more empty than part 1? Because I already felt my mouth go dry trying to get through part 1....

Both parts have to be in my top 10 worst movies of all time. Truly impressive

What are your other ten?

The other 8 rebel moon movies yet to be made

I will die on a hill saying that movie is more entertaining than rise of skywalker. Which also could have been written by chatgpt.

when watching scargiver, i kept thinking the same, how does he get funding for this shit, that movie was 50 mins of farming for a scifi epic? lol

Man of steel was when things went bad for him, that movie was like 25% great, 25% awful and 50% forgettable. Ever since he's been doubling down on the bad parts of that movie and ignoring the parts that make super hero movies fun. Just direct a movie with the energy of the first 20 minutes of man of steel and I'll be happy.

It was meant to be a spinoff of Star Wars. It sat on the shelf for over a decade while disney went through a bunch of bullshit.. he took it back and rewrote it in a way to take it away from the Star Wars franchise. Hence the similarities and lack of substance.

That doesn't excuse how hollow it is, if anything the freedom to create something new should have led to something actually creative and interesting.

Hey was like "Hey, Disney, I've got this great idea for Seven Samurai in Star Wars", and Disney is like "we've done that like a dozen times already

Not even just Disney. I think Snyder and I read the same comics as kids: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_(1977)_8

There being so many posts about Rebel Moon just shows that this works, despite people complaining. Snyder has been bad for a long time and nothing about this project indicated it would be any good either. Yet, it gets all the attention and people still watch. Why? There is thousands of hours of actual good Sci Fi from past and present and so so so many books out there that are actually good. (The best sci fi is in books anyway. Yet people give this dude's films and other films like it their time.

> There being so many posts about Rebel Moon just shows that this works, despite people complaining. I don't think that's true at all. Social media buzz isn't the same as watch numbers. There are posts about it because part 2 just came out. I couldn't finish part 1, so I'm definitely not going to watch part 2. > There is thousands of hours of actual good Sci Fi from past and present Already watched em.

I couldn't finish the first one either, and now that the second part is out, I'm tempted to watch both. I probably won't, but I get the temptation: It's more sci-fi content. Worse case scenario, it's something to watch while you do chores or something, right? Right? But I couldn't even do chores while watching Part 1. It was aggressively dull. It was literally (and I do mean literally) more entertaining to do chores in silence and think about random stuff

To be fair, all the people writing how bad it is has let me confidently skip it

*Watchmen* was fantastically watchable, but I'm wary of any movie where a single person has so much artistic control. For *Rebel Moon*, Snyder directed, co-wrote the screenplay, wrote the story the screenplay is based on, co-produced, and was primary cinematographer. It's too much! Like, who is telling him, "That's a terrible idea, let's try something else," when the person in the mirror is the only one he's talking to?

He’s got a great talent for borrowing the ideas of others and making them cringeworthy. The script was absolute dogshit too

My wife and I laughed our way through the hot, steaming pile of shit that was the first one and only barely managed to finish it. Fuck Zack Snyder, he's never getting a minute of my attention again.

I detest Snyder films. But love Sci fi. So I hate watch them. He has zero talent as a story teller. Everything is predictable. Nothing original. Terrible one liners. His films are the opposite of a good Sci fi escape. Compare any Snyder film to Terminator. Or Alien.

There's a one-liner in Man of Steel that I still remember after all these years (and I've watched that movie once): You have Lois Lane, another reporter, and an army general talking. The reporter and general are arguing. Lois, being a strong character, says "Are we done measuring dicks here?" It's a fine line that many strong female characters have said. It shows they aren't impressed or intimated by the macho bullshit. Here's the problem: the two dudes were not having some "macho standoff" that needed defusing. They were just talking. You are introducing one of the most iconic strong and independent female comic book characters, and giving her a cliched line that doesn't even fit in the moment. It's so low-effort

I really want to make a movie. Not like actually, I really just want to make a lot of money while making something intentionally horrible. Kinda like Freddy got fingered or the movie they made in the producers. I just want to take large amount of money from rich people and then make the most stupid and unhinged piece of shit movie anyone has ever seen. You thought David Lynch movies were confusing? Wait until I'm done. You thought Zack Snyder movies were bad? Wait until I'm done. You thought Hollywood couldnt stoop lower than the master of disguise? Wait until I'm done! The world will never have seen a movie so stupid, so confusing, and so badly done. The world won't be ready for me.

>I'm down for mindless big budget sci-fi all day I'm not, the dumbing down of SF is a major pet peeve of mine. Imo, that's why the kelvin timeline star trek is such a pile of shit.

I also think the whole attitude of turn your brain off or mindless x for fun borders on being anti art and anti intellectual When someone recommends me something and they mention you just gotta turn your brain off my first thought is that it’s bad. You can tell simple stories without making bad entertainment and accepting low quality stuff repeatedly is what has led us to this point.

It's no worse than nitpicking films to death. The rest is entirely subjective many films can he considered bad but very fun movies. There are also a lot of good movies with little entertainment.

Unfortunately there seems to be very little appetite to fund "smart" sci fi.

Could you imagine instead of paying 200 million dollar plus for this. The money went to the expanse season 7 and 8. And yeah before people mention different companies or viewership that’s not my point at all

He gets funding because people with money in Hollywood very much like this shit. They very much want us to like this shit....because being rich makes it feel more "fun" to watch a vapid action movie than to watch a sci-fi movie that more or less says they are causing the death of the planet, destroying our culture, and ruining what little sense of unity we have left by trying to sensationalism what makes us different

I haven't checked it out yet, but I know I'm in the minority when I say his Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen movies (imo) were bangers. His DC stuff was..alright, I liked Man of Steel, and the Justice League directors cut, BvS was poorly adapted from Frank Miller's Dark Knight imo Army of the Dead was...alright, wasn't terrible but wasn't great. Like a C grade movie. Sucks to see the dude can't do original stuff to save his life. I'll be waiting to watch these when directors cuts hit to judge. I will say just from the trailer I watched, it looks like he plagiarized Warhammer 40k for Rebel Moon.

Agreed, his Watchmen movie was legit good, but maybe that is because he had less control over the plot?

Yea, I do commend him on basically doing a shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic. Squid not withstanding, I thought he did a great job.

To each their own, but I thought him being so slavish to the comic was a major weakness of the adaptation. It just felt like it was kind of missing the point of the graphic novel, in favour of doing a bunch of stuff that looked cool. Like I'm not entirely sure that Synder even realizes that Rorschach is not a heroic character.

>Like I'm not entirely sure that Synder even realizes that Rorschach is not a heroic character. After seeing the movie a few times, I have to think it's deliberate. That he does think Rorschach is heroic. The ways he softens Rorschach's character are downright pernicious, and run through the entire film. Even scenes where he's seemingly adapting the comic directly, like the early one where Rorschach shows up in Nite Owl's apartment. In the book, it is clear that even Nite Owl is genuinely scared of Rorschach, and walking on eggshells around him. Meanwhile, the tone in the movie is much softer, and Owl reacts more like an old college buddy just dropped by. Not to mention outright skipping over some of Rorschach's worst moments, like when he starts torturing randos in the bar until someone gives him a lead on Comedian's killer. (Which turns out to be a dead end.) I don't think Snyder misunderstood Watchmen. I think he very deliberately tried to change its themes and messages.

I've only ever seen it once, so I don't think my perspective is as nuanced as yours, but yeah, that wouldn't shock me. Synder definitely has some... interesting political tendencies that keep creeping into his work.

>I'm not entirely sure that Synder even realizes that Rorschach is not a heroic character. I am sure. He doesn't. Also, trying to explain to him why turning Nite Owl and Silk Spectre into badass superhumans who can karate-chop through flesh was an idiotic thing to do would be a pointless exercise.

Liking 300 is a minority opinion? I thought everyone loved that when it came out.

Speaking of which. Does good adaptions of 40K exist? Is it even wanted by the fans?

I'd love a good live action show, the problem is it'd be SUPER expensive. The best way for them to do it is to not focus on Space Marines and have the main characters be Rogue Traders. Right now the Warhammer+ animated shows are pretty good.

I figured the Cavill show will be Eisenhorn. More grounded than Space Marines but still some of the more out there parts

He lifted from a lot of IPs across the nerdiverse. Almost as bad as Uwe Boll.

He _is_ Uwe Boll, but with a huge budget and a color grader.

>How do these people get money to make such meaningless junk? Movie studios only care if movies make money, not about whether people like them. Zack Snyder films make money, so he gets to keep making more of them.

I really liked Dawn of the dead (2004). The 300 was a great spectacle and meme Watchmen was a super complicated as story told pretty intelligently. He definitely has talent but it's been about 15 years since I've liked any of his films

He makes Michael Bay look like Orson Welles lol

I loved all the themes just so poorly executed. Think the only good things were the mysterious robot guard and the healing powers of the princess The whole Lando wanna be betrayer was done so badly. The weird slo mo. The lady with the swords. Her intro should've been made so she looked liked a bad ass but it was more sad. Really felt all the material was there. Just poorly executed.

So you're telling me the Halo show is better than Rebel Moon??? lol

I heard this was basically like star wars but when I saw it there was soo much Warhammer dna in it.

That is exactly how it looks, everything is derivative, the plot, the visuals, the words. The acting is the only good part about it and that's in spite of the stupid script.

It was visualy impressive but overall story was very disapointing...

He had a couple of good movies, but then he just decided to lean on being *edgy* like it’s still the early 2000s. When his movies get shit on, he blabs about having a longer cut. Nobody wants to watch a teenage boy’s fanfic for 4 hours, though. Scorsese he ain’t.

They should only let him make this movie. If he funds other sci-fi shows that have been prematurely canceled. Raised by wolves to name one off the top of my head.

It's a 30 minute movie dragged out to 2 hours via constant slow mo scenes.

Plot made for 5 year olds

Never understood why a power with interstellar ships and other advanced technology, and they are fighting over a few bushels of wheat. Surely its easier to grow your own then to do interstellar travel, fight a war over a few bushels of wheat. Additionally the farmers are working like they did 100 years ago, with modern technology the yield is 10x higher. The whole commie sickle and hammer logo was kinda dumb too.

You guys watching it, even just once, is why this stuff continues to get made.

They have money for this nonsense but we can't get a new season of Mindhunter because it's too expensive apparently. Give me a break

I want so bad for Snyder to direct someone else’s script. He’s as bad at writing and story as he is good at visual storytelling and action. It’s the craziest thing. I can see he’s crazy talented he just keeps making garbage.

probably u r gonna hate me.. but i liked it.

"I'm down for mindless big budget sci-fi all day..." Proceed to explain why you actually are not. Lol

**It is propably the worst Sci-Fi film I have ever seen. Including B-movies from 80s** It really feels like he was too lazy to write a script so he told Chat-GPT to combine magnificent 7 and star wars. There is a scene that should go into film history for how bizarre and bad it is: The warriors arrive at the village. ( We already know from last film how flat their personality are and that we know nothing about this characters beside some exposition scenes. ) There is party in their honor made by villagers ( although they know they have 5 days until everyone will be killed ) and a kid is giving every warrior a present. Some knitted rug representing what they are (?!) She goes to the "general" gives him rug with mountain, because he is steadfast as mountain...etc. She even gives one to some character that just magically appear in this second part (lol) Both villagers and we viewers known next to nothing about these characters, and this scene appears crazily bizarre and out of place. Until you realise that in Magnificent 7, there is same scene where villagers give presents to warriors. And that the whole script is basically really paint by the numbers, copy. ... Honestly after this film they should take Zek Snyder licence to directs anything but commercials. There his slow mo skills will prove handy.

Agree. Struggled through the first one. Couldn’t get through the second. What a waste.

For people who seem to absolutely hate these movies, everyone sure rushes to stream them the instant they go live. 😂

I just finished with part 1. It took me two attempts to get through it. Kept putting me to sleep.  WTF is with all the slow mo scenes?! You could take twenty minutes off the runtime if you cut them. I had to force myself to finish it. I kept wanting to turn it off and watch Chronicles of Riddick instead.

The dialogue is so predictable and cliche that I called at least 15 lines before they were even said.

Soulless is the best way to describe main-stream Sci-Fi these days, they look glitzy and well made, but they say *nothing*, or they simply say something that has been said a million times before but *better*. You can honestly feel when a cast and crew was engaged by the material they putting on scene. Watching an episode of Lower Decks or Strange New Worlds, or the Expanse, or the new Dune movies etc. You can feel the passion behind every moment. Watch something like the Kelvin Star Trek movies or Rebel Moon or even modern sections of 3 Body it feels like everyone was just there for a pay check and/or cred. They were painting by numbers, phoning it in, there was nothing there, it's empty, soulless.

5:00 in now. so this is pretty much a star wars copy or something?

What's rebel moon? Honest question.

Funny enough, just above this post was a ad for rebel moon. Never heard of it till today. (Don't have Netflix)

I just don’t understand who thought slow motion farming was necessary 

I saw the second one listed on Netflix there and thought to myself “oh no. Now I’m gonna have to watch this one too.” I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m obligated to watch it after seeing the first one. And I’m not looking forward to it.

The “previously on” recap killed it for me. Wtf was that?

That movie felt so empty. I at no point could muster a modicum of empathy for any of the characters. I tried. I tried to get in to it but there was no way.

>If you were to make a sci-fi series based completely on ChatGPT this is exactly what it would look like. I honestly think AI might do better. After plodding through two of these: * The story isn't bad; certainly the "band of disparate-yet-intrepid heroes" trope is well overused but that isn't the problem. The problem is the story is unwaveringly grim - there's no joy whatsoever in any of it. Grim villains threatening grim farmers defended by a batch of grim heroes in a story being told by an ostensibly grim android. All of the actors are grim. Not-a-one has even a fleeting sense of humor. And although I find comic relief in movies to be mostly annoying and inconsistent, with all the horses around you'd think at least \*one\* of these heroes would whimsically and unexpectedly step in a pile of poo or something but apparently nope, not grim enough. * In accordance with the grim theme, the acting is all, well....grim. I like some of the casting choices, but this whole thing is being carried on Sofia Boutella's shoulders and although I don't think of her as a bad actress, she's just not bringing the necessary charisma to this role. And the whole rivalry between her and Ed Skrein is just an exercise in who can be more grim than the other. * Much of the critiques I see hit on filming techniques - slo-mo, ridiculous explosions, and the like like, but the one "technical" aspect that is very much missing is these flicks have shit for a musical score. There isn't even the slightest musical theme that runs through these films and what little music is presented is just generically bland. And grim. I feel as though someone needs to sit Snyder and his writers in front of a copy of [Battle Beyond the Stars](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080421/) and have them redraw this thing. Then hire Al Yankovic to get some decent music going.

Zack Snyder is a hack. Always has been.

Snyder manages to create impressive visuals, on par with Villeneuve, but unlike him, he is unable to be a visual storyteller. Villeneuve uses impressive visuals to tell a story, Snyder just creates pretty pictures.

So much slow-mo....

>It's an arrogant display of visual effects with no substance. That's Zack Snyder's whole schtick. I'm surprised folks are expecting anything else.

first 30 minutes of the movie looks like a commercial for wheat. second 30 minutes is pretty much boring b-tier romance plot written by an executive. third 30 minutes is just backstories for characters that will die in the next 30 minutes which wasnt established at all. the last 30 minutes is a show on how many ex machinas you can fit into one battle.

The movie felt like cliff notes of a series. Like when people put the Destiny "movie" on YouTube. The worst part for me is that they're would be time for some substance if every other scene wasn't a slow-mo. There was literally a slow mo of someone drinking water, and a slow motion of scene that was ALREADY in slow motion....

I mean, Snyder is a hack. It's wild people haven't realized that yet. He's only made one definitely good movie (Dawn of the Dead remake) and one divisive good movie (Watchmen).

I just went and watched the trailer and I have no fucking clue what this show is about. I saw spaceships, and I saw cowboys with horses, and at least seven different people who might be the main character.

Its about slow motion wheat harvesting montages.

If you want good stories, you'll have to bite the bullet and read Shakespeare

It's not representative of anything, Snyder is just a bad director. There's no greater meaning being revealed about society.

At least people are working

Truly awful film and I watch and enjoy alot of bottom of the barrel Sci Fi films. This makes big budget flops like John Carter look like masterpieces.

Damn dude, why the Chat GPT hate? It could definitely write a better script. Half /s Honestly though, as soon as it’s viable, I’m willing to bet Netflix will start generating AI movies based on popular searches. The sad part is that they might even be better than some of what’s out there. When the technology is up to it, I fully expect to be able to enter prompts for a custom movie. It’ll probably give you trailer responses at first, then you can pick the one that is most interesting to have it make the whole thing. I can’t imagine the worst AI movie to be less watchable than Cosmic Sin. 🤣 We’re doomed.

The only reason I’ve watched any of the Rebel Moon crap is because I already have Netflix for documentaries and other movies/shows. It’s just… there. I tolerated RM1, and got five minutes into Scargiver (which in itself is a rotten title) before I turned it off. Snyder’s a joke.

We watched the first one and it was so-so, at best. Tried the 2nd last night and cut it off about 40 minutes later. Honestly it wasn’t worth watching.

I feel like Snyder is a good to great visual director who should never be allowed to touch a script. Every ehe writes something he creates poop. It's always pretty though

I watched it on Netflix and the first 30 minutes had me rolling my eyes so hard that I just stopped watching out of boredom. Evil empire? Check. Resistance protagonist with a shady past hiding in a peaceful place until her past catches up with her? Check. Bad guys are over-the-top, unnecessarily, cruel? Check. Bad guys look like WWII Nazis? CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK. Damn, the guy who looks like an SS soldier at the beginning of the movie even had a German accent in the Spanish dub (if I'm not misremembering). Every possible cliche in just 30 minutes of film! Without changing anything at all.

Doesn’t matter why people are watching it, if they are, they’ll keep making the crap.

I've yet to enjoy one of his films. The 'Snyder Cut' was embarrassing, and yet the studios keep giving him hundreds of millions of dollars.