Zack Snyder doesn’t shy away from hard scenes in his films. But for his big sci-fi epic on Netflix, he had to bow to the streaming service’s guidelines. His film threatened to become too brutal.
What kind of movie is Rebel Moon? The film by director Zack Snyder caused quite a bit of hype in advance. It was described as a dark version of Star Wars, but was apparently based on an idea that Snyder reused from a DC film.
When the film was released in two parts on Netflix, the reaction from fans was muted. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first half of Rebel Moon has an average critic rating of 22% and a user rating of 56%. Things aren’t any better for part 2: According to Rotten Tomatoes, critics give it a rating of 17% and users give it 47%.
A few days ago, Rebel Moon was released again, this time in the longer director’s cut. This is not unusual for Zack Snyder. Justice League already had the much longer “Snyder Cut”. In the case of Rebel Moon, however, Netflix had to intervene because the film would otherwise have been far too brutal.
Rebel Moon – Part 1: Child of Fire | Official Trailer from Netflix
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Netflix wants a film for teenagers…
Zack Snyder is not necessarily squeamish when it comes to violence in his films.
These were Netflix’s guidelines: However, Netflix wanted young people to be able to watch Rebel Moon, so they agreed on an edited version that received the American seal “PG-13”.
This means that young people are allowed to watch the film, but anyone under the age of 13 should be accompanied by their parents. In Germany, this roughly corresponds to the age rating of “12 and over”.
Things were different with the director’s cut of Rebel Moon. In advance, Snyder spoke positively about the collaboration with Netflix and said that he was given free rein in the editing.
As it turns out, that wasn’t quite the case. The Director’s Cut has now been given an “R” rating, meaning that in the USA it can only be viewed by people over the age of 17. This roughly corresponds to the German rating of “16 and over”.
… and Snyder has to give in
But Zack Snyder wanted more: He envisioned a film that showed blatant violence in some moments:
There were some cuts I had to make to a sequence to keep it R-rated, because it was NC-17 for quite a while, and then we had to cut out a few less punches (to the head) and a few bloody scenes.
Zack Snyder via 3djuegos.com
Netflix insisted on cutting the scenes in question from the film. That was the deal, said Snyder, and he had to stick to it. The end product wasn’t quite as brutal as he first thought. But it was obvious to him from the start that he would deliver the harder director’s cut.
Whether you like the significantly longer and harder version of Rebel Moon better than the trimmed down first version is up to you to decide. Have you already seen it and made up your mind? Please let us know in the comments. MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski has written her opinion on the “short” version of part 1 in her own article.