Snyder the corporate hack saves his ‘hard-R-rated films, the hardest stuff’ for later release as ‘director’s cuts.’
The two-hour-plus Zack Snyder interview on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast reveals that the newly released Rebel Moon — Part 2: Scargiver is nothing more than an extended trailer. And that’s what Scargiver feels like — or else Snyder has suddenly become the derivative sci-fi hack that his detractors always accused him of being. Yet even the bad Scaregiver pile-on reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are groundless.
Scargiver is dissatisfying because of (1) sketchy characterizations based on thin flashbacks, (2) the large-scale yet piecemeal battle sequence that serves as apocalyptic climax, and (3) the confrontations between complex good (Sofia Boutella’s heroine Kora) and unadulterated evil (Ed Skrein’s Noble) that never get resolved.
Part 1: A Child of Fire’s cliff-hanger promised as much crowd-pleasing moral suspense as The Empire Strikes Back: Did Kora definitively end Noble’s threat? Would the Nazi-like Motherworld continue to attack the peaceful folk on the agrarian moon Veldt? Can Kora ever resolve her adolescent sexual and moral indecision?
Only viewers who enjoyed Part 1’s overhaul and improvement of Star Wars will care. But so far, Snyder’s failure to deliver is a disappointment that results from an artistic conflict over principles. Snyder’s camaraderie with Rogan emphasized juvenile sex jokes, macho posturing, and mutually confessed fascination for fanboy lore (plus Snyder’s one-sided love of Ayn Rand.) Late in the conversation, Snyder explains the production deal with Netflix by which he first drops PG-rated versions of Rebel Moon, then eventually releases different iterations of both Parts 1 and 2: “At the end of the summer, you’ll see my two three-hour, hard-R-rated films, the hardest stuff.”
Snyder called this distribution strategy “a second kick at the can in home video.” It is the most disappointing statement that a uniquely gifted filmmaker has made since Ridley Scott told an audience of advertising professionals at the Museum of Modern Art that he had no artistic dedication to Blade Runner and consented to whatever permutations of the film Warner Bros. studios proposed.
By rationalizing his Netflix reissue/repackage deal as “the ‘director’s cut’ practice,” Snyder precludes any criticism, adding, “I needed to show the world what I intended.” But that was what the world had already mistakenly assumed. Yet Rogan’s vocalized approval (“Umm!”) went along with Snyder’s delusion, ignoring the difference between hack work, selling out, and artistic commitment.
For these reasons, it’s pointless to “review” Scargiver, since it doesn’t represent Snyder’s full intention, any more than the first, studio-truncated version of Justice League. I had hailed Snyder’s later re-cut. In the editions of A Child of Fire and Scargiver now available, Snyder becomes his own Joss Whedon iconoclast. It’s impossible to appreciate even the best moments in this quasi-trailer without disclosing an overall sense of inscrutability and incompleteness — as when Kora refuses Princess Isa’s forgiveness and attempts to kill to her anyhow. No way to tell what this assassination means as narrative or moral decision, just as Charlie Hunnam’s fascinating possibilities as Kai were simply dropped from A Child of Fire. Man of Steel gave Snyder greater moral foundation while Scargiver looks like a Game of Thrones knockoff. The ultimate shock is that Scargiver isn’t a conclusion of the Rebel Moon saga but merely a continuation of Snyder’s commercial gambit. “Carrying on” as Kora’s gang of resistance fighters cheer just before the not-quite-end credits.
Among the finest sneak peeks of this Scargiver trailer are images of Djimon Hounsou as General Titus commanding Kora’s defense of the Veldt denizens. Snyder presents Hounsou as modern cinema’s greatest black camera subject since Cinque in Spielberg’s Amistad. But Titus’s awed responses to bravery and sacrifice are not grounded in narrative — and his native song (of peace or aggression?) comes out of nowhere. Is it a tease or part of Snyder’s Hollywood-liberal race exploitation? It reduces Hounsou’s magisterial Cinque in Amistad and his splendid Caliban in Julie Taymor’s The Tempest to Stephen King’s pathetic, stereotypical magical Negro in The Green Mile. And Kora’s sexual ambiguity now seems timid, lacking deeper explication. This two-hour-plus trailer makes it seem that Snyder has not thought through his best ideas.
Snyder told Rogan that, in his upcoming versions, “you get to see better the ‘why’ of the movie.” But Snyder’s delayed releases utterly betray the public’s trust. (No wonder Snyder made a pro-Biden campaign ad in 2020.)
As Rebel Moon, Part 1 and Part 2 stand, they are the work of an artistic traitor. I have never before been forced to admit that about a filmmaker I admire. But Snyder’s telling Rogan, “I totally understand the economics of making a PG version” goes against the valiant struggles of Peckinpah, Altman, De Palma, Kubrick, Stroheim, Sternberg, all the inspiring greats.
It doesn’t help that Rogan, a fan of Snyder’s Greek-mythology breakthrough 300, concurred with Snyder’s corporate toadying. We need genuine film criticism to counter an influencer such as Rogan turning sycophant. He urged on Snyder’s half-thinking with the pep-talk encouragement that Snyder remains “true to the vision.”
Despite Snyder’s fabled difficulty with Warner Bros. and the Oscars disavowing his two “Oscars Fan Favorite” and “Oscars Cheers Moment” wins, he has not been true to his vision. The Rogan interview is so disingenuous that it subjects us to Hollywood’s anti-art commercial process. In fact, we’re trapped by it.
In Pauline Kael’s pre-release review of Altman’s Nashville, she wondered, “If pinned to the wall by publicity men, how would Joyce have explained the ‘Nighttown’ sequence of Ulysses?” Neither can Snyder articulate his art; he just sounds like a craven muscle head when telling Rogan, “I don’t want [the public] to be too attached to the PG version. The R-rated version is a different journey. More boutiquey, more bizarre. . . . It’s a lot more, it’s got balls.” That remains to be seen.
