Are you ready to enter the spectacular universe of Rebel Moon? Let Zack Snyder be your guide. The director stopped by Geeked Week 2023 to break down the newly released trailer for Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire and answer some burning fan questions about the upcoming movie hitting Netflix on Dec. 21 at 7p.m. PT/10p.m. ET in a special early release. The second part, titled Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver will follow on April 19, 2024.
Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire introduces you to Kora (Sofia Boutella), a solitary former soldier who has built a quiet but fulfilling life on the far-flung farming moon of Veldt. That calm is shattered when the army from Motherworld, led by the terrifying Admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein), land on Veldt, dredging up Kora’s past and threatening her future. Faced with the prospect of losing her new home, Kora teams up with local farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) to recruit a misfit band of rebels who might come together to fight off the brutal forces of the Imperium and its vicious ruler, Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee). Joining Boutella for the ride are Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou, Staz Nair, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, and E. Duffy. Anthony Hopkins, meanwhile, voices a mechanical knight errant who still believes in the power of a mythical legend.
You can read Snyder’s full Geeked Week conversation with Terri Schwartz and Lizandro Melean below. Strap in and let Snyder lead you straight into the action of Rebel Moon.
Terri Schwartz: Joining us today is the man, the myth, the legend himself. We have got the mastermind behind Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder, in the house.
Zack Snyder: Awesome. Thank you guys for having me.
Schwartz: Thank you for being here.
Lizandro Melean: We just saw the new trailer for Rebel Moon, and it’s the most epic thing I have ever watched.
Snyder: That’s kind.
Schwartz: Truly, same. Fans are so pumped to see the trailer, and when we posted from Netflix Geeked that we were going to be talking to you, the comments blew up. We asked anyone if they had questions for you.
Snyder: Let’s go.
Melean: Let’s get into it. @Seriouslysergio — I love his name — asks, “Can you share a moment on set that encapsulates the overall experience of making this film?”
Snyder: [One example] in the making of this movie was when the drop ships are landing in Veldt, which was a set that we built in the mountains. We knew the engines of the drop ships would be strong when they were landing and would create a dust cloud. So we had a bunch of big giant fans, and we were like, “OK, we’ll point them down so they blow a little bit.” We did a test and we were like, “That’s not enough.” And so we got helicopters instead to come and descend super low, right over everybody and blast them with the rotor wash from the helicopters. So we’re all there, I’m there with the camera, and the actors are thinking, “Oh, this is cool.” I told them, “It’s going to be a little bit dusty.” We couldn’t test it, because we didn’t want to blow the top layer of dirt away. But sure enough, the helicopter comes in, blasts just dust into every single crevice of every human and all the equipment and everything. I was like, “That was great. That was perfect. That looked amazing. And they were like, “OK, that was cool, we got that,” I was said, “OK, so this time when the helicopter comes, it’s going to come a little lower, get a little more dirt. That was fine, but I feel like there’s more to give.” But I think that once that happened, I feel like everyone kind of knew what we were going to be in for [for] the rest of it.
Schwartz: We’re in for a journey.
Melean: You see the movie and it’s serious, but you tell these stories and it’s like these are made by humans and they’re having fun.
Snyder: It is fun making a movie. There’s no two ways about it. We have a good time, and I think if you’re not having a good time making a movie, then you really have to reassess just what your idea of fun is. Because it’s literally pretending to be on another planet with space guns. If that’s not fun to you, I don’t know what is.
Schwartz: Listen, everyone is very happy and having a great time in this movie.
Snyder: No bad guys come.
Schwartz: No.
Snyder: They wake up and it was a dream and —
Melean: That’s the ending.
Snyder: They’re in a snow globe or whatever. Whatever the Twilight Zone ending is.
Melean: @Thekreed is asking here: “Creating such a massive universe seems so daunting. How long did it take to come up with the lore for the world of Rebel Moon, and what was the process like for you?”
Snyder: Creating the lore — it’s really just the action of having fun with the characters in the end. [Take] Tarak. We meet Tarak and he’s [at what] looks like some sort of frontier-looking ranchy place, and he’s chained to this anvil. They’ve come to say, “Hey, join us in this fight.” And he’s like, “I would, but I owe this guy money and I honor my debts. [I] probably could break out of this chain if I felt like it, but that’s who I am.” And it’s just fun to say, “OK, well who are you?”
Melean: It’s like you’re picking up two-thirds of the way through his movie when you encounter him here.
Snyder: Correct. And so we have to go do his movie when we’re writing and in the process of creating the lore and everything. We have to go, “OK, well where did Tarak come from? What is the deal?” Once you start to do that work, you find yourself in a whole different universe that you have to sort of paint in the corners. And painting in the corners is always very tricky. When you’re starting to create canon, you’ve got to be careful not to paint yourself into a corner that you are like, “Oh geez, I wish the character could do that, but I guess I can’t now because I’ve set them up in this way.” So, a lot of the work that Shay and I and Kurt have done in creating the worlds is to make sure that we have our eye on the long look.
Schwartz: I love that. All right, our next question comes from @DangerHayden, and they sent in a video.
@DangerHayden: Zack, your actors always tend to go through these massive, awesome physical transformations for their movie roles, and you’ve also spoken about how not only is it a physical transformation, but a psychological one too, and how important that is to the role. So for these new characters you created for Rebel Moon, how important was that physical and psychological training for people like Sofia or Charlie to get into these characters you created? Thanks.
Snyder: Yeah. I think pretty much every actor in the film was in the gym. It is important, I think. Their character has gone through a lot, and the gym allows this kind of chrysalis that they can get inside of, and then they finally come out in whatever shape they’re in. If it’s a big transformation or a small transformation that they’re going through physically, to me that’s not as important as the process of going into this incubator and coming out the other side and being able to say, “OK, now I’m this guy. He has a slightly different body than me as a person, me walking around the world.” So I think it’s helpful in that way. It’s more just about going into that incubator and sort of coming out.
Schwartz: Well, I think about someone like Sofia Boutella too, right? Who’s a dancer —
Snyder: Incredibly fit. Yeah.
Schwartz: Yeah. We’ve seen [her] do incredible action things like Atomic Blonde and The Mummy. But in this, I believe she did most, if not all, of her stunts.
Snyder: Ninety-nine percent of the stunts [are] her. There’s a few things… every now and then we’d have to chuck her off of a scaffolding, or she would have to get slammed on wires into the ground and I’d be like, “Look, it’s a liability. We have to shoot tomorrow.” And that really was the only way I could convince her not to do it.
Schwartz: But she has some incredible action sequences in this movie.
Snyder: Well, she’s incredibly physically gifted. She’s super athletic, and yes, her dance background makes her a perfect stunt performer in a lot of ways. And making an action film is so much about choreography: Whoever you’re fighting, they’re going to throw a punch at you. You have to know where it’s going to land. You have to either be able to react to it, or duck it, or whatever you’re supposed to do. And without the ability to sort of understand the sort of repeatability of those physical actions and be able to be precise, that can be slightly problematic, you can imagine. Her ability to not only do the choreography, but act the moment inside the choreography, that’s the trick. Anyone can — not anyone, of course — but there’s probably a lot of people that could dance the dance. But the emotional part of it, what’s happening in here at the same time, that’s what you get from Sofia that’s amazing.
Schwartz: Yeah, I love that.
Melean: Continuing here with more questions from you, the fans. We have this video.
Video: Hi, Zack. My question is: What is it that makes the broken heroes throughout your filmography, and in Rebel Moon, overcome that phase in life?
Snyder: Wow, broken heroes — yeah, redemptive stories. I guess I find it really mythological and really kind of interesting, these characters that, through the course of the movie, through the actions of the film, through the crucible that they’re going through, they need to fulfill something in themselves. Whether it’s simple, or whether it’s complex, or like in Sucker Punch, just a girl, or whether it’s a king — the struggle to be redeemed or to find your place is really a thing I’ve just always been fascinated by.
Melean: Here’s the next question, @Then_Parrish is asking: “I want to hear more about the costumes and props that brought the world to life. Zack, what was your favorite prop or custom piece that your team got to create?” Any small details to look out for?
Snyder: Yeah, the obvious one is Noble’s bone staff that he carries around.
Melean: I’m obsessed.
Snyder: The idea was that it was a relic from the Motherworld, [a] mythological relic. There was some creature that… When the first of the royal family were born hundreds of thousands of years ago, the very first king was carried across a desert by this animal, and that is the femur of that giraffe-like creature that carried him. But obviously that’s not the actual one because if you look very closely at the staff, it’s just got a little window like a relic, and there’s a little bit of bone in there. So the implication is that it’s just —
Melean: It’s been worn down and they carry it on.
Snyder: Maybe it’s inside there or maybe that’s all they had left. So it’s a very important piece of mythological history.
Schwartz: I will say, every costume, there’s so much story behind them, especially since the characters come from so many different planets. But if I had to choose, and I don’t have to, but I’m going to, the Nemesis costume is just [epic from] top to bottom.
Snyder: Yeah, Doona Bae. Having her in the movie is unbelievable. She’s amazing and [I] had an amazing time working with her. You can see there’s Korean cultural influence in the costume, rather than just having it be like [a] generic swordswoman. We wanted to use a little bit of her culture, so she was really excited about the hat and it was really fun.
Schwartz: I, too, am excited about the hat — for the record. This is apparently deemed the most important question of this entire Q&A, so no pressure, but buckle up. This is from @Nicholasjlevi, [and] they want to know, “What makes a Zack Snyder sandwich? What ingredients do you like?”
Snyder: Oh, an actual sandwich?
Schwartz: Are you a turkey guy? Ham? Roast beef? Talk to me, Zack.
Snyder:Turkey, for sure. It’s lettuce, tomato. It’s a lot of mayonnaise. It’s a little bit of mustard. Probably chopped onion or actually raw onion, sliced. Cut the sandwich in half.
Schwartz: Like diagonal or straight?
Snyder: It depends, but mostly, no. Mostly straight across.
Schwartz: Why right down the middle? Why cut it in half?
Snyder: I don’t know. I just think the technical aspects of going diagonal, it’s iffy, and you could end up with a disaster.
Schwartz: Well, now we know the official sandwich of Rebel Moon.
Snyder: That’s cool.
Snyder: Geeked Week exclusive.
Snyder: You’re making me hungry.
Schwartz: Me too.
Melean: It’s not about sandwiches anymore, but —
Schwarz: Back to business.
Melean: Back to business. So, continuing with fan questions. Look at this handle. It’s @nobletribe.
Snyder: Oh that’s cool.
Schwartz: Maybe into some villains, we can guess.
Melean: Maybe. So he’s asking, “What was shooting on those custom anamorphic lenses like? Those flares are fire.”
Snyder: Great question. I really appreciate that. I’m a bit of a geek for vintage glass and old lenses and things like that. It’s one of those things that as a filmmaker and as a cinematographer, in some ways, that’s just the experience of watching the movie. Whether or not it draws attention to itself, I feel it in every shot, some people do and some people don’t. For a lot of people, the movie just washes over them, and that’s fine — 100%, that’s what I want. But for others, of course, “Why? What is that? What happened? What did they do to make that?” For those people, the deep dive is available.
Schwartz: Yes, that’s what we’re here for. Well, you’re the director — but you’re the director of photography as well on this movie, right?
Snyder: Correct. On Army [of the Dead] and on this movie, I was the director of photography as well. In a lot of ways, it goes back to my roots as a commercial director. I was a director of cameramen in the commercial world and did that for 10 years. And then when I started making movies, they said, “No, you can’t do both jobs.” So I was like, “OK, that’s fine.” I’ve had amazing cinematographers I’ve worked with on my films and loved them and learned so much from them and had a great experience collaborating with them. But on these last two movies, I just felt like it’d be fun to just do it myself, and it has [been].
Schwartz: This next question comes from @ijikari and [I] actually love this question: “Hey Zack, I’m a big fan of your work and I love your directing style. Quick question, what is your favorite anime of all time?”
Snyder: As a filmmaker, you have to say Akira, because it’s fundamental and it’s essential. If you don’t say that, you’re in the weeds. Which is also fine, we are doing a lot of Demon Slayer at my house right now, and so it kind of runs the gamut.
Schwartz: The fun thing about Akira too is that was influenced by so many different western stories, science fiction, all that, and now we’re seeing kind of the influence of anime back on this medium.
Snyder: It’s an incredible boomerang, and I’m a huge fan of the influence and then being influenced and then influencing back. It’s a nice tennis game for everyone to be playing. And I think we’re at the point now in culture where everything is available all the time to everyone, and so it becomes nonlinear. When I was growing up and being influenced by movies like Akira or Conan the Barbarian or Heavy Metal or whatever, it kind of happened like bricks being piled on top of each other. Now, it goes up and down and sideways, and I think that’s really fun.
Schwartz: Somehow, we are already at our last question, and this has been a true delight. Thank you for indulging us and everyone at home with very, very geeky questions.
Snyder: My pleasure.
Schwartz: This last question is from @Supesbatsy, who I’m guessing is a brand-new fan of yours. This is a perfect last question, and it’s another video.
@Supesbatsy: Hi Zack. I wanted to ask you, what’s the thing you’re most excited for fans to see in Rebel Moon? Can’t wait for it.
Snyder: There’s a lot of stuff that I can’t wait for people to experience and enjoy because we had a great time making it. But I think it’s really this opportunity to sort of dig into a new mythology and to dork out a little bit on the edges of this universe, because we’ve done a lot of work to make them worth getting into. Because there’s an answer in there. It’s not random, it’s not just because. I find it fun, so I hope fans do too.
Schwartz: Thank you, Zack, so much, for taking the time with us today.
Snyder: Oh, it’s my pleasure. My pleasure.
TS: And thank you everyone at home for sending us those great questions. We really appreciate it.
ZS: Thank you guys so much. Can’t wait for you guys to check out the movie. I hope you love it.
LM: Rebel Moon, Part One: A Child of Fire is coming to Netflix Dec. 22.
TS: That’s our show. What a week, Lizandro.
LM: What a week, Terri.
TS: Thank you all at home so much for joining us for Geeked Week 2023, and what a way to close it out.
LM: I know, Zack Snyder really gave us a treat. I cannot wait for Rebel Moon to come out.
TS: I can’t either and fortunately we don’t have to wait long. Rebel Moon, Part One: A Child of Fire is coming to Netflix on Dec. 22.
LM: I’m going to lose my mind. I’m so ready for this movie.
TS: For all the latest on all Things Rebel Moon, be sure to give @NetflixGeeked and @RebelMoon a follow.
LM: Thanks for watching.
For more scoops from Geeked Week 2023, head to geekedweek.com and follow Netflix Geeked on X.
