While Shay Hatten claims that Zack Snyder has taken “Rebel Moon” down a different path, away from its initial concept as a “Star Wars” movie, that does raise an interesting question. In an age when “Star Wars” revived the space opera on the screen and has dominated that space for going on 50 years, how does one deliver an original take on the genre that can get out from under the “Star Wars” shadow?
“The way that you do a space opera that feels different from ‘Star Wars’ is it’s filtered through the imagination of Zack Snyder,” responded Hatten. “Naturally, by extent of that, it’s going to have a completely different tone and flavor that is going to be exciting to people.”
Of course, there have been other attempts at galaxy-spanning sci-fi sagas, both successful and not, in the wake of “Star Wars.” Certainly, “Battlestar Galactica” and “Babylon 5” both found receptive audiences on the small screen, although theatrical efforts like “Jupiter Ascending,” “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” “The Fifth Element,” and “Ender’s Game” have not quite hit the box office mark (the recent remake of “Dune” is a notable exception).
Still, Shay Hatten thinks that if any filmmaker can launch a new franchise in the genre — especially with “Star Wars” itself currently absent from movie screens — the architect of DC’s Snyderverse and the world of “Army of the Dead” is the one to do it. “Zack is one of the best world-builders we have,” he said, “so I’ll work for him as long as I possibly can.”
“Rebel Moon” is due to arrive on Netflix on December 22, 2023.
