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Prior to the release of Rebel Moon, an epic space opera film directed by Zack Snyder, we had the opportunity to speak with key talents of the film, including the man himself in a press conference.
Joining the press conference are:
- Zack Snyder (Writer, Producer, Director)
- Deborah Snyder (Producer)
- Sofia Boutella (Actress – Kora)
- Bae Doona (Actress – Nemesis)
- Ed Skrein (Actor – Admiral Atticus Noble)
Premise of Rebel Moon
Considering that Rebel Moon is an original story created by Zack Snyder, many might be curious as to what the story entails and how it was conceptualised.
Zack mentions Rebel Moon is a pretty straightforward story about a group of farmers on a distant planet who gets visited by an evil empire that wants the farmers to supply food. The farmers are then faced with a choice to either agree to it or fight back. In order to fight back, they would have to figure out whether to go out into the galaxy and recruit soldiers to join their cause.
“I’ve been working on it for quite a while, I would say. I mean, as an idea, it’s existed probably since 1977, since I saw Star Wars and the 11 year old me went, you know what, I can do that. No I didn’t say that a little bit I did, but I said I could do something like that, but good close.”
He continues by saying that during his younger years, his aesthetics for storytelling got formed by the movies he has seen, that being Star Wars and his love of cinema.
“I remember having my parents drive me to see Throne of Blood, and they dropped me off because they were like, why are you going to see this movie with subtitles as a Japanese movie? And I just feel like it’s gonna be awesome.”
Zack also brought up that he was really influenced by a magazine called Heavy Metal, which was an adult illustrated fantasy magazine that he started reading as a child when he shouldn’t have.
Development of Rebel Moon
As a producer, fans might be curious as to how Deborah approached the development of Rebel Moon’s unique science fiction universe, and what were the key elements she had focused on to make it different.
“Well, it was really exciting for us to create something that was wholly original. And also that made it so challenging because there was nothing that existed. Everything just existed in Zack’s head. So we had to figure out how to make that come alive. ”
Deborah mentions that the first thing that the team did after they had the script was hiring a bunch of different artists to come up with concept arts. She mentions that Zack would pull a lot of references that he would find online, and sometimes it would be just textures, colours, paintings, or some fine art piece that would inspire him.
“We had so much art than when we did the presentation to Netflix to show them what it was gonna be like. It fit in a whole sound stage and we just had them on easels and we walked everyone through it so they knew what the vision was gonna be and that was super helpful because that was the blueprint of everything.”
Setting Boundaries
To Zack and Deborah, they’ve created their own world with Rebel Moon which seems ripe for future expansion and elaboration. However, with this creative liberty we were curious if they had to set any boundaries or in universe rules that they wouldn’t allow themselves to break.
To which Zack replied by saying that the trick is that you don’t want to find yourself in a future scenario where you are breaking a rule that you established, and that you have to treat the rules really carefully as you make them.
“We’ve gone back and done all this Mother World origin story, like we know the entire history of the other world, even though it doesn’t, it’s not expressed in the movie. I’ve done all the work as far as mythologically that tells the story of the entire mother world.”
“I think that that work is important because I, as we go forward, that you have to always be ready for and sort of plan for, as I said that it’s actually an uptown problem that you have these things that you think are limitations actually become nice guidelines to help you get where you’re going and keep the world consistent.” said Zack.
Deborah chimed in by saying that it is also a little bit challenging because they have a novelisation, a graphic novel, a podcast, and they’re all taking six episodes of a comic that will become a graphic novel. With all of these things in place, they had other writers who would turn in their work, but Zack would sometimes disapprove of it as it would change what he’s thinking about for the future, so they have to be very careful about the work that they’re doing.
Stunt Choreography
As an accomplished dancer, Sofia often pays attention to embodying the emotions and psychology of her character. In Rebel Moon, Sofia’s character, Kora, is both heroic and anti-heroic. We were curious as to how Sofia incorporated the character’s traits into reaction choreography.
“Yes, being a dancer is an element in a big part of my life that will always and help me in everything that I do, especially when it comes to the discipline of it all and creating a structure for myself in order to better execute the movements that are about to come my way, such as working out like we did, all of us did with Alessandro or working. I did also Pilates and I did all sort of training in order to condition myself. And also what’s very important is the diet in order to fulfill your body, to sustain everything one more time. ”
Sofia mentions one element that she did not have that she was scared about is how to hold the guns. Because Kora is a warrior and a fighter from such a young age, Sofia did not want to make any mistakes when it came to that element. Thus, Sofia started very early on with the stunt team to work on how to hold her body.
” I really wanted to know how Kora ran with the gun and walked with a gun. And luckily enough, Zack really knew how to do that. He would correct me. I really wanted to be corrected, not have my elbows out and exactly. So that dancing is definitely a big part of my life and was a big and long part of my life and I will keep using it forever.”
Korean Roots
Playing the role of Nemesis, people might be curious if Doona had sprinkled some of her Korean roots or background when developing her character persona.
Doona mentions that she did not mean to or try to sprinkle her Korean roots or culture into Nemesis. But when people watch the film, they might think that Nemesis is Korean because of her costumes.
“Actually, her costumes are so influenced by Korean traditional gown I think. The hat is a very famous hat, like some of you might have watched Kingdom, it’s called gat in Korean. And actually it was only for men back in the days. And I was so excited to wear this because you’re not allowed to wear it if you’re a girl back in the day. ”
Doona continued by saying that it wasn’t her who suggested that idea, but the head of the costume department, Stephanie. When Doona walked into the room for fittings for the first time, the hat was already in the room.
The Underdog Story
The underdog theme is often a hallmark of Zack Snyder’s films. As a ruthless villain Atticus Noble, people might be wondering what Ed would do to bring that underdog story to life.
“Rebel Moon truly is an underdog story. We’re talking about farmers and a couple of stragglers from military history going against a huge army with technology they could not imagine. It’s a very one sided battle and you can’t have underdogs without peril, without threat. When you preparing for a character, when you’re analyzing the script is very important.”
Ed mentions that a character cannot exist in isolation, and that every character is there for a reason to enhance something in the plot. For Atticus Noble, he’s there to provide this threat to the underdogs, so it was clear for Ed from the start that this is what he had to provide.
Influences from Anime and Manga
Zack has a deep understanding and love for Japanese anime and manga, where he brought up Akira being one of his favourites. With him having recently seen Demon Slayer, we were curious if there were any influences from Japanese works being present in the film.
“I’d say that first off, there’s a lot of sword fighting in the movie. There’s a lot of, even a lot of the action that I’ve done in all my other films would have probably some in, been influenced in some way by even like man of steel. I think when I did the tour of man of steel, we were talking about one punch man and stuff like that. And I think anime action which is very specific and awesome and particular, clearly. I think has, shows up a little bit here and there in the work.”
Zack continued by saying that if that’s really what it’s about, other than what he would say the texture and sort of aesthetic is where the main influence is and it’s very strong.
Reactions to Watching the Film
We asked the cast what were their reactions when they first watched the film in its entirety, as well as how they felt interacting with fans during their Sao Paulo tour.
“I always feel like making movies is like a relay race, but we run the first couple of legs. pre-production is the first leg and then they hand the bat on to us and we, as the cost begin running and we put everything into that 100 meters or 100 miles as it was for Rebel Moon. You work so hard for that part.” said Ed.
He mentions that he became so immersed in the character and the narrative, and the story become so intimately intertwined with the rest of the cast and the crew.
“Zack runs every leg with us, so he’s like the Marathon pace setter that runs with us. He was truly that. But it’s a wonderful thing to have the separation from the project and then to be able to see the project in the wild as such, to go to Sao Paulo and to see the excitement that the Brazilians, the unique excitement that the Brazilians had for a Comic Con, to experience premier in London.” Ed continues.
Doona mentions that she saw the movie when she was in Korea, and was amazed by the result of the film, especially with the CGI.
“I can’t wait to take everyone to watch it and actually like the trailer. So I was watching my fight scenes even in the trailer and I was, I was surprised. Is it what I did? No. Actually, Zack like did something on the production because it looks so good. And so I can’t wait for everyone to watch it and react like I am. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to Brazil, but I wish I had been there to see the reactions from the fans.”
Sofia shared that she shot for 153 days and the cast was immersed in the space that they were in, the people that they worked with, and especially the characters that they played. Seeing the end result was mesmerizing and magical for her.
“I’ve been saying, but I don’t know if I even told you, it’s like what we didn’t expect at all is what the sky would look like. Our sky is like, wow. And he kept telling us, don’t forget, the moon is right there. And I would finally see it in a movie. So it’s just, it’s just so nice to see what we’ve worked on for so long and we worked so hard on. And it’s nice to talk about it and seeing the first reactions in Brazil, we get to see the audience right after the screening and it felt like we were at a concert. It was incredible.”
We would like to thank Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, Sofia Boutella, Bae Donna, and Ed Skrein for taking the time to answer our questions. We would also like to extend our thanks to Netflix for setting up the press conference.
Rebel Moon will be available on 21st December on Netflix, with the sequel Rebel Moon – Part Two; The Scargiver is set to release on 19th April 2024.
