This past weekend, the world's largest streaming service "Fire Girl," the first of two installments of "Rebel Moon," Netflix's attempt to create a competing cinematic universe with Disney's "Star Wars," premiered. Will it live up to expectations? We used ChatGPT to evaluate.
Netflix did not shy away from ensuring buzz and success around the film: it invested a huge budget of $166 million in it (for both films combined), hired director Zack Snyder, and recruited a star-studded cast such as Sophia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Charlie Hahneman, and Anthony Hopkins.
The basic story is familiar and plowed: a band of rebels set out to fight an authoritarian regime that dominates the world, while searching for more allies. However, what was presented as an ambitious space odyssey received chilly reviews that defined it as nothing more than a pale imitation of Star Wars. According to critics, the film falls short in an attempt to create a sweeping narrative full of strange characters, leaving the audience disappointed.
One harsh criticism likens "Rebel Moon" to a trap, featuring daring characters like a revenge-seeking spider woman, a hipster space pirate and a shirtless prince with a penchant for Nazi aesthetics and sensory — but in reality it's just boring.
Critics point out that Snyder's vision for "Rebel Moon" was initially presented to Lucasfilm—Disney-owned Star Wars inventor George Lucas' production company as part of the "Star Wars" universe, which explains their similarities: a hero's journey, beginning as a humble but eager peasant who discovers that fate has destined him to play a central role in the rebellion against a fascist interstellar regime. Only after the company refused, the project became a competitor.
Zack Snyder's signature colors — gloomy gray and green — dominate "Rebel Moon." Despite its stunning appearance, the film's reliance on virtual sets and Snyder's color palette gives the world a flat, artificial feel that detracts from the immersive experience.
Even the cast has drawn criticism, given the contrast between the diversity seen in recent "Star Wars" films and the fashionable roster of "Rebel Moon," which aims to create characters that are completely beautiful or grotesque, without any intermediate range.
One of the main signs of critics' skepticism about "Rebel Moon" is its rating on Rotten Tomatoes: only 64% of visitors gave the film a score of at least 3.5 out of 5 (equivalent to 70%) and its average score by "happy critics" on the site is only 4.2 out of 10.
But what counts, of course, is the attitude of viewers to the film – and here the picture is complex: on the one hand, in Netflix's "ratings" chart for last week, published last night, the film ranks first in the world, but by a not very large margin: about 24 million viewers and 54 million hours viewed. That's slightly higher than the average for a first weekend in the past two months — but significantly lower than the previous big launch, "Leaving the World Behind," produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, which two weeks ago did nearly twice that — 42 million viewers and 99 million hours viewed (a few minutes longer than "Rebel Moon"), and even below the figures for "Leo" and "The Killer." In Israel, he did not even manage to rank in first place, settling for second, below the drama film "A Man Named Otto" starring Tom Hanks.
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