Summary
- Rebel Moon intentionally incorporates familiar elements from sci-fi and fantasy properties, as it is a mash-up of genre tropes.
- The plot of Rebel Moon is based on Seven Samurai, a heavily referenced and adapted story in various movies and TV shows.
- Rebel Moon's aesthetic draws inspiration from sources such as Heavy Metal, real-world cultures, and sci-fi/fantasy properties like Dune and Blade Runner.
Rebel Moon - Part 1: A Child of Fire has been criticized for having elements that feel too familiar to a number of other sci-fi and fantasy properties, totally missing the fact that it's intentionally a mash-up of on-the-nose genre tropes. Zack Snyder drew from numerous inspirations for Rebel Moon's story, characters, and aesthetic, and the resulting look, feel, and story of Rebel Moon are a product of generations of storytelling put through Snyder's personal creative lens and stylistic flair.
From the plot to the characters to the style of the world, Rebel Moon - Part 1: A Child of Fire's familiarity is intentional. The story was taken from Seven Samurai, the characters are all heavily informed by genre tropes, and the style of each world is taken from a variety of other sci-fi and fantasy sources. Not only is this the point, it's completely normal for any big sci-fi or fantasy property to be flavored by what came before.
Rebel Moon's Plot is Based on One of the Most Re-Told Stories of All Time
Rebel Moon is based on Seven Samurai, like numerous other stories before it.
The plot of Rebel Moon - Part 1: A Child of Fire sees a small village seek out a team of warriors to help defend it against the looming threat of an enemy army, and anyone who's seen more than a few movies likely recognizes the story. The plot of Seven Samurai is one of the most heavily referenced or re-adapted stories with A Bugs Life, Magnificent Seven, Dirty Dozen, Battle Beyond the Stars, and numerous other movies and TV shows adapting the basic premise over the years, making Seven Samurai its own trope with a dedicated page on tvtropes.org.
Using a famously adapted story for the plot of Rebel Moon wasn't an accident. In fact, it was the entire purpose, as it was embedded in Snyder's initial conception of the movie in the 1980s when he described it as Seven Samurai or Dirty Dozen in space to his film professor. This is typical for many sci-fi and fantasy stories, especially the most popular ones. Even Star Wars was George Lucas' adaptation of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, for which he also borrowed numerous elements from Seven Samurai. The exact plot has been recreated multiple times in other Star Wars media like The Clone Wars animated series and The Mandalorian.
Rebel Moon's Joseph Campbell Influence Makes it Similar to Every Story Ever
Kora's character arc is a classic hero's journey - on purpose.
Beyond the basic Seven Samurai-inspired story of Rebel Moon, there's another kind of familiarity with a number of the character arcs, particularly Kora's, because Zack Snyder is a big fan of Joseph Cambell's monomyth. Campbell was a writer and literature professor whose books The Hero with a Thousand Faces outlines patterns in mythology to identify the "hero's journey," which should be recognizable to anyone with a ing familiarity of the most basic sci-fi or fantasy stories. The monomyth is the character arc of the protagonist in almost every popular story, from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars to Harry Potter to The Matrix, to The Hunger Games, and more.
Snyder originally conceived Rebel Moon in the late 1980s, but at one point in the early 2010s he had talks with Lucasfilm about retrofitting the story into Star Wars canon.
Campbell's hero's journey is more descriptive than prescriptive, but the pattern is traceable to ancient stories and myths across cultures and time periods from Homer's The Odyssey to Beowulf to the story of Buddha to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and numerous other stories before Campbell identified it. After Campbell wrote The Hero With a Thousand Faces, a whole new era of storytellers like George Lucas popularized the monomyth by using it in stories like Star Wars. This is another element that makes Rebel Moon feel intentionally familiar, as Zack Snyder's approach to the story participates in a long-held Campbellian tradition of storytelling and myth-making.
Rebel Moon's Aesthetic is Derived From Numerous Other Properties
Some of Rebel Moon's influences are obscure, while others are well known.
For Rebel Moon's visual aesthetic, Snyder looked to a variety of his favorite influences. His primary - and most obscure - influence is the 1970s adult illustrated fantasy magazine Heavy Metal. Additional inspiration was derived from a varity of real-world cultures, particularly in the character and world designs, as well as sci-fi and fantasy properties like Dune and Blade Runner, as well as a variety of anime. While Star Wars's inspiration is clear to see, particularly in elements like Nemesis' Oracle steel swords, much of Rebel Moon's similarity to Star Wars comes from George Lucas and Zack Snyder sharing common influences, not because Rebel Moon directly copied Star Wars.
This is another common practice in sci-fi and fantasy world-building, as many creators are influenced by what came before. In the same way George Lucas was inspired by Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and Dune, Star Wars has since inspired several generations of other science fiction stories. What makes Rebel Moon's design special is not the originality of any particular aspect of the world, so much as the overall tapestry of influences assembled. Zooming in on any given element may look familiar, but zooming out to perceive the entire world of Rebel Moon, and the arrangement of influences gives Snyder's world its own unique flavor.
Genre Storytelling is All a Part of the Same Conversation
All genre stories influence other genre stories.
Academics have argued for years about how many kinds of stories can exist, and Kurt Vonnegut posited there's only eight "story shapes," including Man in a Hole, Boy Meets Girl, From Bad to Worse, Which Way is Up?, Creation Story, Old Testament, New Testament, and Cinderella. While there may be some exception, every story told follows either one of those patterns or a collection of those patterns. Stories have always been participatory in this way, with new storytellers constantly re-using another story's "shape" to give it their own spin and present the story through a new lens.
Audiences more well-versed in a variety of stories from a variety of genres and a variety of time periods are more than familiar with this concept, but less exposed viewers often see similar shapes between different stories and see it as a failure. A meme on Twitter (now X) started by @afraidofwasps illustrates this perfectly:
"Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby, watching his second movie: Getting a lot of 'Boss Baby' vibes from this..."
This is especially apparent with Star Wars, which most people would consider a unique, original aesthetic in 2023, but was criticized as derivative and unoriginal in 1977 because George Lucas was inspired by so many different popular properties at the time. Similarly, Avatar was often mocked for copying stories like Dances With Wolves, yet future generations will likely criticize some new movie for "just copying Avatar."
A lot of the questions around Rebel Moon's familiarity boil down to the intent of the filmmaker. Is Zack Snyder aware of Rebel Moon's participation in a larger genre discussion? Snyder has spoken about how self-aware his movies are, and Rebel Moon's primary inspiration, Heavy Metal, is foundationally a collection of anthology stories rooted in playing with genre and deconstructing genre tropes. In an interview with Yahoo! Movies, Snyder said his director's cut of Rebel Moon will be "Verhoevenesque," meaning it will be intentionally self-aware and over-the-top in its relationship with genre tropes.
At the end of the day, there's a lot of reasons why Rebel Moon - Part 1: A Child of Fire's story, characters, or world may be familiar, as it's both informed by and in conversation with its genre roots. Rebel Moon's "familiarity" is not evidence of a lack of creativity or proof it's a shameless rip-off, but a participation in storytelling that came before. That likely won't insulate Rebel Moon from criticisms or less-exposed audiences "getting a lot of Boss Baby" from it, but Netflix's dedication to Snyder's vision and more Rebel Moon projects in the way, meaning way day another genre filmmaker is bound to be criticized for ripping off Rebel Moon when their movie also feels familiar.
Sources: tvtropes.org, Yahoo! Movies
