Not as bad as I was expecting. Nowhere as good as I was hoping. Slightly better than meh. Director/Co-Writer Zach Snyder (DAWN OF THE DEAD, SUCKER PUNCH, MAN OF STEEL) originally pitched this to Lucasfilms as a new Star Wars trilogy, but when they declined, Netflix took him up and produced this lavish space opera, telling the story of a small farming village on the outskirts of the galaxy coming under the heel of a fascist high tech galactic empire. When the villagers decline help the empire (here called the Imperium) they are told they will return at the end of the season, take all of their crops, and leave them to perish. That's pretty much the same set up as THE SEVEN SAMURAI, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN , and even Roger Corman's excellent Star Wars knockoff BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (which a young James Cameron did the special effects for). A young village woman, who turns out to be a former high ranking Imperium soldier hiding out after betraying them, goes on a mission to find mercenaries to help the villagers fight the Imperium. This sets in motion a set of vignettes, just as the earlier mentioned films did, where each warrior gets their scenes to show off their skills before being asked to help the village. Snyder as a director doesn't seem to bring much original to his material in therms of story, plot, or character, which is certainly true here, but he does have a strong visual flare he brings to all of his films, so they're never boring to look at, even if the materials is rather tepid. I'll be curious to see where this story goes following this film and plan to watch Part Two when it comes out, but I doubt REBEL MOON is definitely not going to be the next Star Wars.