Netflix's 2-Part Sci-Fi Saga Is Star Wars Meets The Lord Of The Rings

While Netflix’s sci-fi movie series had the chance to blend Star Wars and Lord of the Rings in one epic tale, the streaming service didn’t know how to facilitate this scale of storytelling. Netflix’s upcoming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel The Adventures of Cliff Booth is set to break a major tradition for the streaming service, with director David Fincher’s movie receiving a wide IMAX release two weeks before its arrival on Netflix.

Until now, the streaming service has largely eschewed theatrical releases, especially without simultaneous release on Netflix. Although the Knives Out sequels were technically released in theaters, they also arrived on Netflix at almost the same time, much like the long-awaited series finale of the hit sci-fi mystery series Stranger Things was screened in cinemas worldwide, but also released on the streaming service the same night. In contrast, Fincher's movie, like Barbie director Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia reboot, will seemingly receive a more traditional theater run.

There could be any number of reasons behind this strategy shift, but one compelling cause might be the relative underperformance of director Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon series. Released in 2023, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire was intended to be the first in an epic series of sci-fi space opera movies by the Watchmen director. Its 2024 sequel, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, arrived in early 2024, while the R-rated director’s cut of the first film, Chalice of Blood, arrived in August of the same year.

Rebel Moon Mixes The Sci-fi and Fantasy Tropes of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings

Rebel Moon’s complex story was set in a galaxy ruled over by a dictatorship, Motherworld. When Motherworld’s military, The Imperium, threatens the home village of a former soldier, Sofia Boutella’s Kora, she must recruit a ragtag band of mismatched warriors to take on the imperial enemy. With an ensemble cast including Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou, Michiel Huisman, and Anthony Hopkins, the Rebel Moon series seemingly had all the ingredients of a sci-fi fantasy epic.

Snyder’s ambitious movie boasted a 134-minute runtime, inflated to a whopping 204 minutes by Chalice of Blood’s gorier director’s cut. However, the success of ambitious sci-fi shows like Apple TV’s Foundation proves this was not necessarily a deterrent for viewers in the current streaming era. Instead, Rebel Moon’s classic mixture of sci-fi and fantasy seemed perfectly calibrated to start a franchise that could rival Star Wars or Lord of the Rings at the streamer.

Rebel Moon’s Underwhelming Reception Could Help Explain A Major Netflix Change

Sadly for Snyder, Rebel Moon’s disappointing critical reception proved the franchise might never receive a Return of the Jedi, let alone a Clone Wars or an Andor. The scope of the franchise seemingly diminished after the humdrum reception of A Child of Fire, with Snyder initially talking about a four-or six-movie series, before these follow-ups were seemingly quietly canceled in the years since.

If the ambitious worldbuilding of Netflix’s Altered Carbon proves anything, it is that Rebel Moon’s plot was not too complicated for the average viewer. That reasoning might have made sense in earlier decades, but the success of lore-heavy sci-fi shows like Fallout, Dune: Prophecy, Silo, and 3 Body Problem proves this isn’t the issue it once was. Instead, it seems like Snyder’s series suffered because the Rebel Moon movies needed a bigger canvas for their story.

There is no way of knowing if the Rebel Moon franchise might have fared better if the original movies received a wide theatrical release. What is clear is that Rebel Moon shares the massive, immersive scope of earlier blockbuster franchises like the Star Wars movies and Lord of the Rings series, so its arrival on a small-screen platform might have hurt its ambitions and limited the appeal of the sci-fi franchise.