Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is a 2024 American epic space opera film directed by Zack Snyder from a screenplay he co-wrote with Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten. A direct sequel to Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), the film takes place on the moon of Veldt where Kora and the crew of warriors ventures to help the farmers to defend and fight for their home against the Motherworld. Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Staz Nair, Fra Fee, Elise Duffy, Charlotte Maggi, Stuart Martin, Cary Elwes, and Anthony Hopkins reprise their roles from the first film.

A week after it began a limited theatrical run in the U.S., Netflix released Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver on April 19, 2024. Like its predecessor, the film received generally negative reviews from critics. An R-rated director's cut, titled Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness is scheduled to be released on August 2, 2024.

Plot
Kora and the surviving warriors return to Veldt, believing that Kora had killed Admiral Noble in hand-to-hand combat and prevented the forthcoming assault on the planet to claim its food supplies, but Aris, a Motherworld soldier working as a double agent for the village people, informs them that the dreadnought ship will arrive in five days. The fighters join the small group of villagers to harvest the entire grain supply in three days, so the flour can be used as leverage to prevent the Motherworld forces from simply bombing the village from orbit; over the remaining two days, Titus intends to train the villagers to fight.

Kora and Gunnar become lovers, and she admits that Regent Balisarius compelled her involvement in the assassination of the Motherworld's king, queen, and young Princess Issa, with Kora herself shooting the princess. Balisarius had then attempted to frame her for the coup, but she had instead fled to Veldt in a Motherworld shuttle to hide from the law.

Over two days, Titus, Nemesis, Tarak, Milius, and Kora train the handful of villagers in combat, preparing a plan involving digging trenches and tunnels in the fields, laying explosives, and preparing Kora's shuttle. The group also reveal their pasts to each other, but Kora declines to share her involvement in Issa's death. When Noble arrives with the dreadnought, his forces scan the village, identifying where the women and children are hiding, protected by Nemesis and Aris, and send forces to capture them to force Kora out. Kora attempts to surrender to him once Noble promises to spare the village, but Gunnar triggers the ambush anyway. Titus and Tarak lead the villages in successfully repelling the first wave, though Nemesis is killed defending the women and children.

The large contingent of heavily armored and mechanized second wave of Motherworld troops pushes the few remaining defenders back, destroying much of the village, but Kora and Gunnar use the shuttle and stolen uniforms to infiltrate the dreadnought, laying explosives on the engine. Jimmy arrives to help the village defenders push back the assault, and the explosives bring down the dreadnought. In the process, Gunnar kills Noble but later dies from his injuries. Devra Bloodaxe and her rebel forces arrive in ships to destroy the remaining Motherworld troops, leading to victory. In the aftermath, the village mourns the dead, and Kora admits her past, which Titus reveals he already knew. He also reveals that Issa is secretly alive and in hiding, and the assembled group declare their intentions to find her and restore the royal lineage to the throne in order to depose Balisarius.

Cast

 * Sofia Boutella as Kora / Arthelais, a former Imperium soldier who rallies warriors from across the galaxy to fight against the Motherworld.
 * Djimon Hounsou as Titus, a former general of the Imperium recruited to lead the fight against the Motherworld.
 * Ed Skrein as Atticus Noble, an admiral and Balisarius' right-hand man. He was killed by Kora before being resurrected by the Imperium.
 * Michiel Huisman as Gunnar, Kora's love interest and a farmer who joins her in her attempts to defend his homeworld Veldt.
 * Doona Bae as Nemesis, a cyborg swordmaster.
 * Ray Fisher as Darrian Bloodaxe, a warrior and Devra's brother recruited by Kora.
 * Anthony Hopkins as the voice of JC-1435, 'Jimmy', the last member of a race of mechanical knights.
 * Staz Nair as Tarak, a nobleman-turned-blacksmith with the ability to bond with animals of nature.
 * Fra Fee as Balisarius, a tyrant and Kora's adoptive father who seized control of the Motherworld.
 * Cleopatra Coleman as Devra, Bloodaxe's sister and the leader of a band of insurgents opposing the Motherworld
 * Stuart Martin as Den, a local farmer and hunter.
 * Ingvar Sigurdsson as Hagen, a friend of Kora who helped her rebuild her life after she abandoned the Imperium
 * Alfonso Herrera as Cassius, Noble's team warrior.
 * Cary Elwes as the King.
 * Rhian Rees as the Queen.
 * Stella Grace Fitzgerald as Princess Issa.
 * Elise Duffy as Milius, a rebel fighter recruited under Darrian's command.
 * Sky Yang as Aris, a young Motherworld soldier who stands up against his comrades' brutality
 * Charlotte Maggi as Sam, a farm girl who warmly welcomes any outsiders that come to her village.

Development
Rebel Moon is inspired by the works of Akira Kurosawa, the Star Wars films and Heavy Metal magazines. Johnstad and Snyder first started talking about creating the film in 1997. The project began development as a Star Wars film that Snyder had pitched to Lucasfilm, shortly after the sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. This pitch was to be a more mature take on the Star Wars universe.

Part Two received over $16.6 million in tax credits from the state of California for spending over $83 million on production in the state.

Post-production
The titles for the two parts were revealed to be Part One: A Child of Fire and Part Two: The Scargiver, according to teaser trailers released at Gamescom in August 2023. In March 2024, the official trailer was released.

Music
Composer Tom Holkenborg returns to compose the score for Part Two: The Scargiver, who served as composer for Part One: A Child of Fire. In March 2024, it was announced that a track list named "Songs of the Rebellion" will be released, based on the characters from the Rebel Moon universe. It features several artists, including Jessie Reyez, Tokischa, Tainy, Aespa, Tokimonsta, Black Coffee, and Kordhell. It was released on April 5, 2024.

Release
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver was released in select theaters in the United States for a week on April 12, 2024, and was released by Netflix on April 19, 2024.

Critical response
Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com gave the film one out of four stars, saying that it "feels as anemic and negligible as the non-sexual scenes in a floppy, overproduced porno". Bob Strauss of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the majority of the film "is not that much better than the derivative, sludgy first installment", but felt that the battle sequences of the final 45 minutes were enough to raise his overall assessment to two-and-a-half out of four stars. David Ehrlich of Indiewire called the film a 'catastrophic bore of a film'.

Viewership
After premiering April 19 on Netflix, the film garnered 21.4 million views in three days, making it the most viewed English-language film on the service from April 15 to 21; it was the third consecutive Netflix number one for Snyder, starting with Army of the Dead and continuing Rebel Moon's first part. However, it would score 44.2 million viewership hours, marking a significant decline from the first part; part one was reported to have had 54.1 million viewership hours in its first three days. The film stayed in first place with 18.8M views in its first full week of availability, which still counted as its own second week in first place, following its debut weekend. While mentioned, it was discovered that Variety had shown the film to be at the top spot of its streaming charts with over 741M minutes viewed compared to others. The week after that, the film slipped to third place with 6M views, as the film also earned an overall worldwide total of 46.2M views.

Future
In April 2024, co-writer Kurt Johnstad announced that though original plans were for a trilogy of movies, the franchise will eventually consist of a total of six films; explaining that the stories for each original installment have been expanded into two parts. The writer stated that the treatments are completed for the third and fourth movie and Snyder is currently writing the third film. On the same day, Snyder stated that the total number of films in the series will either be four or six, depending on whether or not the second and third entries of the trilogy each get split into a two-part movie as well.