Zack Snyder Goes Galactic: Exclusive First Look at ‘Rebel Moon’

The moon of Veldt is a David facing down the Goliath of the Mother World, which has amassed abundant wealth, political power, and an immense army. Veldt is nowhere special—until the rulers of the Mother World decide to seize it as a breadbasket. 

“They land in the village to say, ‘Listen, you guys will be our local food source while we’re tromping around this part of the galaxy. So how long till the harvest comes in?’ The villagers are pretty much stunned by the brutality, but they don’t realize what level the Mother World’s ready to go to,” Zack Snyder says. 

A newcomer named Kora (Sofia Boutella) rallies them to resist rather than roll over. She has been hiding on this moon after fleeing from her own role within the leadership of that oppressive government. (That’s her abandoned starship out beyond the wheat fields.) “The Imperium comes down, and they want to take the women and take the children and they need more soldiers,” Deborah Snyder says. “They’re going to take their food. And [the villagers] go, ‘Look, we can bargain with them.’”

The fugitive hiding in their midst is the only one who knows how foolhardy that is. “Kora used to be in the Imperium, and she’s like, ‘Guys, this ends badly for everybody,’” Zack Snyder says.

Boutella sees the character as a symbol for the way people ignore or run from the problems in their lives, until they can’t anymore. “She knows the guilt that she’s been living with, and the first step of her redemption is doing something about it instead of going away,” says the actor, best known for Atomic Blonde and playing the title role in 2017’s The Mummy opposite Tom Cruise. “I think that, as much as it is sci-fi, it’s a very human story,” she says.

This humble moon of Veldt is a greater danger than anyone realizes because the Mother World’s grip on its empire is secretly weakening and slipping. “They’ve conquered the universe, they’ve scooped everyone into the empire, and they’ve had to make individual deals with the different leaders of the different worlds. You can imagine how complicated that is. A lot of rulers felt like they made a bad deal, or that their fathers’ fathers made a bad deal. They begin to push back,” Zack Snyder says. “It’s more whispers at first. We’re right on the edge of revolution, and if our villagers are successful, the example of that could spur an even bigger revolt.”