Zack Snyder on Pacing & Expanding a World

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver director Zack Snyder about the sci-fi sequel. The filMMAker delved into how he took his time with the characters and what it’s like to have other creatives play around in one’s world. The film is set to release on Netflix on Friday, April 19.

“Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver continues the epic saga of Kora and the surviving warriors as they prepare to sacrifice everything, fighting alongside the brave people of Veldt, to defend a once peaceful village, a newfound homeland for those who have lost their own in the fight against the Motherworld,” reads the movie‘s synopsis. “On the eve of their battle the warriors must face the truths of their own pasts, each revealing why they fight. As the full force of the Realm bears down on the burgeoning rebellion, unbreakable bonds are forged, heroes emerge, and legends are made.”

Tyler Treese: What I really liked about this film was that you take your time. The first hour is very much about setting up the stakes, and we’re getting to learn more about the personal backgrounds of these characters. You really get more invested. Can you speak to the pacing and not just going straight to the all-out battle that, obviously, people were looking forward to in order to make it all the more fulfilling?

Zack Snyder: Yeah, I guess that was my whole thing was that I really wanted to make sure that we understood the “why we fight” of the movie, and we really got a chance to have this catharsis with the characters so that they knew that we, the audience, knew why they had accepted this mission from Kora and that why they accepted the mission and who they were was really clear before they went into this final fight.

I wanted to ask about your philosophy when it comes to action sequences because the best scenes aren’t always the most badass scenes possible. It also blends story and character into what they’re doing because what’s great for Ed Skrein’s character might not be a great scene for Sophia Boutella’s. How is it trying to find that balance and tie the story in with the action scenes? I thought this film did that really well.

Yeah, I think that, for me, was a really … I mean, in the final battle, there are numerous stories overlapping, all sort of within the confines of action. The biggest trick of that was making sure that all of them were having their beginning, middles, ends, and climaxes. There are sequences in the movie where Titus is fighting, and he’s actually having to look and see what’s happening with Kora up on the dreadnought … Often, when you make a movie, you can move pieces around, but these were kind of had to lock in. So I was really happy with the way that all that was designed to kind of really seamlessly work and give them all their chance for their incredible action set pieces to be satisfying from a character standpoint because they were able to actually acknowledge what the others were doing and what that allowed the audience to have.

Because a lot of times, I think with an action sequence, to have a third viewer like someone who’s watching the sequence in some ways and sort of being able to give it its reality through the eyes of someone else makes it sometimes land in a more realistic way, you know?

Since the first film, we’ve seen the universe expand through stuff like the House of the Bloodaxe comic and other creatives are getting to play within this world. You obviously, with comics, have gotten to play within the worlds created by others. How satisfying has it been seeing others get to work within this playground that you created?

It’s actually really super fun. We actually just are starting a Nemesis comic right now, her backstory — which I think is going to be really fun. I think the Bloodaxe comics are in their third run because people are really enjoying them. I think that that’s an incredible and cool venue. We have two “Making Of” books that are just the best Making Of books I’ve ever been around. We have the portrait book that I made … so there’s really just a ton of ancillary material that really supports the universe in a great way, as well as the Director’s Cuts that are coming at the end of the summer that, I think, are really going to expand it beyond.

That’s all going to be super fun for everyone to enjoy. For me, just being able to have this other material that expands the universe is so fun because even as we go forward, we’re constantly going like, “Oh, what’s the design inspiration for this sequence? Oh, we can actually look within the material we created for the design inspiration.” So that’s really incredible.