Zack Snyder breaks down “Rebel Moon”'s cliffhanger, including that betrayal and resurrection

The director explains the "subversive quality" of some of his storytelling choices.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire.

On the surface, Zack Snyder’s new Netflix movie Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire bears strong resemblances to Star Wars. You’ve got a plucky group of ragtag rebels fighting for freedom from a galactic Imperium, a farm planet often shot at golden hour, even some glowing swords. As Snyder and his wife/producer partner Deborah Snyder told EW earlier this year, Rebel Moon was originally conceived years ago as a Star Wars story, before being developed into its own franchise. So the superficial similarities shouldn’t always be taken for granted.

Take Kai, for instance. The mercenary pilot portrayed by Charlie Hunnam initially seems like this universe’s equivalent of lovable smuggler Han Solo. But where Han surprised everyone by swooping in to save the day at the end of the first Star Wars, Kai surprises everyone by doing the exact opposite. Instead of rescuing the team of heroes recruited by Kora (Sofia Boutella), Kai delivers them into the hands of their enemy, Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein).

“He's not the bounty hunter with the heart of gold. He's a true rogue,” Snyder tells EW. “To put your faith in some guy you met in a bar is slightly naive. And that’s the fun of the subversive quality to [Rebel Moon’s] sci-fi roots. It does debunk, or at least play with, what you expect to happen.”

But despite Kai’s most malicious intentions, his former comrades are able to break free from their restraints and dispatch him. We don’t see much of his death, but there’s a good chance we’ll get more in the R-rated extended version of Rebel Moon (a.k.a. the Snyder Cut) that the director says will be on Netflix at some point. Regardless, don’t expect to see Kai in Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver when it premieres next year.

“We were tempted to put him on the poster for movie 2, just so people would be like, ‘Of course he's going to make it through!’” Snyder laughs.

Kai’s betrayal isn’t the only surprise from the end of Rebel Moon. After a long, hard-fought duel, Kora finally succeeds in killing Noble….or so she thinks. In the final moments of the film, the shrouded figures known as Kalis use advanced technology to resurrect Noble. Belisarius (Fra Fee), Kora’s adoptive father and also the regent of the Imperium following the king’s death, charges the restored general with bringing his daughter back to the Motherworld.

For Snyder, it was logical to carry over the same main villain from the first half of Rebel Moon to the second, citing “the mechanics of having the Dreadnought being on the edge of the Motherworld’s domain. That would mean they would have to go all the way back and get another guy.”

But even when Rebel Moon was structured as a single movie, before the Snyders decided to split it in two, the director says there still would have been a Kora/Noble showdown at the halfway point before he came back for the ultimate climax.

“It’s a prize fight concept,” Snyder says. “There will be a rematch!”

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