Warning: SPOILERS for Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver are ahead!
Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver is now available to stream with a Netflix subscription, and while Part One - A Child of Fire was certainly an action-packed affair, this follow-up kicked things up a notch. As expected, a brutal battle unfolded on the moon of Veldt that delivered heavy casualties on both sides, though fortunately the good guys emerged victorious in the end. Ahead of The Scargiver’s release onto the 2024 release schedule, I spoke with writer Kurt Johnstad, who penned the Rebel Moon scripts with director Zack Snyder and Shay Hatten, and he broke down the big deaths in the Netflix movie, as well as where things go from here for Sofia Boutella’s and Fra Free’s Regent Balisarius.
Breaking Down Nemesis, Gunnar And Noble’s Deaths
Although it was sad to see Veldtian farmer Den be killed by Admiral Atticus Noble, Doona Bae’s Nemesis was arguably the first major character to die in the second Rebel Moon movie, as she sacrificed herself to protect the village’s children and non-combatant women from Noble’s solders, and spent her last moments comforting a young boy she befriended. I started off my interview with Johnstad by asking what made Nemesis and the next person we’ll be talking about the right picks to be killed off and if any alternative were considered. He started off by saying:
We didn’t consider anyone else. It really organically shaped to that place. I think that the relationship between the young boy and Nemesis, we knew that there was this softening in her character through Movie 2. We wanted to really paint this idea that she was going to perhaps join her family in another realm if it’s in the ether metaphysically. But also that she had accepted that her path… she was going to fight to the end and protect these women and children in this longhouse. I love that scene… Shay [Hatten] wrote that scene, and I think it’s a beautiful scene.
As if that wasn’t heartbreaking enough, Michiel Huisman’s Gunnar, who’d accompanied Kora on her journey across the galaxy to recruit these warriors and fallen in love with her, also perished. Gunnar and Kora had snuck onto Atticus Noble’s Dreadnought and was fatally injured during the mission. Mere moments after landing, Gunnar died in Kora’s arms, and as Kurt Johnstad explained, his demise was necessary in order to put her on a trajectory where romance can’t be on the table. In his words:
Gunnar, I think, is the same kind of idea. We really looked at this idea of Kora as a person who wanted to be vulnerable. Sophia’s performance, it’s so hard to be a badass and be vulnerable, and she threads that needle so beautifully in her performance and her choices. We knew that we wanted pieces of the movie to reflect, ‘Ok, I’m going to be vulnerable with this person, this isn’t just an opportunity.’ But she really was falling for him and trusting him, but then also in the course of where we see, if we’re lucky enough to do more of these movies, that she needs to be alone in that path.
Then there’s Ed Skrein’s Atticus Noble, whom Kora did kill in Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire, but he was surprisingly resurrected in the movie’s final minutes. This time around though, we can count on Noble staying dead, as he was beheaded by Kora shortly before the Dreadnought crashed onto the surface of Veldt. Johnstad went over how much work went into realizing the environment where he’d meet his demise:
We always knew that Noble had to die. For me, it was fascinating because we had talked about, ‘What is that spectacle? What is that set piece? What is that thing?’ And I’d really proposed early, ‘Hey she should take out the Dreadnought. Wouldn’t that be cool to see a Dreadnought turning and lawn darting into the Veldtian landscape. That would be epic, how are we going to pull that off?’ And of course Zack [Snyder] was able to do it, and I think for me, I get to tell that story maybe over 30 pages, but it’s maybe three pages of description. Then our VFX people, [like] Marcus [Taormina], hundreds of hundreds of technicians and artists on those 30 pages spend thousands of hours of creativity. They actually have to render that, so I have to be careful what I write down because it’s a little easier for them than me. But we always knew that Noble, that as going to be the conclusion; for this Part 2, that Noble was going to be in the ground, and Devra and people were going to come back and the village would be saved.
While Atticus Noble is permanently dead, the threat of the Balisarius-controlled Motherworld lives on, and Johnstad went on to tell me about how Kora and her adoptive father are headed for a collision course.
What’s Next For Kora And Balisarius
As we learned in Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver, Balisarus squarely blamed Kora for the death of the Royal Family back when she was known as Arthelais, when in fact she’d only shot Princess Issa on his orders, though it turns out the young girl is still alive. After watching the movie, I was curious about whether Balisarius had always intended to betray Kora or if he decided to do so in the spur of the moment, and Kurt Johnstad clarified it was the former:
No, he was always going to betray Kora, and I think that Balisarius really is a character that, in our minds… again, if we’re lucky enough to keep telling these stories, the arcs of Balisarius and Kora are going to converge at one point where they’re really going to be face to face. The adopted father and the child of war are going to face each other. I think there’s going to be some debts to be paid for both characters, and I think that Balisarius is a really Machiavellian character and he’s an opportunist, and he’s going to use whoever and whatever he needs to do for his ascension, his power grab. He always knew that when he found Kora as a child that he was going to be grooming her for his purposes without her knowing it. And once she was betrayed, I think that that’s one of the wounds she carries with her, and she has to settle that score.
It’s important to clarify that Rebel Moon: Part Three has not been greenlit by Netflix yet, so whether or not Kurt Johnstad, Zack Snyder and Shay Hatten will get to bring their full vision of the sci-fi saga to life remains to be seen. But if more movies are on the way, then it’s only appropriate that Kora, the main protagonist, eventually come face-to-face again with the man who not only rules over the galaxy with an iron fist, but betrayed her and destroyed years worth of established trust. But like Johnstad said, what else would you expect from someone who will do whatever it takes to amass power?
Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more Rebel Moon coverage, including when the director’s cuts of these two movies come out later this year. You’re also welcome to peruse the best movies on Netflix to watch now.
