Zack Snyder didn't "shy away" from Rebel Moon's Star Wars origins

Snyder has been open about how Rebel Moon started as a Star Wars project, exclusively telling RadioTimes.com: "It was an interesting balance that we had to strike because I wasn't afraid of there being a reference - I mean it more symbolically because the movie is a product of the movies that made me in the late '70s, from the early '80s, movies that sort of shaped my sort of cinematic language that I enjoy.

"So I didn't want to shy away from it and be like, 'Oh, it doesn't exist.' Also, I felt like it's important in the pantheon of science fiction.

"Of course, Star Wars is a giant reference for everybody and so I wanted, in whatever way we could, even symbolically, to comment on that relationship, to have the imagery and the symbolism commenting on the plusses and minuses of what that iconology does for everyone – in the sense that it sheds a light on, what are the limitations or the positives of that iconology that we're all just 100 per cent taking for granted?

"Star Wars is ubiquitous – you can't turn a corner without running into Baby Yoda... and so I think that to make a real hard effort not to do that really limits where you can be creatively. So we just said, 'OK, we know that exists. So fine. We're going to just design things now.' Just [things] that we like, and we're going to use that are sort of our taste level, what we think is cool.

"And we're not going to worry if sometimes those things overlap."

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), a young woman with a mysterious past who's made a quiet farming colony her home.

But when it's threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee), and particularly his henchman Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein), she's forced to take action, seeking out warriors from neighbouring planets to help her make a stand.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire is available to stream now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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