Zack Snyder's Twilight of the Gods Is Here: Is It a Flop Like Rebel Moon or an Animated Gem?

The first season of the animated series based on Scandinavian myths Twilight of the Gods, has been released on Netflix, with Zack Snyder serving as producer and director of two episodes.

It is a brutal 2D animation for adults, full of sex and violence, but not without interesting ideas and characters.

What Is Twilight of the Gods About?

The eight-episode series tells the story of the warrior Sigrid, who saves the life of King Leif of the Volsung family on the battlefield. The rescued man immediately falls in love with the green-eyed, red-haired stranger. However, she is not completely foreign to him: her mother is also from the Volsungs, but her father is a giant who lives in Jotunheim itself.

They decide to marry in her father's homeland, but the wedding night never comes. Thor bursts into the wedding and kills all the giants – including, as he thinks, Leif and Sigrid.

But they survive and set out on a long and dangerous journey. First – to gather a group of madmen who agree to such a quest, and then – for the head of Thor himself. Loki, who wants to remake the world of the gods, helps them.

Twilight of the Gods Is Concentrated Snyder at His Best

All of Snyder's favorite tropes are present in Twilight of the Gods. There are insanely bloody battles, strong heroines seeking vengeance, sex scenes, and an ensemble cast of characters.

What Snyder has never been able to deny is the colorfulness of his heroes. There is the warrior Hervor, who is an excellent swordswoman; the bard Egill; the dwarf blacksmith Andvari; and the witch Seid-Kona.

Each of them has their own goals in this quest and, of course, a sad past. In Rebel Moon, Snyder handled flashbacks rather crudely – the characters simply gather in one place and take turns telling each other about their troubled lives.

In Twilight of the Gods, the personal histories are logically woven into the fabric of the narrative and are only revealed when the plot requires it.

Twilight of the Gods Is Undoubtedly One of the Director's Best Works

Twilight of the Gods is one of Zack Snyder's best projects. Some might say that's because he only directed the first and last episodes, but the entire series is infused with his vision. His team managed to structure the story better than in Rebel Moon, and the French animators achieved an amazing visual quality.

Twilight of the Gods is a solid story that lacks a little emotion to match last year's Blue Eye Samurai, but it's the closest animated show this year in terms of quality. And an almost unconditional success for Snyder that will most likely go unnoticed – which has already become a sad tradition for animation on Netflix.