The first of writer-director Zack Snyder’s two-film space opera is a lazy amalgamation of better films and ideas smashed into a movie trailer

Near the end of “Rebel Moon,” a man, bloodied and bruised, spits out, “This is perfect.” And you know what? It was. Because here, as the movie reaches its final minutes, a line about perfection in a film that was anything but is the perfect insult to this uninspired injury.

“Rebel Moon — Part 1: A Child of Fire,” directed by Zack Snyder (“Justice League”) from a script by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten, turns the phrase “greater than the sum of its parts” on its head: It takes obvious inspiration from much better movies and stitches them together into a poorly paced, overly long and shockingly confusing mishmash of cliches and tropes.

You see, after the death of the royal family (which includes a princess that may be magical for some reason), the galaxy has fallen under the dictatorship of a bloodthirsty dictator, Balisarius (Fra Fee). His goal? Galaxy-wide domination, and he’s not afraid to channel his inner Palpatine to do so. In fact, you’ll notice many — so, so many — “Star Wars” references in “Rebel Moon.” (The question then becomes: Is it still a reference if you just want to be a darker, moodier “Star Wars”?)

To drive the lightsaber home, we begin on a backwater moon, home to simple farmers whose connection to the land yields a surprising surplus of crops. It’s here we meet our generally silent hero — Kora (Sofia Boutella) — who, if you can believe it, must embark on a journey to save her home from the aforementioned dictator, who wants all those delicious crops for himself and his soldiers.

And, if you’re capable of suspending disbelief just a little bit more, Kora has to recruit a crew of disparate misfits to aid her against the cartoonishly evil villains. I’d say more, but everyone is so interchangeable and bland, the story so derivative, it’s not worth the effort. I mean, it’s understandable that the first of a two-parter would want to take the time to set up the story, something I’m normally a fan of. However, I keep forgetting that a rebellion/revolution is supposed to be happening, and for a movie with the word “rebel” in its title, that’s not great.

Snyder’s no bastion of creativity, but he’s long been know for his visual panache — and yet “Rebel Moon” lacks even that. The cinematography, helmed by Snyder, is luscious and grand, undoubtedly, but the film’s uneven pacing and choppy editing do little to capitalize on it. We arrive on interesting-looking worlds only to be whisked away to bland interiors; the nonhuman creatures are creative, yet they’re on-screen for a criminally brief amount of time (or serve such little narrative function you have to wonder why they were included at all).

What’s worse is that the action sequences — the bread and butter of any space opera — are slow and stilted, bogged down by misused slow-motion and limp fight scenes. (Why does every villain have the aim of a stormtrooper?) No amount of visual wizardly can make up for boring fisticuffs.

In the end, “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire” is the worst of Snyder’s excesses: It’s bloated yet plot-thin, more spectacle than substance. It takes until the film’s final six minutes to muster something vaguely interesting, as if it only remembered as the credits neared that it’s the first of two parts. Snyder wants you to root for this band of underdogs, but offers nothing to draw you in, to make you care. A sad Frankenstein’s monster of far better movies and ideas, there’s nothing worth rebelling for in “Rebel Moon” — expect maybe for sending it to a galaxy far, far away.

One “Where’s a Death Star when you need one?” star out of five.