As someone who generally likes Snyder’s movies but didn’t particularly care for Rebel Moon, it’s hard to say. The movie is both too long and too short. It’s too long in that the middle of the film drags and there are unnecessary scenes that definitely should have been cut (such as most of the scenes with the soldiers at the beginning of the film and the ending of the bird scene.) It’s too short in that most of the characters feel undeveloped and it’s hard to get emotionally invested in the climax.

I feel like some of the fight scenes, particularly an early one involving an axe, could use the extra blood effects from the R cut. It just felt really bland with cutaway clean kills, and kind of undermines the movie’s gritty tone with more fantasy violence. Later fights in the movie use more fantasy elements (like laser weapons) and these are fine without the blood effects.

Reportedly the R cut will have at least 40 extra minutes, which may really help flesh out the plot. I’d especially like it if the scene where Kora recites her character bio to the camera is cut and replaced with scenes showing us all those things, but that’s unlikely. More likely, some characters will be more fleshed out, but also a bunch of extraneous stuff will be added as well. Neither will likely fix the underlying core of the film that’s essentially Seven Samurai meets Star Wars, but does neither particularly well.

If you are going to watch it, I would probably wait for the extended cut, though it’s hard to tell whether there will be much, if any, improvement.