I thought on it recently and I think I've realized how they could've fixed this movie with a bit of restructuring.

I think from the outset the biggest thing that breaks the movie is that the dream sequences are so disconnected and never have any consequences (no one dies), so you're not invested in them at all. Now early on in the movie, this makes sense from a story perspective because it wouldn't make sense for the girls to get killed in real life at that point, since it would pretty much have put a halt to the whole escape plan. The train sequence actually introduces stakes, since we see Rocket die, but the problem is its far too late in the movie, and only happens at the end of the last dream sequence.

And yet, it occurred to me that the one place where they legitimately could've used the dream thing and had characters getting killed off is the escape from the asylum itself, since you could represent a character getting caught/killed during the escape as a death in the fantasy sequence, and you could cut between reality/fantasy in those instances and the connection would actually make sense, unlike the random dancing metaphor.

What they should've done is gotten rid of one of the fantasy sequences from the middle of the movie, since they're just essentially fetch quests and serve no story function. Keep the samurai stuff, and lose either the WW1 or the middle earth set pieces. Do the train sequence and end it the same way, that's good because it establishes stakes. Then, instead of having Mr. Blue randomly kill off 3 of the main characters, just go straight into the part where baby doll stabs Mr. Blue and we start the escape. Now the escape itself should be the final big fantasy sequence. Our remaining girls do everything they can to escape the asylum, using the items they've already acquired, and we get an amazing corresponding fantasy sequence to close the movie out. The fantasy sequence would also incorporate all the items that had already been acquired, but in a fantasy context, and we'd get the same 3 girls killed off, but during the course of the fantasy/escape sequence itself.

Thus we'd actually get a final awesome action sequence that we cared about and had real stakes, and you can end the movie the same way with the sacrifice thing (if you really have to go there Snyder), but minus the retarded voice over.

There, movie fixed, learn screenwriting hollywood.

I just watched this one. I don’t think Zack Snyder thought that the audience should feel bad about enjoying hot chicks in short skirts shooting guns. There might be a failed "empowerment" thing, tho.

I agreed with the panel pretty closely otherwise, tho, especially Seth's additions. Just a couple of changes would have made this a crazy work of genius instead of a beautiful but confusing miss. For one thing, the bordello dynamics were too similar to the asylum, so one of them should go. In fact, just say the asylum has a secret bordello in it, and you're good.

Then the first fight should have shown the connection and stakes by, maybe, Baby Doll getting hurt by the samurai and then smash cutting to her falling on the dance floor, then getting up and starting again.

The panel is right on in pointing out that Baby Doll needs to be the fighter (because she is the dancer) while the others get the map in the second fight, but that's pretty minor, like the kitchen knife/bomb imperfection.

The fire dance should have ended with getting the lighter, then we follow the girls into the dressing room where Blue walks in—THEN the dragon chase fantasy plays out (instead of Blue shouting), but really the whole dragon chase probably should have just been an extra on the Blu-ray.

Regardless, if this movie had been made in 1975 by Dario Argento, with nudity and animated fight sequences by the makers of Heavy Metal, it would be hailed as the greatest psycho thriller ever, flaws and all.

Ryan posted this on my wall last week.

My response:

Which Jim saw, and immediately IM'ed me about.

tl:dr - Teague and Jim have a philosophical conversation about what it means for a movie to be bad, wherein Jim is pragmatic and Teague is being all fanciful about things.

James: There is no reappraisal of Sucker Punch to be had. It sucks. End of.

me: nah.
me: it's in there.
me: zack snyder just isn't very good.

James: Dude, by that standard it's in every movie.

me: not really.

James: Yes, really

me: imagine this.
me: imagine if some shitty director had the idea for the fountain.
me: and tried his damnedest on it, but just isn't capable of doing it right.
 
...
 
that's sucker punch.

James: Yeah, but Sucker Punch sucks and theoretical Fountain sucks. 
James: The what ifs don't matter. It wasn't even a near miss. Which is different

me: but the theoretical fountain COULD have been real fountain.
me: and that's what I see in sucker punch.
me: that's why I can like it.
me: and that's why I can find it massively disappointing.

James: Which is fine, but make arguments for THAT movie. Not Sucker Punch.
James: Sucker Punch is bad. The idea it attempts (maybe) is good. Those are two vastly different things.
James: The road to hell is paved with good intentions and whatnot.

me: sure, but there's no instruction to be found in dismissing it uncritically.

James: There's no instruction to be found in trying to convince me that the parts for a toaster are hidden in my microwave.

me: ...
 
try again.

James: You're making a case that Sucker Punch is good because it had the potential to be good. Which you can say for anything that's bad. You're looking for instruction in everything, basically.

me: no no no.

James: Yes.

me: I'm not saying sucker punch is good.

James: That's what you're saying.

me: even on the commentary I said I can't defend it.

James: You're saying that it could have been.

me: I said I liked it.
me: but by studying the gap between an intention and a result, you learn more about jumping the gap.

James: "The problem is, there really is a strong case to be made for Sucker Punch"
James: What is the case?
James: Meaning the nature of the case. That it could have been good? Or that it is good?
 
me: the case is that it's bad at being good.
me: said bill clinton.
me: a well made movie wouldn't require explanation to work right.
me: sucker punch is thusly not well made.

James: So it's a bad movie. That could have been good.

me: it's an imperfect movie. 
me: the trouble is, its imperfection is the exact wrong time and place for imperfection.

James: How does that make it different from anything that you classify as bad?
James: Like, you think it makes a bad choice at the wrong time.

me: no.
me: I think he did the movie wrong.

James: Do you realize how you sound?

me: pft. when you're making something that would be easy to misunderstand anyway, and is already toe-ing the line of hot button issues and looking like a piece of modern dreck, you don't want to muddy the waters by not being sensible.
me: but to address your point, on one hand, yeah, if we're looking at it in black and white terms, sucker punch is not a good movie and raiders is.
me: but looking at movies more complexly, there's a case to be made.
me: if not that it is a good movie, that it actually was trying to be and fumbled the ball.

James: My problem with this isn't so much that I disagree with you. Sure. It could have been good. But my point is that most movies fall into that category. Sunshine just makes one very clear and obvious mistake. Sucker Punch makes dozens.

me: I think sucker punch made one. 
me: it's just that it's not so clear as sunshine.

James: ...
James: What is the one mistake?

me: sunshine's was a "nope, backspace out those last thirty pages and start over. anything else. go."
me: sucker punch's major artistic flaw was being written by zack snyder.
me: someone who has an idea isn't necessarily the best person to present it.
me: same story, different screenwriter, the prequels wouldn't have been shit.
me: the pitch meeting of sucker punch would have been very interesting and probably cogent.

James: I'm trying to identify the disconnect here. Between your point and mine. I'm sure once we're on level ground we'll agree.

me: I think I know what it is.

James: Because you're one of the sharpest movie dudes I know. But what you're saying sounds like gibberish to me. So there is a disconnect

me: I liked sucker punch for several reasons. sucker punch is also not a very good movie, as it stands. but there's validity in a piece of work beyond it's immediate adherence to a certain rubric.
me: by way of assigning grades, sucker punch does not pass.
me: and if you have to read into a movie to make sense of it, unless that was the explicit intention, that movie has failed on the rubric side of things.

James: OK. So we agree so far.

me: the way you feel about sucker punch, and probably mulholland drive, I ALSO feel about mulholland drive.
me: but this isn't a david lynch movie.
me: he was trying to do something that made a (fairly complex) point in an accessible way.
me: david lynch, I'm like ninety percent sure, is fucking batshit insane and his fans are worse.

James: Yeah.

me: david lynch movies are basically the macro implentation of the kuleschov effect.
me: you just start inventing contexts in your head wherein there's a resonance.
 
...I guess is how it works. it doesn't work on me.
me: that's not what snyder was trying to do.
me: I mean, it's what he fucking DID, but that was him sucking.

James: Lynch is not insane, he's a modern artist. There is a mechanic at play that he and some people get. I don't.
James: Is it unfair of me to take the artist into account or does the work have to stand alone?

me: now, there is a distinction in my mind between sucker punch and the matrix reloaded/revolutions.
me: I think the matrix re's were fundamentally wrongheaded.
me: (I like them, but they're also kind of a bummer.)
me: like "nope, stop there, this is a bad idea. how about this?"

James: Well, here's the thing.
James: The sequels work
James: But not as sequels to Matrix

me: they're just the wrong sequels.
me: they're the sequels to a worse movie.

James: Which is what I'm saying, I think.
James: You can make gold out of hay.
James:It's not hard with the right slant.
James: Sucker Punch plays with good ideas and was something that could have rocked. Right on the tip of the tongue.
James: And it's fine to recognize that. But the film still sucks.
James: I'm going to project on you.
James: Because this is how I feel about Sunshine.
James: I LAMENT and mourn the movie that wasn't.
James: And I have several movies like that.
James: And I think you're just really stimulated by what SP almost was
James: I think you bring more to it than it brought to you in the first place.

me: hold on.

James: But that's a different conversation.

me: I can see why you'd think that, but it's not quite the case.
me: we have a tendency to judge all movies on a percent-o-meter of perfectness. (not in the DIF terms, specifically.) like, raiders is a 97% perfect movie. speed is an 89% perfect movie. etc..
me: we give them the benefit of the doubt.
me: oh, this could have been better, but whatever, the rest is fun.
me: sucker punch, I think, falls a hair below the benefit of the doubt line. and with that tiny little difference in sensibility, the baby doll gets thrown out with the bathwater.
me: if, say, it's a 50% perfect movie, or hell, a 30% perfect movie. it signed its name correctly is all.
me: if someone's threshold is 31%, it fails.
me: and it doesn't fail by one percent.
me: it loses ALL benefit of the doubt.
me: it just drops to zero.

James: AH HAH!
James: You've hit it. This is where we disagree.
James: You call it a hair. I call it a cliff.
James: And once it misses, everything bad is amplified.

me: yep.

James: It's porn. Meaningless porn that gave it's "hidden message" 20 seconds of consideration.
James: Because if Snyder spent half the time crafting that fucking script as he did art directing the girls he'd have have something much better

me: not necessarily.

James: It's clear what his priorities were.

me: I think he thinks he nailed it.
me: I think he can't distinguish between his smart movie and any other.
me: that's my point.
me: he's Not The Guy to write that movie.

James: Then say that.
James: Don't say a case can be made for it. Because it sounds like Snyder apology. Which is nails on a chalkboard.
James: FUCK SNYDER is my general point.

me: duly noted.

James: I dunno. I think if Frank Darabont wrote The Master it would have hit the mark it was aiming for.
James: But what does that matter?
James: He didn't and it sucked.

me: because you learn by knowing why what-is-wrong is wrong.

James: Yeah. But none of the problems were news.
James: I already know those things.
James: So it's a "that sucked, moving on."

me: the master and sucker punch are very different beasts.

James: I was just making up a combo.
James: The point is, if your creative criticism is "it needed another writer" you can say that as a fix for anything. It's not particularly helpful.

me: fair point.

Yeah. That was an imposingly long post.

That was an interesting read, but it doesn't really tell me how you feel about the video. Though you did express that you think the guy (Adam) didn't state his case well, I'm curious to know why you feel that way, or what you think is wrong with his assessment/explanation?

Judging by the IM chat, your statement (twice made) seems to be, "If the movie needs to be explained outside itself, then it's a failure, or not good." While I think that could possibly be applied to certain movies, I disagree with it as a blanket statement. Sometimes, a movie does need to be explained after the fact. That doesn't necessarily make it fundamentally broken, it's just not everyone will understand it right away, which I think is more often than not, a "fault" of the audience, not the movie.

Personally, I sometimes really like it when something is pointed out to me that makes me look at or appreciate a movie in a different light. It doesn't make me go, "Oh, well I didn't get that watching the movie, therefore it either doesn't exist in the context of the movie, thus making it still bad or my not catching it somehow made it bad." Instead, I usually respond with, "Oh, wow! I totally missed that! Please tell me more so I can either like a movie I already liked even more or possibly come around on a movie that I initially didn't like."