There are so many details in this movie. I've watched this movie so many times, and still learn something from it. I have a theory that Babydoll's trauma is never fully gone even when she goes to her fantasy worlds. For example, whenever she slays the Samurai, they bleed light, which gives reference to how the light bulb shattered when she accidentally shot her sister. Another one is when she slays the Steampunk Zombies- they bleed steam, which gives reference to how the steam came out of the pipe when the bullet hit the pipe. Also, Amber's bunny mech. There is a pink bunny painted on it, which gives reference to the scene when Babydoll is kissing her sister goodnight moments before her step-father tries to attack her, and her sister has a very similar pink bunny on the bed next to her.
I thought the light reminded her of the cops with the flashlights when they came to her after she shot her sister, and the robots were the light bulb shattering.
I think the night club world existed because it was easier to portray the girls there being pimped out by Blue than at the mental hospital. It would have been a way different tone with Blue and the orderlies doing this stuff to them at the hospital.
Yeah, because we see more of the nightclub reality than the asylum. My theory in connection to "Sweet Pea is the real protagonist" and "everything is told past tense" is that sweet pea was telling her own story in the point of view of the strong woman she could have been and amber and blondie's execution in the nightclub reality could mean that they were actually lobotomized in the asylum. It's probably easier for her to tell the story in a "nightclub" rather than in the asylum where it actually happened due to trauma. 😅
@@renenmarkohcruz8176 I agree on both of these and thought it was obvious - it's fairly immature to only see this as exploitation and sexuality. It shows a lack of depth in understanding symbolism or storytelling techniques from this channel.
It was also because in the nightclub Blue is in charge and the doctor is less than him. It shows that Blue, in the hospital, wields a lot of power and in some ways usurps power from the doctor.
I've heard much criticism for this film, but I can attest as a survivor of severe chronic PTSD in situations I didn't feel like I could escape from, this encapsulates exactly what it feels like to escape into your fantasy world and disassociate in order to protect yourself and survive. What's even more incredible is that even the fantasies have some cracks of reality splitting through. It is a brilliant film, and one that should not be disregarded, especially the moment where she meets the highroller, and experiences in her mind, a moment of respect for her own autonomy in a world full of men that try to control and take the core essence of her, which, of course, they cannot. She willingly gives it in order to be free. It is an authentic and allegorically beautiful, tragic, and delicate depiction of balance between feeling powerless and being in touch with your own true power. I still love it to this day, it is one of my eternal favorite movies of all time.
I think the brothel represents the reality but in her mind. While these women are in the asylum they were probably pimped out because they were attractive and lobotomized. If men saw fit to take half of their brain and control them, I would not put it past them to pimp them out.
I'm watching it again and the strip club/brothel is definitely reality. You can't imagine m16s/ar15s from the perspective of the past. I don't like this movie anymore... It is a sad expose of strip clubs/brothels. I'll post my critique tomorrow; I'm half way through and I've had about enough for one day.
I love that the movie doesn't spell everything out and lets us think about it. The brothel is the connective layer. It reflects what's going on in the real world but more glamorous and therefore easier to stomach (Baby Doll's mind protecting itself). The same goes for the girls. I think they might just be products of Baby Dolls mind. Imaginary friends or facets of her own psyche. The third layer is pure fantasy, as Baby Doll's mind fully retreats into itself, because what's going on in the real world is too dark. The action has no meaning beyond being an empowering metaphor for the struggle and reaching an objective. In the end Baby Doll is lobotomized, at which point she fully retreats into herself/ her mind and becomes unreachable, thus being finally free. However, this means that the final girl driving into the sunset is merely a product of Baby Doll's imagination. She might represent the strongest part of Baby Doll's characters, the only fragment of herself that survived.... Or she is a subconscious admission that there can't be a happy end for Baby Doll herself, so she imagines one for her imaginary friend who isn't bound by reality.
I don't know. The whole movie is told from baby doll's perspective though. She is the one to get lobotomized and all that. Sweet pea is saved by the mysterious man, who only appears in the fantasy stages, suggesting all of it being pure fantasy.
@@youtubevoice1050 There are a couple subtle hints to my theory in the movie at the beginning when sweet pea is narrating She mentions something about a guardian angel that is the strongest woman or something I can't remember the words it's been awhile and at the end When baby doll tells her this is your story and she's the only one to live. It really isn't my opinion it was my girlfriend at the time's and she was much much smarter than me
yup, especially if you plainly just want entertainment. Flawless action is first, good story would be a bonus. And both would be superb. Though most of the time I just want to suspend disbelief. :D hahaha
One of the very few movies I can watch over and over and pull something new out of each scene. Also it, like Lord of the Rings is beautifully filmed and each scene could be a wall hanging.
I liked the movie and it made sense to me. The brothel represents what was happening to the girls. To some level they accepted what was happening to them as reality. The fantastical world was them showing their strength while everything was happening.
The three levels of reality were simply the directors way of telling the same story in three different ways. The asylum was the reality, the nightclub was used to explain how the girls developed their plot to escape and the fantasy sequences showed the execution of those plans. The whole story could’ve been told strictly from the point of view of any of the realities. But instead the director chose to use all three because none of them on their own fulfilled the films objective. Was the film exploitive or was it a commentary on exploitation? I don’t think the film set out to be either. While the women may have been suggestively dressed, they were still portrayed as strong, smart and capable. So I suppose the message, if there was one, was that women can be anything they want to be and are not defined by their appearances. Just like anyone else they can be many things at the same time. I personally like it when directors take risks. Because that’s when we get some of the most interesting films. Anyone remember “Joker”?
I loved this movie because of the metaphors, parallels, and symbolism. The extra meanings woven into the story to portray psychological survival instincts and defense mechanisms I find fascinating. I get enjoyment every time I watch it finding more of what a sentence or scene might also be saying.
I'm probably wrong. But my understanding is that baby doll is the body. Sweet pea is the mind. Rocket was a real person who became a kind of surrogates sister and after she was stabbed by the chef, blue told everyone that baby doll had helped her escape to hide the death (if the chef went down he'd take blue with him). The other two were labotomised by blue (or at least he sent them to be). The dancing was obviously sex. "All that gyrating and moaning" with the fight scenes being baby doll way of coping with it. Blondie nearly told the woman doctor what was going on at one point but blue interrupted and easily convinced the woman doc that it's all bullshit. And yes, baby doll wanted the lobotomy. To be free from guilt and her Hellish life
@@yourlocalnemesisllc he has more footage he said that he talked about it with the studio but once the tv rights and distribution rights end then they can proceed with director's cut
Maybe all the various women are just aspects or parts of Sweet Pea's personality and the various sequences are Sweet Pea becoming sane and having the various parts of her personality come together as a unified whole, which means those separate parts "die" and all that is left is a fully functioning, sane Sweet Pea.
You misunderstood the film: All the female characters in “Sucker Punch” (except the sister who dies) are fantasized, split personalities of just one victim of abuse fighting to escape captivity. When she finally escapes, the character “Baby” is not literally lobotomized, because she never actually existed in the first place. The actual girl who escapes simply leaves behind each of the broken masks of her true self, symbolically cutting off the part of her brain where her memories of abuse are stored. Psychologists have long known that victims of sexual abuse often “dissociate” from themselves during abuse, by imagining that they are having out-of-body experiences, observing themselves from the outside as a separate person might do. Baby’s “dances” symbolize her dissociation/hallucinations during such unwanted sexual experiences. But these are actually hallucinations within hallucinations, given that Baby herself is just one of many fanciful alteregos of the girl who escapes at the end of the film. When she is finally free from abuse, she no longer needs her alteregos. Thus, Baby - the infantile part of a newly mature survivor - is symbolically lobotomized, and replaced by a grown up woman who is finally able to move on to an independent life. Baby’s “lobotomy” also symbolizes a self-sacrificial atonement for her failure to save her sister from death earlier in the film.
Let me explain this movie to you all, since I never actually met anyone who understood how it worked. It's actually simple. There are two basic viewpoints in this story. One is the real world, and that is Babydoll's POV. This is all that happens in the beginning of the movie, goes on to the montage of Babydoll's time in the asylum and finishes precisely when we are shown her having the lobotomy in the montage. And THEN, and this is the important part, the movie completely shifts over to Sweetpea when she wakes up in the play rehearsal. From this point on, the movie is Sweetpea telling us, the audience, how Babydoll saved her. The brothel is just Sweetpea's way of romanticizing what was happening to her. As to the times when Babydoll dances and imagines other worlds, it's not Babydoll imagining anything at all. It's all Sweetpea. Sweetpea makes Babydoll sound like this incredible hero fighting against all odds first to save herself, but ultimately to save all of the girls. Sweetpea uses these sequences as a euphemism for what babydoll was actually doing, which was being molested by the orderly. In this way, Sweetpea tells us how she views Babydoll, how she thinks Babydoll fought giants and dragons to save them all, and ultimately made the ultimate sacrifice, which was getting cought escaping and being lobotomized. In the end, the movie shifts back to reality when Sweetpea goes on the bus, and there are two key moments here. First is the driver, who helped her get away from the cops, and so she wove him into the story as this fatherly guide figure, and second there's this kid she briefly looks at, which we saw before in the WWI trenches. So basically, there are two sequences happening in this movie. The first is the real events that happened to babydoll, up till the end of the montage. Notice that when we see Babydoll fighting her stepdad (?) In the beginning, she doesnt take refuge in any fantasy world, we are clearly shown what happened, because this is the real world, real events. The second is Sweetpea narrating to us, the audience, how Babydoll saved her. So brothel and fantasy worlds are all euphemisms created by Sweetpea to engrandeur Babydoll and to deal with all the traumatic events she suffered through in the asylum. Where the movie fails is in establishing a relatiom between us, the viewer, and sweetpea, focusing instead on babydoll and rocket. It would have worked better if sweetpea died on the train to save rocket instead of the other way around, and in the end rocket was the one who made it out. I hope this helps everyone understanding and appreciating this movie a little bit more
@@chrislair6832none. It's just someone see saw on the bus, that looked like he wasnt in a good situation, which resonated with her and the memory stuck, so she incorporated her into her fantasy
@@chrislair6832 I guess his story is a mystery, both to us and to sweetpea herself, so she included him as a somewhat mysterious participant in her fantasies, one that looked like he was in pain himself, so maybe sweetpea felt some connection there
@@roccondil5 Absolutely I mean they're so many possibilities he could have written minded her of a little brother it could have been a young neighbor that was I can just go on for days but I appreciate the help lol
The fact that Blue seems to do all most of the dialogues and is complex (as you mentioned) proves the point that the women/patients, while inside the asylum, are voiceless or without freedom. This is true in some institutions where sadly some patients aren't treated as humans and have limited freedom as to what they think or want to do.
Don't blame the poor script. These are patients at the asylum so they might be under some drugs or whatso. It takes an immersion in mental institutions to truly understand the meaning of this film.
The actions in the Fantasy layer dont necessarely need to correspond with the ones in the Nightclub layer. They are performing a task that will lead them to freedom, and seeing as their reality is opressive, they see themselves in a war, essentially. So it makes sense to see themselves prevailing in a battle when performing those tasks. The actions by themselves are not important or the point, it's the narrative. If they get what they need, then they won the battle. About the other girls: likely lobotomized too. Or sent to an isolation ward, to keep them apart. About the exploitation: yeah, there's some, but what i can say as a woman who likes the movie, i see some very positive and empowering stuff there too. No matter how hard your life is, how the sexism and oppression around you can hurt, you are stronger than that. You can be your own damm hero, you can be as beautiful and sexy as you want, as powerful and cunning as you wish, you had the weapons to do it inside of you. There's also something to be said about how the movie kind of makes a criticism of the whole "what you're wearing" thing. So what if they look sexy, that's not their only trait, also that's no excuse to treat them differently or to abuse them. IDK if that was the intention, but i see it as a interesting point. Sure, everybody likes to see gorgeous women in skimpy outfits, but also use their clothing as an excuse to victimize and blame the victims. The girls choosing to look sexy while fighting, might speak to their agency. They like to look sexy and beautiful, that makes them feel powerfull, it's no one's bussiness if they do. The movie might be pointing a mirror at as in this respect. How we can be judgmental and hypocritical. How some see pretty girls as stupid, harmless interchangeble eye candy. You like to see them fight and dance in skimpy outfits, but if they victimized, so what? The movie is fun, right? We enjoy the movie, the story, even if the characters are living in terrible conditions, we still engage, because de action set pieces are awesome and the girls are beautiful. You can look at Sucker Punch as a mindless fan service festival, you can enjoy it for that and never look deeper and that's ok, but i do feel like its says more, it has more beneath the surface. It's not the most groundbreaking and it's not as smart as it thinks it is, but there's still value to be found in it, if you look for it. That's just MY opinion tho.
I loved this movie. There’s a few flaws, but overall I thought it was awesome. I just wish that we got to cut back to the asylum a few times throughout so we were actually tracking the real world as well. I think that would’ve rounded the movie out nicely. Also the soundtrack is bomb af
Sorry, but what's so difficult to understand? It's basically Zack Snyder's version of Brazil (1985). Just like Gilliam saw ridiculous bureaucracy around him and told a story to comment on it, Snyder saw obsessive, frothing at the mouth fanboys around him coming off 300 and Watchmen and made a feminist movie to comment on that. He should've been allowed to do his crazy R-rated vision. It could've used a pinch of humor to actually disarm us to the themes of the movie, but I think it's one of his most creative and daring works. Stuff like Sucker Punch gets trashed while movies like Ant Man pass their grades. That tells you all you need to know about what Hollywood has come to represent.
SP is a masterpiece, probably Snyder's best. People who say that Snyder movies are bad are the same or the equivalent of those who two or three decades ago were complaining that there were not enough car chases and things blowing up in their movies and that there was too much dialog. Little kids criticizing movies meant for adults. Watchmen and DOTD ate superb and Sucker Punch is a masterpiece, a trilogy enough to make of him a legend and build his legacy, put that in your pipe.
They get molested and abuse or pimped out to clients. The mental asylum is kinda a front as a brothel. She's already escaped her mind before he can kiss her. And when he kisses her, he gets pissed off because he doesn't fell anything because she's not there.
The brothel seemed to be her real life after the accidental shooting of her sister. The Asylum was how she portrayed her current situation where Baby Doll feels like she is trapped in an insane asylum. The lobotomy was her imagining her own suicide to escape.
It's about 3 or 4 people's lives mixed mixed together who used this all of an escape and the lobotomy was what they wanted all along because their life sucked so much I married baby doll but it's been so long that I don't remember why everything happened in the movie.
1:50, because the Brothel isn't any level of fantasy, both the Asylum and the Brothel are both in reality, both could have probably even been in her mind, as she creates a fake memory in her mind that her sister died saving to get away from the pain and guilt of killing her sister, 3:51, that's because as sweet pea said to Baby doll, "All that gyrating and moaning, A dance should be about more than titillation. Mine is personal, it says who I am. What the heck does yours say?" on her first dance, baby dolls dances are random and flamboyant without meaning, hence why her fantasies tend to have the same style as her dance
Why is it that 300 is great with sexy men in barely any clothes and sucker punch is sexist? I will never understand. Atleast, sucker punch had a greater more story to tell and a deeper message buried in it.
first encounter with wise man - temple with the wise man inside- human mind; her mind - snow setting- mind in trauma/stress/pressure - "your shoes is tracking snow everywhere"- being a loose cannon that cause her sister' death - "should I take them off? that time has passed"- can't make amends for her actions - "what can I do for you? what are you looking for? a guess?"- uncertainty of own desires - "freedom; that wasn't so hard was it?"- unawareness/ignorance of her needs - katana; symbolizes raw talent, great potential, nature - handgun, ammo and charm; resources necessary to survive, nurture - spear samurai- a person of great talent and pride, defeated kneeling down-humility - mini-gun samurai- man with unlimited wealth, defeated by expert maneuvers to enable point blank shots in the head-wisdom - katana samurai- mirrors one' self, defeated in a crouch position to precisely attack middle section with an upward slash- humility and wisdom in perfect harmony paving the way forward, yin-yang position if seen from bird's eye view
The entire point of this movie was to show that no matter how brilliantly it's said or epically done; if done by a woman it is worth less than a passing glance and a nod. Exploitation and abuse is covered up by those who have power, and if you fight back you get locked away.
I feel like all of the girls were really a part of sweet pea. Each to help her survive. The other girls dying was her waking up from her dreams and fantasy so that she can finally escape and live.
The part of this video labeled ‘Is It Pure Exploitation?” is amazing because this guy quite literally spelled out the entire point of this film and yet still missed it completely.
This movie made zero sense. Visuals, casting, and score were great but I just can’t get past a flawed plot; it’s essentially the very essence of a movie.
The brothel bits are literally the girls reality when the psychiatrist and lobotomist aren’t around to see how the orderly and his thugs treat the girls. The action scenes are a way for baby doll and the audience to escape the brutality of the assaults the girls face from the staff..
I disagree with pretty much everything you said in this video! I loved this movie! Absolutely in my top ten all time favorites. I had no problem understanding it. And it made perfect sense to me. I love the visual effects and the soundtrack as well!
The Brothel is her mind trying to at least somewhat glamorize the sheer disgusting animal abuse that is the Asylum real world. I'm not saying it glamorous, but people that have undergone severe trauma will try to add some sort of gravity, importance, or special reason for why that trauma happened or is happening. It's looking for a higher meaning to something that has none. Basically, it gets dark now so fair warning, Babydoll is really in the Asylum & being "heavily molested" on a weekly or maybe even daily basis. Blue is basically pulling a Buck from Kill Bill on her. So in Babydoll's mind she's trying to add some sort of twisted reason to this. She's being saved for some high roller, the Dr. who will set her free. I imagine that the Mayor that shows up in the Brothel is probably just some basement dwelling sweaty guy that Blue met oggling girls at the Circle K. But we want the people that have victimized us to be bigger monsters than just some sweaty loser guy. I see it as every one of Babydoll's dances is her being sold off by Blue while being tied to a gurnney in a basement. Her dance world at least makes her an objectified woman, on her mind. Not an objectified object not even a person. Which is her reality. The final level, the fighting, is just her deepest fantasies. Her desire to just look cute, do kick ass things, have a team of bad ass friends, a parental/fatherly figure with good advice, and a purpose beyond just objectification. The entire movie is one long unreliable narrator, completely avoiding the real story that's disgustingly sad. Which is why I love the movie, but I hate what happens to the characters.
It's important to understand symbolism in this film. The reason the brothel reality exists is because that's how the guards treat the girls - like prostitutes. It's basing itself off the saying 'treat this place like a brothel', that's exactly how the guards are treating the asylum, like their own pleasure house. As for the female characters being 'shallow' I think this is deliberate because again that's how they are seen by the guards, they don't have personalities to them, they are just objects, just barbie dolls to be played with. As for the action scenes, this film is heavily influenced by Japanese anime which notoriously flicks between realities - kill bill does the same thing. I personally love this film, I think it gets a bad review because people misunderstand the meanings of the realities, it is a way darker film than people give it credit for and dare I say a very clever depiction of abuse.
Doctor outranks him and in her imagination he is still the major mobster, that literally tells u that he was abusing his power inside the asylum which leads to her having more fear of him than the doctor herself
It is a very layered movie about female empowerment and their power that is exhibited in ways men cannot match. There are many who have explained what the movie was actually about (story from SweetPea’s POV) and there are threads of how the four who died (I consider BabyDoll as dying) are just constructs within SweetPea’s mind. I take a different thread - which you allude to here: Snyder wanted to make a movie in the vein of Heavy Metal. The original HM movie was a crazy animated character of a film that spoke to the fantastical, but did not draw people in with the kind of imagery that Snyder wanted to bring. The story was always about the fantasy set pieces) and unlike other exploitative movies, his film presented the female protagonists and other characters in their preferred manner. My favourite snippet regarding this was when the actress who plays Rocket answered an interviewers question about the fantasy scenes and the outfits. Her answer was along the lines of “Umm what are you talking about? Who wouldn’t want to be in those bad-ass costumes fighting? Do you think we would be wearing bathrobes and slippers while shooting guns?” It is a complex movie that many take as exploitative - and many will say should not exist because of the way the female characters are portrayed. I believe Snyder was experimenting and, like 80s movies treating women badly, it is a product of its time. But I would challenge others with this thought: if you were doing D&D or some other fantasy fighting, what would you be wearing? What would you WANT to wear? A big onesie like Superman? Or an outfit like Batman? Look at how the Amazonians dressed in Wonder Woman. See anything different?
Sucker Punch clearly illustrates that Zack Snyder is great at creating big action scenes but is incapable of writing a good cohesive narrative with well defined characters. The movie itself is just a big CGI mess that looks good, but it ultimately falls apart story wise. Despite the visuals and sound track, Sucker Punch is a very forgettable movie.
There is no third layer of reality. The movie makes a lot more sense when you realize that the asylum scenes are Sweet Pea’s retelling of how she escaped, of a brave girl who comes to rescue the others. In fact, that’s the only way the ending making any sense. Did you notice how the movie opens as if you’re watching a stage play? You’re watching Sweet Pea’s retelling of how it happened.
Honestly, me too though. Zack Snyder and I think alike. That might be why a lot of my top favorite movies are not well received by the general public. I think most people care more about the writing.
no matter what dance they choreographed, it would have been ridiculed forever. this was the logical decision. nothing could have lived up to the hype for the story.
I actually have to disagree with the lighter scene not making any sense. It relates to certain versions of a dragon in books and lore. There are 2 primary versions that I'm aware of: 1. In one variation, dragons are a magic being, and they need something internal to produce the flame that is then expelled, a fire crystal. 2. In many they either produce a highly flammable gas/liquid inside their bodies. When they breathe fire, they are expelling the substance from their body and need something to light the fire, more often then not this is a pair of rocks/crystals to cause the spark needed for the fire breath.
I can understand this tho simply because I do have a slight mental issue and I too have 3 worlds. Being that the real world takes a toll on me with all my complications. My reality gets bad sometimes to the point my mind drifts off into the other 2 worlds. One where I’m living all my dreams and everything is good but the other is full of traumatic experiences that are not too realistic just to take focus off actual pain but that world also helps me write scenarios for skits and potentially movies one day. So I can understand this to the fullest
Wow... this video just COMPLETELY failed to understand this movie. Here's a hint: The "1st level" you speak of, the asylum, is not an accurate representation of reality either. It is just a somewhat less corrupted version of the real world than the "2nd level" or "3rd level" you speak of. Nothing you see, at any point in this movie, is an entirely accurate view of the world through a "God's eye lense". EVERYTHING is corrupted by the prism of the person who is telling the story. EVERYTHING! By the way... just WHO is telling thing story anyway??? Is it a character from the movie? Or are YOU telling the story?
When I watched it (SuckerPunch) the one time I did, I only watched the action sequences, I had no idea what was happening with the rest of the movie. This video just filled in those moments I wasn't paying attention to.
A Hollywood person I once knew explained to me what a ‘treatment’ was ...I said “I don’t get it. It’s not a story. It’s just a sequence of randomness” ...He said “You just don’t get what a treatment is. One can still get paid for providing ‘ideas’”
The real reason is very sad. Baby Doll was already lobotomized from the moment she was in the asylum. She has Ptsd so the asylum footage is from the past or another delusion of reality. The club is what she feels like current reality is when she is going about her day as a lobotomized patient simply standing up, sitting down and doing nothing. The fantastical sequences are when she is being r@ped as an already lobotomized patient. The entire theme is about a young woman being used , being full of life and having society completely destroy her but she retains her fighting soul. Vote this up so other people can understand. Thanks and take care.
The movie starts to make sense if you think about the darker aspects like why was the room blue was caught in is filled with mattresses with blood and other bodily fluids on it. Basically the girls were getting "exploited" and the good doctor was doing nothing, because she either didn't believe it or didn't know about it. She escaped her reality, only for it to be another cruel reality. Then escapes that into her inner world where her delusions help her fight and overcome. She can't cope with reality anymore because of the pain and trauma, and her inner "Angel" says what she needs to hear, not what is relevant. Which is why, in the end, it is a perfect victory. She no longer has to live with the pain, sweet pea escapes to find the parents she ran away from and blue and the rest are arrested. The death scene with the other two is more taking them out of the game, than actual death. More than likely, solitary confinement than an actual death. For babydoll, it is the same though, as she will never get to see them again. If you were to take away the night club level, then you would have to see even further exploitation and darkness. So, that layer acts as a protection for the viewers to the cruelty that is actually happening when the girls "dance"(are exploited in some way emotionally or physically). Madam Gorski tries to do good for the girls, but ultimately she is shown to be either incompetent or ignorant. Which is why she can't be the inner "Angel" or a real world angel like the bus driver that saves sweet pea at the end. I doubt the bus driver was the same person as baby dolls inner angel, but the point was to show the willingness to stand up and fight for oneself and others. Hence the reason the bus driver looked to sweet pea as babydoll's inner angel.
The brothel is in my opinion her way of justifying or sort of accepting what’s happening to her in the asylum, I think it’s her way of putting herself on a different mind state while she’s being abused of, raped, etc.
I understand why people like this movie, but I don’t because I find the themes and message extremely hypocritical. Zack Snyder says the movie is a critique of sexist geek culture and I can definitely see that, but at the same time the movie gives those people exactly what they want. And it’s not done in an extreme way to point out the hypocrisy, it’s just scantily clad women doing stuff whilst simultaneously judging you for watching.
Artistic vision dictates that if the middle part was taken out, it would be wrong to do so. He could add flying whales to every scene and it would still be their play.
Visuals and music alone stunted a lot of viewers from thinking. Question: can't the brothel just be blue's fantastical escape from just being an orderly getting kicks from sexually abusing patients.... Sense we're stretching/reaching for reasoning?
In Baby Doll's asylum reality, Blue as an orderly has constant interaction and control of the girls day to day life and is pimping out the girls underneath Gorski's nose, that is why he is represented as a powerful mob boss in the second reality (the brothel/club). I think Gorski is represented as working for Blue in the second reality, because in the asylum reality she is simply a doctor doing her job, who thinks she is doing whats right or somehow helping them.
Many people mistake the film for an adolescent male exploitation film, when in reality it was probably meant to subvert the genre of adolescent male exploitation films, and it just missed the mark (obviously, as most people didn’t get what the director was trying to do). It was an interesting premise, none-the-less, even if the film failed to reach its potential.
I remember reading a synapse of the film, it mentioned that the brothel was the asylum's side gig and was part of the real world. As they girls couldn't leave, they were forced into that lifestyle while the 3rd so called fantasy world was the only realm that was fictional within the stories setting. I can't remember where I read this though, maybe Wikipidia? Can't remember for sure.
The night club is just Baby Doll‘s view at how the world treats women and there are hints that all the girls are different traits or facets of her personality. Sweet pea has a sister, who dies, same as Baby Doll and Vanessa Hudgens‘ character is called Blondie, even though she’s dark haired. Snyder also confirmed that his original cut is vastly different to the theatrical version, ending with a song by Baby Doll. This movie is worth another view.
The soundtrack of this movie is just fantastic. Too bad a lot of people just straight up misunderstood this movie.
The film is a music video of a film soundtrack ;)
10 years later and this is still a movie worth talking about and trying to understand
There are so many details in this movie. I've watched this movie so many times, and still learn something from it. I have a theory that Babydoll's trauma is never fully gone even when she goes to her fantasy worlds. For example, whenever she slays the Samurai, they bleed light, which gives reference to how the light bulb shattered when she accidentally shot her sister.
Another one is when she slays the Steampunk Zombies- they bleed steam, which gives reference to how the steam came out of the pipe when the bullet hit the pipe.
Also, Amber's bunny mech. There is a pink bunny painted on it, which gives reference to the scene when Babydoll is kissing her sister goodnight moments before her step-father tries to attack her, and her sister has a very similar pink bunny on the bed next to her.
Amazing! There’s even more to unpack, the film is layered in so many ways
That is so cool how you noticed that I’ve always wondered about the bunny robot
Oh, i didn't even notice until now
I thought the light reminded her of the cops with the flashlights when they came to her after she shot her sister, and the robots were the light bulb shattering.
this movie is so underrated
All zach movies is like that except the 300
I'm not sure this video did anything to explain anything. And no, this movie is not underrated.
Na I Dont Think It’s Underrated..
They make the deeper point, but most people didn't get it. So in a way, it was far too complicated and fails to reach much of its audience.
It's understated for a reason
I think the girls who were shot, were actually lobotomised before the central character.
That was my idea, too. Killed in the brothel = lobotomized in the real world. They're not dead, but might as well be.
I think the night club world existed because it was easier to portray the girls there being pimped out by Blue than at the mental hospital. It would have been a way different tone with Blue and the orderlies doing this stuff to them at the hospital.
Yeah, because we see more of the nightclub reality than the asylum. My theory in connection to "Sweet Pea is the real protagonist" and "everything is told past tense" is that sweet pea was telling her own story in the point of view of the strong woman she could have been and amber and blondie's execution in the nightclub reality could mean that they were actually lobotomized in the asylum. It's probably easier for her to tell the story in a "nightclub" rather than in the asylum where it actually happened due to trauma. 😅
@@renenmarkohcruz8176 I agree on both of these and thought it was obvious - it's fairly immature to only see this as exploitation and sexuality. It shows a lack of depth in understanding symbolism or storytelling techniques from this channel.
@@cameronmurtagh9977 agreed!
@@cameronmurtagh9977 totally!
It was also because in the nightclub Blue is in charge and the doctor is less than him. It shows that Blue, in the hospital, wields a lot of power and in some ways usurps power from the doctor.
I've heard much criticism for this film, but I can attest as a survivor of severe chronic PTSD in situations I didn't feel like I could escape from, this encapsulates exactly what it feels like to escape into your fantasy world and disassociate in order to protect yourself and survive. What's even more incredible is that even the fantasies have some cracks of reality splitting through. It is a brilliant film, and one that should not be disregarded, especially the moment where she meets the highroller, and experiences in her mind, a moment of respect for her own autonomy in a world full of men that try to control and take the core essence of her, which, of course, they cannot. She willingly gives it in order to be free. It is an authentic and allegorically beautiful, tragic, and delicate depiction of balance between feeling powerless and being in touch with your own true power. I still love it to this day, it is one of my eternal favorite movies of all time.
I think the brothel represents the reality but in her mind. While these women are in the asylum they were probably pimped out because they were attractive and lobotomized. If men saw fit to take half of their brain and control them, I would not put it past them to pimp them out.
I'm watching it again and the strip club/brothel is definitely reality. You can't imagine m16s/ar15s from the perspective of the past.
I don't like this movie anymore... It is a sad expose of strip clubs/brothels.
I'll post my critique tomorrow; I'm half way through and I've had about enough for one day.
this is exactly how i saw it
I love that the movie doesn't spell everything out and lets us think about it.
The brothel is the connective layer. It reflects what's going on in the real world but more glamorous and therefore easier to stomach (Baby Doll's mind protecting itself). The same goes for the girls. I think they might just be products of Baby Dolls mind. Imaginary friends or facets of her own psyche.
The third layer is pure fantasy, as Baby Doll's mind fully retreats into itself, because what's going on in the real world is too dark. The action has no meaning beyond being an empowering metaphor for the struggle and reaching an objective.
In the end Baby Doll is lobotomized, at which point she fully retreats into herself/ her mind and becomes unreachable, thus being finally free. However, this means that the final girl driving into the sunset is merely a product of Baby Doll's imagination. She might represent the strongest part of Baby Doll's characters, the only fragment of herself that survived.... Or she is a subconscious admission that there can't be a happy end for Baby Doll herself, so she imagines one for her imaginary friend who isn't bound by reality.
Very close. Instead of baby doll going into the dream worlds it's actually sweet pea picturing baby doll as their savior
I don't know. The whole movie is told from baby doll's perspective though. She is the one to get lobotomized and all that. Sweet pea is saved by the mysterious man, who only appears in the fantasy stages, suggesting all of it being pure fantasy.
@@youtubevoice1050 There are a couple subtle hints to my theory in the movie at the beginning when sweet pea is narrating She mentions something about a guardian angel that is the strongest woman or something I can't remember the words it's been awhile and at the end When baby doll tells her this is your story and she's the only one to live. It really isn't my opinion it was my girlfriend at the time's and she was much much smarter than me
Thank you
There can be several endings for each viewer. What a masterpiece movie but highly underrated
The soundtrack and visuals were flawless. I don't care if the movie made sense.
Emily Browning quite easy on the eyes too
One of the best movies ever classic
100% agree
yup, especially if you plainly just want entertainment. Flawless action is first, good story would be a bonus. And both would be superb. Though most of the time I just want to suspend disbelief. :D hahaha
One of the very few movies I can watch over and over and pull something new out of each scene. Also it, like Lord of the Rings is beautifully filmed and each scene could be a wall hanging.
I liked the movie and it made sense to me.
The brothel represents what was happening to the girls. To some level they accepted what was happening to them as reality. The fantastical world was them showing their strength while everything was happening.
The three levels of reality were simply the directors way of telling the same story in three different ways. The asylum was the reality, the nightclub was used to explain how the girls developed their plot to escape and the fantasy sequences showed the execution of those plans. The whole story could’ve been told strictly from the point of view of any of the realities. But instead the director chose to use all three because none of them on their own fulfilled the films objective.
Was the film exploitive or was it a commentary on exploitation? I don’t think the film set out to be either. While the women may have been suggestively dressed, they were still portrayed as strong, smart and capable. So I suppose the message, if there was one, was that women can be anything they want to be and are not defined by their appearances. Just like anyone else they can be many things at the same time.
I personally like it when directors take risks. Because that’s when we get some of the most interesting films. Anyone remember “Joker”?
I loved this movie because of the metaphors, parallels, and symbolism. The extra meanings woven into the story to portray psychological survival instincts and defense mechanisms I find fascinating. I get enjoyment every time I watch it finding more of what a sentence or scene might also be saying.
I'm probably wrong. But my understanding is that baby doll is the body. Sweet pea is the mind. Rocket was a real person who became a kind of surrogates sister and after she was stabbed by the chef, blue told everyone that baby doll had helped her escape to hide the death (if the chef went down he'd take blue with him). The other two were labotomised by blue (or at least he sent them to be). The dancing was obviously sex. "All that gyrating and moaning" with the fight scenes being baby doll way of coping with it. Blondie nearly told the woman doctor what was going on at one point but blue interrupted and easily convinced the woman doc that it's all bullshit. And yes, baby doll wanted the lobotomy. To be free from guilt and her Hellish life
Not acknowledging a director's cut exist is just sad and feels biased
Snyder Cut lol, this movie of Zack’s was cut back also. I wonder if he has more footage from this movie haha.
@@yourlocalnemesisllc he has more footage he said that he talked about it with the studio but once the tv rights and distribution rights end then they can proceed with director's cut
@@sreeramvadluri6268 right
I liked the Extended, Snyder Cut of this movie also. Hopefully that’s the version rewatched for this video.
Maybe all the various women are just aspects or parts of Sweet Pea's personality and the various sequences are Sweet Pea becoming sane and having the various parts of her personality come together as a unified whole, which means those separate parts "die" and all that is left is a fully functioning, sane Sweet Pea.
You misunderstood the film: All the female characters in “Sucker Punch” (except the sister who dies) are fantasized, split personalities of just one victim of abuse fighting to escape captivity. When she finally escapes, the character “Baby” is not literally lobotomized, because she never actually existed in the first place. The actual girl who escapes simply leaves behind each of the broken masks of her true self, symbolically cutting off the part of her brain where her memories of abuse are stored.
Psychologists have long known that victims of sexual abuse often “dissociate” from themselves during abuse, by imagining that they are having out-of-body experiences, observing themselves from the outside as a separate person might do. Baby’s “dances” symbolize her dissociation/hallucinations during such unwanted sexual experiences. But these are actually hallucinations within hallucinations, given that Baby herself is just one of many fanciful alteregos of the girl who escapes at the end of the film.
When she is finally free from abuse, she no longer needs her alteregos. Thus, Baby - the infantile part of a newly mature survivor - is symbolically lobotomized, and replaced by a grown up woman who is finally able to move on to an independent life. Baby’s “lobotomy” also symbolizes a self-sacrificial atonement for her failure to save her sister from death earlier in the film.
This movie doesn't confuse me. I don't know if that means i "get it" or if I'm so lost i don't get that it's confusing. Either way i like it lol
Let me explain this movie to you all, since I never actually met anyone who understood how it worked. It's actually simple. There are two basic viewpoints in this story. One is the real world, and that is Babydoll's POV. This is all that happens in the beginning of the movie, goes on to the montage of Babydoll's time in the asylum and finishes precisely when we are shown her having the lobotomy in the montage. And THEN, and this is the important part, the movie completely shifts over to Sweetpea when she wakes up in the play rehearsal. From this point on, the movie is Sweetpea telling us, the audience, how Babydoll saved her. The brothel is just Sweetpea's way of romanticizing what was happening to her. As to the times when Babydoll dances and imagines other worlds, it's not Babydoll imagining anything at all. It's all Sweetpea. Sweetpea makes Babydoll sound like this incredible hero fighting against all odds first to save herself, but ultimately to save all of the girls. Sweetpea uses these sequences as a euphemism for what babydoll was actually doing, which was being molested by the orderly. In this way, Sweetpea tells us how she views Babydoll, how she thinks Babydoll fought giants and dragons to save them all, and ultimately made the ultimate sacrifice, which was getting cought escaping and being lobotomized. In the end, the movie shifts back to reality when Sweetpea goes on the bus, and there are two key moments here. First is the driver, who helped her get away from the cops, and so she wove him into the story as this fatherly guide figure, and second there's this kid she briefly looks at, which we saw before in the WWI trenches.
So basically, there are two sequences happening in this movie. The first is the real events that happened to babydoll, up till the end of the montage. Notice that when we see Babydoll fighting her stepdad (?) In the beginning, she doesnt take refuge in any fantasy world, we are clearly shown what happened, because this is the real world, real events. The second is Sweetpea narrating to us, the audience, how Babydoll saved her. So brothel and fantasy worlds are all euphemisms created by Sweetpea to engrandeur Babydoll and to deal with all the traumatic events she suffered through in the asylum.
Where the movie fails is in establishing a relatiom between us, the viewer, and sweetpea, focusing instead on babydoll and rocket. It would have worked better if sweetpea died on the train to save rocket instead of the other way around, and in the end rocket was the one who made it out.
I hope this helps everyone understanding and appreciating this movie a little bit more
That was a pretty simple explanation but my question is what's the little boys connection to Sweet Pea?
@@chrislair6832none. It's just someone see saw on the bus, that looked like he wasnt in a good situation, which resonated with her and the memory stuck, so she incorporated her into her fantasy
@@roccondil5 I've actually wondered that due to the somber look on his face
@@chrislair6832 I guess his story is a mystery, both to us and to sweetpea herself, so she included him as a somewhat mysterious participant in her fantasies, one that looked like he was in pain himself, so maybe sweetpea felt some connection there
@@roccondil5 Absolutely I mean they're so many possibilities he could have written minded her of a little brother it could have been a young neighbor that was I can just go on for days but I appreciate the help lol
Literally one of my favorite comfort movies. Love everything about it ❤
The fact that Blue seems to do all most of the dialogues and is complex (as you mentioned) proves the point that the women/patients, while inside the asylum, are voiceless or without freedom. This is true in some institutions where sadly some patients aren't treated as humans and have limited freedom as to what they think or want to do.
Don't blame the poor script. These are patients at the asylum so they might be under some drugs or whatso. It takes an immersion in mental institutions to truly understand the meaning of this film.
and some men really do love hearing themselves talk and shut everyone else in the room
The actions in the Fantasy layer dont necessarely need to correspond with the ones in the Nightclub layer.
They are performing a task that will lead them to freedom, and seeing as their reality is opressive, they see themselves in a war, essentially.
So it makes sense to see themselves prevailing in a battle when performing those tasks. The actions by themselves are not important or the point, it's the narrative.
If they get what they need, then they won the battle.
About the other girls: likely lobotomized too. Or sent to an isolation ward, to keep them apart.
About the exploitation: yeah, there's some, but what i can say as a woman who likes the movie, i see some very positive and empowering stuff there too.
No matter how hard your life is, how the sexism and oppression around you can hurt, you are stronger than that.
You can be your own damm hero, you can be as beautiful and sexy as you want, as powerful and cunning as you wish, you had the weapons to do it inside of you.
There's also something to be said about how the movie kind of makes a criticism of the whole "what you're wearing" thing.
So what if they look sexy, that's not their only trait, also that's no excuse to treat them differently or to abuse them. IDK if that was the intention, but i see it as a interesting point. Sure, everybody likes to see gorgeous women in skimpy outfits, but also use their clothing as an excuse to victimize and blame the victims.
The girls choosing to look sexy while fighting, might speak to their agency. They like to look sexy and beautiful, that makes them feel powerfull, it's no one's bussiness if they do.
The movie might be pointing a mirror at as in this respect. How we can be judgmental and hypocritical. How some see pretty girls as stupid, harmless interchangeble eye candy. You like to see them fight and dance in skimpy outfits, but if they victimized, so what? The movie is fun, right?
We enjoy the movie, the story, even if the characters are living in terrible conditions, we still engage, because de action set pieces are awesome and the girls are beautiful.
You can look at Sucker Punch as a mindless fan service festival, you can enjoy it for that and never look deeper and that's ok, but i do feel like its says more, it has more beneath the surface. It's not the most groundbreaking and it's not as smart as it thinks it is, but there's still value to be found in it, if you look for it.
That's just MY opinion tho.
Such a misguided relook at this movie. Critic clearly doesn’t understand the movie at all.
Says baby doll killed her sister ?!?!? Guessing the guy going into the closet Isn't to blame.
highly underrated movie. The visuals alone are amazing
I loved this movie. There’s a few flaws, but overall I thought it was awesome. I just wish that we got to cut back to the asylum a few times throughout so we were actually tracking the real world as well. I think that would’ve rounded the movie out nicely. Also the soundtrack is bomb af
No flaws
Thanks for keeping this in one and best video format finally, without switching to unnecessary black bars. Way to go.
Yeah the plot is something I still think about but I like that it keeps it a mystery plus the visuals and soundtrack is stunning! I love this movie.
Sorry, but what's so difficult to understand? It's basically Zack Snyder's version of Brazil (1985). Just like Gilliam saw ridiculous bureaucracy around him and told a story to comment on it, Snyder saw obsessive, frothing at the mouth fanboys around him coming off 300 and Watchmen and made a feminist movie to comment on that. He should've been allowed to do his crazy R-rated vision. It could've used a pinch of humor to actually disarm us to the themes of the movie, but I think it's one of his most creative and daring works. Stuff like Sucker Punch gets trashed while movies like Ant Man pass their grades. That tells you all you need to know about what Hollywood has come to represent.
SP is a masterpiece, probably Snyder's best. People who say that Snyder movies are bad are the same or the equivalent of those who two or three decades ago were complaining that there were not enough car chases and things blowing up in their movies and that there was too much dialog. Little kids criticizing movies meant for adults. Watchmen and DOTD ate superb and Sucker Punch is a masterpiece, a trilogy enough to make of him a legend and build his legacy, put that in your pipe.
They get molested and abuse or pimped out to clients. The mental asylum is kinda a front as a brothel. She's already escaped her mind before he can kiss her. And when he kisses her, he gets pissed off because he doesn't fell anything because she's not there.
Zack Snyder always brought us something deep and must take time to understand, but the themes is fantastic and epic!
The brothel seemed to be her real life after the accidental shooting of her sister. The Asylum was how she portrayed her current situation where Baby Doll feels like she is trapped in an insane asylum. The lobotomy was her imagining her own suicide to escape.
I forced myself to watch this movie several times -- Still made no sense at all. I can't even tell anyone what its actually about.
Have you watched it on weeeeeed? It won’t help, but you feel better for not understanding it while stoned
It's about 3 or 4 people's lives mixed mixed together who used this all of an escape and the lobotomy was what they wanted all along because their life sucked so much I married baby doll but it's been so long that I don't remember why everything happened in the movie.
I understood it just fine lol.
See K-pax and the Angelina Jolie wynonna rider movie.
Them asylum movies invest minds to such movies.
One of my fav of all time
Were you 12 when you first saw it?
@@Rafathy noo
same
1:50, because the Brothel isn't any level of fantasy, both the Asylum and the Brothel are both in reality, both could have probably even been in her mind, as she creates a fake memory in her mind that her sister died saving to get away from the pain and guilt of killing her sister, 3:51, that's because as sweet pea said to Baby doll, "All that gyrating and moaning, A dance should be about more than titillation. Mine is personal, it says who I am. What the heck does yours say?" on her first dance, baby dolls dances are random and flamboyant without meaning, hence why her fantasies tend to have the same style as her dance
Very special work, thank you! It's definitely inspiring for my new solo music project UV 🙏🏻
It's on Netflix and I just said I'm going to watch it again.. Excellent soundtrack too!
Zack talked a few day ago in an interview about A Potential Directors cut of sucker punch...
yes he did, hope to see it some day
I'm so glad im one of the few who understood the film and could appreciate it, this is possibly one of the most underrated films ever
🗺🔥🔪🗝❓
_Bjork song make this movie more awesome._
Why is it that 300 is great with sexy men in barely any clothes and sucker punch is sexist?
I will never understand.
Atleast, sucker punch had a greater more story to tell and a deeper message buried in it.
first encounter with wise man
- temple with the wise man inside- human mind; her mind
- snow setting- mind in trauma/stress/pressure
- "your shoes is tracking snow everywhere"- being a loose cannon that cause her sister' death
- "should I take them off? that time has passed"- can't make amends for her actions
- "what can I do for you? what are you looking for? a guess?"- uncertainty of own desires
- "freedom; that wasn't so hard was it?"- unawareness/ignorance of her needs
- katana; symbolizes raw talent, great potential, nature
- handgun, ammo and charm; resources necessary to survive, nurture
- spear samurai- a person of great talent and pride, defeated kneeling down-humility
- mini-gun samurai- man with unlimited wealth, defeated by expert maneuvers to enable point blank shots in the head-wisdom
- katana samurai- mirrors one' self, defeated in a crouch position to precisely attack middle section with an upward slash-
humility and wisdom in perfect harmony paving the way forward, yin-yang position if seen from bird's eye view
I always thought the 2nd level of reality was to protect the audience from what was really happening in the asylum.
The entire point of this movie was to show that no matter how brilliantly it's said or epically done; if done by a woman it is worth less than a passing glance and a nod. Exploitation and abuse is covered up by those who have power, and if you fight back you get locked away.
I always thought that the asylum was also a brothel. One run by the corrupt creep of an orderly, and that was one reason why he was arrested.
I feel like all of the girls were really a part of sweet pea. Each to help her survive. The other girls dying was her waking up from her dreams and fantasy so that she can finally escape and live.
If that's the case, they wouldn't have been in the reality
I love this movie. I'm surprised it gets sooo much hate (from what I've seen at least)
All I know is KoЯn made a kick ass song for this movie and thats all I care about
The part of this video labeled ‘Is It Pure Exploitation?” is amazing because this guy quite literally spelled out the entire point of this film and yet still missed it completely.
This movie made zero sense. Visuals, casting, and score were great but I just can’t get past a flawed plot; it’s essentially the very essence of a movie.
The brothel bits are literally the girls reality when the psychiatrist and lobotomist aren’t around to see how the orderly and his thugs treat the girls. The action scenes are a way for baby doll and the audience to escape the brutality of the assaults the girls face from the staff..
I disagree with pretty much everything you said in this video! I loved this movie! Absolutely in my top ten all time favorites. I had no problem understanding it. And it made perfect sense to me. I love the visual effects and the soundtrack as well!
The Brothel is her mind trying to at least somewhat glamorize the sheer disgusting animal abuse that is the Asylum real world.
I'm not saying it glamorous, but people that have undergone severe trauma will try to add some sort of gravity, importance, or special reason for why that trauma happened or is happening.
It's looking for a higher meaning to something that has none.
Basically, it gets dark now so fair warning, Babydoll is really in the Asylum & being "heavily molested" on a weekly or maybe even daily basis. Blue is basically pulling a Buck from Kill Bill on her.
So in Babydoll's mind she's trying to add some sort of twisted reason to this. She's being saved for some high roller, the Dr. who will set her free.
I imagine that the Mayor that shows up in the Brothel is probably just some basement dwelling sweaty guy that Blue met oggling girls at the Circle K. But we want the people that have victimized us to be bigger monsters than just some sweaty loser guy.
I see it as every one of Babydoll's dances is her being sold off by Blue while being tied to a gurnney in a basement. Her dance world at least makes her an objectified woman, on her mind. Not an objectified object not even a person. Which is her reality.
The final level, the fighting, is just her deepest fantasies. Her desire to just look cute, do kick ass things, have a team of bad ass friends, a parental/fatherly figure with good advice, and a purpose beyond just objectification.
The entire movie is one long unreliable narrator, completely avoiding the real story that's disgustingly sad. Which is why I love the movie, but I hate what happens to the characters.
It's a classic action movie with an amazing soundtrack. Surreal Inception
Exactly
It's important to understand symbolism in this film. The reason the brothel reality exists is because that's how the guards treat the girls - like prostitutes. It's basing itself off the saying 'treat this place like a brothel', that's exactly how the guards are treating the asylum, like their own pleasure house. As for the female characters being 'shallow' I think this is deliberate because again that's how they are seen by the guards, they don't have personalities to them, they are just objects, just barbie dolls to be played with. As for the action scenes, this film is heavily influenced by Japanese anime which notoriously flicks between realities - kill bill does the same thing. I personally love this film, I think it gets a bad review because people misunderstand the meanings of the realities, it is a way darker film than people give it credit for and dare I say a very clever depiction of abuse.
This came out on my 18th birthday. Good times.
Doctor outranks him and in her imagination he is still the major mobster, that literally tells u that he was abusing his power inside the asylum which leads to her having more fear of him than the doctor herself
It is a very layered movie about female empowerment and their power that is exhibited in ways men cannot match. There are many who have explained what the movie was actually about (story from SweetPea’s POV) and there are threads of how the four who died (I consider BabyDoll as dying) are just constructs within SweetPea’s mind.
I take a different thread - which you allude to here: Snyder wanted to make a movie in the vein of Heavy Metal. The original HM movie was a crazy animated character of a film that spoke to the fantastical, but did not draw people in with the kind of imagery that Snyder wanted to bring. The story was always about the fantasy set pieces) and unlike other exploitative movies, his film presented the female protagonists and other characters in their preferred manner. My favourite snippet regarding this was when the actress who plays Rocket answered an interviewers question about the fantasy scenes and the outfits. Her answer was along the lines of “Umm what are you talking about? Who wouldn’t want to be in those bad-ass costumes fighting? Do you think we would be wearing bathrobes and slippers while shooting guns?”
It is a complex movie that many take as exploitative - and many will say should not exist because of the way the female characters are portrayed. I believe Snyder was experimenting and, like 80s movies treating women badly, it is a product of its time. But I would challenge others with this thought: if you were doing D&D or some other fantasy fighting, what would you be wearing? What would you WANT to wear? A big onesie like Superman? Or an outfit like Batman? Look at how the Amazonians dressed in Wonder Woman. See anything different?
I have watched that movie three times and, aside from the visuals -if you know what I mean- I do not understand why it is I like it.
Show me Sensei.
That's why I say hey man nice shot.
Filter>Otep
@@selfdiscardedkingofruin7291 Whatever you say.
I want to see the Zach Snyder cut!! lol
Sucker Punch clearly illustrates that Zack Snyder is great at creating big action scenes but is incapable of writing a good cohesive narrative with well defined characters. The movie itself is just a big CGI mess that looks good, but it ultimately falls apart story wise. Despite the visuals and sound track, Sucker Punch is a very forgettable movie.
There is no third layer of reality. The movie makes a lot more sense when you realize that the asylum scenes are Sweet Pea’s retelling of how she escaped, of a brave girl who comes to rescue the others. In fact, that’s the only way the ending making any sense. Did you notice how the movie opens as if you’re watching a stage play? You’re watching Sweet Pea’s retelling of how it happened.
whats the soundtrack used in this video?
Can someone please tell me the background musics name of this video.??
If Sucker Punch was such a dud, why are we still talking about it a decade later?
Zack Snyder cares more about style than substance. Most of his movies look great. However, they are empty shells.
Honestly, me too though. Zack Snyder and I think alike. That might be why a lot of my top favorite movies are not well received by the general public. I think most people care more about the writing.
Just watched it again the other night. I love the babydoll dream scenes! It’s sad we never actually get to see her dance.
no matter what dance they choreographed, it would have been ridiculed forever. this was the logical decision. nothing could have lived up to the hype for the story.
I still love this flick
I still love this movie
i actually liked this movie 🤗☺️
I actually have to disagree with the lighter scene not making any sense. It relates to certain versions of a dragon in books and lore. There are 2 primary versions that I'm aware of:
1. In one variation, dragons are a magic being, and they need something internal to produce the flame that is then expelled, a fire crystal.
2. In many they either produce a highly flammable gas/liquid inside their bodies. When they breathe fire, they are expelling the substance from their body and need something to light the fire, more often then not this is a pair of rocks/crystals to cause the spark needed for the fire breath.
I can understand this tho simply because I do have a slight mental issue and I too have 3 worlds. Being that the real world takes a toll on me with all my complications. My reality gets bad sometimes to the point my mind drifts off into the other 2 worlds. One where I’m living all my dreams and everything is good but the other is full of traumatic experiences that are not too realistic just to take focus off actual pain but that world also helps me write scenarios for skits and potentially movies one day. So I can understand this to the fullest
Wow... this video just COMPLETELY failed to understand this movie.
Here's a hint: The "1st level" you speak of, the asylum, is not an accurate representation of reality either. It is just a somewhat less corrupted version of the real world than the "2nd level" or "3rd level" you speak of.
Nothing you see, at any point in this movie, is an entirely accurate view of the world through a "God's eye lense". EVERYTHING is corrupted by the prism of the person who is telling the story. EVERYTHING!
By the way... just WHO is telling thing story anyway??? Is it a character from the movie? Or are YOU telling the story?
some of the best action sequences ever caught on film
For real
When I watched it (SuckerPunch) the one time I did, I only watched the action sequences, I had no idea what was happening with the rest of the movie. This video just filled in those moments I wasn't paying attention to.
You guys must know that I watched this movie for the first time last night. Cuz that is some on time uploading LOL
The Matrix has you.
More effort went into the script for this video than that movie script. Story takes a back seat in all his films.
A Hollywood person I once knew explained to me what a ‘treatment’ was ...I said “I don’t get it. It’s not a story. It’s just a sequence of randomness” ...He said “You just don’t get what a treatment is. One can still get paid for providing ‘ideas’”
The real reason is very sad. Baby Doll was already lobotomized from the moment she was in the asylum. She has Ptsd so the asylum footage is from the past or another delusion of reality. The club is what she feels like current reality is when she is going about her day as a lobotomized patient simply standing up, sitting down and doing nothing. The fantastical sequences are when she is being r@ped as an already lobotomized patient. The entire theme is about a young woman being used , being full of life and having society completely destroy her but she retains her fighting soul. Vote this up so other people can understand. Thanks and take care.
The movie starts to make sense if you think about the darker aspects like why was the room blue was caught in is filled with mattresses with blood and other bodily fluids on it. Basically the girls were getting "exploited" and the good doctor was doing nothing, because she either didn't believe it or didn't know about it. She escaped her reality, only for it to be another cruel reality. Then escapes that into her inner world where her delusions help her fight and overcome. She can't cope with reality anymore because of the pain and trauma, and her inner "Angel" says what she needs to hear, not what is relevant. Which is why, in the end, it is a perfect victory. She no longer has to live with the pain, sweet pea escapes to find the parents she ran away from and blue and the rest are arrested. The death scene with the other two is more taking them out of the game, than actual death. More than likely, solitary confinement than an actual death. For babydoll, it is the same though, as she will never get to see them again. If you were to take away the night club level, then you would have to see even further exploitation and darkness. So, that layer acts as a protection for the viewers to the cruelty that is actually happening when the girls "dance"(are exploited in some way emotionally or physically). Madam Gorski tries to do good for the girls, but ultimately she is shown to be either incompetent or ignorant. Which is why she can't be the inner "Angel" or a real world angel like the bus driver that saves sweet pea at the end. I doubt the bus driver was the same person as baby dolls inner angel, but the point was to show the willingness to stand up and fight for oneself and others. Hence the reason the bus driver looked to sweet pea as babydoll's inner angel.
One of my top ten favorites!!
Still better than inception
It was a good looking film with a great soundtrack. I like the movie, it definitely had it's flaws but it was fun
No flaw
Pretty sure the movie was cut by someone to "save it" like they did with "Justice League".
This movie is so underrated we need a second one or a reboot
The brothel is in my opinion her way of justifying or sort of accepting what’s happening to her in the asylum, I think it’s her way of putting herself on a different mind state while she’s being abused of, raped, etc.
yes, its her trying to take control of her body because she didn't have control of her lobotomized body in the real world.
I understand why people like this movie, but I don’t because I find the themes and message extremely hypocritical. Zack Snyder says the movie is a critique of sexist geek culture and I can definitely see that, but at the same time the movie gives those people exactly what they want. And it’s not done in an extreme way to point out the hypocrisy, it’s just scantily clad women doing stuff whilst simultaneously judging you for watching.
Sounds like the life of men
No it's like a nirvana song what you fill it is
Artistic vision dictates that if the middle part was taken out, it would be wrong to do so. He could add flying whales to every scene and it would still be their play.
Visuals and music alone stunted a lot of viewers from thinking.
Question: can't the brothel just be blue's fantastical escape from just being an orderly getting kicks from sexually abusing patients.... Sense we're stretching/reaching for reasoning?
In Baby Doll's asylum reality, Blue as an orderly has constant interaction and control of the girls day to day life and is pimping out the girls underneath Gorski's nose, that is why he is represented as a powerful mob boss in the second reality (the brothel/club). I think Gorski is represented as working for Blue in the second reality, because in the asylum reality she is simply a doctor doing her job, who thinks she is doing whats right or somehow helping them.
I found this movie to be interesting. I saw the three level as, reality, her fantasy to cope, and then the struggle in the spiritual world.
Many people mistake the film for an adolescent male exploitation film, when in reality it was probably meant to subvert the genre of adolescent male exploitation films, and it just missed the mark (obviously, as most people didn’t get what the director was trying to do). It was an interesting premise, none-the-less, even if the film failed to reach its potential.
Wait the brothel part wasn't reality, I always thought it was and the fight scenes were in the mind. Well that makes it more confusing lol
I’m so annoyed at myself for not watching this sooner, bloody brilliant!
Imagine being the dumb me who saw the movie a few times and thought brothel sequence was reality too.🤦♂️
I remember reading a synapse of the film, it mentioned that the brothel was the asylum's side gig and was part of the real world. As they girls couldn't leave, they were forced into that lifestyle while the 3rd so called fantasy world was the only realm that was fictional within the stories setting. I can't remember where I read this though, maybe Wikipidia? Can't remember for sure.
The night club is just Baby Doll‘s view at how the world treats women and there are hints that all the girls are different traits or facets of her personality. Sweet pea has a sister, who dies, same as Baby Doll and Vanessa Hudgens‘ character is called Blondie, even though she’s dark haired. Snyder also confirmed that his original cut is vastly different to the theatrical version, ending with a song by Baby Doll. This movie is worth another view.