Everything has to be long these days. There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I just can’t put my finger on it. While Snyder fans are waiting for Rebel Moon, he has been teasing about a director’s cut of Sucker Punch from 2011.
Sucker Punch was Snyder’s first attempt at creating his own IP. He had put himself on the map with 300, Watchmen, and Dawn of the Dead, but they were all only directed by him, not written. Sucker Punch split the fans, the artistic look of the movie was great, but the story… not so much.
In an interview with Letterboxd, Snyder said about Sucker Punch:
“It was a very polarizing film. To be frank, the people I’ve run across who’ve come to me and said ‘Sucker Punch is my favorite movie’ are normally angsty teenage girls. It’s like a Morrissey song or something.”
I dread to think what kind of person said it was their favorite movie. I imagine it’s the same time of lonely emo that thinks Billie Elish is a role model. When asked about a director’s cut, Snyder said:
“You’ll get to see it at some point, I’m sure. I hope. I’ve never gotten around to doing the director’s cut. I still plan to at some point. But in the original ending when Babydoll is in the chair in the basement with Blue — she’s already been lobotomized — when the cop shines the light on her, the set breaks apart and she stands up and she sings a song on stage.”
“She sings, ‘Ooh, Child, things are gonna get easier. Blondie, and all the people that have been killed, join in and it’s the idea that in a weird way, even though she’s lobotomized, she’s kind of stuck in this infinite loop of euphoric victory. It’s weirdly not optimistic and optimistic at the same time. That’s kind of what the tone was at the end. We tested it and the studio thought it was too weird, so we changed it.”
He gave the impression that the central theme of the movie was lost in the editing room and was a product of audience feedback and executive interference. That is always tough to hear, that a director wants to make their own vision, but a test screening and the studio change all that.
I haven’t seen Sucker Punch in a long time, but I kind of fancy giving it another go. It sounds like the story is very much more compelling and the motifs of the subplots expose a wider significance in our culture. Plus it’s got Jamie Chung in some great outfits.
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