Sucker Punch - Made for ATS - Incredible Message(s) Contained Within

Hey bro great thread...

There has been much online discussion about this movie revealing a complex layer missed on first viewing.

This movie in my opinion should be seen by EVERYONE on ATS. This is truly an interesting artistic film that defies simple categorization.

First of all read the post from a person writing a film review for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center website:

www.barcc.org...

Here is my interpretation after seeing it three times. Twice without thinking this way about it...and once after dong internet follow ups.

First of all, let me state that I love the movie Sucker Punch. It is the most original movie put out by a mainstream Hollywood studio in years.

Last night after reading so many opinions online I just had to go and see it again to look at it with fresh eyes.

The movie is so brilliant in its depiction of sexual abuse and trauma based personality fractures. I think the issue with the movie is that it defies all genre restraints. For instance, if you thought you were going into a straight up action movie and saw this dark fantasy you would be shocked. I think that is the point. If the movie was marketed as a dark fantasy and you saw these action scenes you would be surprised. I mean it is almost impossible to accurately market a movie this complex in a trailer or commercial. So as marketers you stick with what you know, its an action movie.

I also believe that this action movie aspect of the story is intentional and very interesting from a meta story point of view.

I believe that at the start of the movie when you see that it is a backdrop to a play and it goes into the movie we are watching Sweet Pea replay a healing therapy theater version of what really happened to her as a child. When she does this though she has to create another fractured personality of herself to pour her trauma into. The movie then is told from the point of view of her fractured personality. The fractured personality, Baby Doll, though does not know that she is in fact Sweet Pea.

This is reflected in the film when Sweet Pea and Baby Doll lock eyes. While it seems that the movie switches protagonists when we come out of the hammer strike of the lobotomy the first time and see Sweet Pea in the wig, this is not the case. I believe that Sweet Pea and Baby Doll are the same person.

But I believe that Sweet Pea is Baby Dolls "future self" persona in her head. Rocket is Baby Dolls sister. In Baby Dolls fractured head, she and her sister ran away and lived to become older. Remember when Rocket says, "We're already dead". She was talking literally.

In regards to Madame Gorski. I believe she represents females in authority positions at the time as well. In the films twisted take on that era though, even women in positions of power are still reminded about their place in the world. I feel that in the real world she knows that not only were many of these girls abused before they came to the hospital, some are still being abused in the hospital. Without proof and without the power to get anything done about it by the powers that be at the time, she resorts to helping the girls deal with the trauma.

She uses a type of Project Monarch trauma based mind control techniques to help the girls handle the trauma they endure. She uses the music and dance and plays to help them deal with it by removing themselves mentally from the horrors going on in reality. So for instance when you are going to be raped in real life in the hospital by Blue and his men, you imagine instead that you are a beautiful dancer that mesmerizes all the men like a stripper. You are in control of the men using the sexuality in the dream world, where in reality it is the exact opposite.

The first time we see Baby Doll dance, she is with Dr. Gorski. Some have speculated wrongly that this means that Gorski is having sex with Baby Doll. No, I feel that this is the first time that Gorski is teaching Baby Doll, how to do this technique of disassociation.

In the end, Gorski realizes that she is trapped here just like the girls. She is kind of an enabler because she doesn't call the cops sooner but I think its also a reflection of the times and seeing how several of the guards and orderlies are in on it, she cannot defeat the conspiracy. However, once she realizes just how far it has went when Blue has forged her signature to lobotomize a girl for this sick practice, he has gone so overboard AND she actually has a legal case with the forged signature as PROOF, she does the right thing and calls the cops.

Gorski programmed the Paradise scenario into Baby Doll to help her spirit/psyche go to a happy place - permanently - after the lobotomy. She is way to f#cked up to ever have a normal life and sadly this is the best thing to happen to her.

No one escapes except in their mind. Sweet Pea doesn't escape. She is Baby Doll.

About the action world sequences - and this is where I think Sucker Punch breaks new ground - Zack Snyder was including our own "theater therapy" into the meta text. Rather than watch a film about a young girl being raped by those evil men, we would rather see it as a "story". We cannot handle watching or dealing with these kind of situations so we have to disassociate from it by putting it into the framework of a "story" or "film". And we turn the real world horrors into manageable chunks of pop culture mashups in order to digest it while eating popcorn. He includes "our" collective pop culture consciousness as a layer of our own trauma based technique of dealing with it. Look back at every fairy tale ever told...Do we want to imagine the big bad wolf is really a sexual predator and the story of Red Riding Hood is a thinly veiled sex parable? No, we teach it to kids and they take it at face value...its a story about a wolf and a girl and grandma. These are just like many of the reviews out there. People were just not ready for this deep of a mindf#ck. I guess the slogan, "You will be unprepared" was right. Oh, and one more thing, Gorski is the Wise Man.

People reacted with venom to this film, but I believe that is has a lot to do with their own psycho sexual issues then anything else. People, fanboys in particular, have fueled this phony girl power movement for far too long. All the girl power does is take a mans view of women and repackage it to us as if the women are doing it on their own. Men are more then happy to generally accept this because the women of the girl ass-kick movies or comics are still super sexualized. It just sheds light on all the Lara Croft, Charlies Angels Bullsh!t that we've had shoved down our throats in the movies. Lets not even get started on video games and comic books. Zack Snyder merely shows us our own psycho sexual issues when it comes to these issues and clearly "we" are not ready to deal with them. Go to a comic convention to see the cosplay girls and then look at the men watching the girls to see what "we" really think of these "super" heroes...I guarantee you that you will remember the scene when all the orderlies are checking Baby Doll out when she comes back from being lobotomized at the end...that's what men do.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this post. I am not claiming that I have it figured out, in fact I am waiting for others to tell me their interpretation so that I can finally wrap my mind around this flick.

reply to post by ararisq


Hey ararisq, thanks for your input for the messages. I have something to add too.

The movie is trying to tell us that not only is reality as we know is a prison, there is also a way out of it.

I like how you pointed out the long nose being symbolic of lies. Even before the battle starts, Baby Doll was questioned about her purpose. She was eventually CLEAR of what she wanted: Freedom. The dialog prompts that we need to be clear that we want to end this 'dream' we are experiencing now, before the entire battle begins.

The start of the battle is to see through all the lies of the world we live in now. She slashed the samurai at the leg, meaning that to overcome lies, you need to seek out the foundation of those lies. Find out on what grounds these lies are based on, before you can take the head off. Applying this to our reality now, we need to research and investigate everything we know as fact from the media and even schools, and also question who are the ones who set those as facts. Who were the ones who bought over the textbook printing companies? Who established the academic bodies?

I believe the second samurai is about mass media; bombarding you with all the sex, money and other forms of distractions, keeping you busy with all sorts of issues. I still cannot quite grasp at what it means to shoot it at the head though.

The last one was under a hat, needs to be shrouded in secrecy. I think it means 'secrets' about the real world. When their lies and distractions are gone, the last samurai will be taken aback (he stepped back from Baby Doll), afraid, as he is actually very vulnerable. He was taken down very easily, and the light that emitted from him seem to mean truth and light will always win darkness and secrecy.

Now, the next set of interpretations I have is related to their escape from the facility. If you count the number of doors that were opened, there were 6, including the one to reach Sweet Pea. I strongly believe they represent the Chakra points. Let me explain.

We have 7 Chakra centers. The 1st one is the Base Chakra, where your kundalini can be activated. You need to activate this 1st Chakra center before you can access the rest. Counting from the bottom up, the last door they opened was actually a gate, and referring to the 6th Chakra, it is the 3rd eye. When your 3rd Eye is opened, you will be able to see this world in its truest form. Sweet Pea was stopped at the bus depot. Which means when your 3rd eye is open, 'they' will know you have truly awakened and know that this world is not really what it seems to be. Their hundreds of years of plan of fluoridating our drinking water, vaccination, mass media disinformation, rewriting of history and geographic facts have been and still are their tactic to dumb down the world. People have been murdered and killed to reveal this to the world through the mass media. Anyway, when your 3rd eye opens, they will hunt you down and shut you up if you make too much noise. They are always on the look-out for such people. The bus driver told Sweet Pea that it will be a long way to go, meaning that after the 6th Chakra, will be your 7th and last Chakra: crown, through which will be your journey beyond and into the cosmos.

About the code on the 4th door (Heart Chakra); P-29, I believe the message was to advice us to refer to Proverbs 29. I am not a Christian, but when I went through all of the proverbs in there, it seems that if we heed what is being preached there, we will be able to overcome our fears, greed, and other emotional defilements.

Well, there you have it. I will add if I can 'decode' the rest of the messages.

Originally posted by Game_Over
This movie in my opinion should be seen by EVERYONE on ATS. This is truly an interesting artistic film that defies simple categorization.

I cannot agree more.

Originally posted by Game_Over
The movie is so brilliant in its depiction of sexual abuse and trauma based personality fractures.

I agree with this as well, we felt upon watching it that the realities were necessary for the viewer to be able to accept the message just as the personality fracture was necessary for Baby Doll to get through what was actually happening in the first reality. Had they gone the SAW approach of laying it all out then the message would have been completely lost and been one of fear rather than liberation. It is brilliant in that aspect.

Originally posted by Game_Over
But I believe that Sweet Pea is Baby Dolls "future self" persona in her head. Rocket is Baby Dolls sister. In Baby Dolls fractured head, she and her sister ran away and lived to become older. Remember when Rocket says, "We're already dead". She was talking literally.

That is an interesting idea that I had not considered. I suppose I'm challenged by it though because she is with Sweet Pea in the institution and Sweet Pea escapes. I do agree that if the 2nd reality is an indication of what is happening in the 1st then Gorski did know of the rapes and was intimidated in to not raising the alarm until the lobotomy happens.

Originally posted by Game_Over
Anyway I hope you enjoyed this post. I am not claiming that I have it figured out, in fact I am waiting for others to tell me their interpretation so that I can finally wrap my mind around this flick.

I think there is truth in what you are saying but I believe that more than just the psycho-sexual plot is playing out and perhaps the writer isn't even aware of what he ended up creating.

Originally posted by BlueGuardian
Now, the next set of interpretations I have is related to their escape from the facility. If you count the number of doors that were opened, there were 6, including the one to reach Sweet Pea. I strongly believe they represent the Chakra points.

Well, there you have it. I will add if I can 'decode' the rest of the messages.

Thanks BlueGuardian - do you remember what the 6 doors were? Do you have any thoughts on the code that starts with ATS?

Started watching this online last night. (you can do the same). lol
Weird movie.. but not as bad as some of the stuff I read about it..
Not the greatest film.. But I also havent finished it yet..
Will do so shortly. lol

Interesting movie though....
and I do get the feeling that most who watch it will completely miss the point.

reply to post by Ahmose


Just finished it..
Must admit.. it was better than I expected!

Very different, yet good, with lots of meaning.

I especially loved the very last line of the film.
Couldn't be more true.

Originally posted by Ahmose
reply to post by Ahmose
Just finished it.. Must admit.. it was better than I expected!

Ahmose, you think you could get a screenshot of the ATS code on the bus at the end - I believe its the same code used to defuse the bomb on the train.

Come to think of it, I just saw Source Code and it is also about a bomb on a train headed in to Chicago.

tops review really and something to think about.
although i don't think the writers- although perhaps drawing from known literature knowingly or unwittingly would be where the OP drew some parallels- this happens all the time.
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.., or is that banana?
i like good action stuff, and giant mechs and dragons +1
plus the multi layered realities like matrix and inception is great

Originally posted by fiorano
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.., or is that banana?

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” - Goldfinger

First of all great movie when it comes to special effects and screenplay, however the message is a bit more devious and simplistic than you are all making it out to be...


When I got to the point of where the "girls" kill the baby dragon... and everything clicked and I about had it with the horrible message this film slips into the minds of women...

To put it succinctly... there are several messages that are displayed throughout this movie but the overall message is quite simple...

This is the Underlining Messages are there in the film to entrain women to Destroy and hate men, as an example showing that men are nothing but murderers and rapists with sick controlling minds, and that they will hurt and abuse women and they are not to be trusted...

because as the movie clearly suggests that the man that is in the dreamworld her "guardian angel" is the only good one babydoll's real father... but any other male figure in her life was her ENEMY...

Including babies being the ENEMY OF "FREE" women, and the act of having babydoll kill the baby dragon was an act subliminally of abortion and for all WOMEN to ESCAPE the prison of MEN and of being MOTHERS and having CHILDREN OR RESPONSIBILITY they will be FREE...!!!

SO GO AHEAD WOMEN FALL FOR THIS MOVIE... GO AHEAD AND JUST REMEMBER THAT THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR IN THIS FILM TO YOU AS THEY WANT YOU TO BE FOOLED IN TO THINKING THAT IN ORDER FOR YOU TO BE FREE THEY WANT YOU TO DONT BE WITH MEN AND DONT HAVE ANY BABIES...

THE END