The Art of Editing and Suicide Squad

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Suicide Squad was highly successful though.

It's one thing to say the movie sucked ass, but all the high horse analysis kinda turns to shit when people kept coming to see it. One should stick to actual flops when acting as if they could've done it better.

This movie was only successful because of the IP and the famous actors, it would have shit money no matter what (Harley Quinn™). The Dark Knight could have been successful without the Batman IP, not this one.

Actually, SS is everything that is wrong with the film industry today. It's fucking offensive to the art of cinema. It's a direct-to-DVD movie sold as a summer blockbuster.

BvS and SS should be taught in schools on what not to do.

Haha! My university professor told us to watch a lot of bad films to better appreciate the good ones and not make the same mistakes ourselves.
 
Actually, SS is everything that is wrong with the film industry today. It's fucking offensive to the art of cinema. It's a direct-to-DVD movie sold as a summer blockbuster.

That's unfair, the actual direct-to-DVD Suicide Squad was 100 times better than this. (not that it was great mind)
 
That's unfair, the actual direct-to-DVD Suicide Squad was 100 times better than this. (not that it was great mind)

Oh yeah, there was a cartoon. Might have to check it out. My knowledge of direct-to-DVD movies only extend to Steven Seagal Movies post-2010
 
If you take SS as a music video it's editing makes sense.

BvS though that shit was baffling. A lot of the time it felt like the film had skipped forward and missed out huge chunks of footage.

I'm trying to imagine the conversations in the production suite.

I imagine it mirrors the often cited BTS footage of the Phantom Meanace but on a much larger length / amount of scenes (where they looked at the footage and realised it's interwoven in a way you had to leave shit in all over the place or it would make no sense, yet leaving it in also kinda baffling)
 
You can make shit to make sense. Ask the ones who make half of the Marvel movies. Suicide Squad is not more stupid than Thor or Ironman 2, and those movies work. They're not broken.

There's a reason movies have reshoots. An editor can only work with the footage that exists and we don't know if the footage needed to make any of the numerous issues work actually exists. For example, the whole weird cut where Common gets shot by Joker is that way because they never shot Leto doing that. Originally Joker gets him to shoot himself iirc. Even the guy in the video acknowledges there's no way we can really know if the heart scene is that way because the necessary shots were cut, or that they just didn't exist.

Lois spear thing makes sense. She walks in to see her bf, who can take bullets, bombs, explosions and everything else thrown at him being cut by a magic green rock that seems to have made him very weak. What is she gonna do leave it on the ground? Take it home for safe keeping? Look honey look what I brought with me?! Why are you on the floor? Maybe she should take it to the government, I'm sure they'd have only good intentions with a weapon that can kill Superman? Or perhaps ake it to STARlabs? So that someone else can potentially weaponise it? Throwing it into water so it can be lost to the current seems like the best choice of a bad situation. Oh and before anyone asks how Lois knew that Doomsday was Kryptonian, she sees that the building where the Kryptonian ship was held suddenly draws a lot of power and then this flying thing that shoots red beams comes out, it's not surprising she unlike a lot of audiences put 2+2 together.

That whole spiel makes sense in the context that it could totally plausibly happen in real life, but that doesn't make it good. I can plausibly walk to work and get all the way there before I forget my laptop, walk all the way back home to pick it up, then walk all the way back to work with it, but that doesn't mean putting that scenario in a movie makes sense. The point is that the whole throwing the spear in the water thing should have been retooled because it was awkward as hell.

I am basing my arguments on what they set out fi do and on that end I thought they failed. I'll watch the vids another time.

Someone asked me why I thought the vid was bs, all I did was state my reasons. I give constructive criticism not my fault people dick ride everything Marvel do, valid criticism be damned.

lol man. Only proving the point that you have a MASSIVE chip on your shoulder about it.
 
"Shockingly bad" is accurate.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing when watching SS.

Out loud "WHAT" was pretty much my 2016 Blockbuster viewing experience. It was terrible.

Someone who barely knows editing like me should not be able to say "this is terrible editing".
Good video though.

also: silubbuls *fucking triggered*
 
One of his editing comments made me think of Silence of the Lambs.


Is the intentionally misleading editing at the end of the movie to make you think that the FBI is approaching Buffalo Bill's house considered good editing even though it is a straight up lie and not clever at all? I have always hated how that was cut.
 
Not watching the movie, I am wondering how they fit all those songs into mini-introductions. Like, one song per character? It feels impossible. The songs just stop and another one begins right after?

I am almost watching it just to see how.
 
I appreciate what he's trying to do with that Unicorn bit but he's stabbed in the vest...Unicorn went into the jacket on his side. I don't think anyone is expecting the Unicorn there as that's not where it was placed. It's just another gag that this greedy asshole is stealing during the OP or he's crazy enough to use large wads of money as kevlar plates.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is garbage but that's not a scene in particular that broke it.
 
BvS had terrible editing in the theatrical version but it was better in the Ultimate edition.

Haven't seen the extended edition of SS but I was horrendous in the theatrical version.
 
I appreciate what he's trying to do with that Unicorn bit but he's stabbed in the vest...Unicorn went into the jacket on his side. I don't think anyone is expecting the Unicorn there as that's not where it was placed. It's just another gag that this greedy asshole is stealing during the OP or he's crazy enough to use large wads of money as kevlar plates.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is garbage but that's not a scene in particular that broke it.

I don't think he was saying that's a scene that broke the movie, just a clear example of how the editing completely fails in introducing a thing and then it not having a pay-off.
 
I don't think he was saying that's a scene that broke the movie, just a clear example of how the editing completely fails in introducing a thing and then it not having a pay-off.

I'm not actually trying to say that scene broke the movie either really. But he's acting like it's a big "Huh?" moment and it's not. I'd be surprised anyone thought he was going to pull out the unicorn there. I'm still with him on the failure to pay-off the gag though.
 
In regards to the unicorn thing, saying it's bad editing is under the assumption they filmed a scene and left the last unicorn part out. To me it was just bad writing and a failed attempt at humor.
 
I'm not actually trying to say that scene broke the movie either really. But he's acting like it's a big "Huh?" moment and it's not. I'd be surprised anyone thought he was going to pull out the unicorn there. I'm still with him on the failure to pay-off the gag though.
Conceptually that scene is a great example of how sloppy the movie is. The other one is the whole enchantress heart bit at the ending, just wow.

Glad I don't see these terrible superhero movies yet still get the reward of laughing at them with youtube
 
Great video. Nails a bunch of major problems with the movie. SS was seriously one of the most convoluted and difficult to follow movies I've ever seen. Part of it was definitely the shitty editing, but also the horrendous script. Even a good editor couldn't have saved it.

Still, some of the shit that they did (the black text? Haha, what kind of nimrod thought that was a good idea?).
 
They released this video as a hot fucking mess because they knew they could release an "extended edition" later and the fans would double dip.

It's the same thing with BvS, and WB has no shame
 
They released this video as a hot fucking mess because they knew they could release an "extended edition" later and the fans would double dip.

It's the same thing with BvS, and WB has no shame

You make them seem smarter than they actually are. They simply rushed these movies to the market to try to compete with Marvel, but failed miserably at making a movie like they do.
 
SS's script and editing makes boring Marvel Formula Movie #237 look like fucking Citizen Kane

Christ is it bad. Remember that part the squad was shocked to find out they weren't fighting ordinary terrorists despite fighting black voxel monsters and seeing the giant fucking light beam in the sky and having Flagg and waller explain to them they're gonna face a supernatural threat

CHRIST is that movie bad, and unlike MvS the action is straight garbage too.
 
Anyone else remember people defending Boomerang coming back to help out of fucking nowhere a deliberate joke and a play on his name? lmao
 
I remember seeing BvS earlier in the year and thinking "Jesus, the editing in this movie is bad." What I didn't know is how much worse it could be. Suicide Squad was a horrendous film all around. Proper editing wouldn't have saved it, but it would have at least made it coherent. It's a shitty script with shitty characterizations that was smashed against the cutting room floor over and over until there was nothing redeemable left.

Video is over half an hour long, but still leaves out a lot of things. It's very well put-together though. Is his channel worth subbing to?

Reminds me of back in the day with those "Inside the Cut" I think they were called, comparing the editing of action scenes in The Dark Knight and Salt. It ended up being very nitpicky, but it did do a very thorough breakdown at how action scenes in The Dark Knight were visually confusing.

OT, length wasn't an issue in the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman. The story it was trying to tell could have been effectively told in 2 hours. The problem was that there were too many other stories it was also trying to tell and none of them went anywhere. There's like 30 minutes in that theatrical cut that didn't need to be there and were just detracting from the overall product.

Some day there's going to be a fan edit of that movie with a run time of around 110-130 minutes that cuts out all the crap and just gives you what's on the tin: Batman v Superman. Half of Lex's shenannigans would be dropped, there would be no mention of a Krytonian ship, and the movie would end with Batman saving MARTHA and Superman bringing Lex into custody. And all Knightmare shit and the set-up for Justice League would be scrapped as well. Gal Gadot would just be a cameo as "Diane" at Lex's event without her sneaky subplot to delete one copy of a digital file.
 
Funny thing is Slipknot was probably the most vital member to their original mission of "scale this building and rescue Waller", he's like the only one who made sense to be chosen.
 
I remember seeing BvS earlier in the year and thinking "Jesus, the editing in this movie is bad." What I didn't know is how much worse it could be. Suicide Squad was a horrendous film all around. Proper editing wouldn't have saved it, but it would have at least made it coherent. It's a shitty script with shitty characterizations that was smashed against the cutting room floor over and over until there was nothing redeemable left.

Video is over half an hour long, but still leaves out a lot of things. It's very well put-together though. Is his channel worth subbing to?

Reminds me of back in the day with those "Inside the Cut" I think they were called, comparing the editing of action scenes in The Dark Knight and Salt. It ended up being very nitpicky, but it did do a very thorough breakdown at how action scenes in The Dark Knight were visually confusing.

OT, length wasn't an issue in the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman. The story it was trying to tell could have been effectively told in 2 hours. The problem was that there were too many other stories it was also trying to tell and none of them went anywhere. There's like 30 minutes in that theatrical cut that didn't need to be there and were just detracting from the overall product.

Some day there's going to be a fan edit of that movie with a run time of around 110-130 minutes that cuts out all the crap and just gives you what's on the tin: Batman v Superman. Half of Lex's shenannigans would be dropped, there would be no mention of a Krytonian ship, and the movie would end with Batman saving MARTHA and Superman bringing Lex into custody. And all Knightmare shit and the set-up for Justice League would be scrapped as well. Gal Gadot would just be a cameo as "Diane" at Lex's event without her sneaky subplot to delete one copy of a digital file.

There's a fan edit that does this and it holds up pretty well. However, it only works when you have seen the theatrical or UE because there are some gaps that need to be filled
 
I'd love to hear from the editors on this, years later, describing how they were trying to piece this thing together from the hours and hours of shit they were given. So many of these terrible choices were probably them just trying to make up for stuff that hadn't been shot or that wasn't usable. That's what I'd assume, anyway - you'd think editors on a project like this would know the basics. But they still have to work with what they're given, and I know deadlines were tight with all the reshoots and test screenings.
 
I'd love to hear from the editors on this, years later, describing how they were trying to piece this thing together from the hours and hours of shit they were given. So many of these terrible choices were probably them just trying to make up for stuff that hadn't been shot or that wasn't usable. That's what I'd assume, anyway - you'd think editors on a project like this would know the basics. But they still have to work with what they're given, and I know deadlines were tight with all the reshoots and test screenings.

One important factor is at a point they decided to sanitize the villainous of the characters. So lots was cut, reshot, or jarringly danced around make up for it. Even that dumb Katana line was meant to come back around at the end.
 
Oh yeah, there was a cartoon. Might have to check it out. My knowledge of direct-to-DVD movies only extend to Steven Seagal Movies post-2010
It isn't high art, but it's a pretty fun little movie. Absolutely more coherent and enjoyable than the live-action trainwreck.

I finished this video a little earlier tonight and it does an excellent job putting into words why the movie felt so very messy. Gonna have to keep an eye on this channel from now on.
 
Suicide Squad baffles me from top to bottom. In what fucking world is Harley Quinn a character they'd put in with this squad?
The tone is all over the place. At first I thought it'd be more or less grounded in reality, until the witch was introduced. Then yes, this crazy woman with no armour whatsoever is fighting along military trained people in proper gear. It's goofy, yet sometimes it tries to take itself too seriously, accentuated by the "shades of concrete". Maybe it's not a good story in the first place.
 
When I originally saw BvS in the cinema, I thought it was a bit of a slog, but with some great action, but having rewatched it yesterday, I have grown a bit more fond of it. Whilst the plot can be a bit wonky at times, everything else I mostly enjoyed and I felt a bit more invested in Superman the second time around, I can kinda understand what they were going for now. On top of this there is a great soundtrack, awesome visuals, great Batman who is jaded and cynical, and the action in the third act is great.

Suicide Squad however is an abomination. So I am going to pretend it never happened.
 
If Suicide Squad was edited by Trailer Park, why is only John Gilroy credited as the editor?

He's even been nominated for his editing in Nightcrawler and Michael Clayton, both great films.
 
The tone is all over the place. At first I thought it'd be more or less grounded in reality, until the witch was introduced. Then yes, this crazy woman with no armour whatsoever is fighting along military trained people in proper gear. It's goofy, yet sometimes it tries to take itself too seriously, accentuated by the "shades of concrete". Maybe it's not a good story in the first place.

It's far and beyond goofy. There's nothing in the movie telling me this is supposed to be a farce. Like if something is really stupid in Austin Powers it's pretty obvious that it's stupid as hell on purpose. Shoving Harley Quinn's ass and tits in my face in between shots of Waller and what's his face being boring and serious is not played as a gag. She's supposed to somehow be a character of fairly significant narrative importance which in a story like this seems like such a stunningly and fundamentally broken idea.
 
I don't understand how people say that SS was worse than the theatrical version of BvS.

I was confused as fuck watching BvS. At least with SS, the movie plodded along even if it was a bit shit. But I can put a bet on most people here not thinking the editing was bad whilst watching it for the first time.
 
I don't understand how people say that SS was worse than the theatrical version of BvS.

I was confused as fuck watching BvS. At least with SS, the movie plodded along even if it was a bit shit. But I can put a bet on most people here not thinking the editing was bad whilst watching it for the first time.

The editing is just one of the many reasons Suicide Squad is an awful film. Yes, BvS has its own faults, but as a whole there is still a lot to enjoy (at least thats what I found).
 
I don't think the editing was the problem with SS. I think the main problem was that they put the squad against some huge threat more fitting for Superman than a bunch of C-tier baddies immediately after the squad is created.

Like, this movie and the whole concept of the squad asked for a more "intimate" approach. At the very least it needed a first mission against some less powerful, more grounded enemy. Going straight for the bombastic world-threatening monster felt rushed and was a horrible decision.

I mean why are you sending those unpredictable, untested nobodies against this powerful being that is going to destroy the world? Don't they know Batman, Flash and Wonder Woman exist? The Suicide Squad should be facing mobsters. Even the cringeworthy Leto Joker would've made more sense as a villain.
 
I'm not actually trying to say that scene broke the movie either really. But he's acting like it's a big "Huh?" moment and it's not. I'd be surprised anyone thought he was going to pull out the unicorn there. I'm still with him on the failure to pay-off the gag though.

He specifically said it wasn't a big deal, it was just emblematic of the editing issues in SS.
 
If Suicide Squad was edited by Trailer Park, why is only John Gilroy credited as the editor?

He's even been nominated for his editing in Nightcrawler and Michael Clayton, both great films.

I think those kind of things are often contractual, so regardless of what goes on behind the scenes the original editor will retain their credit. I believe there might even be Guild stipulations around that kind of stuff. I know with screenwriting credits things get really messy sometimes (there were rumours that Steve McQueen heavily retooled the script for 12 Years a Slave, which ended up winning the original screenwriter an Oscar).

By all accounts the post production on this movie was an utter mess from every conceivable angle, there's only so much mitigation a talented editor can do when they're faced with heavy studio oversight, poor footage and a nonsensical script.

This video was great by the way, I'm an editor and watching this thing in the cinema was genuinely baffling.
 
I don't think the editing was the problem with SS. I think the main problem was that they put the squad against some huge threat more fitting for Superman than a bunch of C-tier baddies immediately after the squad is created.

Like, this movie and the whole concept of the squad asked for a more "intimate" approach. At the very least it needed a first mission against some less powerful, more grounded enemy. Going straight for the bombastic world-threatening monster felt rushed and was a horrible decision.

I mean why are you sending those unpredictable, untested nobodies against this powerful being that is going to destroy the world? Don't they know Batman, Flash and Wonder Woman exist? The Suicide Squad should be facing mobsters. Even the cringeworthy Leto Joker would've made more sense as a villain.

There's a lot wrong with SS, editing was just one of them and the topic of this particular video.
 
I don't understand how people say that SS was worse than the theatrical version of BvS.

I was confused as fuck watching BvS. At least with SS, the movie plodded along even if it was a bit shit. But I can put a bet on most people here not thinking the editing was bad whilst watching it for the first time.

I thought the theatrical version of BvS was trash (UC is decent), but SS managed to be worse.

And I definitely noticed while I was watching the movie. Most of the stuff the guy pointed out, I had noticed too. The only thing I didn't pick up on was his criticism of the text at the beginning of the movie. I read it just fine, but I'm used to reading subtitles.
 
I was literally baffled watching Suicide Squad, I couldn't even begin to imagine how that film actually made it into cinemas. But jesus, I did think BvS was a lot worse. I've only seen the extended edition of BvS but that film felt like a life sentence, at least SS was amusing in it's terribleness. BvS was just dour and awful.
 
I don't think the editing was the problem with SS. I think the main problem was that they put the squad against some huge threat more fitting for Superman than a bunch of C-tier baddies immediately after the squad is created.

Like, this movie and the whole concept of the squad asked for a more "intimate" approach. At the very least it needed a first mission against some less powerful, more grounded enemy. Going straight for the bombastic world-threatening monster felt rushed and was a horrible decision.

I mean why are you sending those unpredictable, untested nobodies against this powerful being that is going to destroy the world? Don't they know Batman, Flash and Wonder Woman exist? The Suicide Squad should be facing mobsters. Even the cringeworthy Leto Joker would've made more sense as a villain.

The script is actually aware of this problem, and I think this is why the end of 2nd act twist feels so random and jarring. The twist where the team was actually going to get Waller, not Enchantress, was just thrown into the script at the last minute because David Ayer, probably in those "oh shit I left the stove on" moments just before falling asleep, realized the team actually had no business fighting metahuman threats so he quickly wrote a reason for them to go to the city anyway.

Which still leaves several problems.
1) The speech that Waller gives at the beginning of the film about putting together a team to fight Evil Superman is 100% bullshit. More like "I'm putting this team together for no reason in particular, actually. Hopefully they have a reason to exist some time later in this movie."
2) Why is she even in Midway City in the first place, other than to give the team a reason to exist?
3) Would not a regular spec ops team be more effective at extracting a person from a war zone?
4) The video mentions this, but her sneakiness has no payoff either. She's clearly hiding something from Flagg and her bosses, but we never learn what and it appears to be of no consequence anyway. It's a useless set up. Unless the thing she's hiding is "I'm going to Midway City now for no damn reason. Later, you should probably send in a group of psychos to come get me because I'm fucking dumb." Which leads to...
5) Maybe most importantly, THERE IS NO ACTUAL PLAN TO STOP ENCHANTRESS. The team does go to Enchantress, but only because that's where Waller is and they still want to finish the mission of extracting Waller.

Other movies that have world-ending scenarios build their plot around coming up with a plan to stop it. In Suicide Squad, the plot builds up to getting Waller out of Midway City. The world-ending scenario is just something happening parallel to the actual plot and there's no plan to stop it. It would be like Armageddon if the plan was to send the oil riggers into space to rescue the cosmonaut from the space station, but while they're up there, they may as well see if they can do something about the asteroid too. You know, since they're already there and they had nothing else to do that day anyway.
 
I don't think the editing was the problem with SS. I think the main problem was that they put the squad against some huge threat more fitting for Superman than a bunch of C-tier baddies immediately after the squad is created.

Like, this movie and the whole concept of the squad asked for a more "intimate" approach. At the very least it needed a first mission against some less powerful, more grounded enemy. Going straight for the bombastic world-threatening monster felt rushed and was a horrible decision.

I mean why are you sending those unpredictable, untested nobodies against this powerful being that is going to destroy the world? Don't they know Batman, Flash and Wonder Woman exist? The Suicide Squad should be facing mobsters. Even the cringeworthy Leto Joker would've made more sense as a villain.

The power imbalance is also discussed in the video. Dan Olson says they're fit for a bank heist, and are a bad team against such a big threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDclQowcE9I#t=26m22s

It's obvious to all of us that Enchantress should never have been in the movie. Joker would be the only good antagonist, but they completely gut him and he becomes a "cul de sac" as he describes in the video. Maybe it was the studio that wanted Suicide Squad to have a big climax setpiece which seems to be a night-time battle with a supernatural beam in the sky in recent blockbusters for some reason, so in order to get to that they decide to put a big threat in the movie who can cause that, therefore Enchantress.
 
I don't understand how people say that SS was worse than the theatrical version of BvS.

I was confused as fuck watching BvS. At least with SS, the movie plodded along even if it was a bit shit. But I can put a bet on most people here not thinking the editing was bad whilst watching it for the first time.

i dunno man, BvS was just mediocre to me but SS is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Everything from art direction, script, editing, music and so on is just plain awful. the use of pop-music alone made me instantly dislike it.
As for the editing, maybe you don't consciously realize how bad it is but the effects of it are still felt.
 
So, I haven't seen the movie, but watched this video. I'm not the first one to see the similarity to FFXV here, am I?^^
 
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