[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] Suicide Squad: Script Soup By Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="Suicide Squad: Script Soup" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] What’s interesting about Suicide Squad is that this is a very bad script by a very good writer (David Ayer also wrote Training Day). So instead of looking at the script like most critics have done and simply bashing it, I want to look at it as I would if I was working with a student. It's really interesting to see that even some of the greatest writers go through exactly the same problems, and can bump up against exactly the same causes of problems, that many new and emerging and student writers deal with. The biggest problem with Suicide Squad is not Jared Leto's method acting antics. It's not the egos of all the many stars that were involved. It’s not even the many places where the logic of the script just doesn't make sense. The real problem with Suicide Squad is the problem of too many good ideas. This is actually one of the most common things that we see in screenplays: too many good ideas. And when you get attached to having too many good ideas what ends up happening is that all the ideas end up suffering. In Improv, there's a concept called "Yes, and..." which is a way of building scenes in a way that speak to each other. On the simplest level, "Yes, and..." means looking at what has come before, agreeing, accepting it, allowing it to land in you and then adding something to it that drives it deeper.   In a screenplay, "Yes, and..." can happen at many different levels, inside of a scene, inside of the overall structure, or inside a relationship between two characters. So, a character says something or does something in your screenplay, and you can almost think of it like a tennis match: you want to allow that ball to cross the net, and you want to feel the shiver of it as it hits the racket of the other character.  You want to feel how that shiver changes the return. And then you want to step into the other character, and allow the way that the ball was returned to shiver through that character and affect their return. That's what "Yes, and..." looks like inside a scene: “Yes, I accept what just occurred, and I'm now going to react to it, take it deeper, stronger, bigger, faster, cooler.” "Yes, and..." can also happen structurally for us as writers, when we allow the scene that we've just written, or the idea that we've just come up with, to fully land. When we accept it, and then allow it to influence whatever comes next. We want it to drive us deeper into one thing, allowing us to build upon and outdo what's come before. This is an organic, natural, simple way to think about structure. Unfortunately what happens in Suicide Squad is the same thing that often happens with young improvers: Rather than “Yes, and…” we simply end up “And-ing.” And oftentimes that “And-ing” comes from a place of insecurity in us. We’re afraid that maybe our idea isn't good enough. Maybe we don't have enough to take the story where it needs to go. Maybe we don't have enough of a story here, or enough of a character here. Maybe we’re afraid we don't have enough for our character to do. It’s not going to sustain us. It's not going to be exciting enough for the audience. So, we get to that place of anxiety. Instead of “Yes, and…” we start just “And-ing.” Just saying, “Well, maybe it's also this, maybe also this, maybe it's also this, maybe it's also this, maybe it's also this…” We get attached to all those “And” ideas, even if they don't have very much in common with the idea that came before.   And when that ends up happening, instead of getting structure, we get script soup.