How to Fix Suicide Squad

Sean Chandler’s Suicide Squad Rewrite

Sean Chandler argues that Suicide Squad had a strong cast and an appealing premise, but squandered its potential with a rushed, crowded setup. He found the witch villain uninteresting and compared her minions to the “putties” from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The squad’s mismatched abilities also seemed poorly suited to the threat they were sent to face.

Build Up to the Story

Chandler’s rewrite would introduce the characters and Amanda Waller’s schemes across several films:

• Establish Waller’s plans in Batman v Superman.
• Show Batman arresting someone who will later join the squad.
• Introduce Harley Quinn and other characters in a Batman film.

With those foundations in place, Suicide Squad could spend less time on backstories and use Deadshot as its main point-of-view character.

A Conflict of Motives

In the proposed film, Waller sends the team on a test mission before they face a more compelling central threat: Ra’s al Ghul, or a similar character. Ra’s wants to dismantle corrupt institutions and dangerous government projects, giving him understandable motives even as his methods make him a genuine threat.

Waller is also an antagonist, pursuing her own hidden agenda. Batman becomes an obstacle to the squad—not because he is evil, but because he is trying to arrest them and does not yet understand the larger danger.

Chandler imagines Batman pursuing the team during their mission, creating a tense, almost horror-film dynamic as the squad tries to evade him while stopping Ra’s. Batman eventually recognizes that Ra’s is the greater threat, but remains independent of the squad.

The team ultimately stops Ra’s, who escapes. In the final scene, Batman confronts Waller and argues that there must be a better way than using criminals and building dangerous weapons.

Chandler’s central idea is to make the story’s conflict about clashing motives and ideologies rather than a simple fight against a disposable villain.

Personality featured: Sean Chandler