Snyder has described the film as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns", including dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels. Snyder's wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder concludes, "in the end, it's about this girl's survival and what she needs to do to be able to cope."

In February 2009, Snyder released a short synopsis of Sucker Punch which states: "Set in the 1950s, it tells the story of Baby Doll (Browning), who is trying to hide from the pain caused by her evil stepfather and lobotomy. She ends up in mental institution in Brattleboro, Vermont and while there she starts to imagine an alternate reality. She plans to escape from that imaginary world but to do that she needs to steal five objects before she is captured by an unknown adversary. She has 5 days to escape before being lobotomized. In order to cope with the situation, she enters the hyper-real world of her imagination, and the lines between reality and dream begin to blur. She is joined with friends who are inmates from the institution. Lessons learned in the said fantasy world could help the girls escape their real-world fate.

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