i just read max landis’ script for martyr (aka chronicle 2) and. wow.

still processing but here are my immediate thoughts, of course containing lots of spoilers!

it’s really, really good. i didn’t really expect any less, max always sounded really excited when he talked about the idea in interviews and whatnot, and he’s definitely a great writer so was excited to read another script by him. it ties into chronicle fantastically and, even though i really don’t think chronicle needs a sequel (it’s amazing as it is), this would have made a great movie.

there’s just one thing i can’t get past: matt forgiving richard.

i cannot even fathom what made max think that was a good idea. in this script – in case you haven’t read it yet – the film that we know as chronicle is actually released by some of the characters in martyr so everyone gets to see the movie as we saw it. matt sees this movie, sees all the abuse andrew suffered at the hands and tongue of richard detmer, and still hugs this piece of shit and calls him uncle richard when he fucking walks in.

if there’s one thing chronicle taught me and every other person who saw it, it’s that abuse creates monsters. andrew’s rampage at the end of chronicle is a direct result of what richard said and did to him. before andrew drops him outside the hospital, he literally yells “YOU DID THIS TO ME”. richard is the one who made andrew lose his mind. by the end andrew is running only on fear and anger and sorrow and that’s all richard’s fault. he’s alone, he’s guilty, he’s terrified, and he has no rational sense left. matt can’t talk him down, so he kills him.

in the martyr script – in the best part of the martyr script – matt explains how guilty he feels about andrew’s (and steve’s) death, admits that he realizes that he killed the last person who could have understood him.

and most of that is richard’s goddamn fault. matt did abandon andrew, he did yell at him and make little effort to understand what he was going through, but richard is the one who pushed him over the edge and caused the rampage that ended in andrew’s death. i cannot, for even a second, believe that matt could forgive richard for that. i don’t care how much he apologized or “redeemed” himself in between these two movies, there’s no fucking way. i’m sorry but no. just… no.

aside from that, it’s a really great script.

i love the little nods to chronicle. i love the relationship between andrew’s apex predator speech and miranda’s caterpillar speech. i love that both of their downfalls pertain to the loss of someone they love (steve and later andrew’s mom in andrew’s case, and jack in miranda’s case). i love that matt splits the machine like a spider. i love the section i pasted above, where matt acknowledges his guilt, something i have long held as canon anyway (the fact that if matt had been there in the storm with steve, together they could have talked andrew down and saved both andrew and steve’s lives simply by sticking together). i love that the reason andrew went “apex predator” is acknowledged as having happened out of fear and anger. 

i love that matt gets to experience what andrew did, the rage and fear and desperation, that he almost dies the way he did. angry, alone, and scared.

i love that in the end he’s able to understand how he felt and in his own way try to make up for killing him by saving another tortured soul.

i do have to look closer at the themes of hero and villain and their implications; as you are all well aware of i do not consider andrew a villain but a victim; a misguided lonely boy who needed more love than the world gave him and did what he thought he had to do out of desperation before losing all rationality to emotion. both miranda and matt in the script sort of find themselves in andrew’s situation and i don’t know what their respective labels of villain and hero at the end are supposed to mean for andrew. hopefully it means he is neither. maybe another read-through will provide me with a clearer image of what they’re trying to say. i still hold by the idea that, in chronicle at least, matt is not a hero, andrew is not a villain, and everyone is morally grey (except for richard, who i believe is unquestionably evil for how he treated his son). i understand that by the end of this, matt has proven himself a hero or at least heroic, though i don’t believe he really sees himself as either. anyway, like i said, further read-throughs may shed some light on these themes.

some last notes; things i will now consider canon or at least semi-canon thanks to the script:

• andrew died on february 4th, 2012, the night of the “seattle catastrophe”
• 26 people died as a result of his actions that day
• the telekinetic powers the boys got allow them to heal themselves (and others) by simply envisioning their cells regenerating and stitching together; they can also cure their own sicknesses by envisioning crushing the virus cells inside their bodies
• they can also go “light speed” with their powers and “sonic boom” quickly from place to place
• if andrew and steve had lived, they would have learned to use their powers in the two aforementioned ways.

if i think of anything else i’ll post about it i guess. for now, those are my thoughts. damn, that was a wild read. i want to remind everyone that this script is technically not canon, since really only the movie is canon; but it’s also the closest thing to canon we’re ever gonna get, along with max’s description of what the crystal was and of course the chronicle script itself. and if you’re into chronicle as much as i am, you’ll definitely want to check it out.