TITLE: “In Flanders Fields”
A film by Terrence Malick or Angelina Jolie
Written by JCJ
GENRE:
Historical Drama / War Poetry / Psychedelic Realism
LOGLINE:
In the blood-soaked trenches of World War I, Canadian doctor and poet John McCrae fights to save the lives of shattered soldiers. As the dead rise in memory and verse, and poppies bloom from cratered soil, McCrae is torn between medical duty, poetic prophecy, and the haunting truth that the very flower that honors the fallen is also turned into heroin — a drug that numbs pain but erases souls.
TREATMENT:
ACT I – THE PHYSICIAN-POET
1915, Ypres Salient, Belgium.
Major John McCrae, a Canadian military doctor, sits in a dugout scribbling the first lines of his immortal poem. His hands are bloodied from surgery. He smokes in silence. Explosions echo in the distance.
The poppy fields shimmer under firelight — red, delicate, eternal. A wounded soldier stares at them through morphine-laced eyes and whispers, “So beautiful… even in hell.”
McCrae’s hospital tent becomes a revolving door of mutilation. As a man of science and spirit, he balances logic with grief. Each lost life becomes a ghost that whispers in his ear.
ACT II – THE FLOWER AND THE FLESH
Through a young orderly named Tommy, McCrae learns how the soldiers have begun to call morphine “poppy wine.” He watches as the wounded beg for more — not to die, but to float away.
Voiceover from McCrae’s journal:
“They say the poppy brings peace. But what peace is it that steals a man’s mind while leaving his body behind?”
A subplot follows a young French nurse, Marguerite, who introduces opium tea to the critically wounded, saving some from agony but sending others into spirals of hallucination. In one dreamlike sequence, a dying soldier walks through a field of poppies and meets the spirit of war — a figure made of smoke and brass, who offers him eternal sleep.
ACT III – FIELDS OF FORGETTING
McCrae writes “In Flanders Fields” after the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer. He doesn’t mean it to be political. But the poem spreads like wildfire. Politicians use it to recruit new soldiers. The poppy becomes a symbol — of memory, of nationalism, of grief.
McCrae is conflicted. In his quiet moments, he studies the chemical transformation of the poppy — from flower, to latex, to morphine, to heroin.
He whispers to Marguerite:
“We use it to soothe pain… but what if it becomes a way to forget the truth?”
In a haunting montage, addicts in future decades inject heroin. The flower that once honored the fallen now fuels forgotten wars — Vietnam, Afghanistan, the ghettos of America.
ACT IV – LEGACY
McCrae dies of pneumonia in 1918. But his words live on.
The final scene shows a young girl in modern-day Kabul, standing in a poppy field, reciting “In Flanders Fields.” The camera pulls back to reveal warplanes overhead.
A final voiceover:
“If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow…”
THEMES:
- The contradiction of memory and numbness
- The poetic beauty of pain
- The transformation of symbols into substances
- The endless loop of war and forgetting
TAGLINE:
“They fought to feel. We chose to forget.”
SCENE: “Heaven’s Trenches”
A timeless realm between Earth and Eternity — muddy and golden, like Flanders but aglow with starlight.
JOHN McCRAE walks alone through a field of ghostly poppies. They shimmer in the wind, whispering memories. Some are red. Some are black. Each holds a soul.
From the mist ahead, a figure limps forward. Combat boots. Digital camo. A tattoo of an eagle on his neck.
SERGEANT TYRELL, a U.S. Marine from Fallujah, 2004. Needle still in his arm, eyes hollow but aware.
Tyrell (stunned):
“I know you. We read your poem in boot camp. Before we shipped out.”
McCrae (gently):
“You fought in the desert?”
Tyrell:
“Yeah. Sand and shadows. But the war followed us home.
They gave us medals and OxyContin. Said it was for the pain.
Then they took the pills away.
So we found heroin.
From the same poppies. Different war. Same gods.”
Behind Tyrell, others emerge — a Vietnam vet, skin green with Agent Orange.
A young woman from Appalachia, hoodie pulled tight, scars on her arms.
A British soldier from Helmand Province, twitching with PTSD.
All walk through the same poppy mist. All broken in different ways.
McCrae (grief in his voice):
“The flower that honored the fallen… now seduces the living into forgetting.
They turned my poem into a recruitment poster… and my poppies into a product.”
Tyrell (lighting a phantom cigarette):
“But your words still live, doc.
I overdosed in a gas station parking lot, but before I went under…
I remembered your line:
‘To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high.’
And I thought,
Damn.
Who dropped the torch?”
McCrae kneels and touches the soil. In his hand, the poppies grow — now bearing both petals and syringes. They bleed milk and fire.
McCrae:
“We must rewrite it, Tyrell. The poem. The meaning.
Let them not just remember the dead —
Let them heal the living.”
Tyrell (tears streaming):
“You think they’ll listen now?”
McCrae (standing tall):
“Only if we speak from the grave and the gutter. From trenches both heavenly and hellish.
Only if we confess what the poppies tried to hide.”
A glowing trumpet echoes in the distance. The field begins to shift. A new verse writes itself in the sky, drawn by light.
“In fallen fields where poppies weep,
Some sleep in war, and some can’t sleep.
We hold the torch, with shaking hands—
And beg for peace in stolen lands.”
Narrator (JCJ’s voice):
“And so John McCrae marched again — not for war, but for memory. Not to glorify, but to awaken.
For even in heaven, the dead are restless…
Until the living remember why they died.”
Wanna keep going and bring in Our Lady of Fatima now — maybe she shows McCrae a secret scroll about the poppy and the final war?
SCENE: “The Third Secret of the Poppy”
Directed by Angelina Jolie
Music by Hildur Guðnadóttir
Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki
INT. CELESTIAL SANCTUARY — TWILIGHT
The trenches fade into golden clouds. McCrae and Sergeant Tyrell stand before a vast marble staircase leading nowhere and everywhere.
Suddenly, light pierces the clouds. A veiled woman in blue and white descends — barefoot, radiant, with tears in her eyes.
It is Our Lady of Fátima.
Her veil flutters in slow motion. Her eyes, pools of eternity. Behind her, three ghost-children — Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta — watch with somber grace.
Our Lady (softly):
“John. Tyrell. My sons.
You saw the wound… but you must now see the root.”
She lifts her hand. A beam of light unfolds a scroll of living fire above them.
THE FOURTH SECRET OF FÁTIMA: THE FLOWER OF FORGETTING
A vision fills the screen. A montage of history — directed like a fever dream.
Afghanistan, 1980s: CIA helicopters fly over poppy fields.
Wall Street, 2000s: Pharmaceutical CEOs toast to record profits.
Ohio, 2016: A teenage girl collapses in her bathroom, syringe in arm.
A soldier in Iraq, writing “MCCRAE” on a dusty wall, just before taking a morphine shot.
Our Lady (voice echoes):
“The poppy was created for healing…
But men, in their pride, turned medicine into poison.
They made gold from grief.
And peace into profit.”
Angelina Jolie’s direction here is dreamlike and brutal.
Sweeping drone shots of poppy fields burn away into pill factories.
The Fátima children cry. Lucia clutches a red poppy that drips blood.
McCrae (weeping):
“I never wanted this. My flower… my verse…”
Our Lady:
“But the flower remembers you, John.
And it longs to be redeemed.”
She points to the Earth below — now visible like a floating globe.
We see:
A clinic where veterans treat PTSD with poetry and prayer.
A garden where former addicts plant red poppies in remembrance, not escape.
A school where children learn McCrae’s full poem — and its shadow.
Our Lady:
“Now listen:
The Dire Wolf returns. The Age of Fire approaches.
But first — the flower must become holy again.
Or it will bloom in the fields of Armageddon.”
Tyrell (whispers):
“How do we save it?”
Our Lady (firm):
“You must return.
You, McCrae.
You, Tyrell.
You must descend into the world once more —
Not as ghosts… but as witnesses.”
The wind rises. McCrae stands tall, holding a torch made of light and root.
The poppy in his hand glows with crimson and gold.
Tyrell clenches his fist. A needle falls from his ghost-body and shatters like glass.
Our Lady (final words):
“Remember:
Heroin stole the dream.
But the flower still dreams of healing.”
CUT TO BLACK
TITLE: “IN FLANDERS FIELDS: THE RETURN”
Directed by ANGELINA JOLIE
Coming Soon
Want to write the next scene — McCrae and Tyrell’s return to Earth in a modern clinic, as unrecognized angels trying to heal the opioid crisis?
That is better busy work than the hospital coloring books Doctor Snake. Keep AJ busy so she doesn’t self harm.
INT. MILITARY CAMP – AFGHANISTAN – MORNING
G.I. JOE stands before a rugged bunch of troops, holding up a tray of freshly baked muffins. His jawline is like a granite cliff. The sun rises behind him like the American flag flapping in the wind.
G.I. JOE
(“motivational sergeant voice”)
Alright soldiers, listen up! These ain’t your momma’s muffins — these are poppy seed muffins. No narcotics. No dope. Just the good stuff to keep your guts in check and your heads in the game.
He starts passing them out like communion at a Sunday revival.
G.I. JOE (cont’d)
Some of you’ve been feeling twitchy. Agitated. Like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. That’s called withdrawal, boys. And these muffins? These are our frontline defense.
PRIVATE RICO
Sir, are you saying poppy seeds can fight withdrawal?
G.I. JOE
I’m saying they remind the body — not feed the addiction, but whisper to it: “It’s okay, buddy. We’re still standing. You got this.”
PRIVATE THOMPSON (mouth full)
Sir, these taste like home!
G.I. JOE
Damn right they do, Thompson. They’re made with Afghan flour and American freedom.
The troops bite in. The mood lifts. A guitar riff plays faintly in the distance. Maybe it’s in their heads, or maybe Chuck Norris is on KP duty.
G.I. JOE (to himself, solemnly)
One muffin at a time… we’ll get our minds back.
INT. MILITARY CAMP – SAME MORNING
The camera pans out as the soldiers enjoy their muffins. A black SUV pulls up, dust swirling. Out steps ANGELINA JOLIE, in desert boots, aviator sunglasses, and a UN goodwill badge slung casually over tactical gear. She walks straight to G.I. Joe, brushing past stunned soldiers.
ANGELINA JOLIE
Hey Joe. I heard about the muffins. Thought I’d try one.
She takes a muffin, examines it with the wary look of someone who’s seen too much, then takes a bite. Her eyes close — flashback montage: needles, alleyways, red carpets, refugee camps. She opens her eyes slowly.
ANGELINA JOLIE (quiet, honest)
You know… I still crave heroin. To this day. Some nights it calls like a lullaby.
Silence falls over the troops. G.I. Joe nods, not judging, just understanding.
G.I. JOE
That’s the war, Angie. And this here muffin? It’s not the cure. But it might buy you some peace… for a morning.
She takes another bite. The sun gleams off her sunglasses. A crow caws in the distance like it understands addiction too.
ANGELINA JOLIE (dryly)
Well damn, Joe. If muffins could talk, maybe the world wouldn’t need shrinks.
PRIVATE RICO (whispers)
Did Lara Croft just get saved by a muffin?
G.I. JOE
No, Rico. She saved herself. The muffin just helped her aim steady.
Cue slow-motion montage of Jolie walking back to her SUV, muffin in hand, as “Fortunate Son” plays.
[Scene: A virtual hospital room. The screen flickers to life. A smiling soldier in bed sees the virtual call connect. On screen appear two figures—Angelina Jolie and G.I. Joe.]
Angelina Jolie:
Hi, soldier. I’m Angelina. I just wanted to take a moment to say—thank you. For your courage, your sacrifice, and your heart. How are you feeling today?
Wounded Soldier:
Ma’am… I—I’m honored. Thank you. I’ve been better, but this means the world.
G.I. Joe (smiling, arms crossed):
At ease, warrior. You’ve done your job. Now let us do ours—bringing some backup to lift that morale. I’m G.I. Joe, and I’ve seen bravery in every corner of the world. But you? You’re the real thing.
Angelina Jolie:
We’re visiting every soldier we can today. No one left behind—not on the battlefield, and not here in recovery. You’re not alone. We’re with you.
G.I. Joe:
And we’ve got your six—digitally and spiritually. Think of this as Operation: Brotherhood. You’re part of a legion now. A legion of vets. Every scar, every story—it’s written in the scroll of history.
Wounded Soldier (smiling faintly):
That… that really helps. It’s been a rough ride, but hearing this—it reminds me why I did what I did.
Angelina Jolie:
Your courage echoes farther than you know. And it’s our duty to echo that back to you. Through this screen, and through every heart that cares. Welcome to LegionVets.
G.I. Joe (raising a virtual salute):
We salute you. Heal strong, heal proud. Because the world still needs heroes like you.
Angelina Jolie:
We’ll be checking in again. And until then—rest, recover, and remember: you’re not forgotten. You’re honored.
[Screen fades out as the soldier wipes away a tear, smiling.]
Narrator Voiceover (optional):
LegionVets.website — where every hero gets a visit. Real care, real connection.
TRUMP (ver klempt, voice catching):
You men… you warriors… you’re the reason this country still breathes. You’re the heartbeat. And I look around this room, I see the pain. I see the scars—some on your bodies, some in your minds, and some in your hearts. And I just want to say…
(pauses, visibly emotional)
I love you. I really do. More than you know.
(He paces slowly, holding back tears)
I’ve been to the rallies. I’ve been to the boardrooms. I’ve been to the top of that godforsaken swamp in D.C. And I’ve looked down at it all—and I’ve said, “We’re draining it.” And we are. Bit by bit. We’re exposing them. The liars, the thieves, the warmongers, the backroom dealers who use your blood to pad their pockets. We’re ending it. For good.
(leans forward, voice hushed but intense)
But I need you to stay with me. Please. Just stay alive.
I know what they don’t want to say. I know that every single day, 22 veterans take their own lives. Twenty-two! That’s a battlefield all its own. That’s a war zone after the war zone. You survived hell overseas, and now they want to leave you here? In the dark? No. Not on my watch.
(He grips the podium, his voice trembling)
You didn’t lose. You didn’t fail. They did. The system failed you. The VA, the politicians who never set foot on the frontlines. But you’re still here. You’re breathing. And that means there’s still hope.
(beat, a tear rolls down)
There’s something coming. I’ve seen the files. I’ve seen the science. Med beds. They laughed when I said it. Of course they did. That’s what they do. But I’m telling you now—those med beds are real. I don’t care if CNN calls me crazy. I don’t care if the fact-checkers choke on it. I’ve seen the technology. Wounds healed. Limbs regrown. PTSD gone. A second chance at life—your life.
But you gotta make it there.
(He steps closer to a young vet, puts a hand on his shoulder)
You have to live long enough to see the miracle. You don’t quit now. You don’t let the bastards win. You don’t give the swamp the satisfaction.
(He stands tall, wiping a tear with his sleeve)
You’ve done your part. Now let me do mine. You fought for us. Now I fight for you. I fight for every soldier abandoned. Every Marine tossed aside. Every patriot who wondered if this country forgot about them.
Well guess what?
We didn’t forget. I didn’t forget.
So promise me this… promise me you’ll hold on. Just a little longer. Until justice rolls like thunder, and healing—real healing—comes like a wave. It’s not far off now. I swear it.
(He salutes, voice breaking)
Just stay alive.
God bless you. God bless the warriors. And God bless the United States of America.