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Minority Report
The resonance between this story and the current war is so strong that it's almost impossible to watch it for what it is, a good murder mystery conceived well before September 11th retelling a short story that was published long ago in 1956. The movie is half a work of philosophy and half a head-scratching what-if narrative exploring the merger of computers, extra-sensory perception, and genetic research. All of this is painted on the screen in the sad muted browns, sepias, blues and greys of an amateur watercolorist who can't keep the colors from turning to mud.
The conceit is the kind of classic conundrum that made science fiction great: the police in 2054 can tap the minds of three "pre-cogs" who see visions of murders a few hours before they will happen. Tom Cruise plays a cop who flies off in a jet pack to nab the soon-to-be-bad guys and lock them away before they kill. Can we really be sure the crime will be committed just as the pre-cognitives predict? Cruise is an earnest believer in the system's perfection until, it should be obvious, the system implicates him in the pre-murder of someone he's never met.
The yarn unfolds as a long string of chase scenes mixed with some flashbacks and some pre-cognitive dodges. Cruise's character, we're told, is a fast runner and he spends plenty of time running fast. The plot is crisp and layered enough to unfold several times. The hinge points are as good as the philosophical question they serve.
The biggest failure of the movie may be the set design and the look. At one moment, we see computers to inspire the next generation from Apple, in another moment we're in a mall that isn't as fancy or as new as the mall around the corner from my house. The logos for the Gap and Pepsi haven't changed since they were faxed over from the product-placement department. Many of the scenes look contemporary, with minimal set dressing, but then along comes a great car chase tricked out like the wet dream from some 19-year-old in an art school in Southern California. The unity of vision that delivered the oily dystopia of Bladerunner is missing this time. I wouldn't be surprised if someone tightened the budget screws in the middle of the film and sent them scrambling to save money on some scenes.
The tone coming from the actors is also a bit uneven. Spielberg managed to toss in funny moments in the Indiana Jones trilogy and whole schtick came together with the amazing certainty of comic-book escapism. The bits of humor in this movie's chase scenes, though, ruin the nervous paranoia and amped-up tension crackling through the narrative's ganglia. Is this supposed to be summer joy ride or a serious exploration of the meaning of justice?
These errors in execution don't matter too much because the storyline is so strong and central to our current struggle with terrorism. No one probably wants to hear that Dick wrote this story just a few years after the Supreme Court finally decided that it wasn't really legal to lock up Japanese-Americans on the off chance that they might take their orders from Tokyo. The movie theater where I saw the film is only a few miles from the prison that held much of Baltimore's City Council during the Civil War.
Despite the uncomfortable fact that moments like these happen again and again in history, there's no way to escape wondering whether Spielberg is some kind of pre-cog being who gets his version of the zeitgeist delivered early. The timing is just eerie.
Peter Wayner thinks his new book, Translucent Databases is about ten years ahead of its time. His book about steganography, Disappearing Cryptography , may be a few months late."
we'll have cars that drive themselves down the sides of buildings, be able to prevent crimes from happening in the future, have really sweet video processing systems with haptic interfaces.
But we'll still have to sneakernet media from one workstation to another via removable media. Nothing ever changes.
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
It was all there:
- the pointless "humorous" hijinks interrupting the flow (oh! the protagonist is going to eat a moldy sandwich! ha! ha! ha!)
- the sappy/happy ending when this movie really deserved an unhappy one
- the trite music from John Williams (which seemed especially bad this time...
- and worst of all, the constant need to explain every minor plot twist three times because Spielberg assumes (correctly?) that his audience is really quite stupid.
Minority Report would be a decent movie if it just wasn't so fucking annoying.is he even trying anymore?)
***POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD***
(i don't give much away about what happens, but rather, what doesn't)
Maybe the original short story covers this, but I was miffed that this particular hole in the story was left untouched:
Why do they have to convict people of these crimes they haven't commited? (or whatever they call it when they arrest you for pre-crime) Why not intercept the criminal before the crime is commited, hold the suspect for like 72 hours, possibly giving them some kind of counseling, and then release them? If they never commited a crime, they can't really be guilty of it, so no harm, no foul. In the movie, they say that premeditated murder is almost extinguished, because no one is dumb enough to try it anymore. This would still be the case under my idea, and you could even consider imprisoning those who are repeat "offenders". But it would keep people from commiting crimes of passion, and allow them to continue their lives.
Thoughts, anyone?
The Free desktop that Just Works
I agree. The presentation of the future is masterful. Like that residential suburb scene with the couple going by on a pair of horses. Does the reviewer think they decided to use HORSES because of budgetary concerns? Nonsense. Everything is deliberate. Spielberg consulted with a large group of world-renowned futurists to come up with a carefully thought out view of what the future might be like. They ended up with a mixture of high tech and old fashioned. A case can be made that Star Wars employs a similar motif.
As for the advertising... how much has the Coke logo changed in the last 50 years? Brand recognition is powerful, long lasting stuff.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Assuming that there was anyone in the audience unfamiliar with the premise, was it necessary to set up the premise in at least four repetative sequences, any one of which would have done the job:
Each of these had a different purpose:
1. In the 15 minute opening arrest sequence.
This is to grab the audience. Most good action movies start out with this.
2. In the 5 minute discussion following that sequence.
This showed alternating viewpoints, something which was important, and also told a few intricacies in the system.
3. In the Robocop-like "Precrime" commercial.
This showed the propoganda in the world, which is important because in out world, this system would never be allowed.
4. AGAIN by the tour guide?
And finally, this was to handle the public's assumed outcry over the treatment of the Precogs. If they thought the Precogs were happy and healthy, there wouldn't be none.
A few others:
5. "If you don't wait twelve hours... you'll go blind." Or... maybe six.
I assume that he went blind in that eye.
9. Wouldn't the revelation of PSYCHICS have tremendous scientific reprocussions beyond precrime?
The movie just isn't about that. You're looking for something to complain about here.
11. Did anyone else get the feeling that this future had about 50 people in it total? I did not feel like this was a "real" world at all.
That could be said of a lot of movies, since most movies only involves a few people.
3. "Surely by now the precogs have predicted you're going to kill me. So you're caught in a paradox.. bwahaha" How the hell did Tom know what they predicted? They could have predicted what enivitably happened.
If Max wasn't going to kill him, there wasn't a problem. This was an effort to stave off his own death.
4. The surgeon who replaces Tom's eyes gives a big speech about getting screwed over, then does....nothing bad. Fixes the eyes, leaves a nice sandwich.
YES YES YES YES YES. Absolutely. This annoyed me to no end, and the only thing I can think of is that perhaps he tipped off precrime that Anderton was there.
3. The extra 20 minutes or so following that, which like was totally unnecessary and cheesy.
Typical Spielberg. Did you see A.I.?
4. What is the point of putting the precogs in a barn somewhere?
If they're far enough away from civilization, they won't get the nightmares.
I still don't see why murders stopped by precogs NECESSARILY need to lead to arrests and prosecutions. I mean, say they had stopped the murder of passion at the top of the story-- rather than putting the dreaded headphones on the husband, couldn't they have gotten him into some family counceling? I mean, having a precog to stop a murder doesn't automatically mean you have to prosecute the pre-murderer.
This was the point of the book, but it got lost in the translation.
You want a problem? Why is it that the precrime agency gets notifications that Anderton has gotten on a Metro (due to the retina scanners that are EVERYWHERE) but when he uses his old eyes to get into precrime, they see nothing. They don't even go looking for him until they see Agatha in the prediction and realize that he will eventually come back to get her.
Progress makes its changes upon the present day in bursts and halts. Some things change rapidly, other things take decades. Typically, the things that change the quickest are the "everyman luxuries" such as cars, computer devices, and clothing. Our ever evolving concept of what "looks modern" is part of what drives that. Take a look at a six year old computer, it looks boxy and antique already -- yet when that computer was produced, it was likely at the height of what people considered Neat. The things that do not change as rapidly are extreme luxuries, and non-luxury items. Of course, there are always exceptions, but in general this is the case.
To bring this back to the film, the types of things that you saw looking wildly different and futuristic were precisely the types of things that go through rapid periodic aesthetic modification. Cars, electronic devices, watches, and clothing. The types of things that did not change are the things that haven't really changed in the past few decades for us either.
Secondly, as far as logos go, these do not rapidly change too much either, at least the bigger companies do not, and for a very good reason. If you go about changing your logo every two years, it stops having as much subliminal impact -- unless your company is already a behemoth, and then changes can actually be considered innovative, and people come to expect them -- however they usually revolve around the core idea. Pepsi Corporation is a good example of a company that has reworked their logo frequently, while always retaining the basic design that we all know by sight. How often has Proctor & Gamble fiddle with their logo? Even Microsoft has managed to hang on to their logo for a few decades now. Changes are made, but they usually are not often made, and rarely are they drastic.
I for one think that the concept of the future was quite realistic, and I found it refreshing in a way to see a design team correctly assess the way the world changes. I absolutely love the way Blade Runner looks, it is one of my favorite movies, and the design is a big reason why -- but it isn't necessarily all that realistic.
V
That's not the issue. The American ideal has never, ever been "I'm from the government... trust me." Our entire system of law and politics is based upon checks and balances -- which includes external review. Everyone loves to drag in World War II here. Let's do that. Congress oversaw the war effort. Indeed, Harry Truman's claim to fame was his thorough, even-handed, and unstoppable investigation of war inefficiency. The Supreme Court remained in the loop too -- hence the Ex Parte Quirin that is so beloved of the administration's defenders. This President, however, holds no respect for the courts, for the Congress, or for anyone who might possibly restrain him.
If the government has such darn good evidence --and I don't a prior assume it doesn't -- then let it present it in court. Let it make its case the way that all administrations have had to make their case. Let's return to a nation organized around the rule of law.
If the price of "freedom" is secret police, warrantless searches, and indefinite detention based on the whim of a single individual without restraint, then what's the difference?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach