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Minority Report (film)
Encyclopedia
Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir
science fiction film
directed by Steven Spielberg
and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick
. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C.
and Northern Virginia
in the year 2054, where "PreCrime
", a specialized police department, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by three psychics called "precogs
". The cast includes Tom Cruise
as PreCrime captain John Anderton, Colin Farrell
as Department of Justice
agent Danny Witwer, Samantha Morton
as the senior precog Agatha, and Max von Sydow
as Anderton's superior Lamar Burgess. The film is a combination of whodunit
, thriller and science fiction.
Spielberg has characterized the story as "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot." The film's central theme is the question of free will
vs. determinism
. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance. Other themes include the role of preventative government in protecting its citizenry, the role of media in a future state where electronic advancements make its presence nearly boundless, the potential legality of an infallible prosecutor, and Spielberg's repeated theme of broken families.
The film was first optioned in 1992 as a sequel to another Dick adaptation, Total Recall
, and started its development in 1997, after a script by John Cohen reached Spielberg and Cruise. Production suffered many delays due to Cruise's Mission: Impossible II
and Spielberg's A.I. running over schedule, eventually starting in March 2001. During pre-production, Spielberg consulted numerous scientists in an attempt to present a more plausible future world than that seen in other science fiction films, and some of the technology designs in the film have proven prescient. Minority Report has a unique visual style. It uses high contrast to create dark colors and shadows, much like a film noir
picture. The film's overlit shots feature desaturated colors which were achieved by bleach-bypassing
the film's negative in post-production.
Minority Report was one of the best reviewed films of 2002. It received praise for its writing, visuals and themes, but earned some criticism for its ending which was considered inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the movie. The film was nominated for and won several awards. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing
, and won four Saturn Award
s, including Best Science Fiction Film
and Best Direction
. The film was a commercial success, earning over $358 million worldwide against an overall budget of $142 million (including advertising). Over four million DVDs were sold in its first few months of home release.
) is the chief of the Washington, D.C.
PreCrime police force. They use future visions generated by three "precogs", mutated humans with precognitive
abilities, to stop murders; because of this, the city has been murder-free for six years. Though Anderton is a respected member of the force, he is addicted to an illegal psychoactive drug
. His addiction started following the disappearance of his son Sean, which also caused his wife Lara to leave him. With the PreCrime force poised to go nationwide, the system is audited by Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell
), a member of the Department of Justice
. During the audit, the precogs predict that Anderton will murder a man named Leo Crow in 36 hours. Believing the incident to be a setup by Witwer, who is aware of Anderton's addiction, Anderton attempts to hide the case and quickly departs the area before Witwer begins a manhunt
for him. Anderton seeks the advice of Dr. Iris Hineman (Lois Smith
), the lead researcher of the PreCrime technology. She explains to Anderton that the three precogs may see different visions of the future, and that the system only provides data on the two reports which agree; the "minority report", reflecting the potential future where a predicted killer would have done something different, is discarded. According to Dr. Hineman, the female precog Agatha is likely the one who witnessed the minority report.
Anderton undergoes a dangerous underground eye replacement to avoid detection by the city's optical recognition system. He travels back to PreCrime and kidnaps Agatha (Samantha Morton
), which disables the precogs' hive mind
and shuts down the system. Anderton takes Agatha to a hacker
, who extracts both Agatha's vision of Crow's murder—with no differences from the other two precogs, so there was no minority report—and another of the murder of a woman named Anne Lively—which Agatha also showed to Anderton the day before he was incriminated. Anderton and Agatha then head to the apartment where Crow is to be killed. Inside, Anderton finds hundreds of pictures of children, one of which is of his son, and concludes that Crow is responsible for Sean's disappearance. When Crow arrives, Anderton holds him at gunpoint, but ultimately decides to control his anger and places Crow under arrest instead. Crow admits that he was hired to plant these photos and then be killed, so his family would be paid handsomely. Since Anderton refuses to kill him, Crow grabs the officer's hand, makes him fire at point-blank range, and dies. On the run, Anderton and Agatha approach his ex-wife Lara for refuge. Anderton learns Lively was Agatha's drug-addled mother, once before a target of a failed murder attempt after requesting to see her daughter before her death. Anderton realizes that his knowledge of the Lively case is why he is being targeted.
Meanwhile, Witwer assesses Crow's "murder" and doubts Anderton killed in cold blood. He comes to recognize that the archival footage of Lively's murder shows what appears to be a future echo by one of the visions, routinely discarded by PreCrime, which he realises is a different murder as nearby water is rippling in a different direction from the original PreCrime vision. He suspects someone used this to stage the first murder attempt, and then recreated the setting to actually kill Lively and avoid being detected by PreCrime. Witwer realizes that the murderer would had to have been someone high up in PreCrime to have access to the vision, and reports these findings to PreCrime's Director Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow
). Burgess, noting that the PreCrime division is currently disabled due to Agatha's absence, kills Witwer and frames Anderton for the murder.
The PreCrime unit eventually captures Anderton and restores Agatha to the system. Burgess attempts to comfort Lara, but accidentally reveals that he was the one that killed Lively. Lara acts on this information and frees Anderton at gunpoint. At a banquet to celebrate the success of the PreCrime unit attended by Burgess, Anderton plays back Agatha's vision of Lively's murder for the gathered crowd, which shows Burgess as the murderer. While Burgess begins to hunt down Anderton, a new PreCrime report is created: Anderton is the victim and Burgess, the murderer. When Burgess catches up to Anderton, Anderton explains the impossible situation: if Burgess kills Anderton, he proves the system works but at the cost of a life sentence, while if he does not, the system will not have worked and the PreCrime division will be shut down. Anderton explains the fundamental flaw in the system: if one knows his or her future, he or she can change it. Burgess resolves the dilemma by killing himself. The PreCrime program is shut down and the prisoners are unconditionally pardoned and released, though police departments keep watch on many of them. Anderton and Lara remarry and start a new family. The precogs are sent to an "undisclosed location", a small uncharted island in the North Atlantic Ocean to live out a full happy life in peace.
in 1992. He created the initial script for the film with Ron Shusett and Robert Goethals (uncredited). It was supposed to be a sequel to the 1990 Dick adaptation Total Recall
, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger
. Novelist Jon Cohen was hired in 1997 to adapt the story for a potential film version that would have been directed by Dutch
filmmaker Jan de Bont
. Meanwhile, Cruise and Spielberg, who met and became friends on the set of Cruise's film Risky Business
in 1983, had been looking to collaborate for ten years. Spielberg was set to direct Cruise in Rain Man
, but left to make Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
. Cruise read Cohen's script, and passed it onto Spielberg, who felt it needed some work. Spielberg was not directly involved in the writing of the script; however, he was allowed to decide whether the picture's screenplay was ready to be filmed. When Cohen submitted an acceptable revision, he called Cruise and said, "Yeah, I'll do this version of the script." In that version, Witwer creates a false disk which shows Anderton killing him. When Anderton sees the clip, his belief in the infallibility of the precogs visions convinces him it is true, therefore the precogs have a vision of him killing Witwer. At the end, Anderton shoots Witwer and one of the brother precogs finishes him off, because Witwer had slain his twin. Spielberg was attracted to the story because as both a mystery, and a movie set 50 years in the future, it allowed him to do "a blending of genres" which intrigued him.
In 1998, the pair joined Minority Report and announced the production as a joint venture of Spielberg's DreamWorks
and Amblin Entertainment
, 20th Century Fox
, Cruise's Cruise-Wagner Productions, and De Bont's production company, Blue Tulip. Spielberg however stated that despite being credited, De Bont never became involved with the film. Cruise and Spielberg, at the latter's insistence, reportedly agreed to each take 15% of the gross instead of any money up front to try and keep the film's budget under $100 million. Spielberg said he had done the same with name actors in the past to great success: "Tom Hanks
took no cash for Saving Private Ryan
but he made a lot of money on his profit participation." He made this agreement a prerequisite:
Production was delayed for several years; the original plan was to begin filming after Cruise's Mission: Impossible II
was finished. However, that film ran over schedule, which also allowed Spielberg time to bring in screenwriter Scott Frank
to rework Cohen's screenplay. John August
did an uncredited draft to polish the script, and Frank Darabont
was also invited to rewrite, but was by then busy with The Majestic. The film closely follows Frank's final script (written May 16, 2001), and contains much of Cohen's third draft (May 24, 1997). Frank removed the character of Senator Malcolm from Cohen's screenplay, and inserted Burgess, who became the "bad guy". He also rewrote Witwer from a villain to a "good guy", as he was in the short story. In contrast to Spielberg's next science fiction picture, War of the Worlds
, which he called "100 percent character" driven, Spielberg said the story for Minority Report became "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot." According to film scholar William Buckland, "It appears that...Cohen and...Frank did not see" the "Goldman and Schusett screenplay; instead; they worked on their own adaptation." Goldman and Schusett however claimed the pair used a lot of material from their script, so the issue went through the Writer's Guild
arbitration process. They won a partial victory; they were not given writing credits, but were listed as executive producers. The film was delayed again so Spielberg could finish A.I. after the death of his friend Stanley Kubrick
. When Spielberg originally signed on to direct, he planned to have an entirely different supporting cast. He offered the role of Witwer to Matt Damon
, Iris Hineman to Meryl Streep
, Burgess to Ian McKellen
, Agatha to Cate Blanchett
, and Lara to Jenna Elfman
. However, Streep declined the role, Damon opted out, and the other roles were recast due to the delays.
, its chairman, Peter Schwartz
, and its co-founder Stewart Brand
to a hotel in Santa Monica, California
for a three day "think tank". He also invited journalist Joel Garreau
to cover the event. He wanted to consult with the group to create a plausible "future reality" for the year 2054 as opposed to a more traditional "science fiction" setting. Dubbed the "think tank summit", the experts included architect Peter Calthorpe
, Douglas Coupland
, computer scientist Neil Gershenfeld
, biomedical researcher Shaun Jones, computer scientist Jaron Lanier
, and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) architecture dean William J. Mitchell. Production Designer
Alex McDowell
kept what was nicknamed the "2054 bible", an 80 page guide created in preproduction which listed all the decided upon aspects of the future world: architectural, socio-economical, political, and technological. While the discussions did not change key elements in the film's action sequences, they were influential in the creation of some of the more utopian aspects of the film, though John Underkoffler, the science and technology advisor for the film, described it as "much grayer and more ambiguous" than what was envisioned in 1999. John Underkoffler, who designed most of Anderton's interface after Spielberg told him to make it "like conducting an orchestra", said "it would be hard to identify anything [in the movie] that had no grounding in reality." McDowell teamed up with architect Greg Lynn
to work on some of the technical aspects of the production design. Lynn praised his work, saying that "[a] lot of those things Alex cooked up for Minority Report, like the 3-D screens, have become real." Spielberg described his ideas for the film's technology to Roger Ebert
before the movie's release:
News sources have noted the future technologies depicted in the film were prescient. The Guardian
published a piece titled "Why Minority Report was spot on" in June 2010, and the following month Fast Company
examined seven crime fighting technologies in the film similar to ones then appearing. It summarized that "the police state imagined in the Tom Cruise flick feels a bit more real every day." Other major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal have published articles dedicated to this phenomenon, and National Public Radio (NPR) published an August 2010 podcast which analyzed the film's accuracy in predicting future technologes. Companies like Hewlett-Packard
(HP) have announced they were motivated to do research by the film; in HP's case to develop cloud computing
.
Technologies from the film later realized include:
Those in development include:
, and Los Angeles
. Film locations included the Ronald Reagan Building
(as PreCrime headquarters) and Georgetown
. The skyline of Rosslyn, Virginia
is visible when Anderton flies across the Potomac River
.
Although it takes place in an imagined future world of advanced technology, Minority Report attempts to embody a more "realistic" depiction of the future. Spielberg decided that to be more credible, the setting had to keep both elements of the present and ones which specialists expected would be forthcoming. Thus Washington, D.C. as depicted in the movie keeps well-known buildings such as the Capitol
and the Washington Monument
, as well as a section of modern buildings on the other side of the Potomac River. Production designer Alex McDowell was hired based on his work in Fight Club
and his storyboards for a film version of Fahrenheit 451
which would have starred Mel Gibson
. McDowell studied modern architecture, and his sets contain many curves, circular shapes, and reflective materials. Costume designer Deborah L. Scott decided to make the clothes worn by the characters as simple as possible, so as not to make the depiction of the future seem dated.
The stunt crew was the same one used in Cruise's Mission: Impossible II, and was responsible for complex action scenes. These included the auto factory chase scene, filmed in a real facility using props such as a welding robot, and the fight between Anderton and the jetpack-clad officers, filmed in an alley set built on the Warner Bros.
studio lot. Industrial Light & Magic did most of the special effects, and DreamWorks-owned PDI
was responsible for the Spyder robots. The company Pixel Liberation Front did previsualization animatics. The holographic projections
and the prison facility were filmed by several roving cameras which surrounded the actors, and the scene where Anderton gets off his car and runs along the Maglev vehicles was filmed on stationary props, which were later replaced by computer-generated vehicles.
to Washington, D.C., Baltimore
, and Northern Virginia
. The character of John Anderton was changed from a balding and out-of-shape old man to an athletic officer in his 40s to fit its portrayer and the film's action scenes. The film adds two stories of tragic families; Anderton's, and that of the three pre-cogs. In the short story, Anderton is married with no children, while in the film, he is the divorced father of a kidnapped son, who is most likely deceased. Although it is implied, but unclear in the film whether Agatha is related to the twin pre-cogs, her family was shattered when Burgess murdered her mother, Ann Lively. The precogs were retarded
and deformed individuals in the story, but in the film, they are the offspring of neuroin addicts who took a tainted version of the drug which genetically mutated their children. Anderton's future murder and the reasons for the conspiracy were changed from a general who wants to discredit PreCrime to regain some military funding, to a man who murdered a precog's mother to preserve PreCrime. The subsequent murders and plot developed from this change. The film's ending also differs from the short story's. In Dick's story, Anderton prevents the closure of the PreCrime division, however, in the movie Anderton successfully brings about the end of the organization. Other aspects were updated to include current technology. For instance in the story, Anderton uses a punch card machine to interpret the precogs' visions; in the movie, he uses a virtual reality interface.
and orchestrated by John Neufeld, with vocals by Deborah Dietrich. Williams normally enters Spielberg productions at an early stage, well before the movie starts shooting. For Minority Report however, his entry was delayed due to his work on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
, and he joined the film when it was nearly completed, leaving him scant production time. The soundtrack takes inspiration from Bernard Hermann's work. Williams decided not to focus on the science fiction elements, and made a score suitable for film noir. He included traditional noir elements such as a female singer in the Anne Lively scenes, but the "sentimental scenes", which Williams considered unusual for that genre, led to soothing themes for Anderton's ex-wife Lara and son Sean. The track "Sean's Theme" is described as the only one "instantly recognizable as one of Williams'" by music critic Andrew Granade. Spielberg typified it as "a black and white score" and said, "I think Johnny Williams does a really nice bit of homage to Benny Herman."
In an interview which appeared in The New York Times, Williams said that the choices for many of the pieces of classical music were made by the studio. He also said that while he did not know why certain pieces were chosen, Franz Schubert
's Symphony No. 8
(commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony), which features prominently in the film, was most likely included because Anderton was a big fan of classical music in the script. Some of the other choices, such as Gideon's playing of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
by Bach
on an organ in the subterranean prison, were also in the screenplay, and he figured that "[t]hey are some writer's conception of what this character might have listened to." Williams did choose the minuet
from a Haydn string quartet (Op. 64, No. 1) which plays on the radio in the scene where Dr. Hineman is gardening in her greenhouse. He said he picked the piece because "[i]t seemed to me to be the kind of thing a woman like this would play on the radio." The New York Times characterized the score as "evocative" and said it was "thoroughly modern" while also being "interlaced with striking snippets of masterworks."
versus determinism
. One of the main questions the film raises is whether the future is set or whether free will can alter the future. As critic C.A. Wolski commented, "At the outset, Minority Report... promises to mine some deep subject matter, to do with: do we possess free will or are we predestined to our fate?" However, there is also the added question of whether the precogs' visions are correct. As reviewer James Berardinelli
asked, "is the Precogs' vision accurate, or has it in some way been tampered with? Perhaps Anderton isn't actually going to kill, but has been set up by a clever and knowledgeable criminal who wants him out of the way." The precog Agatha also states that since Anderton knows his future, he can change it. However, the film also indicates that Anderton's knowledge of the future may actually be the factor that causes Leo Crow's death. Berardinelli describes this as the main paradox regarding free will vs. determinism in the film, "[h]ere's the biggest one of all: Is it possible that the act of accusing someone of a murder could begin a chain of events that leads to the slaying. In Anderton's situation, he runs because he is accused. The only reason he ends up in circumstances where he might be forced to kill is because he is a hunted man. Take away the accusation, and there would be no question of him committing a criminal act. The prediction drives the act – a self-fulfilling prophecy
. You can see the vicious circle, and it's delicious (if a little maddening) to ponder." Film scholar Dean A. Kowalski argues that in this scenario free will still exists, as the perpetrators control their actions, and the precogs visions are but the facts that resulted from their choices.
The central theme of the movie is discussed in the film's fourth scene. Witwer discusses the PreCrime system with the division's staff. He believes that its main "legalistic drawback" is that it "arrests individuals who have broken no laws." Jad responds, "But they will!" When Anderton later arrives upon this discussion, he acknowledges the paradox Witwer raises; that the precogs prevent an event accepted as fact, but one which will never happen. To show him that people regularly use predetermination, Anderton picks up a wooden ball and rolls it toward Witwer, who catches it before it lands on the ground. When asked why he caught the ball, Witwer says "Because it was going to fall." Anderton replies, "But it didn't." Then confidently tells him, "The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen." Kowalski feels this example is faulty in the sense that the ball has no free will; it merely acts according to the laws of physics, but he acknowledges that if an individual were to have freely chosen to commit murder, then it would hold. Film scholar Stephen Mulhall points out that unlike the laws of physics which have a series of scientifically testable causal laws, Anderton merely has the visions of the precogs, whose psychic abilities are not fully explained by science.
Another quandary is that if the precogs' visions are infallible then the future cannot be otherwise, while if they are incorrect people will be punished for crimes they will never commit. Kowalski contends that the precogs only attain knowledge of what he calls the "conditional future". He cites as evidence two examples: the scene where Agatha steers Anderton through the mall by foreseeing dangerous events and helping him circumnavigate them, and a later scene where she tells Anderton and his ex-wife what would have happened to their child if he had lived. In the first example, Agatha knows what Anderton will freely choose to do when presented with specific facts so she provides them to him, and, in the second, she knows what will have happened to the Andertons' son based on specific scenarios throughout his life, in which she can see what he would have freely chosen to do, and what selections various people in his life would have freely made. According to Kowalski, the PreCrime unit therefore removes individuals from precise situations where they would freely choose to become a murderer. Philosophy professor Michael Huemer adds that he believes "the only way the otherwise predetermined future seen by the precogs can be averted, we are led to believe, is by the influence of the precogs themselves," and that since there was no minority report (i.e.; no possibility alternative fate) for Anderton, the only way he can change the future is by knowing the precogs visions.
Kowalski feels the isolation of the precogs ensures that they see their visions merely as facts, and removes them from having to justify them. The precogs' ignorance of the results of their visions prevents them from knowing the effectiveness of the program. He feels the PreCrime officers are thus more qualified to evaluate their efficacy "than the precogs themselves." In the December 2003 edition of the academic journal Film Criticism, scholar Mark Garrett Cooper moved past that point by asserting that not only have the precogs "yet to fully understand" their visions, but that the process by which the images are interpreted makes it so that no one individual could understand them without the use of the apparatus. The machinery is so effective and precise according to Cooper however, that the "omnipresent system effectively makes capture more certain than the crime." When the system targets the hero [Cruise], instead of fleeing, he remains in the vicinity in the belief that the system will, in its inexorable logic, correct itself. The apparatus is considered so infallible according to Cooper that the hero knows once he is cleared by it, his life can immediately return to normal. In this respect, Cooper feels that "far from indicting a security state, the film legitimates one."
The film presents a legal system where the PreCrime office gathers the images from the minds of the precogs, then organizes them into a coherent order for display in front of a set of judges. The judges appear via video feeds, analyze the images, and according to Cooper they view the images, listen to Anderton rattle off "a string of legalistic verbiage", then give it a "pro forma ratification." Thus the accused is never present, is not allowed a defense, and is convicted before he is aware he is on trial. The program is marketed in a similar basic fashion, as in its tag line: "It works." Cooper says that in a typical American courtroom drama, the audience is treated as if it were the jury, but in this system, instead of desiring the hero be proven innocent, the audience seeks to have the guilt transferred from Anderton to Burgess. But to do so Anderton has to disprove the system, which he does by proving the existence of the minority report. This renders the PreCrime justice system inoperable, as if there is doubt related not merely to the gathering of the images, or their ability to be interpreted, but their ability to be correct even in perfect circumstances, then the system of infallible guilt can not exist.
Cooper feels Minority Report emphasizes the future importance of the control over imagery. According to him, the images captured from the precogs visions in the film bestow power on those who control their processing. He says the film warns viewers that those who control images must be carefully overseen so as to prevent the abuse of power, and that the film presents "governance as a problem of image arrangement." Cooper says the quandary arises when the film intimates that there were will be no way to escape the media industry's omnipotence in the future, while at the same time defending "the need for image manipulating institutions." He feels that this logically raises another issue in that the same concern could be leveled towards image-makers such as DreamWorks, and he says the "film's virtue lies in provoking this question." He notes that the film's tranquil ending concludes with the Andertons looking out into a peaceful exterior with only rain visible, and the precogs reading in their isolated, idyllic farm, and both families apparently free of electronic surveillance.
When he escapes the building and enters the mall, Hall feels he is disturbed by ads calling to him by name not only because they will give away his presence, but also because they remind him of his lost place in society, and he begins "to see through the false consciousness his (illusory) previous position as fixed subject had allowed him." Spielberg said Anderton is being punished for his previous callous unconcern for anything but the effectiveness of the PreCrime program. "He's dirtied by the fact that he doesn't spend much time thinking about the moral consequences. It's just like a sporting event almost—and then suddenly that whole sporting event makes him the soccer ball." Hall says that his doubts about his own future lead him to examine his previous life to better understand himself. He runs through his role in the PreCrime system, and his son's disappearance "to reconstruct his past". After Leo Crow in fact kills himself, Anderton becomes healed, and later has "recreated himself as the subject he was previously through the knowledge that he is not a killer." Although he has satisfactorily repaired his self-image, Halls notes that Anderton is not the same person, as he no longer believes in the PreCrime system. Hall says that Burgess's final quandary; namely his desire to keep PreCrime running, but his inability to bring himself to kill Anderton to accomplish that task, and his desire to live, drives him to see his only suitable action to be suicide.
Though unconfirmed by Spielberg, another recent change to subsequent prints adds weight to the theory. When released in 2002, Precrime was dismantled and the precogs allowed to live in peace, a final epilogue declared that, upon the end of PreCrime, murders had returned to Washington, D.C. In subsequent releases, this tag was removed and with it, the sole negative consequence to Anderton's choices. For some, this solidifies the idea of a "perfect", dream-like ending—and ultimately a false one. As one critic theorized, "...[r]ather than end this Brazil
-ian sci-fi dystopia with the equivalent of that film's shot of its lobotomized hero, which puts the lie to the immediately previous scene of his imagined liberation, Spielberg tries to pass off the exact same ending but without the rimshot, just to see if the audience is paying attention." Film scholars Nigel Morris and Jason P. Vest point to a line in the film as possible evidence of this. After Anderton is captured, Gideon tells him that, "It's actually kind of a rush. They say you have visions. That your life flashes before your eyes. That all your dreams come true." While Vest considers the blissful dream ending a possibility, he questions why Anderton did not imagine his son as having returned.
Buckland expressed disappointment in the ending, but blamed Frank. He felt that given the water theme, and closely tied together tragic parent-child theme, Anderton should have ended the film by taking Agatha in his care if Spielberg wanted a happy ending. Especially since "Anderton kidnaps Agatha from the precog pool just as his son was kidnapped from a swimming pool" and because Anderton could act as a "substitute parent for Agatha, and Agatha...a substitute child for Anderton." This opportunity is missed however, when the precogs are sent to the remote island, and Anderton reunites with his wife; an ending which Buckland finds more "forced" than the "more authentic" path he feels he noticed.
Minority Report is a futuristic film which portrays elements of a both dystopian and utopian future. The movie renders a much more detailed view of its future world than the book, and contains new technologies not in Dick's story. From a stylistic standpoint, Minority Report resembles Spielberg's previous film A.I., but also incorporates elements of film noir. Spielberg said that he "wanted to give the movie a noir feel. So I threw myself a film festival. Asphalt Jungle. Key Largo
. The Maltese Falcon
." The picture was deliberately overlit, and the negative was bleach-bypassed during post-production. The scene in which Anderton is dreaming about his son's kidnapping at the pool is the only one shot in "normal" color. Bleach-bypassing gave the film a distinctive look; it desaturated the film's colors, to the point that it nearly resembles a black-and-white movie, yet the blacks and shadows have a high contrast like a film noir picture. The color was reduced by "about 40%" to achieve the "washed-out" appearance. Elvis Mitchell
, formerly of The New York Times
, commented that "[t]he picture looks as if it were shot on chrome, caught on the fleeing bumper of a late '70s car."
Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński
shot the movie in high-speed film, which Spielberg preferred to the then-emerging digital video format. The movie's camera work is very mobile, alternating between handheld and Steadicam shots, which are "exaggerated by the use of wide angle lenses and the occasional low camera angle" to increase the perception of movement according to film scholar William Buckland. Kamiński said that he never used a lens longer than 27mm, and alternated between 17, 21, and 27mm lenses, as Spielberg liked to "keep the actors as close to the camera as possible." He also said, "We staged a lot of scenes in wide shots that have a lot of things happening with the frame." The duo also used several long takes to focus on the emotions of the actors, rather than employing numerous cuts. Spielberg eschewed the typical "Shot reverse shot
" cinematography technique used when filming characters interactions in favor of the long takes, which were shot by a mobile, probing camera. McDowell relied on colorless chrome and glass objects of curved and circular shapes in his set designs, which, aided by the "low-key contrastive lighting", populated the film with shadows, creating a "futuristic film noir atmosphere."
Buckland describes the film's 14 minute opening sequence as the "most abstract and complex of any Spielberg film." The first scene is a distorted precog vision of a murder, presented out of context. The speed of the film is sped up, slowed, and even reversed, and the movie "jumps about in time and space" by inter cutting the images in no discernible order. When it ends, it becomes clear that the scene was presented through Agatha's eyes, and that this is how previsions appear to her. Fellow scholar Nigel Morris called this scene a "trailer", because it foreshadows the plot and establishes the type of "tone, generic expectations, and enigmas" that will be used in the film. The visions of the pre-cogs are presented in a fragmented series of clips using a "squishy lens" device, which distorts the images, blurring their edges and creating ripples across them. They were created by a two-man production team, hired by Spielberg, who chose the "layered, dreamlike imagery" based on some comments from cognitive psychologists
the pair consulted. In the opening's next scene, Anderton is "scrubbing the images", by standing like a composer (as Spielberg terms it), and manipulating them, while Jad assists him. Next the family involved in the murder in Agatha's vision is shown interacting, which establishes that the opening scene was a prevision. The picture then cuts back to Anderton and the precogs images, before alternating between the three. The opening is self-contained, and according to Buckland acts merely as a setup for numerous elements of the story. It lasts 14 minutes, includes 171 shots, and has an average shot length of five seconds as opposed to the 6.5 second average for the entire film. The opening's five second average is attained despite "very fast cutting" in the beginning and ending, because the middle has longer takes, which reach 20 seconds in some instances. Spielberg also continues his tradition of "heavily diffused backlighting" for much in the interior shots.
Tom Rothman, chairman of the film's co-financier Fox Filmed Entertainment, described the film's marketing strategy thus: "How are we marketing it? It's Cruise and Spielberg. What else do we need to do?" The strategy made sense; coming into the film, Spielberg had made 20 films which grossed a domestic total of $2.8 billion, while Cruise's resume featured 23 films and $2 billion in domestic revenues. With their combined 30% take of the film's box office though, sources such as BusinessWeek's
Ron Grover predicted the studios would have a hard time making the money needed to break even. Despite the outward optimism, as a more adult-oriented, darker film than typical blockbusters, the studio held different box office expectations for the movie than they would a more family friendly film. Entertainment Weekly projected the film would gross $40 million domestic in its opening weekend, and Variety
predicted that the high concept storyline would not appeal to children and would render it a "commercial extra-base hit rather than a home run."
, collecting $35.677 million in its opening weekend. Forbes
considered those numbers below expectations, as they gave the film a small edge over Lilo & Stitch
, which debuted in second place ($35.260 million). Lilo & Stich sold more tickets, but since much of the film's attendees were children, its average ticket price was much lower. The movie opened at the top of the box office in numerous foreign markets; it made $6.7 million in 780 locations in Germany its opening weekend, and accounted for 35% of France's total box office weekend office gross when it collected $5 million in 700 theaters. In Great Britain, Minority Report made $36.9 million in its first three days, in Italy, $6.2 million in its first ten, in Belgium, $815,000 in its 75 location opening weekend, and in Switzerland, $405,000 in an 80 theater opening weekend. The BBC
felt the film's UK performance was "buoyed by Cruise's charm offensive at last week's London premiere." Minority Report made a total of $132 million in the United States and $226.3 million overseas.
released by Activision
, which contained a trailer for the movie's DVD. Minority Report was successful in the home video market, selling at least four million DVDs in its first few months of release. The DVD took two years to produce. For the first time, Spielberg allowed filmmakers to shoot footage on the set of one of his films. Premiere
-award winning DVD producer Laurent Bouzereau, who would become a frequent Spielberg DVD collaborator, shot hundreds of hours of the film's production in the then-new high definition video format. It contained over an hour of featurettes which discussed various aspects of film production, included breakdowns of the film's stunt sequences, and new interviews with Spielberg, Cruise, and other "Academy Award-winning filmmakers". The film was released on a two-disc Blu-ray on May 16, 2010. It included exclusive extras and interactive features, such as a new Spielberg interview, that were not included in the DVD edition. The film was transferred from its "HD master" which retained the movie's distinctive grainy appearance.
summarized its research by saying that critics considered the movie "an intelligent and visually imaginative film that ranks among Spielberg's best", and the website listed it among the best reviewed films of 2002. They reported that 92% of the 225 reviews they collected were positive, and the movie earned an 80 out of a possible 100 on the similar review aggregating website Metacritic
. Most critics gave the film's handling of its central theme (free will vs. determinism) positive reviews, and many ranked it as the film's main strength. Other reviewers however, felt that Spielberg did not adequately tackle the issues he raised. The movie has inspired significant discussion and analysis, the scope of which has been compared to the continuing analysis of Blade Runner. This discussion has advanced past the realm of standard film criticism. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek
fashioned a criticism of the Cheney Doctrine, by comparing its preemptive strike methodology to that of the film's PreCrime system.
Richard Corliss
of Time
said its "Spielberg's sharpest, brawniest, most bustling entertainment since Raiders of the Lost Ark
". Mike Clark of USA Today
felt it succeeded due to a "breathless 140-minute pace with a no-flab script packed with all kinds of surprises." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
praised the film's visuals, and Todd McCarthy of Variety
complimented the cast's performances. Film scholar William Buckland recommended the film, but felt that the comedic elements—aside from Stormare's lines—detracted from the plot and undermined the film's credibility.
Several critics used their reviews to discuss Spielberg and analyze what the movie signified in his development as a filmmaker. Andrew O'Hehir of the online magazine Salon
expressed excitement over the atypically hard edge of the movie. "Little Steven Spielberg is all grown up now...into of all things a superior film artist...It's too early to know whether Minority Report, on the heels of A.I., marks a brief detour in Spielberg's career or a permanent change of course, but either way it's a dark and dazzling spectacle." J. Hoberman
of the The Village Voice
said it is "the most entertaining, least pretentious genre movie Steven Spielberg has made in the decade since Jurassic Park
." Randy Shulman of Metro Weekly
said that "the movie is a huge leap forward for the director, who moves once and for all into the world of adult movie making." Roger Ebert
called the film a "masterpiece" and said that when most directors of the period were putting "their trust in technology", Spielberg had already mastered it, and was emphasizing "story and character" while merely using technology as a "workman uses his tools." David Edelstein of Slate
echoed the positive sentiments, "[i]t has been a long time since a Spielberg film felt so nimble, so unfettered, so free of self-cannibalizing." Jonathan Rosenbaum
, then of the Chicago Reader, was less convinced. Though he approved of the movie, he derided it in his review as a superficial action film, cautioning audiences to enjoy the movie, but not "be conned into thinking that some sort of serious, thoughtful statement is being delivered along with the roller-coaster ride."
Andrew Sarris
of The New York Observer gave the film a negative review in which he described the script as full of plot holes, the car chases as silly, and criticized the mixture of futuristic environments with "defiantly retro costuming". The complexity of the storyline was also a source of criticism for Kenneth Turan
of the Los Angeles Times
, who considered the plot "too intricate and difficult to follow". Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail
criticized Tom Cruise's performance, and though Hoberman liked the movie, he described the film as "miscast, misguided, and often nonsensical". Both Rosenbaum and Hoberman belittled the titular minority report as a "red herring
". More positive reviews have seen it similarly, but referred to it as a "MacGuffin
".
The film earned nominations for many awards, including Best Sound Editing
in the Academy Awards, and Best Visual Effects in the BAFTAs. Among the awards won were four Saturn Award
s (Best Science Fiction Film
, Best Direction
, Best Screenplay and Supporting Actress for Samantha Morton), the BMI
Film Music Award, the Online Film Critics Society
for Supporting Actress, and the Empire Awards
for Actor, Director and British Actress. Ebert listed Minority Report as the best film of 2002, as did online film reviewer James Berardinelli. The film was also included in top ten lists by critic Richard Roeper
, and both reviewers at USA Today
.
Minority Report was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
directed by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
in the year 2054, where "PreCrime
Precrime
The terms precrime and postcrime are related to the legal concepts of crimes and misdemeanors. Both of the terms precrime and postcrime have variations in meanings after years of historical usage.-Precrime:...
", a specialized police department, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by three psychics called "precogs
Precognition
In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...
". The cast includes Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
as PreCrime captain John Anderton, Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
as Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
agent Danny Witwer, Samantha Morton
Samantha Morton
Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as Soldier Soldier and Boon before making her film debut in the 1997 drama film This Is the Sea, playing the character of Hazel Stokes...
as the senior precog Agatha, and Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
as Anderton's superior Lamar Burgess. The film is a combination of whodunit
Whodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...
, thriller and science fiction.
Spielberg has characterized the story as "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot." The film's central theme is the question of free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
vs. determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance. Other themes include the role of preventative government in protecting its citizenry, the role of media in a future state where electronic advancements make its presence nearly boundless, the potential legality of an infallible prosecutor, and Spielberg's repeated theme of broken families.
The film was first optioned in 1992 as a sequel to another Dick adaptation, Total Recall
Total Recall
Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox & Mel Johnson, Jr.. It is based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”...
, and started its development in 1997, after a script by John Cohen reached Spielberg and Cruise. Production suffered many delays due to Cruise's Mission: Impossible II
Mission: Impossible II
Mission: Impossible II is a 2000 action film directed by John Woo, and starring Tom Cruise, who also served as the film's producer...
and Spielberg's A.I. running over schedule, eventually starting in March 2001. During pre-production, Spielberg consulted numerous scientists in an attempt to present a more plausible future world than that seen in other science fiction films, and some of the technology designs in the film have proven prescient. Minority Report has a unique visual style. It uses high contrast to create dark colors and shadows, much like a film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
picture. The film's overlit shots feature desaturated colors which were achieved by bleach-bypassing
Bleach bypass
Bleach bypass, also known as skip bleach or silver retention, is an optical effect which entails either the partial or complete skipping of the bleaching function during the processing of a color film. By doing this, the silver is retained in the emulsion along with the color dyes. The result is a...
the film's negative in post-production.
Minority Report was one of the best reviewed films of 2002. It received praise for its writing, visuals and themes, but earned some criticism for its ending which was considered inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the movie. The film was nominated for and won several awards. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing
Academy Award for Sound Editing
The Academy Award of Merit for Best Sound Editing is an Academy Award granted yearly to a film exhibiting the finest or most aesthetic sound editing or sound design...
, and won four Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s, including Best Science Fiction Film
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
The Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film is a Saturn Award given to the best film in the science fiction genre by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.-Winners:-External links:*...
and Best Direction
Saturn Award for Best Direction
The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Direction:-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 5 awards*Steven Spielberg - 4 awards*Peter Jackson - 3 awards*Bryan Singer - 2 awards...
. The film was a commercial success, earning over $358 million worldwide against an overall budget of $142 million (including advertising). Over four million DVDs were sold in its first few months of home release.
Plot
In 2054, Captain John Anderton (Tom CruiseTom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
) is the chief of the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
PreCrime police force. They use future visions generated by three "precogs", mutated humans with precognitive
Precognition
In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...
abilities, to stop murders; because of this, the city has been murder-free for six years. Though Anderton is a respected member of the force, he is addicted to an illegal psychoactive drug
Psychoactive drug
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior...
. His addiction started following the disappearance of his son Sean, which also caused his wife Lara to leave him. With the PreCrime force poised to go nationwide, the system is audited by Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
), a member of the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
. During the audit, the precogs predict that Anderton will murder a man named Leo Crow in 36 hours. Believing the incident to be a setup by Witwer, who is aware of Anderton's addiction, Anderton attempts to hide the case and quickly departs the area before Witwer begins a manhunt
Manhunt (law enforcement)
In law enforcement, a manhunt is a search for a dangerous fugitive involving the use of all available police units and technology and sometimes help from the public....
for him. Anderton seeks the advice of Dr. Iris Hineman (Lois Smith
Lois Smith
Lois Smith is an American actress whose career in theater, film, and television has spanned five decades.Smith was born Lois Arlene Humbert in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Carrie Davis and William Oren Humbert, who was a telephone company employee...
), the lead researcher of the PreCrime technology. She explains to Anderton that the three precogs may see different visions of the future, and that the system only provides data on the two reports which agree; the "minority report", reflecting the potential future where a predicted killer would have done something different, is discarded. According to Dr. Hineman, the female precog Agatha is likely the one who witnessed the minority report.
Anderton undergoes a dangerous underground eye replacement to avoid detection by the city's optical recognition system. He travels back to PreCrime and kidnaps Agatha (Samantha Morton
Samantha Morton
Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as Soldier Soldier and Boon before making her film debut in the 1997 drama film This Is the Sea, playing the character of Hazel Stokes...
), which disables the precogs' hive mind
Group mind (science fiction)
A group mind, hive mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. Its use in literature goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel Last and First Men ....
and shuts down the system. Anderton takes Agatha to a hacker
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
, who extracts both Agatha's vision of Crow's murder—with no differences from the other two precogs, so there was no minority report—and another of the murder of a woman named Anne Lively—which Agatha also showed to Anderton the day before he was incriminated. Anderton and Agatha then head to the apartment where Crow is to be killed. Inside, Anderton finds hundreds of pictures of children, one of which is of his son, and concludes that Crow is responsible for Sean's disappearance. When Crow arrives, Anderton holds him at gunpoint, but ultimately decides to control his anger and places Crow under arrest instead. Crow admits that he was hired to plant these photos and then be killed, so his family would be paid handsomely. Since Anderton refuses to kill him, Crow grabs the officer's hand, makes him fire at point-blank range, and dies. On the run, Anderton and Agatha approach his ex-wife Lara for refuge. Anderton learns Lively was Agatha's drug-addled mother, once before a target of a failed murder attempt after requesting to see her daughter before her death. Anderton realizes that his knowledge of the Lively case is why he is being targeted.
Meanwhile, Witwer assesses Crow's "murder" and doubts Anderton killed in cold blood. He comes to recognize that the archival footage of Lively's murder shows what appears to be a future echo by one of the visions, routinely discarded by PreCrime, which he realises is a different murder as nearby water is rippling in a different direction from the original PreCrime vision. He suspects someone used this to stage the first murder attempt, and then recreated the setting to actually kill Lively and avoid being detected by PreCrime. Witwer realizes that the murderer would had to have been someone high up in PreCrime to have access to the vision, and reports these findings to PreCrime's Director Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
). Burgess, noting that the PreCrime division is currently disabled due to Agatha's absence, kills Witwer and frames Anderton for the murder.
The PreCrime unit eventually captures Anderton and restores Agatha to the system. Burgess attempts to comfort Lara, but accidentally reveals that he was the one that killed Lively. Lara acts on this information and frees Anderton at gunpoint. At a banquet to celebrate the success of the PreCrime unit attended by Burgess, Anderton plays back Agatha's vision of Lively's murder for the gathered crowd, which shows Burgess as the murderer. While Burgess begins to hunt down Anderton, a new PreCrime report is created: Anderton is the victim and Burgess, the murderer. When Burgess catches up to Anderton, Anderton explains the impossible situation: if Burgess kills Anderton, he proves the system works but at the cost of a life sentence, while if he does not, the system will not have worked and the PreCrime division will be shut down. Anderton explains the fundamental flaw in the system: if one knows his or her future, he or she can change it. Burgess resolves the dilemma by killing himself. The PreCrime program is shut down and the prisoners are unconditionally pardoned and released, though police departments keep watch on many of them. Anderton and Lara remarry and start a new family. The precogs are sent to an "undisclosed location", a small uncharted island in the North Atlantic Ocean to live out a full happy life in peace.
Cast
- Tom CruiseTom CruiseThomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
as Captain John Anderton, a divorced and middle-aged, Chief of the Department of PreCrime in Washington, D.C. The disappearance of his son devastated him, and provided the motivation for him to join the PreCrime unit. He is addicted to drugs, which he uses to cope with the pain from the loss of his son, but maintains a professional appearance while at work. - Max von SydowMax von SydowMax von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
as Director Lamar Burgess, an elderly official in the Washington, D.C. PreCrime program and Anderton's superior. He begins the film as Cruise's mentor, but becomes the film's antagonist. - Colin FarrellColin FarrellColin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
as Danny Witwer, a cocky Department of Justice agent sent to observe and evaluate the PreCrime process. He spent three years in divinity school and carries a rosary. He chose his career path because his father, who was a policeman, was murdered when he was 15. - Samantha MortonSamantha MortonSamantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as Soldier Soldier and Boon before making her film debut in the 1997 drama film This Is the Sea, playing the character of Hazel Stokes...
as Agatha, the lead precog, who has the most powerful psychic abilities of the three. Her mother, Anne Lively, was murdered. All the precogs are named after mystery writers: Agatha ChristieAgatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
, Arthur Conan DoyleArthur Conan DoyleSir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, and Dashiell HammettDashiell HammettSamuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
. - Steve HarrisSteve Harris (actor)Steve Harris is an American actor who has appeared in a number of films including; Quarantine, Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Bringing Down The House, The Rock, The Mod Squad, and Minority Report. He is most famous for his role as Eugene Young on the legal drama The Practice...
as Jad, oversees the precogs and helps Anderton interpret their visions. - Neal McDonoughNeal McDonoughNeal P. McDonough is an American film, television and voice actor.-Career:In 1991, McDonough won the Best Actor Dramalogue for "Away Alone". McDonough has made many television and film appearances since then, including Band of Brothers, Boomtown, Star Trek: First Contact, Minority Report and The...
as Gordon Fletcher, a PreCrime officer who works alongside Anderton. - Patrick KilpatrickPatrick KilpatrickRobert Donald Kilpatrick, Jr. is an American character actor with over 85 film and TV appearances to his credit. He made his film debut relatively late in 1985 with The Toxic Avenger.-Life and career:...
as Knott, another PreCrime officer who works alongside Anderton, Fletcher, and Jad - Jessica CapshawJessica CapshawJessica Brooke Capshaw is an American actress. She is known for her role as Jamie Stringer in The Practice and for her role as Dr...
as Evanna, an advisor for PreCrime - Lois SmithLois SmithLois Smith is an American actress whose career in theater, film, and television has spanned five decades.Smith was born Lois Arlene Humbert in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Carrie Davis and William Oren Humbert, who was a telephone company employee...
as Dr. Iris Hineman, one of the pioneers of the PreCrime program, who has retired. - Kathryn MorrisKathryn MorrisKathryn Morris is an American actress, best known for her lead role as Detective Lilly Rush in the CBS series Cold Case.-Career:...
as Lara, Anderton's ex-wife and the mother of his lost son. - Peter StormarePeter Stormareis a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.- Early life :...
as Eddie Solomon, a shady Swedish doctor who survives by performing illegal operations, and transplants new eyes into Anderton. He does this even though Anderton turned him in years earlier, in Baltimore, when he had been lighting his female plastic surgery patients on fire. Solomon is jaded with his work. He has a blackBlack comedyA black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
sense of humor; When his nurse assistant brings him Anderton's replacement eyes, Stormare utters a line not in the script: "She's already smitten. She only has eyes for you." - Mike BinderMike BinderMike Binder is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor.-Life and career:A native of Detroit, Mike Binder grew up in Birmingham, one of the city's suburbs, and attended Camp Tamakwa, which formed the basis for his 1993 film Indian Summer...
as Leo Crow, a man whom the precogs predict Anderton will kill. - Tim Blake NelsonTim Blake NelsonTim Blake Nelson is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.-Early life:Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father...
as Gideon, the warden who watches over prisoners forced into "halo sleep." - Joel GretschJoel GretschJoel James Gretsch is an American actor. His roles include Tom Baldwin on the USA Network series The 4400, the monstruous Capt./Maj./Col. Owen Crawford in the Steven Spielberg produced 2002 sci-fi miniseries Taken and Father Jack Landry on V.-Early life:Gretsch was born in St...
as Donald Dublin
Development
Dick's story was first optioned by producer and writer Gary GoldmanGary Goldman
Gary Wayne Goldman is an American Film Producer, Director, Animator, Writer and voice actor, he is well known for working on films with Don Bluth like Anastasia, An American Tail and The Land Before Time...
in 1992. He created the initial script for the film with Ron Shusett and Robert Goethals (uncredited). It was supposed to be a sequel to the 1990 Dick adaptation Total Recall
Total Recall
Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox & Mel Johnson, Jr.. It is based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”...
, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
. Novelist Jon Cohen was hired in 1997 to adapt the story for a potential film version that would have been directed by Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
filmmaker Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...
. Meanwhile, Cruise and Spielberg, who met and became friends on the set of Cruise's film Risky Business
Risky Business
Risky Business is a 1983 American teen comedy-drama film written by Paul Brickman in his directorial debut. It stars Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. The hit film launched Cruise to stardom.-Plot:...
in 1983, had been looking to collaborate for ten years. Spielberg was set to direct Cruise in Rain Man
Rain Man
Rain Man is a 1988 drama film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish yuppie, Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son,...
, but left to make Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas. It is the third film in the Indiana Jones franchise. Harrison Ford reprises the title role and Sean Connery plays Indiana's father, Henry...
. Cruise read Cohen's script, and passed it onto Spielberg, who felt it needed some work. Spielberg was not directly involved in the writing of the script; however, he was allowed to decide whether the picture's screenplay was ready to be filmed. When Cohen submitted an acceptable revision, he called Cruise and said, "Yeah, I'll do this version of the script." In that version, Witwer creates a false disk which shows Anderton killing him. When Anderton sees the clip, his belief in the infallibility of the precogs visions convinces him it is true, therefore the precogs have a vision of him killing Witwer. At the end, Anderton shoots Witwer and one of the brother precogs finishes him off, because Witwer had slain his twin. Spielberg was attracted to the story because as both a mystery, and a movie set 50 years in the future, it allowed him to do "a blending of genres" which intrigued him.
In 1998, the pair joined Minority Report and announced the production as a joint venture of Spielberg's DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
and Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981. Amblin is only a production company, and has never distributed its own movies, nor has it fully financed its...
, 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, Cruise's Cruise-Wagner Productions, and De Bont's production company, Blue Tulip. Spielberg however stated that despite being credited, De Bont never became involved with the film. Cruise and Spielberg, at the latter's insistence, reportedly agreed to each take 15% of the gross instead of any money up front to try and keep the film's budget under $100 million. Spielberg said he had done the same with name actors in the past to great success: "Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
took no cash for Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944....
but he made a lot of money on his profit participation." He made this agreement a prerequisite:
Production was delayed for several years; the original plan was to begin filming after Cruise's Mission: Impossible II
Mission: Impossible II
Mission: Impossible II is a 2000 action film directed by John Woo, and starring Tom Cruise, who also served as the film's producer...
was finished. However, that film ran over schedule, which also allowed Spielberg time to bring in screenwriter Scott Frank
Scott Frank
Scott Frank is an American screenwriter & director.- Filmography :*Plain Clothes *Dead Again *Little Man Tate *Malice *Get Shorty...
to rework Cohen's screenplay. John August
John August
John August is an American screenwriter and film director. He also writes and maintains the popular screenwriting blog , and develops screenwriter-targeted software....
did an uncredited draft to polish the script, and Frank Darabont
Frank Darabont
Frank Darabont is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter and producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe. He has directed the films The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, all based on stories by Stephen King...
was also invited to rewrite, but was by then busy with The Majestic. The film closely follows Frank's final script (written May 16, 2001), and contains much of Cohen's third draft (May 24, 1997). Frank removed the character of Senator Malcolm from Cohen's screenplay, and inserted Burgess, who became the "bad guy". He also rewrote Witwer from a villain to a "good guy", as he was in the short story. In contrast to Spielberg's next science fiction picture, War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds (2005 film)
War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction film adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is one of three film adaptations of War of the Worlds released that year, alongside The Asylum's version and...
, which he called "100 percent character" driven, Spielberg said the story for Minority Report became "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot." According to film scholar William Buckland, "It appears that...Cohen and...Frank did not see" the "Goldman and Schusett screenplay; instead; they worked on their own adaptation." Goldman and Schusett however claimed the pair used a lot of material from their script, so the issue went through the Writer's Guild
Writers Guild of America, west
Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. The Guild was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, which include the Screen Writers Guild...
arbitration process. They won a partial victory; they were not given writing credits, but were listed as executive producers. The film was delayed again so Spielberg could finish A.I. after the death of his friend Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
. When Spielberg originally signed on to direct, he planned to have an entirely different supporting cast. He offered the role of Witwer to Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
, Iris Hineman to Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
, Burgess to Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
, Agatha to Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
, and Lara to Jenna Elfman
Jenna Elfman
Jennifer Mary "Jenna" Elfman is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role as Dharma on the ABC sitcom Dharma & Greg and as Billie on the short-lived CBS sitcom Accidentally on Purpose....
. However, Streep declined the role, Damon opted out, and the other roles were recast due to the delays.
Technology
After E.T., Spielberg started to consult experts, and put more scientific research into his science fiction films. In 1999, he invited fifteen experts convened by the Global Business NetworkGlobal Business Network
Global Business Network, or GBN, is a strategy consulting firm and member of Monitor Group, that helps businesses, NGOs, and governments use scenario planning to plan for multiple possible futures....
, its chairman, Peter Schwartz
Peter Schwartz (futurist)
Peter Schwartz is a futurist, author, and cofounder of the Global Business Network , an elite corporate strategy firm, specializing in future-think and scenario planning...
, and its co-founder Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...
to a hotel in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
for a three day "think tank". He also invited journalist Joel Garreau
Joel Garreau
Joel Garreau is an American journalist, scholar and author of Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – And What It Means to Be Human, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier and The Nine Nations of North America.In 2010, Garreau became the Lincoln Professor of Law,...
to cover the event. He wanted to consult with the group to create a plausible "future reality" for the year 2054 as opposed to a more traditional "science fiction" setting. Dubbed the "think tank summit", the experts included architect Peter Calthorpe
Peter Calthorpe
Peter Calthorpe is a San Francisco-based architect, urban designer and urban planner. He is a founding member of the Congress for New Urbanism, a Chicago-based advocacy group formed in 1992 that promotes sustainable building practices.-Biography:...
, Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as McJob and...
, computer scientist Neil Gershenfeld
Neil Gershenfeld
Neil Gershenfeld is a professor at MIT and the head of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, a sister lab spun out of the popular MIT Media Lab. His research interests are mainly in interdisciplinary studies involving physics and computer science, in such fields as quantum computing, nanotechnology,...
, biomedical researcher Shaun Jones, computer scientist Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier
Jaron Zepel Lanier is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality .A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves...
, and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) architecture dean William J. Mitchell. Production Designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Alex McDowell
Alex McDowell
Alex McDowell, RDI is British production designer and film producer.McDowell was born in Borneo to parents of English origin. He wanted to become a painter and studied at the Central School of Art in London. He founded Rocking Russian Design in 1978 and started his career designing album covers...
kept what was nicknamed the "2054 bible", an 80 page guide created in preproduction which listed all the decided upon aspects of the future world: architectural, socio-economical, political, and technological. While the discussions did not change key elements in the film's action sequences, they were influential in the creation of some of the more utopian aspects of the film, though John Underkoffler, the science and technology advisor for the film, described it as "much grayer and more ambiguous" than what was envisioned in 1999. John Underkoffler, who designed most of Anderton's interface after Spielberg told him to make it "like conducting an orchestra", said "it would be hard to identify anything [in the movie] that had no grounding in reality." McDowell teamed up with architect Greg Lynn
Greg Lynn
Greg Lynn is owner of the Greg Lynn FORM office, an o. Univ. Professor of architecture at University of Applied Arts Vienna, a studio professor at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and the Davenport Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture. He was the winner of the Golden...
to work on some of the technical aspects of the production design. Lynn praised his work, saying that "[a] lot of those things Alex cooked up for Minority Report, like the 3-D screens, have become real." Spielberg described his ideas for the film's technology to Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
before the movie's release:
News sources have noted the future technologies depicted in the film were prescient. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
published a piece titled "Why Minority Report was spot on" in June 2010, and the following month Fast Company
Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company is a full-color business magazine that releases 10 issues per year and reports on topics including innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design, and social responsibility...
examined seven crime fighting technologies in the film similar to ones then appearing. It summarized that "the police state imagined in the Tom Cruise flick feels a bit more real every day." Other major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal have published articles dedicated to this phenomenon, and National Public Radio (NPR) published an August 2010 podcast which analyzed the film's accuracy in predicting future technologes. Companies like Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(HP) have announced they were motivated to do research by the film; in HP's case to develop cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
.
Technologies from the film later realized include:
- Multi-touchMulti-touchIn computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...
interfaces similar to Anderton's, put out by Microsoft (2007), ObscuraObscuraObscura is the third album by Gorguts. It is seen as one of metal's most technical and complex albums, consisting of many experimental and dissonant melodies, and strange rhythms.- History :...
(2008), MIT (2009), Intel (2009), and Microsoft again, this time for their Xbox 360Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
(2010). A company representative, at the 2007 premiere of the Microsoft SurfaceMicrosoft SurfaceMicrosoft Surface is a multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition. This could involve the motion of hands or physical objects. It was...
, promised it "will feel like Minority Report." When Microsoft released the Kinect motion sensing camera add-on for their Xbox 360 gaming console in 2010, the Kinect's technology allowed several programmers, including students at MIT, to create Minority Report inspired user interfaces. - Retina scanners, by a Manhattan company named Global Rainmakers Incorporated (GRI) (2010). GRI disputed the notion that its technology could be the threat to privacy it is in the film. "Minority Report is one possible outcome," a corporate official told Fast Company. "I don't think that's our company's aim, but I think what we're going to see is an environment well beyond what you see in that movie—minus the precogs, of course." The company is installing hundreds of the scanners in Bank of AmericaBank of AmericaBank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
locations in Charlotte, North CarolinaCharlotte, North CarolinaCharlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
, and has a contract to install them on several United States Air ForceUnited States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
bases.
Those in development include:
- Insect robots, similar to the film's spyder robots, by the United States Military. These insects will be capable of reconnoitre missions in dangerous areas not fit for soldiers, such as "occupied houses". They serve the same purpose in the film. According to the developer, BAE SystemsBAE SystemsBAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security and aerospace company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that has global interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is among the world's largest military contractors; in 2009 it was the...
, the "goal is to develop technologies that will give our soldiers another set of eyes and ears for use in urban environments and complex terrain; places where they cannot go or where it would be too dangerous." - Facial recognition advertising billboards, being developed by the Japanese company NECNEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
. These billboards will theoretically be able to recognize passers-by via facial recognition, call them by name, and deliver customer specific advertisements. Thus far the billboards can recognize age and gender, and deliver demographically appropriate adverts, but cannot discern individuals. According to The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, the billboards will "behave like those in...Minority Report...in which Cruise's character is confronted with digital signs that call out his name as he walks through a futuristic shopping mall." IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
is developing similar billboards which plan to deliver customized adverts to individuals who carry identity tags. Like NEC, the company feels they will not be obtrusive as their billboards will only advertise products which a customer is interested in. Advertisers are embracing these billboards as they figure to reduce costs by lowering the number of adverts wasted on uninterested consumers. - Crime prediction software, developed by a professor from the University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
(2010). The software, which was detailed in a Daily MailDaily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
article entitled "The real Minority Report" upon its announcement, "collates a range of variables then uses an algorithm to work out who is at the highest chance of offending." As in the film, the program was announced for a trial run in Washington D.C., which, if successful, will lead to a national rollout. - Electronic paperElectronic paperElectronic paper, e-paper and electronic ink are a range of display technology which are designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional backlit flat panel displays, electronic paper displays reflect light like ordinary paper...
, development announced by XeroxXeroxXerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
(2002), MIT (2005), GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(2006), media conglomerate Hearst CorporationHearst CorporationThe Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
(2008), and LGLGLG may refer to:*LG Corp., a South Korean electronics and petrochemicals conglomerate*LG Electronics, an affiliate of the South Korean LG Group which produces electronic products* Lawrence Graham, a London headquartered firm of business lawyers...
; a South Korean electronics manufacturer (2010). XeroxXeroxXerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
has been trying to develop something similar to e-paper since before the film was released in theaters. In 2005, when the Washington Post asked the chief executive of MIT's spin-off handling their research when "the "Minority Report" newspaper" would be released, he predicted "around 2015." In 2006 PC WorldPC World (magazine)PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
announced in an article entitled: "German Researchers Say 'Minority Report' Transparent Screens Possible", German researcher thought they would be available in two years. Tech watch's 2008 article, "‘Minority Report’ e-newspaper on the way", noted that Hearst was "pushing large amounts of cash into" the technology. In discussing the LG announcement, CnetCNETCNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...
commented that "[i]f you thought electronic newspapers were the stuff of science fiction, you're quite right. They first featured in the film Minority Report, released in 2002."
Filming
Minority Report was the first film to have an entirely digital production design. Termed "previs", as an abbreviation of previsualization, production designer Alex McDowell said the system allowed them to use Photoshop in place of painters, and employ 3-D animation programs (MAYA and XSI) to create a simulated set, which could be filled with digital actors then used to block out shots in advance. The technology also allowed the tie-in video game and special effects companies to cull data from the previs system before the film was finished, which they used to establish parameters for their visuals. Spielberg quickly became a fan, McDowell said "[i]t became pretty clear that [he] wouldn’t read an illustration as a finished piece, but if you did it in Photoshop and created a photorealistic environment he focused differently on it." Filming took place from March 22 to July 18, 2001, in Washington, D.C., VirginiaVirginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Film locations included the Ronald Reagan Building
Ronald Reagan Building
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, named after former United States President Ronald Reagan, is the first federal building in Washington, D.C. designed for both governmental and private sector purposes....
(as PreCrime headquarters) and Georgetown
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Georgetown is a neighborhood located in northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751, the port of Georgetown predated the establishment of the federal district and the City of Washington by 40 years...
. The skyline of Rosslyn, Virginia
Rosslyn, Virginia
Rosslyn is an unincorporated area in Northern Virginia located in the northeastern corner of Arlington County, Virginia, north of Arlington National Cemetery and directly across the Potomac River from Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Rosslyn encompasses the Arlington neighborhoods of North Rosslyn...
is visible when Anderton flies across the Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
.
Although it takes place in an imagined future world of advanced technology, Minority Report attempts to embody a more "realistic" depiction of the future. Spielberg decided that to be more credible, the setting had to keep both elements of the present and ones which specialists expected would be forthcoming. Thus Washington, D.C. as depicted in the movie keeps well-known buildings such as the Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
and the Washington Monument
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington...
, as well as a section of modern buildings on the other side of the Potomac River. Production designer Alex McDowell was hired based on his work in Fight Club
Fight Club (film)
Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...
and his storyboards for a film version of Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
which would have starred Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
. McDowell studied modern architecture, and his sets contain many curves, circular shapes, and reflective materials. Costume designer Deborah L. Scott decided to make the clothes worn by the characters as simple as possible, so as not to make the depiction of the future seem dated.
The stunt crew was the same one used in Cruise's Mission: Impossible II, and was responsible for complex action scenes. These included the auto factory chase scene, filmed in a real facility using props such as a welding robot, and the fight between Anderton and the jetpack-clad officers, filmed in an alley set built on the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
studio lot. Industrial Light & Magic did most of the special effects, and DreamWorks-owned PDI
Pacific Data Images
Pacific Data Images is a computer animation production company that was bought by DreamWorks SKG. The company is now known as PDI/DreamWorks and is half of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., the public company formed by merging PDI and the feature animation division of DreamWorks.-History:PDI was...
was responsible for the Spyder robots. The company Pixel Liberation Front did previsualization animatics. The holographic projections
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
and the prison facility were filmed by several roving cameras which surrounded the actors, and the scene where Anderton gets off his car and runs along the Maglev vehicles was filmed on stationary props, which were later replaced by computer-generated vehicles.
Storyline differences
Like most film adaptations of Dick's works, many aspects of his story were changed in their transition to film, such as the addition of Lamar Burgess and the change in setting from New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to Washington, D.C., Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, and Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
. The character of John Anderton was changed from a balding and out-of-shape old man to an athletic officer in his 40s to fit its portrayer and the film's action scenes. The film adds two stories of tragic families; Anderton's, and that of the three pre-cogs. In the short story, Anderton is married with no children, while in the film, he is the divorced father of a kidnapped son, who is most likely deceased. Although it is implied, but unclear in the film whether Agatha is related to the twin pre-cogs, her family was shattered when Burgess murdered her mother, Ann Lively. The precogs were retarded
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
and deformed individuals in the story, but in the film, they are the offspring of neuroin addicts who took a tainted version of the drug which genetically mutated their children. Anderton's future murder and the reasons for the conspiracy were changed from a general who wants to discredit PreCrime to regain some military funding, to a man who murdered a precog's mother to preserve PreCrime. The subsequent murders and plot developed from this change. The film's ending also differs from the short story's. In Dick's story, Anderton prevents the closure of the PreCrime division, however, in the movie Anderton successfully brings about the end of the organization. Other aspects were updated to include current technology. For instance in the story, Anderton uses a punch card machine to interpret the precogs' visions; in the movie, he uses a virtual reality interface.
Music
The score was composed and conducted by John WilliamsJohn Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
and orchestrated by John Neufeld, with vocals by Deborah Dietrich. Williams normally enters Spielberg productions at an early stage, well before the movie starts shooting. For Minority Report however, his entry was delayed due to his work on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a 2002 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas and written by Lucas and Jonathan Hales. It is the fifth film to be released in the Star Wars saga and the second in terms of the series' internal chronology...
, and he joined the film when it was nearly completed, leaving him scant production time. The soundtrack takes inspiration from Bernard Hermann's work. Williams decided not to focus on the science fiction elements, and made a score suitable for film noir. He included traditional noir elements such as a female singer in the Anne Lively scenes, but the "sentimental scenes", which Williams considered unusual for that genre, led to soothing themes for Anderton's ex-wife Lara and son Sean. The track "Sean's Theme" is described as the only one "instantly recognizable as one of Williams'" by music critic Andrew Granade. Spielberg typified it as "a black and white score" and said, "I think Johnny Williams does a really nice bit of homage to Benny Herman."
In an interview which appeared in The New York Times, Williams said that the choices for many of the pieces of classical music were made by the studio. He also said that while he did not know why certain pieces were chosen, Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Symphony No. 8
Symphony No. 8 (Schubert)
Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor , commonly known as the "Unfinished Symphony" , D.759, was started in 1822 but left with only two movements known to be complete, even though Schubert would live for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages...
(commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony), which features prominently in the film, was most likely included because Anderton was a big fan of classical music in the script. Some of the other choices, such as Gideon's playing of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring is the most common English title of the 10th movement of the cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147 composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. A transcription by the English pianist Myra Hess was published in 1926 for piano solo and in 1934 for piano duet...
by Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
on an organ in the subterranean prison, were also in the screenplay, and he figured that "[t]hey are some writer's conception of what this character might have listened to." Williams did choose the minuet
Minuet
A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
from a Haydn string quartet (Op. 64, No. 1) which plays on the radio in the scene where Dr. Hineman is gardening in her greenhouse. He said he picked the piece because "[i]t seemed to me to be the kind of thing a woman like this would play on the radio." The New York Times characterized the score as "evocative" and said it was "thoroughly modern" while also being "interlaced with striking snippets of masterworks."
Free will versus determinism
The main theme of Minority Report is the classic philosophical debate of free willFree will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
versus determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. One of the main questions the film raises is whether the future is set or whether free will can alter the future. As critic C.A. Wolski commented, "At the outset, Minority Report... promises to mine some deep subject matter, to do with: do we possess free will or are we predestined to our fate?" However, there is also the added question of whether the precogs' visions are correct. As reviewer James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
asked, "is the Precogs' vision accurate, or has it in some way been tampered with? Perhaps Anderton isn't actually going to kill, but has been set up by a clever and knowledgeable criminal who wants him out of the way." The precog Agatha also states that since Anderton knows his future, he can change it. However, the film also indicates that Anderton's knowledge of the future may actually be the factor that causes Leo Crow's death. Berardinelli describes this as the main paradox regarding free will vs. determinism in the film, "[h]ere's the biggest one of all: Is it possible that the act of accusing someone of a murder could begin a chain of events that leads to the slaying. In Anderton's situation, he runs because he is accused. The only reason he ends up in circumstances where he might be forced to kill is because he is a hunted man. Take away the accusation, and there would be no question of him committing a criminal act. The prediction drives the act – a self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
. You can see the vicious circle, and it's delicious (if a little maddening) to ponder." Film scholar Dean A. Kowalski argues that in this scenario free will still exists, as the perpetrators control their actions, and the precogs visions are but the facts that resulted from their choices.
The central theme of the movie is discussed in the film's fourth scene. Witwer discusses the PreCrime system with the division's staff. He believes that its main "legalistic drawback" is that it "arrests individuals who have broken no laws." Jad responds, "But they will!" When Anderton later arrives upon this discussion, he acknowledges the paradox Witwer raises; that the precogs prevent an event accepted as fact, but one which will never happen. To show him that people regularly use predetermination, Anderton picks up a wooden ball and rolls it toward Witwer, who catches it before it lands on the ground. When asked why he caught the ball, Witwer says "Because it was going to fall." Anderton replies, "But it didn't." Then confidently tells him, "The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen." Kowalski feels this example is faulty in the sense that the ball has no free will; it merely acts according to the laws of physics, but he acknowledges that if an individual were to have freely chosen to commit murder, then it would hold. Film scholar Stephen Mulhall points out that unlike the laws of physics which have a series of scientifically testable causal laws, Anderton merely has the visions of the precogs, whose psychic abilities are not fully explained by science.
Another quandary is that if the precogs' visions are infallible then the future cannot be otherwise, while if they are incorrect people will be punished for crimes they will never commit. Kowalski contends that the precogs only attain knowledge of what he calls the "conditional future". He cites as evidence two examples: the scene where Agatha steers Anderton through the mall by foreseeing dangerous events and helping him circumnavigate them, and a later scene where she tells Anderton and his ex-wife what would have happened to their child if he had lived. In the first example, Agatha knows what Anderton will freely choose to do when presented with specific facts so she provides them to him, and, in the second, she knows what will have happened to the Andertons' son based on specific scenarios throughout his life, in which she can see what he would have freely chosen to do, and what selections various people in his life would have freely made. According to Kowalski, the PreCrime unit therefore removes individuals from precise situations where they would freely choose to become a murderer. Philosophy professor Michael Huemer adds that he believes "the only way the otherwise predetermined future seen by the precogs can be averted, we are led to believe, is by the influence of the precogs themselves," and that since there was no minority report (i.e.; no possibility alternative fate) for Anderton, the only way he can change the future is by knowing the precogs visions.
Political and legal
Spielberg said that the arrest of criminals before they have a chance to commit their crimes in the movie had some real world background in post 9/11 America, commenting that "[w]e’re giving up some of our freedom so that the government can protect us." The future world in Minority Report of retinal scans, robotic human inspectors, and intrusive, individualized, public advertising arrived in American theaters as the country was debating how much governmental intrusion into personal matters was necessary to ensure safety of its citizens. Spielberg said he would be against a PreCrime system if it were ever possible, as he believes that if it did exist, those in control of it would undoubtedly abuse its powers. Kowalski questions what the benevolent precogs in the film could become in the hands of those who trained their skills for political intrigue. Science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl asserts that in a political context, PreCrime may be seen "a metaphor for racial profiling, and one could view the liberation of the precogs as the end of a form of slavery."Kowalski feels the isolation of the precogs ensures that they see their visions merely as facts, and removes them from having to justify them. The precogs' ignorance of the results of their visions prevents them from knowing the effectiveness of the program. He feels the PreCrime officers are thus more qualified to evaluate their efficacy "than the precogs themselves." In the December 2003 edition of the academic journal Film Criticism, scholar Mark Garrett Cooper moved past that point by asserting that not only have the precogs "yet to fully understand" their visions, but that the process by which the images are interpreted makes it so that no one individual could understand them without the use of the apparatus. The machinery is so effective and precise according to Cooper however, that the "omnipresent system effectively makes capture more certain than the crime." When the system targets the hero [Cruise], instead of fleeing, he remains in the vicinity in the belief that the system will, in its inexorable logic, correct itself. The apparatus is considered so infallible according to Cooper that the hero knows once he is cleared by it, his life can immediately return to normal. In this respect, Cooper feels that "far from indicting a security state, the film legitimates one."
The film presents a legal system where the PreCrime office gathers the images from the minds of the precogs, then organizes them into a coherent order for display in front of a set of judges. The judges appear via video feeds, analyze the images, and according to Cooper they view the images, listen to Anderton rattle off "a string of legalistic verbiage", then give it a "pro forma ratification." Thus the accused is never present, is not allowed a defense, and is convicted before he is aware he is on trial. The program is marketed in a similar basic fashion, as in its tag line: "It works." Cooper says that in a typical American courtroom drama, the audience is treated as if it were the jury, but in this system, instead of desiring the hero be proven innocent, the audience seeks to have the guilt transferred from Anderton to Burgess. But to do so Anderton has to disprove the system, which he does by proving the existence of the minority report. This renders the PreCrime justice system inoperable, as if there is doubt related not merely to the gathering of the images, or their ability to be interpreted, but their ability to be correct even in perfect circumstances, then the system of infallible guilt can not exist.
Media
Spielberg conceived of the idea of a future world permeated with intrusive capitalism and government surveillance after everyone at the "think tank summit" told him that "the right of privacy is a diminishing commodity" which will soon be thrown "right out the window." According to film critic J. Hoberman, Minority Report "visualizes (as well as demonstrates) a future where the unconscious has been thoroughly colonized." When the movie first appeared in theaters a common source of reviewers' complaints was the film's product placement, which they found intrusive. The personalized advertising is disconcerting partly because of the invasion of privacy, but also, argues Cooper, because it is cold, impersonalized, and insincere. Film scholar Martin Hall says that the purpose of the ads Anderton runs into are "encouraging him to buy certain products and, by extension, affirm his place in society."Cooper feels Minority Report emphasizes the future importance of the control over imagery. According to him, the images captured from the precogs visions in the film bestow power on those who control their processing. He says the film warns viewers that those who control images must be carefully overseen so as to prevent the abuse of power, and that the film presents "governance as a problem of image arrangement." Cooper says the quandary arises when the film intimates that there were will be no way to escape the media industry's omnipotence in the future, while at the same time defending "the need for image manipulating institutions." He feels that this logically raises another issue in that the same concern could be leveled towards image-makers such as DreamWorks, and he says the "film's virtue lies in provoking this question." He notes that the film's tranquil ending concludes with the Andertons looking out into a peaceful exterior with only rain visible, and the precogs reading in their isolated, idyllic farm, and both families apparently free of electronic surveillance.
Self-perception
In his analysis of the movie in the academic journal Rhizomes, scholar Martin Hall discusses the self-perception people develop based on the views of those outside of themselves. The academician notes that when a child first comprehends the function of a mirror, they begin to develop the understanding that their perception of themselves is not self-contained, and learn that they are what they see in the mirror. He contrasts this to when Anderton discovers the precogs vision of his future self. Anderton becomes flustered while interpreting the images which show him about to commit murder. According to Hall, he begins "searching for whatever possible versions of this representation are available to him, other than the one that represents him as a murderer." He literally becomes obsessed with himself, seeking to resolve these images which put him at "discordance with his own reality." Hall says that he is sorting through the images so feverishly because he is convinced once they are sorted properly and understood, they will not show him to be the murderer, as he is convinced that he is not one. Previously, at peace with himself, Hall says Anderton cannot accept the image he sees in the precogs visions. Unable to reconcile the two, Hall says he is forced to decide that "it is likely that errors have occurred" in the PreCrime system. Agatha enters a similar period of self examination when she has visions of her mother's death, and is informed they are merely "echoes" i.e. a faulty image in her memory.When he escapes the building and enters the mall, Hall feels he is disturbed by ads calling to him by name not only because they will give away his presence, but also because they remind him of his lost place in society, and he begins "to see through the false consciousness his (illusory) previous position as fixed subject had allowed him." Spielberg said Anderton is being punished for his previous callous unconcern for anything but the effectiveness of the PreCrime program. "He's dirtied by the fact that he doesn't spend much time thinking about the moral consequences. It's just like a sporting event almost—and then suddenly that whole sporting event makes him the soccer ball." Hall says that his doubts about his own future lead him to examine his previous life to better understand himself. He runs through his role in the PreCrime system, and his son's disappearance "to reconstruct his past". After Leo Crow in fact kills himself, Anderton becomes healed, and later has "recreated himself as the subject he was previously through the knowledge that he is not a killer." Although he has satisfactorily repaired his self-image, Halls notes that Anderton is not the same person, as he no longer believes in the PreCrime system. Hall says that Burgess's final quandary; namely his desire to keep PreCrime running, but his inability to bring himself to kill Anderton to accomplish that task, and his desire to live, drives him to see his only suitable action to be suicide.
Broken family
Minority Report continues Spielberg's tradition of depicting broken families, which he has said is motivated by his parents' divorce when he was a child. In Dick's short story, Anderton is a childless, married man whose main motives are self-preservation and preventing the disassembly of the PreCrime division. While he is also trying to save himself in the movie, his greater concern is uncovering the story behind his son's disappearance. Spielberg would later transform his next science fiction film, War of the Worlds, from a story about a single man to one about a divorced father concerned with protecting his children. Buckland notes that the two tragic parent-child relationships in the picture (Agatha and Ann Lively, John and Sean Anderton) have a common element. The movie has four shots of them submerged in water. Agatha's face is shown in a close up shot, taken from directly above her, when she is submerged in her photon milk, nutrient bath. When photos of her mother's submerged corpse are shown to her, the emphasized photograph is a similar image of her face taken from directly above. Anderton and his son are shown together in a pool flashback scene in which they have a contest to see who can hold their breath longest. John is underwater when his son is taken, and later in the apartment he is shown lying motionless, immersed in a filled bathtub, in a manner Buckland finds similar to the shots of Agatha and Ann. Buckland notes that co-screenwriter Frank introduced the water theme, as he wrote Agatha and her mother's back stories while adding the bathtub scene.Ending
The most commonly criticized element of the film is its ending. The film has a more traditional "happy ending" which contradicts the tone of the rest of the picture. This has led to speculation that this ending is the product of John's imagination, caused by hallucinations from his forced coma after he is incarcerated. As one observer mused, "The conclusion of Minority Report strikes me as a joke Spielberg played on his detractors—an act of perfectly measured deviltry."Though unconfirmed by Spielberg, another recent change to subsequent prints adds weight to the theory. When released in 2002, Precrime was dismantled and the precogs allowed to live in peace, a final epilogue declared that, upon the end of PreCrime, murders had returned to Washington, D.C. In subsequent releases, this tag was removed and with it, the sole negative consequence to Anderton's choices. For some, this solidifies the idea of a "perfect", dream-like ending—and ultimately a false one. As one critic theorized, "...[r]ather than end this Brazil
Brazil (film)
Brazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...
-ian sci-fi dystopia with the equivalent of that film's shot of its lobotomized hero, which puts the lie to the immediately previous scene of his imagined liberation, Spielberg tries to pass off the exact same ending but without the rimshot, just to see if the audience is paying attention." Film scholars Nigel Morris and Jason P. Vest point to a line in the film as possible evidence of this. After Anderton is captured, Gideon tells him that, "It's actually kind of a rush. They say you have visions. That your life flashes before your eyes. That all your dreams come true." While Vest considers the blissful dream ending a possibility, he questions why Anderton did not imagine his son as having returned.
Buckland expressed disappointment in the ending, but blamed Frank. He felt that given the water theme, and closely tied together tragic parent-child theme, Anderton should have ended the film by taking Agatha in his care if Spielberg wanted a happy ending. Especially since "Anderton kidnaps Agatha from the precog pool just as his son was kidnapped from a swimming pool" and because Anderton could act as a "substitute parent for Agatha, and Agatha...a substitute child for Anderton." This opportunity is missed however, when the precogs are sent to the remote island, and Anderton reunites with his wife; an ending which Buckland finds more "forced" than the "more authentic" path he feels he noticed.
Style
Key Largo (film)
Key Largo is a 1948 film noir directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor...
. The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 Warner Bros. film based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and a remake of the 1931 film of the same name...
." The picture was deliberately overlit, and the negative was bleach-bypassed during post-production. The scene in which Anderton is dreaming about his son's kidnapping at the pool is the only one shot in "normal" color. Bleach-bypassing gave the film a distinctive look; it desaturated the film's colors, to the point that it nearly resembles a black-and-white movie, yet the blacks and shadows have a high contrast like a film noir picture. The color was reduced by "about 40%" to achieve the "washed-out" appearance. Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...
, formerly of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, commented that "[t]he picture looks as if it were shot on chrome, caught on the fleeing bumper of a late '70s car."
Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński
Janusz Kaminski
Janusz Zygmunt Kamiński is a Polish cinematographer and film director. He has photographed all of Steven Spielberg's films since 1993's Schindler's List.-Life and career:...
shot the movie in high-speed film, which Spielberg preferred to the then-emerging digital video format. The movie's camera work is very mobile, alternating between handheld and Steadicam shots, which are "exaggerated by the use of wide angle lenses and the occasional low camera angle" to increase the perception of movement according to film scholar William Buckland. Kamiński said that he never used a lens longer than 27mm, and alternated between 17, 21, and 27mm lenses, as Spielberg liked to "keep the actors as close to the camera as possible." He also said, "We staged a lot of scenes in wide shots that have a lot of things happening with the frame." The duo also used several long takes to focus on the emotions of the actors, rather than employing numerous cuts. Spielberg eschewed the typical "Shot reverse shot
Shot reverse shot
Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character , and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character...
" cinematography technique used when filming characters interactions in favor of the long takes, which were shot by a mobile, probing camera. McDowell relied on colorless chrome and glass objects of curved and circular shapes in his set designs, which, aided by the "low-key contrastive lighting", populated the film with shadows, creating a "futuristic film noir atmosphere."
Buckland describes the film's 14 minute opening sequence as the "most abstract and complex of any Spielberg film." The first scene is a distorted precog vision of a murder, presented out of context. The speed of the film is sped up, slowed, and even reversed, and the movie "jumps about in time and space" by inter cutting the images in no discernible order. When it ends, it becomes clear that the scene was presented through Agatha's eyes, and that this is how previsions appear to her. Fellow scholar Nigel Morris called this scene a "trailer", because it foreshadows the plot and establishes the type of "tone, generic expectations, and enigmas" that will be used in the film. The visions of the pre-cogs are presented in a fragmented series of clips using a "squishy lens" device, which distorts the images, blurring their edges and creating ripples across them. They were created by a two-man production team, hired by Spielberg, who chose the "layered, dreamlike imagery" based on some comments from cognitive psychologists
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
the pair consulted. In the opening's next scene, Anderton is "scrubbing the images", by standing like a composer (as Spielberg terms it), and manipulating them, while Jad assists him. Next the family involved in the murder in Agatha's vision is shown interacting, which establishes that the opening scene was a prevision. The picture then cuts back to Anderton and the precogs images, before alternating between the three. The opening is self-contained, and according to Buckland acts merely as a setup for numerous elements of the story. It lasts 14 minutes, includes 171 shots, and has an average shot length of five seconds as opposed to the 6.5 second average for the entire film. The opening's five second average is attained despite "very fast cutting" in the beginning and ending, because the middle has longer takes, which reach 20 seconds in some instances. Spielberg also continues his tradition of "heavily diffused backlighting" for much in the interior shots.
Release
Spielberg typically keeps the plot points of his films closely guarded before their release, and Minority Report was no different. He said he had to remove some scenes, and a few "F-words" to get the film's PG-13 rating. Following the disappointing box office results of Spielberg's A.I., the marketing campaign for Minority Report downplayed his role in the movie and sold the film as a Cruise action thriller.Tom Rothman, chairman of the film's co-financier Fox Filmed Entertainment, described the film's marketing strategy thus: "How are we marketing it? It's Cruise and Spielberg. What else do we need to do?" The strategy made sense; coming into the film, Spielberg had made 20 films which grossed a domestic total of $2.8 billion, while Cruise's resume featured 23 films and $2 billion in domestic revenues. With their combined 30% take of the film's box office though, sources such as BusinessWeek's
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...
Ron Grover predicted the studios would have a hard time making the money needed to break even. Despite the outward optimism, as a more adult-oriented, darker film than typical blockbusters, the studio held different box office expectations for the movie than they would a more family friendly film. Entertainment Weekly projected the film would gross $40 million domestic in its opening weekend, and Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
predicted that the high concept storyline would not appeal to children and would render it a "commercial extra-base hit rather than a home run."
Theatrical run
Minority Report's world premiere took place in New York City on June 19, 2002. Cruise attended the London premiere the following week, and mingled with thousands of adoring fans as he walked through the city's Leicester Square. It debuted at first place in the U.S. box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
, collecting $35.677 million in its opening weekend. Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
considered those numbers below expectations, as they gave the film a small edge over Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch
This article is about the movie. For the television series, see Lilo & Stitch: The Series.Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released on June 21, 2002...
, which debuted in second place ($35.260 million). Lilo & Stich sold more tickets, but since much of the film's attendees were children, its average ticket price was much lower. The movie opened at the top of the box office in numerous foreign markets; it made $6.7 million in 780 locations in Germany its opening weekend, and accounted for 35% of France's total box office weekend office gross when it collected $5 million in 700 theaters. In Great Britain, Minority Report made $36.9 million in its first three days, in Italy, $6.2 million in its first ten, in Belgium, $815,000 in its 75 location opening weekend, and in Switzerland, $405,000 in an 80 theater opening weekend. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
felt the film's UK performance was "buoyed by Cruise's charm offensive at last week's London premiere." Minority Report made a total of $132 million in the United States and $226.3 million overseas.
Home media
DreamWorks spent several million dollars marketing the film's DVD and VHS releases. The campaign included a tie-in videogameMinority Report: Everybody Runs
Minority Report: Everybody Runs is a video game published by Activision in 2002, playable on the Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and PlayStation 2 platforms. It is loosely based on the film Minority Report.-Plot:...
released by Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
, which contained a trailer for the movie's DVD. Minority Report was successful in the home video market, selling at least four million DVDs in its first few months of release. The DVD took two years to produce. For the first time, Spielberg allowed filmmakers to shoot footage on the set of one of his films. Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
-award winning DVD producer Laurent Bouzereau, who would become a frequent Spielberg DVD collaborator, shot hundreds of hours of the film's production in the then-new high definition video format. It contained over an hour of featurettes which discussed various aspects of film production, included breakdowns of the film's stunt sequences, and new interviews with Spielberg, Cruise, and other "Academy Award-winning filmmakers". The film was released on a two-disc Blu-ray on May 16, 2010. It included exclusive extras and interactive features, such as a new Spielberg interview, that were not included in the DVD edition. The film was transferred from its "HD master" which retained the movie's distinctive grainy appearance.
Reception
Minority Report received critical acclaim. The review tallying website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
summarized its research by saying that critics considered the movie "an intelligent and visually imaginative film that ranks among Spielberg's best", and the website listed it among the best reviewed films of 2002. They reported that 92% of the 225 reviews they collected were positive, and the movie earned an 80 out of a possible 100 on the similar review aggregating website Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. Most critics gave the film's handling of its central theme (free will vs. determinism) positive reviews, and many ranked it as the film's main strength. Other reviewers however, felt that Spielberg did not adequately tackle the issues he raised. The movie has inspired significant discussion and analysis, the scope of which has been compared to the continuing analysis of Blade Runner. This discussion has advanced past the realm of standard film criticism. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
fashioned a criticism of the Cheney Doctrine, by comparing its preemptive strike methodology to that of the film's PreCrime system.
Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
said its "Spielberg's sharpest, brawniest, most bustling entertainment since Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
". Mike Clark of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
felt it succeeded due to a "breathless 140-minute pace with a no-flab script packed with all kinds of surprises." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
praised the film's visuals, and Todd McCarthy of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
complimented the cast's performances. Film scholar William Buckland recommended the film, but felt that the comedic elements—aside from Stormare's lines—detracted from the plot and undermined the film's credibility.
Several critics used their reviews to discuss Spielberg and analyze what the movie signified in his development as a filmmaker. Andrew O'Hehir of the online magazine Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
expressed excitement over the atypically hard edge of the movie. "Little Steven Spielberg is all grown up now...into of all things a superior film artist...It's too early to know whether Minority Report, on the heels of A.I., marks a brief detour in Spielberg's career or a permanent change of course, but either way it's a dark and dazzling spectacle." J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
of the The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
said it is "the most entertaining, least pretentious genre movie Steven Spielberg has made in the decade since Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
." Randy Shulman of Metro Weekly
Metro Weekly
Metro Weekly is a free weekly magazine-style publication for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. It was first published on May 5, 1994. Metro Weekly includes local news, interviews with community leaders and politicians, community event calendars,...
said that "the movie is a huge leap forward for the director, who moves once and for all into the world of adult movie making." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
called the film a "masterpiece" and said that when most directors of the period were putting "their trust in technology", Spielberg had already mastered it, and was emphasizing "story and character" while merely using technology as a "workman uses his tools." David Edelstein of Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
echoed the positive sentiments, "[i]t has been a long time since a Spielberg film felt so nimble, so unfettered, so free of self-cannibalizing." Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
, then of the Chicago Reader, was less convinced. Though he approved of the movie, he derided it in his review as a superficial action film, cautioning audiences to enjoy the movie, but not "be conned into thinking that some sort of serious, thoughtful statement is being delivered along with the roller-coaster ride."
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
of The New York Observer gave the film a negative review in which he described the script as full of plot holes, the car chases as silly, and criticized the mixture of futuristic environments with "defiantly retro costuming". The complexity of the storyline was also a source of criticism for Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, who considered the plot "too intricate and difficult to follow". Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
criticized Tom Cruise's performance, and though Hoberman liked the movie, he described the film as "miscast, misguided, and often nonsensical". Both Rosenbaum and Hoberman belittled the titular minority report as a "red herring
Red herring
A red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
". More positive reviews have seen it similarly, but referred to it as a "MacGuffin
MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
".
The film earned nominations for many awards, including Best Sound Editing
Academy Award for Sound Editing
The Academy Award of Merit for Best Sound Editing is an Academy Award granted yearly to a film exhibiting the finest or most aesthetic sound editing or sound design...
in the Academy Awards, and Best Visual Effects in the BAFTAs. Among the awards won were four Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s (Best Science Fiction Film
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
The Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film is a Saturn Award given to the best film in the science fiction genre by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.-Winners:-External links:*...
, Best Direction
Saturn Award for Best Direction
The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Direction:-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 5 awards*Steven Spielberg - 4 awards*Peter Jackson - 3 awards*Bryan Singer - 2 awards...
, Best Screenplay and Supporting Actress for Samantha Morton), the BMI
Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...
Film Music Award, the Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
for Supporting Actress, and the Empire Awards
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
for Actor, Director and British Actress. Ebert listed Minority Report as the best film of 2002, as did online film reviewer James Berardinelli. The film was also included in top ten lists by critic Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
, and both reviewers at USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
.
Minority Report was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.