Minority Report
Jun. 24th, 2002 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyvyolaSaw Minority Report this weekend and found myself agreeing with all the critics I'd read/heard: very good movie whose virtues far outweigh its flaws. I've got some spoilery musings, but first, a mini-rant:
Friday, the Washington Post ran an essay by one of the members of Steven Spielberg's "think tank" -- the group of futurists he gathered whose predictions/speculations/extrapolations informed the America of 2054 posited in the film. Nice, light, informative essay. With a huge, honking big spoiler right in the middle of it that revealed the ultimate villain of the movie. Now, I actually don't have a problem with spoilers. They don't ruin things for me and I have been known to actively seek them out on occasion. But it irked me greatly to run into this piece of information in this setting. There was no reason for it and I'm disappointed with both the essayist and the section editor.
Okay, rant over. On to my own spoilers. *g*
The little loop-without-a-beginning is a bit annoying -- there is no precipitating reason other than the precognitive vision to alert John Anderton to the existence of Leo Crow, so in a world without the precogs he'd have never have gone after Crow and killed him. Surely Burgess, the king of plots and plans, was going to bring Crow to John's attention in some way. A paid informant perhaps, mentioning that there was some sicko with kiddie pictures in town. John investigates, figures out that Crow took Sean, then whoosh! The precog hits, the brown ball is carved, and John gets haloed. But that doesn't happen. The precog itself is the precipitating event that leads to the crime it predicts.
However, this is a movie that deals with ideas like predestination and free will (in a summer blockbuster! Who'd a' thunk it!) so a little non-causal loop isn't that hard to swallow.
More interesting to me, are the implications of Agatha's interactions with John. In the first Temple scene, when he leans down close to her, she initiates the contact between them, whispering, "Do you see?" In retrospect, it's obvious that she's been reliving her mother's death since it occured, just waiting for the moment when John Anderton, the only person with the right combination of detective skills, professional access, and personal drive, comes in range. Agatha is clearly gifted enough to have forseen the whole scope of events that would lead John to her.
John sees the Ann Lively precog and that triggers his visit to the prison, and his discovery of the missing data streams. Then he goes to Burgess and that is what causes Burgess to set him up. But the very act of setting John up precipitates Burgess's own downfall and the ultimate release of the precogs. Agatha had to have seen that outcome. She catches/punishes her mother's killer, destroys Precrime, and gains freedom for herself and the twins. It's her quest, not John's.
Is Agatha that strong, that calculating? I think so. Consider the lovely escape from the mall -- John is holding her up, supporting her physically, but she is the one directing their movements -- grab the umbrella, go right, wait wait wait, drop some coins, etc. She even has the presence of mind to reach out to the girl and tell her, "Don't go home. He knows." Agatha's not just reacting, she's planning, multi-tasking even.
And as for strong, there's the beautiful scene where she gives John and Lara a vision of what Sean's life would have been if it had not been so tragically cut short -- Sean's minority report, if you will. Surrounded by the love of his parents and so many physical reminders of him, Agatha is able to relate a vision of an alternate future. Suffused with the need to avenge her mother and free the precogs, surely she has the strength to see all the possiblities necessary to her plan.
I've also been thinking about her mantra to John in Crow's apartment, "You have a choice." Even though John doesn't have a minority report, part of Agatha must hope that the future is not what she has seen. She knows that when all three precogs agree, there's no possibility of error. But oh, if only there was! That would be the biggest flaw possible in Precrime and so bring it tumbling down.
My four favorite elements of the film:
1. The computer systems and the hand gesture interface. All the clear glass monitors and chips. Lovely, subtle, understated and oh, so right.
2. The quiet recognition of religion/spirituality within the movie. One of the cops crossing himself before a mission, Witwer and his seminary past as well as taking out his cross/medallion/whatever after being shot. These were normal things that people have always done and will always do, and while not an overtly religious person myself, I appreciate it when a movie doesn't completely ignore this part of human nature.
3. The "find the minority report" is a total McGuffin. Sure, it sparks John's investigation. But it has nothing to do with either the death of Ann Lively or the set-up against John.
4. The internal logic of how to get away with premeditated murder under the Precrime system. Burgess was truly a cold-blooded son of a bitch. And the film explained it well. The echo, or "precog deja vu", was introduced easily and without fanfare, yet clearly enough that when Witwer disovers the discrepency in the Ann Lively data streams, the audience can grasp the significance at once.
Friday, the Washington Post ran an essay by one of the members of Steven Spielberg's "think tank" -- the group of futurists he gathered whose predictions/speculations/extrapolations informed the America of 2054 posited in the film. Nice, light, informative essay. With a huge, honking big spoiler right in the middle of it that revealed the ultimate villain of the movie. Now, I actually don't have a problem with spoilers. They don't ruin things for me and I have been known to actively seek them out on occasion. But it irked me greatly to run into this piece of information in this setting. There was no reason for it and I'm disappointed with both the essayist and the section editor.
Okay, rant over. On to my own spoilers. *g*
The little loop-without-a-beginning is a bit annoying -- there is no precipitating reason other than the precognitive vision to alert John Anderton to the existence of Leo Crow, so in a world without the precogs he'd have never have gone after Crow and killed him. Surely Burgess, the king of plots and plans, was going to bring Crow to John's attention in some way. A paid informant perhaps, mentioning that there was some sicko with kiddie pictures in town. John investigates, figures out that Crow took Sean, then whoosh! The precog hits, the brown ball is carved, and John gets haloed. But that doesn't happen. The precog itself is the precipitating event that leads to the crime it predicts.
However, this is a movie that deals with ideas like predestination and free will (in a summer blockbuster! Who'd a' thunk it!) so a little non-causal loop isn't that hard to swallow.
More interesting to me, are the implications of Agatha's interactions with John. In the first Temple scene, when he leans down close to her, she initiates the contact between them, whispering, "Do you see?" In retrospect, it's obvious that she's been reliving her mother's death since it occured, just waiting for the moment when John Anderton, the only person with the right combination of detective skills, professional access, and personal drive, comes in range. Agatha is clearly gifted enough to have forseen the whole scope of events that would lead John to her.
John sees the Ann Lively precog and that triggers his visit to the prison, and his discovery of the missing data streams. Then he goes to Burgess and that is what causes Burgess to set him up. But the very act of setting John up precipitates Burgess's own downfall and the ultimate release of the precogs. Agatha had to have seen that outcome. She catches/punishes her mother's killer, destroys Precrime, and gains freedom for herself and the twins. It's her quest, not John's.
Is Agatha that strong, that calculating? I think so. Consider the lovely escape from the mall -- John is holding her up, supporting her physically, but she is the one directing their movements -- grab the umbrella, go right, wait wait wait, drop some coins, etc. She even has the presence of mind to reach out to the girl and tell her, "Don't go home. He knows." Agatha's not just reacting, she's planning, multi-tasking even.
And as for strong, there's the beautiful scene where she gives John and Lara a vision of what Sean's life would have been if it had not been so tragically cut short -- Sean's minority report, if you will. Surrounded by the love of his parents and so many physical reminders of him, Agatha is able to relate a vision of an alternate future. Suffused with the need to avenge her mother and free the precogs, surely she has the strength to see all the possiblities necessary to her plan.
I've also been thinking about her mantra to John in Crow's apartment, "You have a choice." Even though John doesn't have a minority report, part of Agatha must hope that the future is not what she has seen. She knows that when all three precogs agree, there's no possibility of error. But oh, if only there was! That would be the biggest flaw possible in Precrime and so bring it tumbling down.
My four favorite elements of the film:
1. The computer systems and the hand gesture interface. All the clear glass monitors and chips. Lovely, subtle, understated and oh, so right.
2. The quiet recognition of religion/spirituality within the movie. One of the cops crossing himself before a mission, Witwer and his seminary past as well as taking out his cross/medallion/whatever after being shot. These were normal things that people have always done and will always do, and while not an overtly religious person myself, I appreciate it when a movie doesn't completely ignore this part of human nature.
3. The "find the minority report" is a total McGuffin. Sure, it sparks John's investigation. But it has nothing to do with either the death of Ann Lively or the set-up against John.
4. The internal logic of how to get away with premeditated murder under the Precrime system. Burgess was truly a cold-blooded son of a bitch. And the film explained it well. The echo, or "precog deja vu", was introduced easily and without fanfare, yet clearly enough that when Witwer disovers the discrepency in the Ann Lively data streams, the audience can grasp the significance at once.
