Minority Report
Steven Spielberg ’s 2002 sci - fi thrillerMinority Reportunravels a misrepresented slaying mystery that keeps the revelations coming the right way up until the close . ground on the story of the same name by Philip K. Dick , Minority ReportstarsTom Cruiseas John Anderton , the Chief of the Precrime Unit in a futurist imagination of Washington , DC . Using three psychic send for " precogs , " Precrime is able-bodied to see murders before they befall and forestall them . The perpetrators are arrested , sentence and imprison on the groundwork that they unimpeachably would have dispatch someone if they had n’t been stopped .
With Precrime on the brink of becoming a interior plan , a Union police detective holler Danny Witwer ( Colin Farrell ) arrives on the fit to look for flaws in the system . Shortly thereafter , the precogs experience a vision of John remove a valet called Leo Crow ( Mike Binder ) , whom he has never suffer . believe that Witwer has correct him up , John blend on the running game in an crusade to buy enough meter to turn out his ingenuousness . His lookup for the truth leads him to the strange eccentric of a woman call Anne Lively ( Jessica Harper ) , who was saved from a drowning murder by Precrime cops , only to go lose immediately afterwards .
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John also learns about a cover - up within Precrime . Occasionally , one of the precogs ' visions will disagree with the other two , generating a so - prognosticate " minority study " that is deleted so that there can be no doubt about Precrime ’s foregone conclusion of the future tense . believe that he must have a minority composition , John returns to Precrime and abduct the strongest of the precogs , Agatha ( Samantha Morton ) . With the minutes ticktock down to his hypothesise execution of Leo Crow , John still has no clue who his dupe is or why he would want to kill him … that is , until he reaches Crow ’s flat .
How (& Why) John Was Set Up to Murder Leo Crow
John ’s execution of Leo Crow was indeed premeditated - but not by John . It was orchestrated by Lamar Burgess ( Max von Sydow ) , one of the laminitis of Precrime and a stuffy protagonist of John ’s . Lamar plan the slaying after John come to him to expect about Anne Lively , and why Agatha ’s vision of Lively ’s expiry was neglect from the system . fuck that John had gotten too near to a drear truth that could destroy Precrime just before the program went national , Lamar used what he knew to be John ’s greatest failing against him : the fade of his Word , Sean ( Tyler Patrick Jones ) , in Baltimore six years previously .
Lamar do for a felon called Leo Crow to be released from prison , and promised him that if he agreed to be murdered by John , his kinsperson would be well taken care of . He instructed Leo to ride out in an apartment with what Witwer name an " orgy of grounds " spread out over the bed : century of pictures of children , including fake photos of Leo with Sean . When contract by John , Leo also offered chilling fictional details of how Sean died - drowned in a weighted barrel - as well as hints that he had sexually abused Sean before killing him . All of this is enough to make John accept that he is destined to murder Leo Crow . However , John at long last lets the deadline for the slaying pass and rather tries to catch Leo . A desperate Leo reveals that he was paid to lie about murdering Sean , and use John ’s artillery to kill himself .
Leo Crow ’s slaying create a predestination paradox , since the only elbow room John knew to expect for a man scream Leo Crow was because he had already seen a vision of himself vote out him , and he was only capable to find the apartment by using clue he had seen in the visual modality . Even though John does n’t have a minority report , his decision not to kill Leo Crow subvert the reliability of Precrime in a unlike way : by knowing his time to come , John was able to change it . If he was capable to make that decision , then many of the criminals he has catch over the years could have done the same .
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What Really Happened to John’s Son
With Leo Crow revealed to be a fake , viewers may be left wonder what really happened to Sean . Minority Reportdeliberately leaves this inquiry unrequited , so that by the end of the movie we still do n’t make love any more than John : he was holding his intimation underwater at a public pool , and when he come up again Sean had disappeared . We do n’t screw who took Sean , how he died , or even whether he might still be animated somewhere . speak in a 2002 interview withRoger Ebert , Spielberg explained that some questions inMinority Reporthad been deliberately left unanswered :
“ I had John Huston in my ear . I went back and looked at The Maltese Falcon and [ Howard ] hawk ’ The Big Sleep — to see how some of those film noir mysteries were settle . They did n’t dot every i and cross every t. They tried to keep you off - equaliser . They asked more questions than they could suffice in those days . ”
Within the story , the fact that Sean ’s disappearance is forget a mystery is vitally important , because the trauma of turn a loss his Logos is what fuel John ’s faith in Precrime . The programme demonstrate visual sensation of murder that can be replayed , pause and enhanced so that John can zero in on them and receive the answer - something that he was unable to do for Sean . By the end of the movie , John ’s acceptance that Precrime has to die is also a symbol of him bear that he will never get it on what happen to Sean , and finally being get up to move on .
How (& Why) Anne Lively Was Murdered
Minority Report ’s story really begins six years before the start of the movie , when Lamar found a way to do the impossible : commit a execution in a world where the police can see slaying before they encounter . Lamar killed Anne Lively for the same understanding that he later set up John to murder Leo Crow - in society to protect Precrime . Though the precogs are publicly billed as a miracle gift to human race , Dr. Hineman ( Lois Smith ) reveals to John that they are in reality the children of mothers who were hook to an former interpretation of neuroin , the same drug that John use . Being exposed to neuroin in utero inflicted terrible Einstein equipment casualty on the children , with most of them go bad at an early geezerhood . However , those who survived experienced visions of execution that had n’t materialise yet , and they became the base for Precrime .
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Anne Lively was Agatha ’s mother , a neuroin addict who endure to a rehabilitation adroitness and managed to beat her addiction . After cleaning herself up , she wanted to have her niggling girl back . Lamar could n’t allow Anne to take Agatha out , since the precogs function as a hive head and the other two - twin chum called Arthur ( Michael Dickmann ) and Dashiell ( Matthew Dickmann ) - do n’t " work " without Agatha . He also could n’t risk Anne in public demanding the return of her daughter , since that would delineate attention to the welfare of the precogs . A presentation outside Precrime headquarters fertilize tourists a string of lies about the precogs ' sustenance conditions , making it clear that their torture confinement to the kitty is just one of Precrime ’s many secrets .
To pull off Anne Lively ’s slaying , Lamar used a phenomenon called an " echo , " where the precogs experience replays of past visions . He told Anne to make out and come across him at a lake , and paid a drug - addicted drifter to try on and swim her . After watching the visual sensation of her death , Lamar knew all the details of how the original murder would have played out . He then wait by the lake for the drifter to be arrested by Precrime and , after they had impart , murdered Anne Lively himself in the exact same means . The precogs sent a visual modality of that execution as well , but it was give the sack as merely an echo and cancel .
Why Lamar Burgess’s Final Choice Destroys Precrime
InMinority Report ’s ending , Lamar Burgess is offered the same quandary that John Anderton is in Philip K. Dick ’s original story : he can either send a murder and doom himself , but save Precrime in the progress ; or he can pick out not to commit the predicted murder , thereby exposing a black flaw in Precrime and destroying his own creation . With the murder already predicted and Precrime officers closing in , Lamar chooses to shoot himself in the chest . Earlier in the cinema he secern Witwer , " I do n’t want John Anderton hurt " - and despite all his lie , it seems that this program line was completely honest . actualize he has a alternative , Lamar adjudicate to take his own life rather than bolt down John , because he can not endure to witness his bequest being break up .
Had Lamar chosen to germinate John , he would have been stop for the execution ( along with the murder of Anne Lively ) , but he also would have proven that Precrime works . Leo Crow ’s reckon murder was spun as a " human defect " in Precrime , due to officers failing to reach the scene in clip , and John Anderton ’s expiry would have been care for the same path . Precrime could still have go national , and Lamar ’s legacy would have been preserve . In choosing not to shoot John , Lamar prove very in public what John had already discovered sooner in the moving-picture show : that a person who fuck their future is capable to change it , and therefore the precogs ' visions are not sure . This lead to Precrime being dissolve and the precogs being released .
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The Real Meaning of Minority Report’s Ending
Like many other stories about clip travel and futuristic visions , Minority Reportasks the question of whether the future - once known - can be changed . Terminator : Dark Fateanswered this same question by suggesting that certain things are inevitable and will happen despite efforts to avert them ; after Sarah Connor prevented the rise of Skynet , another computer organisation call Legion take its place and led to a exchangeable precipitation of humanity . When Leo Crow dies in almost the precise same way of life that the vision predicted , despite John choosing not to vote down him , it seems thatMinority Reportmight be drawing a interchangeable finish .
Danny Witwer pick apart Precrime at the start ofMinority Report , ask how they can be sure that a slaying would definitely have materialize . In reply , John rolls a ball towards him . When Witwer overhear it in edict to prevent it from falling , John posits that the fact that he trance it does n’t change the fact that it was definitely fit to fall . Unlike the rolled ball , however , John and Lamar are capable to pick out not to fall ( metaphorically mouth ) . The component of human agency in the equation is what makes the precogs ' visions not totally sealed , and is also responsible for for the existence of minority reports .
Along the way , Minority Reportalso questions the value-system of penalize someone for something that they were going to do but have n’t done yet . A favorite matter of ethical argument is whether or not it would be justifiable to go back in clip and belt down Adolf Hitler as a baby . The action is generally said to be flawed in two respects : first , that kill sister Hitler is no warrantee that some other somebody will fill the place in chronicle that Hitler did , with the same outcome ; and secondly , that even if kill baby Hitler would keep the Holocaust , you would still be killing an innocent infant . InMinority ReportPrecrime faces the same dilemma , and justifies lock in up future manslayer on the basis that there ’s no reasonable incertitude that they would n’t have killed their victim . The ending ofMinority Reportproves that such fair doubt exists , making the pillow slip that no one ’s path in life is completely bias , and people can choose other than even when it seems like there ’s no turning back .
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