I just saw Minority Report today, so my memory of it should be fairly fresh. But in reading some of the letters to the editor over on Locus Online , one of the writers referred to this scene:
Now, I have absolutely no memory of this scene. Is this actually in the movie? Did I blink and miss it, or is the letter writer making things up?
Hmm…I saw it today, too, and it was definitely in the movie.
Yes, that scene was in there. The sequence of events in the mall goes like this (spoilers):
Agatha tells John to pick up an umbrella.
Agatha tells John to wait in the middle of the open floor.
The balloon man blocks the police’s view of john and Agatha.
They exit through a door and into a corridor, where Agatha tells John to drop change on the floor. The scene progresses as described in the letter.
John uses the umbrella to hide from the police.
Huh. Okay, I obviously just flaked out. Thanks for clearing that up.
Just a comment on that scene…
I was completely expecting the old guy to take the change and then misdirect the cops so Cruise could escape as a gesture of gratitude. Instead, the guy gets stomped on by a bunch of cops as hes bending over to get the change. Does this movie ever stop raising interesting ethical questions?
aside: In retrospect, I found it infinetly more satisfying to see the guy get stepped on. Is that sick, or what?
More of a highjack. Did this scene remind any else of the bum under the bridge scene in Clockwork Orange? Bum on the left, sitting against the wall, talking to himself. Or am I deranged and see Clockwork Orange in everything. There were other Clockworky scenes, but I can’t recall them at this moment.
Another hijack: Just read the short story which the movie is (loosely) based upon last night. Quite interesting, doesn’t have as many logical holes as the movie; I’d recommend this (and any other PKD stories) if you like to have to think about what you read. Just don’t expect a lot of fancy gee-whiz stuff like the eyes and spider thingies.
FWIW possible memory jog:
The old man says whine-ly circa “Can’t you put it in my hands” as Cruise scatters the coins on the ground and he ;eans across the door to pick it up…
Now that the OP question has been answered, and now that I finally watched this film, I’d like to ask what people who truly appreciate science fiction thought about this movie.
Did anyone else think that this film was very pretty and pleasant but lacked the depth that Spielberg tried to fool us into thinking was there with, for example, his bright white light scenes or occasional cryptic references such as “in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king”??
As an enthusiast of science fiction film and literature, I am getting a little bit wary of Spielberg’s attempts. After reading Ebert’s exuberant review of this film I walked into the cinema with high expectations–and walked out sorely disappointed. This film appeared to be little more than a “whodunit” set half a century into the future. There were some cool visuals, some interesting cars and gadgets, a few nice action scenes, and a couple of predictable twists. So far all fairly good execution, and pretty decent art direction to keep us interested. The problem is there is little to think about or question, which, considering this film is inspired by a Dick story, is pretty outrageous. Pre-crime and all that are sci-fi gimmicks that serve as vehicles, but nothing is really addressed and they remain mere technology; issues concerning civil liberties are not exactly explored in spite of the ample opportunities; and there are so many logical/plot holes and inconsistencies that it is impossible to treat some of the available material seriously.
A variation of the tired, old, “Grandfather Paradox” is the crux of this film, except that in this case rather than the hero going time-travelling, it is information that does so. It’s annoying enough when Star Trek goes down temporal paradox avenue with little regard for logic, but to see it on a sloppy effort by supposedly one of the luminaries of science fiction in film is really quite disappointing. Much better treatments of this paradox may be found in Heinlein’s short story All You Zombies and the incredibly imaginative film Donnie Darko. And, to a lesser extent in Dick’s original Minority Report as well, which was altered substantially in the adaptation.
OK, it was unfair to expect another Blade Runner, but at least a Total Recall? The latter had enough action scenes to keep even Schwarzenegger happy, yet the fundamental reality-twisting nature of Dick’s fiction easily shines through all the guns, explosions, and quick resolutions all the way to the end (is the “Blue Sky on Mars” real or just a memory tape?).
I recently saw The Impostor, which was an attempt to bring one of Dick’s earlier stories to life. The production looked pretty threadbare and obviously needed better management, while the plot was interesting enough but predictable. In spite of the poor production Dick’s imagination was evident in the film, particularly in the ending (which was certainly not phenomenal, but was interestingly Dickian in shift and scope).
Minority Report on the other hand was pretty flat throughout, and the twists that were present were all of a “whodunit” nature (I watched Gosford Park just the day before!). I must say it was appealing and fun as a detective story, but in terms of science fiction I thought this film contributed as much as Spielberg’s earlier effort A.I. did: nothing whatsoever of importance.
I spotted a glimmer of a possibility that there may be an alternate ending, but thinking more about it I don’t believe there is enough evidence to support the hypothesis–and even if there were, I wonder if Blade Runner and Total Recall don’t do a better job of it, not to mention Donnie Darko, Vanilla Sky, or Mulholland Drive (to name a few recent mind-bender films not officially inspired by Dick). In my opinion there is no solid support for an alternate ending, but if anyone thinks differently I would love to discuss the matter.
I was annoyed at the myriad inconsistencies present in this film. Normally it is not good form to nitpick, but there seems so much material that is just asking to be ripped apart that I wonder if Spielberg shouldn’t just give up on these ambitious titles and stick to what he’s good at. Frankly more Indiana Jones flicks wouldn’t hurt, and would allow more talented and imaginative directors to handle this kind of project.
One thing I truly did appreciate in the film was the portrayal of targeted marketing in the future. It’s starting to happen now through e-mail and mobile phones, so I enjoyed Spielberg’s vision of what it could be like half a century down the road. That was a really nice touch, and even more incentive to get back at those fucking spammers before things REALLY get out of hand.
Finally, what the heck is it with Ebert’s reviews? He gushed so much over Minority Report that I became convinced to go see it even after I had already seen that piece of cagal, A.I., a movie that was enough to make me swear off Spielberg’s science fiction forever. Ebert was pretty enthusiastic about A.I. too, and claimed that the “miscalculation” in that movie was asking the audience to invest emotionally in a character that was a machine.
Ebert, the miscalculation in A.I. was the whole freaking film. This was the Edward Scissorhands of the new millennium, minus the amusing Burtonesque touch and plus undetermined tonnage of condescension and long, dead moments. Based on his last two films as director, I’m wondering if Spielberg is past his sell-by date. Kubrick supposedly wrestled with A.I. for fifteen years before Spielberg took up the project and cranked out that crap, and Minority Report is a story by the inimitable Philip K. Dick: yet I could detect nothing of Kubrick in A.I., and in Minority Report precious little remained of Dick.
This message posted from the point of view of someone who has just perceived two items of great potential (A.I. and Minority Report) ruined by the same person in a short time.
I saw this film with a friend who is a marketing director for a company with a very large budget. He was practically drooling. He also made some comment along the lines of “alot of this stuff is really just around the corner…” which kind of made my skin crawl. But I also thought the constant shouts for attention would eventually fade into background noise, just as I don’t currently notice who sent me what spam.
And I agree with your hypothesis that Spielberg took what could have been a fairly meaty concept but drowned it out with too much eye candy. Interestingly one of Anderton’s first thoughts from the book is how he is overweight and losing his hair. Hardly Tom Cruise concerns. Sure, the setting needed to be updated and fleshed out versus what Dick portrayed, but they could have stuck more to the original plot lines and it would have been more of a mind f*ck. That said I am not sure that Dick is the way to go for more hardcore sci-fi. His stuff is more along the lines of using the freedom of sci-fi to explore concepts and alternative realities than creating rich new futures.
A.I. SPOILERS upcoming
A.I. was great (if, admittedly, overlong) – I don’t think Spielberg miscalculated at all. I think he purposefully led us down the primrose path, presenting David as an incredibly sympathetic character all along, until the end when we see what a monster he really is.
–Cliffy
Lao Tsu … I totally had Clockwork Orange flashbacks through the movie … the scene where his eyes are pulled open (surgery), the bum scene, the yoga instructor when he falls through the roof …
nice to know I am not going insane.
I still have no memory of the scene with the bum, but I’m sure it was there. Maybe I was thinking about something else. I didn’t like the movie enough to want to see it again just to catch that scene, either.
I tend to agree with Abe in my reaction to the film. Most of the reviews I had read before seeing it had been pretty positive, emphasizing the ideas and depth and such. While there were scenes I really liked, and there were ideas lurking here and there, I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of Dick’s interesting metaphysics had been turned into an excuse for a fairly pointless puzzle. Sure, the way in which the Pre-Crime system was fooled was ingenious, but that’s all it was. I haven’t read the original “Minority Report” short story, but generally ingenuity in Dick is an excuse for metaphysical speculation, rather than the other way around.
A.I. had a similar effect on me, though I probably enjoyed Minority Report more. I’m not sure whether it is simply that Spielberg is more interested in entertainment and spectacle than in ideas, or that movies aren’t an inherently good medium for ideas and speculation, or what.
Abe, I have to disagree with you, but mostly on purely subjective grounds. I thought the action scenes were exciting, and thought Spielberg did a superb job of constantly ratcheting up the tension. One thing I liked was the way Anderson was always only one step ahead of the police. He’d come up with a plan, and the next scene would be the police guessing exactly what he was about to do. Aside from being a nice continuation the whole “precognition” theme, every scene is overshadowed by the anticipation of the cops arrival.
Similarly subjective, while I agree that the film is basically a sf whodunnit, I don’t consider that to be in any way a flaw. Science fiction can encompass virtually any other genre, the fact that a particular work emphasizes one genre over another isn’t a flaw so much as a matter of taste.
I’m also glad that the film didn’t belabor the philosophical/ethical/legal ramifications of the whole “pre-crime” idea. The themes are there for anyone who wants to examine them, but the film itself doesn’t bog down in tedious abstract conversations.
Other reasons I felt the film worked: I liked the way the technology seemed fully integrated with the world. The filmmakers put some real thought into the ramifications of their new technology. The eyescanners are probably the best example of this, being used not only for security reasons, but for advertising, mass transit, credit checks, and so forth. Not to mention the black market in eyeballs that would naturally arise. Or the proliferation of cheap, portable hologram emitters finding its way onto cereal boxes.
The movie was also simply very clever, such as the scene with Agatha in the mall, or the way Anderson escaped from the police in the automobile factory. The plot had some holes, especially when Anderson uses his old eyes to break into Pre-Crime HQ, but the story was strong enough that I was willing to overlook these flaws as excuses to get to the next big scene or plot twist. I wish they had played up his drug abuse, maybe shown that it was interfering more with his career, but that’s nitpicking. Overall this was a solid, exciting, and (most surprisingly of all) intelligent sf film, on of the first I’ve seen in years where I didn’t leave the theater thinking “That would’ve been really cool except…”
So, yeah, I agree with Ebert. This was easily the best science fiction film in the last decade, if not longer.
Miller, we are in agreement on at least some items, and as for the others–well there wouldn’t be this board without disagreement! I definitely enjoyed the action scenes (the jetpack escape scene was great) and I enjoyed the suspense of the whodunit in general. I liked the film from those points of view. However I found this was mostly whodunit and only a little bit of SF, and represents a lost opportunity. Compare with another SF whodunit, Blade Runner, for example, and I think this film has more action and movement, but much less meat and durability.
I did not find the mall scene or the car factory scenes clever or original, and in fact I thought they didn’t work. Using precognition to hide is something Spielberg borrowed from a variety of sources including Dick’s story The Golden man, so I do not credit Spielberg with the inventiveness of the concept. But apart from that the little flaws in the film bugged me: when Pre-Crime is looking for Anderson and he is hiding behind the baloons, there are something like 6 or more agents strung out in a line perpendicular to Anderton’s and the balloons’ positions. I can understand how the agents in the centre of the line would not be able to spot Anderton, because he is directly behind the balloons in their line of sight; however the relative parallax shift from the positions of the agents at either end of the line means they should have spotted him quite easily. In a film that is primarily visual, this kind of thing bugs me. As for the car factory scene, leaving out the atrocious and implausible safety standards of the machinery, Anderton’s escape from being welded under a seat is nothing short of miraculous, not to mention that the car comes already fuelled and with the keys in the ignition straight off the factory line and conveniently located near an exit. I thought this sort of thing was cute, but hardly masterful.
The pervasive/targeted advertising was great, but I don’t think any of the representations we saw are concepts original to this film, and I saw similar visualizations in a presentation by a publishing group last year (a 20-minute video clip depicting the future of media technology, including targeted marketing–it is actually possible today, only right now we are limited to mobile phones to determine identity and location). In particular I have come across the intrusive cereal box advertisement concept before–just can’t remember where, but I am certain it was in a book (maybe even one by Dick). The eye scanners are likewise well made but hardly original concepts, and dangling an eyeball in front of a scanner was already done in Demolition Man. That “seedy” part of the film about the underworld, particularly the black market in eyes and the crazy surgeon, seemed lifted directly from William Gibson or similar cyberpunk authors (actually, compare that surgeon to the one from Cronenberg’s ExistenZ).
The film was not bad at all, but the problem is that there was nothing below the surface. It was a nice surface, but I wanted there to be a little bit more, which is what Dick deserves after all. Some more imagery and metaphor would have been nice, and more intelligent (and better-looking) signals than the “bright white light” scenes. Without a deeper level in this film there isn’t really much left apart from a whodunit story, action sequences, and eye candy. I can’t agree that this was the best sci-fi film of the last decade.
What about the possible alternate ending? As I said above, I thought I saw glimmers of clues, but nothing concrete. Anderton could be dreaming the last sequences of the film, after he is put in storage. It seems remarkable that his wife should ride in and rescue him just like that, so perhaps everything from that point on is an illusion. That would give the film some much-needed depth I think, but the evidence in support of this alternate ending hypothesis is not very strong.
Good point about the drugs. It would have been nice to see Anderton’s drug abuse developed a bit more, but as it is the narcotics are an excellent example of what I am talking about: like everything else in this film, they exist as a plot element (to discredit Anderton) and little else is done with them.
I think movies are an excellent medium to to explore science fiction ideas and speculations, but I don’t think Spielberg’s style is very suited to science fiction–a more cerebral director (and scriptwriter) is needed. Note that A.I. was not even a science fiction film, but a fable through and through (which I thought was a cop-out and no better than the similar Bicentennial Man).