I was struck by the acceptance of eye scanners throughout the city. The police raid used Spiders to forcefully ID everyone in the building. Scary stuff and very dystopian.
It’s interesting that a 2002 movie predicated targeted ads at the mall. The film story used eye scanners. Good morning John Anderton and today our smart phones can trigger targeted ads at a store.
Perfect! We quote this line all the time.
Well, they’re both based on Philip K. Dick books. He’s an author I love, but I wasn’t crazy about how Blade Runner was done. I haven’t seen Minority Report because I find Tom Cruise just awful as an actor. Can’t watch him.
A Scanner Darkly is another Philip K. Dick book made into a movie. I thought that one was pretty good, although the technique of how it was filmed was a little distracting.
Oh right, I agree. La Jetee involves you in the event. The thing you are seeing may be a dream or it may be real, it might be the past or just a false memory. You are the main character in the film.
12 Monkey’s is about the feeling La Jetee gives on one person and it is all certainly happening.
Everyone should see both.
Minority Report 2002 Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, and Max von Sydow.
I love that film, have seen it many times. You mention a conspiracy, (spoilered) I’m not sure I’d call it that? Isn’t it essentially just von Sydow’s character that engineers Anderton’s arrest?
Tom Cruise bugs me too, but Minority Report is fantastic. It’s worth trying it to see if you can get past him. He isn’t typical smarmy Tom Cruise – I think he smiles only once in a flashback.
The list of Philip K Dick books made into movies and TV shows is long, although in many cases the adaptations are very loosely connected to the source material. Some of the better known:
And currently in production, The Future is Ours Netflix series based on “The World Jones Made”.
I’ve never got the general hate for Cruise. I think he’s a fine actor. He did his ‘character’ stuff earlier in his career (generally speaking) which shows he is pretty convincing when he wants to be. And the latter day action stuff (specifically MI, obviously) is spectacular and really doesn’t need him to do anything more than he does in those. His stunt and action work are peerless.
This is a wonderful and important book. All Americans should read it not because of some dire Fascist Dystopian warnings, but because in our national conscience we have never felt conquest and that had and does have implications to our foreign policy.
I’d like to see the show, but am worried the delicate profound bits will be covered in Swastikas and Hugo Boss. Is this what Heinlein fans feel like?
I agree with all that.
The big question is does Tom Cruise run in this movie? Because that’s not something you typically see him doing in a movie.
Yes, it is revealed that one guy is responsible. But Anderton didn’t know that in the beginning.
It is an interesting dilemma that the system Anderton strongly supported suddenly turned on him.
I felt he really moved beyond his early, “pretty-boy” roles with Born on the Fourth of July. I was very impressed with his acting chops in that performance.
He had Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut come out the same year, 1999, and he was great in both. It’s been pretty much all action films since then, but yeah, he can act.
I think he is as well, but he isn’t generally a chameleon like Gary Oldman. He’s more often a Humphrey Bogart - commonly playing a variant of himself. Cruise is often playing a handsome, confidant, toothy guy who flash a wide, smarmy/rakish grin at some point. If for some reason that triggers a negative reaction in you, it’s pretty easy to become a non-fan and dislike those roles. I’ve met people who likewise couldn’t stand Bogart. I’m that way with a few actors myself, like Michael Pitt (he always seems so greasy 
). Also he is well-publicized as on the one hand as a.) being very polite, professional and respectful on the job, but also b.) being a seriously hardcore Scientology nutter. That has an impact on people’s perceptions
Anyway I’m a Cruise agnostic. I think he’s actually talented, but completely understand people who disdain him.
I think the dislike of Cruise has more to do with being the poster boy for a dangerous and exploitive cult than it does his acting.
It’s a little of both. I don’t like him as a person because of the cult thing and his (older) media personality, with BS like jumping on the couch over his girlfriend while treating her like shit.
And I don’t like the smug persona in his older movies (Top Gun, Risky Business, Cocktail, etc.) that still sometimes peeks out in his other roles.
And despite that, I still end up liking most movies he’s in, so evidently he doesn’t bug me that much.
I am a big fan of his running. Almost every actor does that pseudo-run, where you’re trying to move faster than a walk and look like you’re running, but not really break a sweat. Cruise goes balls-out like he’s actually running a race.
You left out Screamers (1995), which is a pretty good adaptation of Dick’s story Second Variety. Ignore the stupid advertising campaign. Starring Peter Weller.
A lot of people think the “flash forward” scenes in the original The Terminator owe a lot to “Second Variety”, too. I have to agree with them.
This is (apparently) a complete list of all the stories and novels by Philip K. Dick made into movies or television shows so far:
The Future Is Ours, based on The World Jones made, will soon be released (although it’s not clear how far in production it is at the moment). The people making it come from many places around Latin America. Presumably the English-language translation of the series will be show on Netflix at some point:
Aside from the Scientology ick factor, some of the disdain for Cruise might stem from a few formulaic movies early in his career. Top Gun, Cocktail, Days of Thunder, Far and Away, The Color of Money, even All the Right Moves – confident young man suffers setback, often as a consequence of his own ego and actions, sees the light and perseveres to success at the end. In an old stand-up routine, Tom Arnold had a bit where he recently saw a Tom Cruise movie: “you know, the one where he plays a young cocky guy.”
But a lot of his work is really good. Loved him in Risky Business and in his hilarious supporting role in Tropic Thunder.
I just wacthed Foodfight!, which is best described as the animated movie equivalent quality-wise of the story “Eye Of Argon”.