Okay, there are certain matters in this movie about which I am uncertain. First of all, in the opening scene, were both the wife and her lover killed, or just the wife? Also, who was stabbed first, if both were killed? I was under the impression that he stabbed the wife, but some people who saw the movie with me disagree. Also, what was Agatha talking about when she began to, seemingly, go through Anderton’s son’s life up to his twenties? Was she simply talking about what would have happened or something else entirely. For the time being, I can only come up with one more question: who abducted Anderton’s son? Is this issue ever cleared up, or is it left a mystery? Excuse my incompetence in determining such matters while watching the movie.
I think both were killed. The lover was thrown into the tub where he stabbed (but didn’t die instantly), and the husband then went back to stab the wife while the lover watched on as he died. I’m not sure, but if you remember the victim “ball” (I don’t remember), you’ll have the answer. I think Agatha was just saying a “what if” scenario. I also think that they never told who abducted Anderton’s son.
I just read the other Minority Report thread here and a more likely possibility about what Agatha was talking about was suggested, that she was talking about the future of their new son. (I wonder if they were pissed that they knew the gender beforehand?)
I remember the victim ball at the opening of the movie having two names on it.
My take on the opening scene was that the husband puts on his glasses with the scissors in his hand, the immediately stabs the wife. You’ll remember that Anderton runs into the bedroom and tackles the husband just as he lunges down with the scissors, pushing that hand out of the window, and the wife is on that side of the bed. Then he chases, er, would have chased, the lover into the bathroom, and kills him in the bathtub.
I assume that Agatha was making her predictions about the potential future of the son that was abducted. In the video that Anderton watched, he and his son were talking about how the boy could learn to run faster. Agatha’s predictions had a lot to do with the son being a runner, football or something, and that links the two up. Why she was torturing them with the details of what their son could have become, I can’t imagine.
It was pretty clear to me that she was talking about the life their son would have had. Because before she goes off on this, she says something like… “I have been told that the dead don’t die, but they live on, just on another level.” And at that point, started telling them about how their son still lived on…
I just saw the movie last night. It was great.
I think that Agatha was telling them what theres sons life would be like if he hadn’t been taken.
I think the wife was stabbed first, then he went after her “mister” (male equilvent of mistress:D, wait is it really?) He kills him in the bathtub watches him die and goes back to finish off his wife.
I’ve got my own question, if I may. Why did the director guy kill Agatha’s mother in the first place? I didn’t catch that part. AS far as I can tell it was to keep her from finding out she was a precog. It hardly seems like a reason to murder her…
Wearia
No, it was because the mother was going to fight to get Agatha back. With no mother around, Agatha was a ward of the state. So she could be in the precog program. With a mother around, the mother would have rights to pull her out.
In the opening precog scene, I don’t think it’s entirely clear the order in which the two victims were killed. I had the impression that the precogs did not necessarily “see” events in a linear fashion but rather as a patchwork of images. The Precrime Officers then examine these and try to piece these images together in some sensible fashion, but when they do this, they are more concerned with identifying the perpetrator and finding the location. I guess you’d have to watch the precog “playbacks” which Anderton reviews very carefully to piece together how the murders “woulda” happened.
Hmmm… and since precogs don’t always see things linearly, I wonder if Ian Fan has a point. Agatha started off talking about the life their abducted son would have had – with clear references to his love of running, which we knew – but perhaps she segues, without realizing it, into foreseeing the life of their second child. Just a thought.
The question of who abducted the Andertons’s son is never answered. For a few minutes we think it is, that’s all.
Although I thought the humor was overplayed in spots, I enjoyed the movie. It was like a Greek tragedy that spills over its own bounds.
The movie was great, but there’s another question I’ve been trying to figure out. They mention at one point that there’s a difference between premeditated murders, which the precogs can predict far in advance, and crimes of passion, for which they only have a few minutes warning. It seems to me that Anderton’s crime, if he had actually committed it, should never have been predicted as far in advance as it was. He wasn’t planning to kill anyone, and didn’t even know who the victim was (or was supposed to be) until he got to his room. And it was his rage at that moment that almost drove him to kill, just like the crime of passion at the beginning.
They were predicting th pre-meditation of the old guy I think. That the old guy had planned it out from the beginning, ending with Anderton killing him. So, it was premeditated from the perspective of the old guy, but not from the perspective of Anderton. That’s why they were able to see it.
It was because Ray Manzarek saw himself as the spearhead of the group! That’s why the Brazilian magnate took the bait just as the rainbow bass was lunging for it. The photo for the Morrison Hotel was taken under questionable conditions, like the rest of our lives.
How could the precog’s see Anderton killing the guy when it was only their vision of the future that led Anderton to him?
More questions…
- Since the pre-cogs produce those balls with the names of the victim and the murderer, how can the would-be killer of Agatha’s mother be a “John Doe”?
- Since John Doe and Director Burgess were both planning to kill Agatha’s mother, shouldn’t a second set of balls naming Burgess as the killer have been produced?
- Since the pre-cogs apparently only cover Washington DC, whouldn’t it have been a lot easier for Burgess to kill Agatha’s mother by finding some pretext to get her out of town and have a hired killer murder her there?
- When the Pre-Crime officers arrive to arrest Anderton at his wife’s house, why doesn’t Anderton point out that he didn’t commit either murder and that he has a witness (namely Agatha) who can back up his story?
1/2) The ball would have presumably come up with the hired thug. The “echoes” would have been dismissed beforet he balls were made.
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Dunno. My guess is that people are more likely to tell neighbors/friends where they’re going when they go out of town than when they go down to the lake.
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Eh, there are a lot of issues surrounding this one. I’ll let someone else take it.
#4 - they wouldn’t believe Agatha. The caretaker said the precogs can’t even perceive the outside world, and dismissed her interactions with Anderton as coincidence. In other words, anything she said outside the temple would be, in the caretaker’s mind, a distorted perception of reality . . . and I’m sure he’d be willing to testify in court to that effect (assuming they still use courts in that time).
As for why the balls predicted Anderton’s crime so far in advance was that is was a setup. I wouldn’t say the black ball was a clue, really, but don’t forget that the setup was extremely well thought out. They had the orgy of evidence, doctored pictures featuring dozens of children, and a guy who was willing to die to make it work. It’s not that far a leap of faith to believe that after all that preparation, there would have been something in place to draw Anderton to the crimescene. Once that final piece was set up, the precogs could see the murder happening, and Anderton’s closeness to precrime just got him there even faster.
Or, more to the point, Agatha’s physical proximity to the crime scene amplified the event for her. I suppose the precogs have a clairvoyant sense of many future events, but that only murders resonate with them, because of the horror. Therefore, because of the amplified horror, Agatha was able to envision Anderton’s shooting before the thought ever occurred to him.
The precogs also apparently have an awareness of alternate timelines, as Agatha’s “son in college” speech seems to indicate. After all, they’re fairly certain about the shape of certain events – which the Pre-Cops then change. This creates an entirely new timeline in which, for example, the victim could potentially be the target of another murder (as happened to Ann Lively).
One other thing: I can buy that the USA of 2054 would allow national referenda – but how exactly did they plan on implementing the National Pre-Crime Initiative? So far as we could tell, only the three precogs were available, and their awareness seemed limited to the DC area.
The biggest plot gripe is the notion that <<SPOILER>> at the end, the public would be willing to give up the benefits of the Pre-Crime program. Post 9-11, I hardly think that a few civil rights ambiguities (or metaphysical ambiguities) would put the kibosh on a program with a 100% success rate.
When the murder of Leo Crow was predicted, the ball naming Anderton as the murderer didn’t come out until several minutes later, after the validation procedures had already begun. Given that, and the footage we saw of Ann Lively’s death (with the murderer’s back to us), I wouldn’t think it at all impossible that sometimes the murderer’s name is never given.
OK, here’s what I don’t get:
That back-alley eye dealer seemed reaallly pissed at Anderton, and seemed to hint that some come-uppance was in order. Did he actually do anything to Anderton that made up for years of sodomy? Seems like all he did was help him out. Was it different in the short story, maybe?
I was wondering about the eye doctor too. Only thing I can think of is that he decided, hey, business is business.
Or maybe he decided that, should he ever get caught doing illegal stuff again, Atherton would…wait for it…turn a blind eye. 