Minority Report --------------- half a rod on the bone-a-rama rating scale. This is no Blade-Runner Spielberg essentially does to Philip K. Dick's Minority Report what Verhoven did to Heinlein's Starship Troopers, i.e., made a scifi film that is not as good as the book and that lost the central cool elements and themes of the book. As you know from previous dronings, the cool aspects of Heinlein's Starship Troopers were the kickass powered body armor and the father/son serving together in space battle. The central cool aspect of Dick's Minority Report is what one person is willing to sacrifice to maintain a power system. Spielberg essentially cops out of this solid theme, changing the focus of the story to two unnecessary and lamer subplots. One subplot is an action/drama centered around Tom Cruise where he struggles with the death of his son. The other subplot is a mystery involving the murder of a woman. These subplots are nowhere in the book and are boring and have been done before. They are pretty much a cop-out to exploring the more worthy theme. Maybe Hollywood isn't ready for an ending where a man sacrifices himself to save a faulty power system which his ego is tied to. The subplots of the film are not only lame, but are resolved in lame ways. The mystery subplot resolution involves the suicide of Director Burgess which is the lamest cop-out possible, shifting "final resolution" to the even lamer subplot of Anderton and his dead son. This is resolved by Anderton getting back together with his wife and re-impregnating her which I gotta say is utterly nauseating Hollywood tripe. interesting points: -the factory chase sequence eerily resembles the one in Attack of the Clones and is an equal waste of space/time. There is also a scene where Anderton is jumping from car to car in mid-air, even though none of the cars are airborn and he brandishes no light saber. -in order to drive the action aspect, the timeline of the precogs visions vs. reality is minutes in the film versus weeks in the book. This is good. Also, the older Anderton character in the book is divided into several roles so that the focus of the film can be on the younger Cruise, which seems rather unnecessary to me, but I guess they figure that will sell tickets and more copies of the PS2 game. -in the book, the precogs are hideously-mutated hydrocephs, not hot babes in sheer gear. In the book, the precog chamber is referred to as "the monkey house" (it is "the temple" in the film) good points: -some groovy auxiliary scifi stuff (the Cyber Parlor; the black market eyeball replacement to avoid retina scan identification) -maintains much of the darkness and some (but not all) of the paranoia that is the beauty of Dick. In the film, Anderton drowns his sorrow and guilt wallowing in holodiscs of the past and some type of whiff drug available for purchase only on the seedy side of town. This is good. The true beauty of Dick is the machinations upon machinations, the deeply analytical, paranoid, dark side (with nifty gadgets!) as he gets into the minds of the characters, exploring minutely their motivations and hangups. We need more of this and less of the hollywood rehash -the film does explore the interesting philosophical, moral, and scifi aspects of prophylactic pre-crime, catching and quarantining criminals before they commit crimes -in the book, pre-criminals are sent to detention camps; in the film, they are stored in some type of body tube vault, which is a nice scifi touch -the best character in the film is Witwer, played by Colin Farrell. There is more character development on him in the film than in the book and it is good stuff bad points: -names of victims are etched out on wooden balls that roll down a chute (?). please, this is silly. Is this supposed to resemble the ping-pong ball lotto draw? In the book, they were printed out on cards which makes more sense. Having them appear on a screen makes even more sense, given the whole concept of scifi and MODERN TECHNOLOGY -in the film, Anderton's retina-scan access still works (twice) even though he has been shit-canned from world-crime-com and is on the lam for being a pre-identified criminal -how long do eyeballs stay fresh (out of the skull)? -the exploration of advance knowledge is utterly missed in the film. The whole concept that there are alternate future paths that are most likely (majority report) and less likely (minority report) is explored in the film, but the fact that knowing the alternate future paths breaks the continuum and starts a set of new future paths is not touched upon. Knowing the alternate future paths allows you to analyze the situation from the outside and make choices, thereby constructing numerous new future paths. This is a central fascinating theme of the book. The only difference between Anderton and people put away by the pre-crime unit is that Anderton was informed about his future paths. Would the people put away by pre-crime have altered their path and committed no crimes having been informed that they were at risk of committing a crime? Possibly. Is Anderton willing to see the pre-crime unit that he created dismantled because of this revelation, or would he be willing to sacrifice himself to maintain the status quo? Now this is an interesting plot found in the book, but nowhere in the film. viewing parameters: -hard-core scifi geeks and/or Spielberg goons should check it out on the big screen