Minority Report

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The Minority Report is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick first published in 1956. It is about a future society where murders are prevented through the efforts of "precogs," three mutants who can see the future. It was made into a popular film in 2002.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Precrime 2.1 How the system works 2.2 A minority report 3 Other media 4 Differences between short story and film 5 Text of Minority Report 6 References

[edit] Overview

The story looks at the paradoxes and alternate realities that are created by their precognition when the chief of police intercepts a prediction that he is about to murder a man he has never heard of. It also touches on the danger of a powerful post-war military during peacetime, the main theme not revisited by the film (see below).

Like many stories dealing with knowledge of future events, "The Minority Report" raises the question of the existence of free will.

[edit] Precrime

Founded thirty years prior to the story, Precrime is a system that has replaced the previous system of discovering a crime and its perpetrator after it had been committed (with punishment given as a penalty for such action), with imprisonment before the crime takes place to prevent it happening. As one character says in the introduction to the story, "punishment was never much of a deterrent and could scarcely have afforded comfort to a victim already dead". It is specified that Precrime deals solely with cases of murder.

[edit] How the system works

The system of predicting the future in reports is carried out by three mutants, called 'precogs', all of whom have the capacity to see up to two weeks into the future. Precogs are created by identifying the talent within a "subject" and cultivating it in a government-operated training school — for example, one precog was initially diagnosed as "a hydrocephalic idiot" but the precog talent was found under layers of damaged brain tissue. The precogs sit in a room which is perpetually in half-darkness, constantly talking nonsense to themselves that is incoherent until it is analysed by a computer into predictions of the future. This information is assembled by the computer into the form of symbols before being transcribed onto conventional punchcards which are ejected into various coded slots; when cards are produced, they appear simultaneously at Precrime and the Army GHQ, in order to prevent corruption. The precogs are kept in rigid position by metal bands, clamps and wiring, which keep them attached to special high-backed chairs. Their physical needs are taken care of automatically and it is said that they have no spiritual needs. Their physical appearance is somewhat different from that of ordinary humans, with enlarged heads and wasted bodies. Precogs are deformed and retarded... the talent absorbs everything; the esp-lobe shrivels the balance of the frontal area. They do not understand their predictions. Most of the data produced is useless in preventing murders and is then passed on to other agencies.

[edit] A minority report

The system of three precogs finds its genesis in the computers of the middle decades of the 21st Century. The results of a computer are checked by feeding the data to a second computer of identical design but two computers are not sufficient. If each computer arrived at a different answer it is impossible to tell a priori which is correct. The solution, based on a careful study of statistical method, is to utilize a third computer to check the results of the first two. In this manner, a so-called majority report is obtained. It can be assumed that the agreement of two out of three computers indicates which of the alternative results is accurate — it would not be likely that two computers would arrive at identically incorrect solutions. It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future.

[edit] Other media

A film, Minority Report (2002), starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg, was loosely adapted from the initial storyline of this short story. Although considering the sparse nature of short stories the expansion of the story is unavoidable, the film remains faithful to several themes of the short story and was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2002. Critic Roger Ebert hailed it as "a masterpiece" and the best film of the year. Many other leading critics included it on their lists of 2002's best films. Spielberg assembled a "think tank" of science and technology experts to create as realistic as possible a look at the future and emulated the tone of the classic John Huston film noir thrillers of the 1950s and 1960s, down to the rogues gallery of morally ambiguous supporting characters, portrayed by the likes of Colin Farrell and Max Von Sydow. "Minority Report" is frequently identified as Spielberg's most dark and adult "popcorn" film.

A video game, Minority Report: Everybody Runs, published in 2002 by Activision, was based on the film.

[edit] Differences between short story and film

• The story is in New York City, the film in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Northern Virginia.
• Pre-Crime is a government branch in the story and a Police department in the movie.
• In the story, John Anderton was a 50-year old balding, out-of-shape police officer who created Pre-Crime, while in the movie Anderton is in his 40s, has hair and is athletic, and joined Pre-Crime after his son's kidnapping.
• The original Anderton is older than his wife Lisa, while the adaptation Anderton has the same age of Lara, who divorced him for his drug addiction.
• The precogs were originally named Mike, Donna, and Jerry, and were deformed, retarded and despised, having their babbling translated into future crimes' descriptions. In the adaptation, they are called Agatha, Dashiell and Arthur, sons of drug addicts whose mutations led them to dream of future murders, which are captured by machines. They are "divinized" by the Pre-Crime officers, and have some intelligence (Agatha guides Anderton successfully through the streets and in the end of the movie, go to a distant cottage where they read all the time).
• In the story, Anderton exchanges his identity with a new ID and documents; in the movie, Anderton has to go through an eye transplant for the same.
• In the story, Anderton's future victim is a general Leopold Kaplan, who wants to descredit Pre-Crime in order to get more military financing back. John ends up killing him to prevent his uphold. In the movie, Anderton is supposed to kill Leo Crow, that was hired to be murdered and show that the system never fails (and also prevent Anderton from discovering a murder his superior committed years ago). After Anderton refuses to kill Crow, Crow shoots himself with a gun Anderton was holding on him in an arresting attempt.
• In the story, Anderton goes after the precogs to hear their "minority reports". In the movie, Anderton kidnaps a precog in order to discover his "minority report" and extract the information for a mysterious crime.
• The story ends with Anderton and Lisa moving to a space colony after Kaplan's murder. The movie finishes with the couple reunited after the conspiracy's resolution, expecting their second son.^[1][2][3]

[edit] Text of Minority Report

• Philip K. Dick: Minority Report (Gollancz: London, 2002) (ISBN 1-85798-738-1 or ISBN 0-575-07478-7) (contains nine short stories by Dick, including most of those that were adapted into films.) (Also released in audio book form ISBN 0-06-009526-1 containing only five stories, read by Keir Dullea.)

[edit] References

1. ^ The Duck Speaks: Minority Report. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
2. ^ Comparison Paper on Minority Report: "From Story to Screen". Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
3. ^ Landrith, James (2004-04-12). The Minority Report: In Print and On Screen. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.