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I just saw Minority Report for the first time, and I have two gripes with the main plot, I don't see how they could work. I'm posting it on Off-Topic but I'm not sure if it should go in Other Sci-Fi or what.

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***** SPOILER ALERT *****

First: Ok, here's the thing. The whole thing was a setup. Some evil man gives a phony kid molester some fake pictures, and automatically the three precogs show a vision of the main guy killing the phony kid killer. How can this work at all? I mean, the only reason the main guy kills the other guy is because of the vision... how can this work? Ok, it might be an interesting paradox if it just sort of naturally occured, but the evil man is actually counting on this?!

How about this alternate version: old man gives some random guy fake pictures. Since the protagonist has no way of knowing this, he doesn't kill the guy. Since he doesn't kill the guy, there's no vision. At all. Old man wonders what went wrong (duh).

Second: there are three wonderboys who are precogs and can see murders in the immediate area (state?). One of them is irreplaceable and the program can't possibly work without her. How the hell is this program supposed to go national?

Other than that, it's a fine movie and the effects are very cool. Any opinions?

I dont think the program was supposed to go national. I dont remember that in the film. The 3 pre-cogs just worked in the Washingtion DC metro area.

I enjoyed the film, it was worth the money. For some reason the only thing that really bothered my was the genetically engineered plants. That did not seem too realistic. Not for plants to be that animated anyway.

Slartibartfast wrote:
Other than that, it's a fine movie and the effects are very cool. Any opinions?

I couldn't believe Anderson could get in to the precogs after precrime were already looking for him. You'd think using his eyes to get in the building would have set off an alarm somewhere.

TrailerParkJawa wrote:I dont think the program was supposed to go national. I dont remember that in the film. The 3 pre-cogs just worked in the Washingtion DC metro area.

The whole movie revolved around PreCrime going national.

CmdrSweevo wrote:

Slartibartfast wrote:
Other than that, it's a fine movie and the effects are very cool. Any opinions?

I couldn't believe Anderson could get in to the precogs after precrime were already looking for him. You'd think using his eyes to get in the building would have set off an alarm somewhere.

Yeah I thought that too... guess that there isn't an alarm in the backdoor to the precogs

Well, it's rather obvious that when PreCrime goes national, they'll just make more precogs.

Further, maybe a techie just didn't think of wiring in an alarm that reacts to Anderson's eyes. Why would you? He's only been a fugitive for 20 or so hours, and everyone is posistive that he will be caught. The system never failed before.

IIRC, these 3 precogs came from drug-using parents. It seems that neurotin affects your brain, enabling ur offspring to see into the future. Hallunications of the future has been observed in children of drug-users, but no one's taken the time to see if they were premonitions.

Slartibartfast wrote:

TrailerParkJawa wrote:I dont think the program was supposed to go national. I dont remember that in the film. The 3 pre-cogs just worked in the Washingtion DC metro area.

The whole movie revolved around PreCrime going national.

Maybe once the trinity is set up there is always a leader. The stronger one. Who also becomes irreplaceable. In this case it was Agatha.

Of course that's just a guess.

HemlockGrey wrote:Well, it's rather obvious that when PreCrime goes national, they'll just make more precogs.

Further, maybe a techie just didn't think of wiring in an alarm that reacts to Anderson's eyes. Why would you? He's only been a fugitive for 20 or so hours, and everyone is posistive that he will be caught. The system never failed before.

It just seems a most basic thing to do. Maybe not wire up an alarm, but at least suspend his security clearance.

Of course the absolute last place you expect a fugitive to go is the police station, particularly when there should have been no way for him to get anywhere near the place without a retinal scanner letting you know beforehand.

First: Ok, here's the thing. The whole thing was a setup. Some evil man gives a phony kid molester some fake pictures, and automatically the three precogs show a vision of the main guy killing the phony kid killer. How can this work at all? I mean, the only reason the main guy kills the other guy is because of the vision... how can this work? Ok, it might be an interesting paradox if it just sort of naturally occured, but the evil man is actually counting on this?!

How about this alternate version: old man gives some random guy fake pictures. Since the protagonist has no way of knowing this, he doesn't kill the guy. Since he doesn't kill the guy, there's no vision. At all. Old man wonders what went wrong (duh).

He set up a set of circumstances he knew would drive John to murder and used the system again just like he did with Agatha's mother. It should have worked by all rights the problem was that what he didn't know is that once someone knows their future they have the option of changing it, the precog's vision only remains certain as long as the criminal doesn't know he's going to commit the crime.