Minority Report
Director: Steven Spielberg
Released: 2002
Genre: Sc-Fi, Action, Thriller
Synopsis
 Set in the Washington in the year 2054
 Precrime, a specialist police department apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge
provided by three psychics called precogs.
Characters
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Chief John Anderton
Lamar Burgess – Director of Precrime
Danny Witwer
Agatha
Arthur
Precogs
Dasha
Lara
Leo Crow
Iris Hineman
Plot
 In 2054, John Anderton is a member of an experimental police force known as
Precrime.
 Precrime uses future visions generated by three ‘precogs’ – mutated humans with
precognition abilities – to stop murders.
 Visions from the ‘precogs’ minds are displayed on a screen for Anderton and the
Precrime team to view.
 The precogs are able to provide the names of the victims and perpetrators and the time
of the murders.
 The precogs do not provide the location or any other information and so Anderton and
his team must find this information by sorting through the jumble of images provided
by the precogs.
 The film opens with Anderton successfully stopping a man from murdering his wife.
 As a result of Precrime, murders are rarely premeditated.
 Majority of murders and now crimes of passion that are decided on the spot.
 As a result of Precrime, Washington. D. C has essentially being murder free for six
years.
 Although Anderton is the chief of the force he has been addicted to an illegal drug
since the disappearance of his young son, Sean.
 Anderton’s wife has also left him and he lives alone
 The country is about to vote for whether Precrime should be launched nationally.
 Danny Witwer, an agent from the United States Department of Justice has been sent
to observe and evaluate the program.
 Witwer is doubtful of the legality of the system, pointing out that stopping future
crimes changes the future and creates a paradox.
 Whilst in ‘The Temple’ where the three precogs are kept, Agatha grabs Anderton and
asks: ‘Do you see?’
 She shows him a murder of Anne Lively, but the records on this are incomplete – a vision
is missing.
 During Witwer’s evaluation, the precogs predict that Anderton will murder a man named
Leo Crow in 36 hours.
 Anderton knows he has to run as he has no defence – the precogs are ‘never wrong’.
 Anderton goes to Iris Hineman who helped design Precrime technology.
 She tells Anderton that the precogs are what is left of a group of children from drug
addicted parents.
 Hineman tells Anderton that the Precogs sometimes see different versions of the
future.
 She tells Anderton that the system only provided information on the reports that agree
and a ‘minority report’ is hidden within the precog that showed it – Agatha.
 Anderton knows he must go back to Precrime and find his minority report in Agatha’s
mind.
 He has his eyes removed and new ones implanted to avoid iris recognition scanners,
keeping his original eyes so that he can enter Precrime.
 Anderton kidnaps Agatha and takes her to a hacker in an attempt to retrieve an
alternative vision of his future and so prove his innocence.
 However, there is no minority report for Anderton.
 Whilst running from the Precrime team, Agatha and Anderton end up finding the
building where Crow is staying.
 When in Crow’s room, Anderton sees a large number of photos of children spread across
the bed, including a photo of his son Sean.
 Anderton manages not to shoot Crow and arrests him for the abduction and murder of
his son.
 Crow admits that his family was going to be paid a lot of money if he agreed to pretend
that he abducted Sean and allowed Anderton to kill him.
 Realising that Anderton will not kill him, Crow grabs Anderton’s hand making him fire at
point blank range – unlike the vision seen by the precogs.
 Witwer realises that Anderton did not kill in cold blood and approaches Lamar Burgess.
 Witwer has realised that there are significant differences in the visions of Anne
Lively’s murder.
 Witwer explains to Burgess that someone influential in Precrime has used the existence
of echoes (repeating visions of murders already prevented) to commit murder.
 Burgess kills Witwer with Anderton’s gun.
 Because Agatha is with Anderton, the murder is not predicted – Burgess can accuse
Anderton.
 Anderton goes to his wife, Lara to find sanctuary.
 Whilst there he realises it his knowledge of the Anne Lively murder which is causing him
to be targeted.
 Lively was Agatha’s mother and she disappeared after making an attempt to get her
child back – even though an attempted murder was prevented.
 Precrime catch Anderton and restore Agatha back into the system.
 Burgess attempts to comfort Lara, but accidentally reveals details of the murder that
Lara had not talked to him about.
 At a banquet to celebrate Burgess and the success of Precrime, Anderton plays
Agatha’s vision of Anne Lively’s murder – showing Burgess as the perpetrator.
 Burgess knew he could manipulate the Precrime system – committing an actual murder in
exactly the same way as one which was prevented.
 The vision of this murder would be picked up as an echo and not an actual murder and
would therefore remain undetected.
 When Anderton confronts Burgess, he presents him with a no win situation: if Burgess
kills Anderton, he proves the system works but he will be incarcerated, if he does not,
then the system will not have worked and Precrime will be over.
 This is the fundamental flaw in the system: if one knows about his or her future, they
can change it.
 Burgess, in the end, chooses neither and kills himself.
 Precrime is shut down.
 Those convicted are pardoned – though watched carefully for many years to come.
 The three precogs are given the chance to lead a normal life, far away from anyone who
would give them visions.
Glossary
Department of Containment – where caught perpetrators are haloed and kept
Determinism – the idea that our actions are already decided: by fate, God or as a result of
everything that is gone before
Echo – a vision of a murder which has already happened/been prevented
Eye recognition – technology which uses the individual patterns of the eye to identify a
person
Flashback – seeing a moment/episode from the past as if reliving it again
Foreknowledge – knowing what will happen before it occurs
Free will – the idea that we are in control of our own destiny and can choose the path we
take
Halo – technology used to disable perpetrators and allow them to be stored
Mutant – a being or plant which has been altered to function in a new/different way
Paradox – in this sense, seeing the future and acting on it, changes the future – therefore
the vision of the future is no longer correct.
Perpetrators – those seen to commit the murder
Propaganda – organised information about ideas/policy trying to convince people to accept
and believe
Precrime – the police unit that finds and arrest those seen to commit murder
Precogs – the three mutated humans who can predict murders
Spiders – Artificially intelligent robots sent to find perpetrators using eye recognition
technology
Temple – the area where the precogs are housed so that their visions can be used.
Thermal Scan – using heat to identify the number of beings in an area
The Sprawl – poor area of the city
Victims – those who will be murdered