Singing Cereal Boxes and Other Nonsensical Things

Plot


In regards to the plot of Minority Report, the similarities are virtually nonexistent.  While in both the film and short story, Mr. Anderton seeks to find his "minority report", their results differ greatly.  In the short story, Ed Anderton finds his minority report and then tries and fails to live out the reality illustrated in said report.  The movie takes a completely different route; John Anderton seeks guidance from Agatha, one of the precogs, only to find that he has no minority report and he is destined to kill Leo Crow, a man he has never met.  He then continues to steal Agatha and find Crow to find out why he is destined to kill him.  Once there, Agatha explains how he has a choice of whether or not to commit the murder and he does not follow through with it, the complete opposite of what occurs in the short story.  Throughout the story story, Anderton's soul purpose is to keep Precrime in existence; he is even driven to murder and banishment so the potentially flawed system can stay in use.  In the film, Anderton realizes how Precrime can possibly arrest potentially innocent people for crimes they may not have actually committed because everyone has a choice of whether to follow through with what they intend to do or not.  At the end of the story, the Precogs go and live normal lives in seclusion and the Precrime system is abolished.

Point of View


The point of view exercised in the film version of this story was similar to that of the book, but considering that a movie does not describe the actions and interactions of characters and rather just shows them, a comparison is difficult to be made.  As in the short story, most of the movie is spent following Anderton and his interactions with others.  The audience knows everything about him and his thoughts are described through his interactions with his environment when he is alone.  A slight deviation from the story of John Anderton is made when a subplot about a man, Lamar Burgess, who has figured out how to get away with murder without getting caught is snuck into the story.  The reason for this subplot was to explain another flaw in the Precrime system.  The flaw deals with echoes, an alleged reoccurrence of a vision of a murder.  Burgess learned that if he created a murder to look like a murder of the past, the technicians of the Precrime agency would merely pass it off as an echo.

 

Characterization

Just as in the short story, indirect characterization was used to describe the characters.  Anderton is described through is actions, reactions, and interactions with others and himself.  Although he can be pretty well characterized through his interactions with others, the audience truly gets to know him through his inner struggle with himself and all of the other problems that he is dealing with in his life.  Furthermore, it is through indirect characterization that the audience has to figure out for themselves who the good guys and bad guys really are.  I believe this to be the case in most films.  If there were to be a narrator that tells the audience how and what each character feels at every moment, the thrill, question, and excitement would be taken away and you would simply be left with some sort of weird sci-fi documentary.

Setting

Both the short story and the book were set in the future.  In the short story, a time or year is not given, only the fact that the story takes places some time in the future.  The movie; however, specifies that the events taking place are in the relatively near future, in the year 2054.  A minor difference in setting is where the actual Precrime initiative is located.  In the short story, Precrime is located in New York, while  in the movie it is located in Washington D.C.  This minute change in setting has no impact on the story because the setting plays no role.  In the future, the cities are unrecognizable and have changed immensely from what they are today.

Theme


The theme for the movie is similar to the book in the fact that it is about fate and deception.  Although these two themes are expressed in very different ways than in the short story, they are still present.  Anderton is continually on the fight to to stop his fate, as predicted by the Precogs, from happening.  He seeks out his minority report and finds that it does not exist, but that does no stop him.  He seeks out the man he is supposed, Leo Crow, to kill to try to better understand why he will kill him and to try to fight his fate.  In the end, he does not kill Crow, Crow kills himself, because Agatha tell Anderton that he can chose his fate.  Deception is also evident through the lies of Lamar Burgess.  He used the Precog system to cover up his own murders and trick others into thinking that Anderton was the culprit.

Take Me To... (Dun Dun Dun) THE MONKEY BLOCK (Gasp!)

Plot

"The Minority Report", a short story by Philip K. Dick, encapsulates a very rare breed plot development.  The reader is immediately immersed into the action as the story begins with the founder of Precrime conversing with an agent about what his life's work is all about and how his unique system is run (p. 119-123).  This information serves as a basis for what the reader understands about the main characters and the Precrime system in general.  As the story continues, Dick does a phenomenal job of keeping the reader guessing.  Many times I found myself questioning who the good guys and bad guys really were.  A sort of tug-of-war takes place in which the reader never knows who to trust or who to side with.  Overall, the story has a very engaging plot that keeps the reader engaged and always guessing.

Point of View

This literary work is written in the third person omniscient in which the story is told from an all-knowing outside source that can not only interpret the words and actions of the characters, but their internal thoughts and feelings as well.  The use of this narrative mode helps the reader to fully understand what the characters are truly thinking.  In the opening line of the short narrative, the thoughts of the main character, Ed Anderton, are referenced to express his thoughts on his aging condition. He says, "I'm getting bald.  Bald and fat and old" (p. 119).  This internal information helps to paint a better picture of not only the physical attributes of Anderton, but also his mental stability and rationalization of the need to find a replacement.  The ability to comprehend the thoughts of the character throughout the work allowed the author, Philip K. Dick, to fully explain and get his point across in a relatively short time span and word count.  The use of the third person omniscient point of view was an instrumental part to the delivery of the short story.

Characterization

Indirect characterization is riddled throughout the entirety of the short story.  Dick never came out and told the reader that a character was bad or that they were out to get another character.  This fact made "The Minority Report" everything that is boasted to be.  The use of indirect characterization gave the literary work a sense of mystery and essentially fueled the story.  If the reader were to know, right off the bat, who was bad, who was good, and what every character truly intended to do, there would not be a story, but rather just a retelling of events.  The reader has to concoct their own views and opinions on what kind of person each character appeared to be, creating a sort of "who done it?" atmosphere.  A prime example of this uncertainty of actual characterization came to me when Tod Flemming, a man I thought to be on Ed Anderton side the entire time, ended up being a spy who was trying to control the Andertons (p. 141).

Setting

The setting of the short literary work plays a very vital role the legitimacy of the story.  "The Minority Report" is set in the future where space ships (p. 137-141), travel to extraterrestrial planets (p. 149-151), and the ability to predict crimes before they happen are all a reality (p. 120-122).  This future reality allows the reader to consider the possibility that the use of Precrime could actually one day exist.  Personally, stepping into the future is one of my favorite settings because virtually anything is impossible.  This fact allows for limitless creativity on the author's part and boundless extents for one's imagination.  In the end, the futuristic setting allows the reader to expect the unexpected and the author to run free with creativity.

Theme

The major theme expressed in the literary work are fate and deception.  In the first section of the story, Anderton receives his fate to murder a man that he had never even met (p. 122-123).  He then continues, throughout the story, to try to prevent his fate from occurring.  In the end, he finds out that the very act he was trying to keep himself from doing must be done to preserve the validity of the the Precrime Initiative.  Deception is also a prominent theme in the story.  Anderton is deceived by numerous people including Kaplan, the man he was fated to kill.  Kaplan played Anderton to make him seem innocent and  as if he was only trying to protect himself from his future murder but he; however, had much bigger plans.  Kaplan's real intent was to bring down the Precrime movement and deny it's validity, but as he attempted to disprove the system, he completed the exact opposite as Anderton murdered him in the presence hundreds of people (p. 149).