| abstract | - %moved from the Broken Aesop page
* Why would they completely abandon a system that they stated at the start has resulted in their being NOT A SINGLE MURDER for their entire decades-long careers, just because of a single slight error that wouldnt even have prevented them from charging the guys in question?
* Precrime was (conceptually) invalidated because Setting Right What Once Went Wrong was invalidated. The existence of the minority report proves that either the Precogs are not infallible at predicting the future, or that there is more than one possible future, meaning that the foreseen events are not certain, therefore you don't have 100% evidence of a person's guilt. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that many people were caught in the act, nor the fact that if your stated desire is simply to prevent murder, especially murders of passion, rather than punishing murderers, then you don't actually have to arrest and imprison someone. Just show up with a warrant and inform both the perpetrator and victim of what has been foreseen. You're not denying life, liberty or property then.
* Also, remember 2 things about Precrime. First and foremost, the people who get arrested are locked up and put in a Lotus Eater Machine; no trial, no jury, no nothing. Even though they could easily have been charged with the crimes, presumably the scandal alone tainted the officers' witnessing the attempted murders.Second, the way the future works in Minority Report is presented as an inconsistent mix of Psychic Powers as future-foreseeing and Telepathy as mind-reading of intentions. That's how they were able to predict all of their murders; the reliable assumption that if you form the intent in your mind to kill someone, you will follow through with it and not have any last-second change of heart. The reason there were no murders at the start was because they were casting a wide net, grabbing EVERYONE who might possibly commit a murder without knowing for certain if the murder would have taken place had they not arrived. Without this certainty, precrime can't be sure of your eventual guilt and since they don't try you in a court of law, there's no jury or judge to weigh if you should be locked up because of a mere propensity to murder. Too bad they played fast and loose with the rules of how their psychics predict things because the film's events justified an overhaul of the program and there was still reason to keep all the arrestees imprisoned for attempted murder.
* Not true. The pre-cogs are just that, precognitive. Meaning, they see the future. They can only "read minds" to the extent that they can see what you're going to do and then work backwards to guesstimate when you had the thought that led to the action(s). So, they weren't grabbing everyone who "might possibly commit a murder" they were grabbing everyone who was guaranteed to commit a murder. It's only in a small amount of cases that the pre-cogs have some doubt about future events, and those doubts form the minority reports. Your point that they screwed themselves over by playing fast and loose with due process is quite right, though. If they had simply taken the people they caught and dragged them into court for a trial with the pre-cog visions as evidence there would never have been any reason to dismantle the whole program. (Aside from maybe some human rights concerns with the treatment of the pre-cogs, but I daresay most people would be cool with that if it dropped the murder rate to 0.)
* Good Lord, people, are you reading what you write? (scandalized exclamation put for emphasis in further point of view). First, when you use "attempted murder" with so much freedom, Lady Justice and Lady Liberty weep together in the corner; even "attempted murder" is hard to prove unless there is already blood in the hands of the perpetrator, and you want to put as a main evidence the declaration of an allegued vident with congenital problems that has been proven to be fallible? On that you propose to base what would be effectively a policial state? Unless you propose that Utopia Justifies the Means (wich was the motiff of the movie's villain) then the system is abhorrent, you can be arrested and condemned on the base of allegued intentions, sustained as a fact. They say during the rule of Vlad The Impaler people were very honest and straight too, but you don't want his judicial system... do you?
* Ok, maybe this was just me not paying attention, but I was wondering, how did Anderton get out of jail in order to confront Burgess at the party?
* His ex-wife broke him out.
* The Effectiveness of Pre Crime. Its been a while since I saw the movie fully and it might have been a deleted scene but I distinctly remember in a conversation regarding the relative ineffectiveness of precrime. Although the precogs were effective in preventing crimes that led to murder, they were unable to foretell "lesser" crimes such as robbery or rape due to the relatively lower level of passion by the criminal in the act compared to murder. Given that precrime advertises its effectiveness in stopping all forms of crime with a woman in a commercial telling how precrime prevented her from being raped, and the inability of the system itself to be implemented on a national level (the department would need to overload the precogs or get more for each state) why would Burgess want to nationalize precrime?
* Uh, no, the Pre Crime department did not advertise that it would stop all forms of precrime. It very specifically said it was targeting murders only and touted the statistic that since the inception of Pre Crime there had not been a single murder in Washington, DC. Quite an impressive statistic considering that DC was once the murder capital of the United States.
* Still, it would be impossible to implement the program on a national level without conducting additional human rights violations. Since neuorin had its impurities removed such that the pure form is now enjoyed even by "the intelligent upperclass," Burgress would need to forcefeed pregnant women with the impure form of the drug to produce more precogs or simply risk overloading the precogs, unlikely given the fact that the precogs as they are now are not able to sense crime beyond Washington which hints at a proximity limit to the precog's ability to sense crime. Human rights workers would be all over precrime for the existence of the minority reports if they are ever discovered, legality of the holdings unless the Supreme Court reinterprets attempted murder, and treatment of precogs.
* The Precogs may simply have been drugged to a limited radius. Adjust the medication a bit and there could be a corresponding range boost. What bugs me is Burgress's outlandish claim that national precrime would eliminate their need to use guns. As soon as criminals realized murder wasn't a viable option in robberies, they'd resort to painful extremity wounds.
* I think having three pre cogs to cover all murders in the nation would be incredibly inefficient. Considering that it takes several minutes for pre crime to scrub the image and the difficulty to find a location in just the district, it would be near impossible for them to prevent crimes in locations they have little familiarity with. On top of that, this is just dealign with the fairly modest number (not murder rate, which I am aware is high) of murders of DC, which happen every other day or two. Imagine the department inundated with the number of murders that occur in Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, all at the same time. I think making more pre cogs is a more effective plan.
* He makes no such "outlandish claim," he makes the idealistic remark that hopefully if Precrime succeeds, people won't have to use firearms. It's about as meaningful as someone saying they hope for world peace.
* This is kind of petty compared to some of this stuff, but why does the name of the murderer have to be engraved on a wooden ball that then rolls down a gumball machine tube? Especially in crimes of passion when seconds count, wouldn't it be better if it just popped up on a screen or something?
* I would say for bookkeeping reasons. When the first crime takes place, we see Anderton take both balls and put them on the machine. They could be recording devices to keep the visions stored to be accessed at a later date and legal systems like to keep hard copies of everything because there is the fear of losing information if it is only stored electronically.
* It's a way to ensure authenticity: A name popping up on a screen can be faked, but the unique design and grain of the wooden balls is probably a closely-guarded trade secret, or at least, not something that's available normally, particularly the engraving procedure.
* But why something as expensive as individually engraved wooden balls? Why not something like paper with a watermark?
* Because paper is a lot easier to alter, lose, or destroy than uniquely carved wooden balls. Remember, this is a system where it's mentioned it could be brought down entirely if one irregularity or mistake is made. They don't want to take any chances that someone could manipulate the system if they can avoid it.
* In the original novel they had cards, but laser-engraved wooden balls are about 20% cooler. It adds to drama and SYMBOLYSM!, when the "prophecy orb" is carved out before our very eyes and the words of Fate are literally burned into its surface. Also you cannot roll a card across the table for somebody to catch, when you want to illustrate how preventive actions are valid when you know the future.
* Among other things, stacks and stacks of symbolism. The wooden balls resemble eyes.
* One that just occurred to this troper: why did Precrime arrest Anderton near the end of the film? It's been established that their jurisdiction only encompasses future murders; the DCPD (who are established to still exist in the film's opening sequence) still has jurisdiction over regular crimes. At this point in the film, Anderton is already being held responsible for the deaths of both Leo Crow and Danny Witer. Surely he would hence fall under the DCPD's jurisdiction?
* They are responsible for regular crimes, but murder is now considered the responsibility of Pre-Crime full stop. That Anderton seemingly commited those crimes is irrelevant since he still falls under their jurisdiction, plus the Big Bad probably would have blocked any such opposition anyway since he doesn't want his own crimes revealed thanks to someone carrying out an actual police investigation. That, or it might simply be that Pre-Crime are taking him for now and their right to hold him is something that will be worked out at a later date.
* A variant on a philosophical issue: what exactly do they see three days ahead of time when it comes to premeditated crimes? Before the formation of intent, the causing action, or the death of the victim? If it's the middle one, then what if the person does/intends to do an action, like poisoning someone's water supply, that will result in the death of the victims days later? Do they see it in time for Precrime to stop the poisoning itself, or only in time to see some very sick people die slowly?
* They sense murder intent. A person eager to poison water supply already has it, since they know what they are doing and what will follow, moreover, they wish for it to happen. Therefore precogs should sense it before the poisoning itself takes place.
* But don't forget this quote: "The precogs don't see what you intend to do, only what you will do."
* A few related questions: can they see killing in self defense? If not in the normal case, what about what the law considers non-justifiable self-defense killing, as if it happens in the course of a (lesser) crime, like if an armed robber shoots a security guard who pulls a gun on him? Or other accidental but forseeable deaths, such as the one that may well have befallen's Anderton's son, such as if a kidnapper never intends to kill his victim, but ends up neglecting them into starvation?
* No they cannot. Killing in self-defence or neglecting lacks murder intent.
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