Minority Report by Philip K. Dick

[Critterbee❇]

Minority Report by Philip K. Dick ★★★★
Play Book Tag July 2018 Tag

In this dystopian future, violent crimes are prevented by exploiting three prophetic savants and comparing their predictions. It seems not to be an issue that three humans are basically strapped into place, connected to machines, with their brains' every thought scanned and analyzed. There is a little reference to training or molding the 'precogs' so that they are able to predict violence accurately. Although what that preparation entails is unexplained, it has grown in my imagination in disturbing detail.

The creator and leader of this unit of the police is suddenly implicated by the precogs, and takes matters into his own hands to try to figure out who has framed him and how.

There is little to no discussion about using the predictions to prevent the crimes by notifying the future criminals and trying to prevent the violence in ways other than simply incarcerating them permanently.

The story is short and moves quickly, with just enough of a skeleton of backstory for the plot to make sense. Written well, better than most, and holds up fairly well for being written over 60 years ago.

[Jason]

Saw the movie with Tom Cruise. Think that might ruin the book. The twist is gone. But I enjoyed the movie.

[Critterbee❇]

I have not seen the movie, but I have read that it is very different from the book. The twist might still be the same, though!

[Jason]

Not sure. When I'm at a computer I will add a spoiler and you tell me if it's right.

[Jason]

❇Critterbee wrote: "I have not seen the movie, but I have read that it is very different from the book. The twist might still be the same, though!"

(view spoiler)[So Tom Cruise, the main character is the top agent and he is the one on the run because it shows him committing a murder. The head, like chief of the police is the bad guy. He killed on the savants mother who had come back and was trying to get custody of her. How different is the book. (hide spoiler)]

[Cheryl]

I wish I hadn't seen the movie first... but I didn't even know it was a story at the time. I forget both versions now... maybe I should reread the story. Thanks!

[Critterbee❇]

Replying to Jason

Regarding the plot twist in the movie:
(view spoiler)[Wow that there was a Mother trying to get custody was not in the story. That a Mom would be trying to recover her child/children makes sense to me, but that was not even a minor factor in the story.

The story is short and very different. Plus, Anderton (who is played by Tom Cruise) created the entire system, and is old, fat and bald, and thinking he has less than 10 years before retirement.
(hide spoiler)]