Continuity mistake: In the beginning, when Anderton arrests the jealous husband, he notes that he is being arrested on April 22 - that day - for the future murder of his wife and her lover. Later, while Anderton is jogging, we see billboards advocating a "Yes" vote on pre-crime on April 22. The next day, Anderton's boss Lamar notes that the vote is in a week, which would make it April 15, making the day that the jealous husband was arrested April 14, not April 22. (00:13:05 - 00:15:15)
Continuity mistake: In the part when Anderton is in the green house with the old lady, her hairstyle changes under her hat in every scene when she turns around, looks up or down or when they are talking. (00:54:40)
Continuity mistake: Anderton's wristwatch is an Omega Speedmaster X-33, but it shows a Bvlgari display when he looks at it for the countdown to the murder he is to commit. When he's not looking at it, the watch can be seen with its original Omega face. One example of this is in the tub scene where one of the spyders is peeling off Anderton's eye bandage. The watch shows its Omega display (white hands on an LCD digital background). Omega's developer of the X-33 told me that this was a major legal battle for them. (01:18:30 - 01:34:50)
Continuity mistake: When Anderton first starts getting chased, he kicks the glass out of the back side of the automated car. He then proceeds to climb on the top of it at which point the car then goes over a cliff leaving Anderton hanging from it. He then climbs onto the back side of the car (as this is not the top) and the glass is present again.
Continuity mistake: When Anderton visits his friend to get help to download data from Agatha, he is wearing tan-colored pants. Later on, when they are running again, he is suddenly wearing blue pants. (01:33:15)
Continuity mistake: In the final scene of the movie, as the camera pulls back from the cabin where the three pre-cogs were taken after leaving the Temple, there is a tractor to the left of the cabin. Between the tractor and the cabin is a small bush that is moving like it is being blown by a strong wind. However, the smoke coming from the cabin is more or less rising straight up into the air. In fact, it is drifting a little to the right while the bush is being blown to the left by the helicopter which has the camera. (02:18:25)
Continuity mistake: In the alley scene where the rest of John's team comes, he keeps repeating "everybody runs" and they surround him. After a dog barks at them he climbs up a fire escape. In one shot you can see the back of his jacket is cut and wires are sticking out. It's a very quick shot but it's there. (00:47:10)
Continuity mistake: Anderton is driving Agatha aka the Pre Cog in his car after kidnapping her from the Temple. She is complaining that she is cold so he takes off his jacket and puts it on her shoulder and body. The next shot is from outside the window looking at her and the jacket is down on her arm. The next shot is back to Anderton and the jacket is on her shoulder again. In the final shot of the Precog, the jacket is on her shoulder. (01:24:20)
Continuity mistake: During the jet pack escape scene, we see Anderton scaling the side of a building followed by a group of precrime officers who fly up to catch him. When Anderton jumps and catches the officer directly below him, we cut a shot of the pair falling directly towards the camera. If you look to either side of them, you'll notice that all the other officers - including the one hanging from the rail without a jet-pack - have disappeared.
Continuity mistake: The handle on the door to room 1009 switches sides. (01:36:15)
Continuity mistake: When Agatha is in Lara's bedroom, she talks about John and Lara's son Shawn. When John is sitting on the floor in the bedroom you can see his eyes have changed colors. First they are brown from the eye transplant, but the next shot of his head you can see his eye color is his real color. (02:00:00)
Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the movie, Anderton is working on the case with the jealous husband (case number 1108). During this scene, we see a shot of Anderton taken from behind the transparent screen. In the upper right corner of the screen you can see the case number (1108). Later in the movie, Anderton starts working on the case where he himself turns out to be the killer. This is case number 1109. In this scene we again see a shot of Anderton taken from behind the transparent screen. However, the case number is still 1108. Shouldn't it be 1109, since he is working on that case? (00:36:30 - 00:37:50)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Danny Witwer and Burgess are going over something that wasn't seen before, Danny's tie is loosely undone, but in the next shot it's perfectly done up. (01:54:50)
Continuity mistake: When Anderton is mad about the doctor sticking him with the anesthesia and is holding him on the counter holding the doctor's arm behind him, the needle changes places quickly and ends up in different places. (01:03:20)
Continuity mistake: In the Jetpack scene, where John and the other two cops bump the ceiling, if you look at their food and drinks on the table, everything gets knocked over and spilt, yet in the following shot everything is neat, and the drinks have reappeared unspilt. (00:49:00)
Continuity mistake: When the pre crime cops are looking for John in the mall, there are 7 of them on the upper balcony, the leader tells two of them to "take the east end," and you see two of them run off to the left, yet in the following shot all seven of them are running to the right. (01:33:15)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the film when John's wife is talking to Lamarr he says "I haven't worn this in years" and turns around, in the following shot he turns around again. (01:57:15)
Continuity mistake: When John visits the creator of precrime in the greenhouse, in one scene the old lady kisses John, her hand changes from being at the side of John's face to holding it at the front. (00:59:40)
Continuity mistake: During the scene where the police first go to arrest Howard and John is deciding which door is the right one his plastic face plate is down and in the next shot it is clearly up. (00:10:55)
Continuity mistake: After John has had his eyes changed and the cops send the spiders into the rooms, there is a shot of John kneeling down. Behind him, the fridge is open, yet a few shots later he crawls past the kitchen and the fridge is then closed. (01:15:00 - 01:16:20)
Answer: Well, there isn't really a simple solution, but here goes. For a pre-vision to form, there have be two things present within the range of the precog ability (which appears to be limited to the Washington area - regardless of the stated plan to take the programme countrywide, there's never any indication that the precogs can sense beyond that range). Firstly, someone with the intent to kill. Secondly, there has to be a target for that intent within the range of the precogs. Anderton is present, and has the intent within him to kill the man who took his son, but has no target - the real kidnapper is presumably either dead or beyond the precog ability. Burgess, by bribing Crow to pretend to be that man, has provided a viable target for Anderton's intent within the range of the precog ability, thus triggering the prevision, and beginning the chain of events.
Tailkinker ★
The above answers the question, but there do appear to be some time travel issues with this plot point in the movie. Burgess set things up for Crow to fake being the kidnapper and thus triggering Jon's desire to kill that person, everything starts by the pre-cogs seeing the future. If the pre-cogs did not exist or did not have the vision, Jon would have never known that Leo Crow existed and would have continued on without having killed anyone. This is unique within the movie, as the other murders would have been commited regardless of whether or not the pre-cogs saw it. In this case, the ONLY reason this murder occurred is because the pre-cogs saw it.
oldbaldyone
Thinking about this a little more, it could be conceivable that Burgess had planned a different option for Jon finding Crow. We just never saw that on screen, because the precogs changed everything to an alternative future timeline once they saw the original murder. Originally, Jon could have been triggered by Burgess himself, stating that they got a lead on his son's murder and pointing him to Crow.
oldbaldyone
No I think Burgess set it up so that Anderton would find Crow because of the precogs, not have a different plan set up before or else it could be possible Burgess himself would be visible in the prevision. He manipulated the system perfectly, he has done it before after all. He knows exactly how the precogs work so he is able to set it up so that it's untraceable. Except, except for the fact there is always a choice. Only then did it go wrong for him. This proves both true for Anderton and Burgess in the end.
lionhead