Question: There is a huge question for me. Is the vision of Leo Crow vs. Anderton the vision of what effectively happens (Leo Crow pushes the gun into the hand of Anderton who doesn't want to kill him) or the vision of the homicide WANTED by Anderton (that in the reality changes his idea)? My opinion is that the first answer is correct, because in the vision we see Crow that says to Anderton "Wait!" because he wants to be killed by him. So, if my opinion is correct, Anderton does NOT change the vision?
lionhead
30th Jul 2013
Minority Report (2002)
29th Apr 2020
Minority Report (2002)
Plot hole: Lamar makes his crime look like a glitch. But the pre-cogs must show these two as two separate murders. And they should give two sets of wooden balls.
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Suggested correction: A ball is created when the precogs identifies the killer and victim. However they get their visions randomly and seperately, Agatha being the most powerful one but they have to work together to identify a victim and killer. They put visions together and eventually balls with names will appear. The pre-crime team, led by Anderton, then pieces the visions together to find the location and then go after it, that's all they do, technicians are the ones that bring the visions together for processing by the pre-crime team. The visions they got were seen as "echos" and disregarded before the precogs were able to identify the killer. If they had it would put Burgess as the perpetrator. But since it looked exactly the same as the previous one they didn't allow the precogs go futher into the visions and not put them together. Agatha did have the vision of Burgess but Burgess removed those vision from the system.
But the previous "one" was not a murder so it should not justify a vision (it was only a staging). The real murder is committed by Burgess and it was premeditated, so a brown ball with Burgess' name should have popped out.
The first murder is not a "staging." Quoted from the film: "all you'd have to do is hire someone to kill Ann Lively, someone like a drifter...someone with nothing to lose." Burgess hired someone to kill her so they do have the intention to commit murder, hence the vision. He knew it would be stopped the first time and then the second time would be seen as an "echo" of the vision of the murder that was stopped and erased before a ball is produced.
Staged may have indeed not been the right word. A blame murder or false flag murder may be a better term. Planned in order to point the finger at the wrong person for the murder in any case.
Even staged murders are put in visions, same with the one Burgess tried to set up Anderton with. If someone is killed, the precogs get visions, but they don't know the context (the biggest flaw with the system of course). The visions come before the balls and if the engineers think it is a echo they will discard those visions and prevent the precogs from identifying the victim and killer. If they had the time, indeed a brown ball would be formed. Remember that premeditated murders come much earlier to the precogs in vision than emotional ones, so that was the reason why those visions showed up so soon after the staged one, adding to the idea it was an echo, perfectly calculated by Burgess.
17th Feb 2004
Minority Report (2002)
Question: OK, let's see: Lamar Burgess set Anderton up; he Hired Leo Crow and sent him to be killed in a hotel. But How did exactly Burgess plan the meeting of Anderton with Crow? Anderton arrived at the crime scene by a chain of events that began with the pre-vision of his destiny. It was clear that Lamar did not fake the pre-vision, because this became true just like it was predicted; besides, when Anderton was being chased, he arrived to crime scene by a coincidence; so what did Burguess have to do to make sure the existence of the pre-vision and this possible future? I don't see a simple solution.
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.
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.
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.
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.
21st Jun 2010
Minority Report (2002)
Plot hole: In the scene where Anderton is talking with Hineman, she says to him that "You will bring down the [Precrime] system yourself if you manage to kill your victim. That would be the most spectacular public display of how Precrime didn't work." Shouldn't she be saying "If you manage to not kill your victim"? (01:01:30)
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Suggested correction: Well, if Crow did die, then Precrime wouldn't have worked because the whole point is to stop murder from occurring at all.
Ether way it is a hit against precrime. If he does not kill Crow then it shows that the vision may not come true so you do not know if someone would really have killed someone else, outside situation like with the cheating wife at the start where they interrupted the murder. If Crow is murdered then it shows the system is flawed, which would not be as bad as the first as you would still be stopping a lot of the murders.
I can't tell if this reply is suggesting the correction is wrong or stating the line should be "not kill", making the mistake valid. By not killing the victim, that shows how Precrime is actually working and that knowing the future means you can alter it. If the murder occurs, it would weaken Precrime's stance and support that it can prevent crime.
No if he chooses not to kill Crowe then that means that the visions are just a version of the future, and thus not the actual future. So all the people with the halo on them are locked up wrongfully, as they may have decided not to do it like Anderton did, so the system collapses. That was the point, and it did. Hineman's remark is about the idea that precrime stops all murders, unless Andrton does manage to kill Crowe. The system then is flawed but like the previous commentor says, they still prevent most murders instead of all of them, which would count for something.
3rd Sep 2004
Minority Report (2002)
Corrected entry: When Lamar shoots Colin Farrell, where was a pre-cog ball?
Correction: It's explained quite clearly in the film - unless the three precogs are together, it doesn't work. As Agatha is away from the twins, off with Anderton, there's no precognition, so Lamar can kill Witwer without being picked up.
The question still remains though: why was there no pre-cog ball of Witwer's murder rolling, before Agatha was kidnapped by Anderton? Witwer's murder happened a few hours after Crowe's death, hence the pre-vision of Witwer's murder could have easily occurred a few hours after the pre-vision of Crowe's death.
The decision to murder Wither was not made until after Agatha was taken. As stated at the beginning of the film premeditated murder gives them more time to look at the visions and decode the information, crimes of passion only give them minutes.
Well yeah but they aren't attained only after the decision is made by the perpetrator. Anderton got his ball well before he even knew he would do anything. His ball came hours before the intended murder, so should Lamar's. I like this question.
But with Anderton there were events that lead to the murder that happened before he knew anything, like Burgess hiring Crow to be the victim. So somehow the Precogs pickup on that and created a ball. With Wither there was nothing before hand that would trigger the Precogs.
The PreCrime system works by the PreCogs scanning for people with the intent to kill and then determining details. Burgess' intent to murder Witwer came well after Agatha was disconnected, when he discovered that Witwer knew about the framing of Anderton. Therefore, there couldn't have been a ball, as the system was offline.
Correction: It's because Burgess' murder of Witwer would count as a red ball since he doesn't have any reason to murder Witwer until Witwer reveals he's getting too close to uncovering the truth. By the time the precogs would normally have foreseen such a murder (remembering the movie states red ball killings only have a few minutes worth of warning) Agatha has long since been removed from the equation so yes, it makes sense Witwer's death isn't picked up ahead of time.
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Chosen answer: Correct, Anderton does not change the vision. The movie is named after what you've just described: the minority report. Agatha always sees the true future, the other two precogs usually see the same as her but sometimes they only see a possible future instead. When Agatha's predictions conflict with theirs, her vision is termed a "minority report" and is disregarded. Anderton was never actually going to kill Crow, it was only ever merely a possibility.
Phixius ★
I don't think there is ever a "true future", as in Agatha's own words to John - "You can still choose! You have a choice!" Even the final red ball, Lamar chose to go against the precogs' prevision, which was something that the 3 precogs agreed on. Therefore, a "true future" can be broken and does not exist.
Adding to that, the precog vision of Anderton killing Crow I totally different from what actually happened. In the vision Anderton says to Crow "Goodbye Crow" and shoots him from a distance, which he didn't do at the actual event. So the precog knowledge Anderton has definitely changed the future. He already decided not to kill Crow, but Crow died anyway.
lionhead