Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Minority Report (2002)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

Minority Report (2002)

In director Steven Spielberg's futuristic thriller based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, set in the year of 2054, including the prescient idea that advertisements flashing on walls were specially-tailored to each person due to casual, public retinal scanning and tracking:

  • the film's major concept: pre-crime law enforcement used three psychic 'precogs' lying in flotation tanks in order to pre-visualize and forecast or envision future crimes (in order to prevent their occurrence), including a very fragile pre-cog named Agatha (Samantha Morton)
  • the scenes of DC Pre-Crime cop John Anderton (Tom Cruise) manipulating a computer interface in mid-air like a symphony conductor
  • the film's opening - including a new prediction from the 'precogs' - the violent murder of Leo Crow ("Goodbye, Crow") by Anderton in 36 hours; he was completely surprised to see himself committing the future killing of someone he hadn't met - and watching a pre-vision of his gunshot that propelled Crow out a skyscraper window
  • the spectacular sequence of Anderton's flight from Pre-Crime officers with jet-packs - fighting them off on the side of a building, on the street, and into various brick apartment dwellings
  • the suspenseful sequence in which mechanical bot-spiders performed retinal scans in a tenement building to determine identities from eyeballs and to find out whether Anderton (with bandaged eyes) was there or not - while he was submerged in a bathtub of ice water
Threatening Mechanical Bot-Spiders
Retinal Scans on Anderton's Eyes
  • the scene of Anderton's actual confrontation with suspected serial child killer criminal Leo Crow in his hotel room; Crow begged to be killed claiming that he had been assured financial stability by an unknown individual for allowing himself to be set-up as the murderer of Anderton's son Sean: ("You're not gonna kill me? If you don't go through with this, my family gets nothing, okay? You're supposed to kill me. He said you would...He told me I'd be released if I went along, and my family would be taken care of....If I acted like I killed your kid, okay?...Look, you don't kill me, my family gets nothing. Okay?") - and the influential words of Agatha who cautioned Anderton about killing Crow, and urged him to change his fate: ("You can choose"), although in the end, Crow grabbed Anderton's gun and shot himself
  • the scene of corrupt Pre-Crime boss and founder Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) shooting and killing suspicious US Dept. of Justice agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell), after he audited the system and discovered that a second 'echo' recording revealed the actual murder of Agatha's mother Anne Lively (Jessica Harper): ("...what if a technician only thought he was looking at an echo? What if he was looking at a completely different murder altogether? All you'd have to do is hire someone to kill Anne Lively, someone like a drifter, a neuroin addict, someone with nothing to lose. Precrime stops the murder from taking place, haloes the killer, takes him away. But then, right then, someone else, having reviewed the prevision and dressed in the same clothes, commits the murder in exactly the same way. Technician takes a look, thinks he's looking at an echo, erases it. Of course, it would have to be someone with access to the previsions in the first place. Someone fairly high-up")
  • the scene of Agatha's vision of a possible life for Sean, the missing son of Anderton and his ex-wife Lara Clarke (Kathryn Morris) - a heartbreaking and beautiful description: ("He's on the beach now, a toe in the water. He's asking you to come in with him. He's been racing his mother up and down the sand. There's so much love in this house. He's ten years old. He's surrounded by animals. He wants to be a vet. You keep a rabbit for him, a bird and a fox. He's in high school. He likes to run, like his father. He runs the two-mile and the long relay. He's 23. He's at a university..."); and then before she could tell Anderton who had murdered her mother Anne Lively, Agatha provided a shocking warning: ("I'm sorry, John, but you're gonna have to run again...RUN!")
  • the action sequence in which escaped fugitive Anderton lept from car to car as he and Agatha plunged vertically to escape pursuit
  • the conclusion in which Lamar was confronted by Anderton, who knew that he had been framed (because of his knowledge of nefarious actions), and that Lamar was the hooded murderer of Agatha's mother Anne Lively by drowning five years earlier in the year 2049; Anne had been drug-addicted and forced to sell her pre-cog daughter Agatha to the program, but now had conquered her drug habit and wanted to remove her fragile daughter from the pre-crime flotation tanks; threatened by the thought, Burgess wanted to prevent the shut-down of his sinister, futuristic law enforcement organization
Burgess' Murder of Anne Lively By Drowning
(Detected by Her Pre-Cog Daughter Agatha)
  • as a result of the revelations (a playing of the full video of the drowning murder), a new Pre-Crime report had been generated - that Lamar would kill Anderton; in their final sequence together, Anderton spoke of the dilemma facing Lamar - and mentioned the flaw in the Pre-Crime system - that people could change their future: ("The question you have to ask is, what are you gonna do now? No doubt the Pre-Cogs have already seen this....You see the dilemma, don't you? If you don't kill me, Pre-Cogs were wrong and Precrime is over. If you do kill me, you go away but it proves the system works. Pre-Cogs were right. So, what are you gonna do now? What's it worth? Just one more murder. You'll rot in hell with a halo, but people will still believe in Precrime. All you have to do is kill me, like they said you would. Except you know your own future, which means you can change it if you want to. You still have a choice, Lamar. Like I did")
  • Lamar announced his choice - to select his own fate and suicidally commit suicide by shooting himself: ("Yes, I have a choice and I made it. Forgive me, John. (gunshot) Forgive me. Forgive me, my boy")
Anderton Confronting Killer Burgess With a Dilemma
  • the film's voice-over epilogue from Anderton, explaining the aftermath: ("In 2054, the six-year Precrime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, although police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins were transferred to an undisclosed location - a place where they could find relief from their gifts. A place where they could live out their lives in peace")
Anderton Reunited with Ex-Wife Lara
Pre-Cog Agatha in Undisclosed Location

Gesture Control Computer Interface

Pre-Vision Prediction: The Murder of Leo Crow

Pre-Cog Agatha (Samantha Morton)

Anderton's Escape from Pre-Crime Officers


Anderton's Actual Confrontation with Leo Crow

Murder of Suspicious DOJ Agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell),

Pre-Crime Boss and Founder Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow)

Agatha's Description of the Possible Life for Anderton's Son Sean

Burgess' Choice: Suicide

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