Observations on Comments

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2003)

Others have already provided articulate, nuanced comments for this film. Of course, the opinions run the gamut from Love or Hate, to Damning with Faint Praise.
But in speed-scanning all posted comments, I feel I've noticed a trend; a dichotomy in the tone of reactions to the movie that may help those who have not seen it decide if it's worth their time and money. (But after the the two numbered items below, I'm just rambling.)
1. Those who have stated or implied that they have READ any work by Philip K. Dick tend to have enjoyed the movie. (This does not mean that they--or I--would have preferred Spielberg as director, or Cruise as lead protagonist.)
2. Commentators who don't mention that they've read any book by Dick tend to dislike the movie, or feel it's mediocre (beyond being reduced by Spielberg/Cruise.)
I don't mean for this to be iron-clad, and the pleasure/disgust in viewing MR has been well-stated both ways. It's also true that I've read a handful of Dick's novels, and find that his characters' themes of alienation, despair and worry about paying the rent play out well, as projected into futuristic settings (or revisions of history, as in The Man in the High Castle, and Radio-Free Albemuth.)
Phil Dick used a life-long battle with obesity as an excuse to become an amphetamine addict (check the Author's Note at the end of his 1977 novel, A Scanner Darkly.) His fans lost him in 1982--the speed-abuse had severely damaged his pancreas. He was about 60.
The year prior to his death, he gave an interview in which he stated that he believed his first novel was superb (Solar Lottery, 1955. There are two other titles for it. One was only used in a British edition of the work.) He flatly stated that his next 25 novels--and other short writings during the period--were "junk....worthless." It's funny that the story from which Minority Report was derived was written during this time span.
Presumably, the next "quality" novel Dick felt he had written was The Man in the High Castle, published in 1962.