Minority Report

Plot synopsis:
In April 2054, Washington, D.C.'s PreCrime police stops murderers before they act, reducing the murder rate to zero. Murders are predicted using three mutated humans, called "Precogs", who "previsualize" crimes by receiving visions of the future. Would-be murderers are imprisoned in their own happy virtual reality. The Federal government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program.
Since the disappearance of his son Sean, PreCrime Captain John Anderton has both separated from his wife Lara and become a drug addict. While United States Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer is auditing the program, the Precogs generate a new prediction, saying Anderton will murder a man named Leo Crow in 36 hours. Anderton does not know Crow, but flees the area as Witwer begins a manhunt. Anderton seeks the advice of Dr. Iris Hineman, the creator of PreCrime technology. She reveals that sometimes, one of the Precogs, usually Agatha, has a different vision than the other two, a "minority report" of a possible alternate future; this has been kept a secret as it would damage the system's credibility. Anderton resolves to recover the minority report to prove his innocence.
Anderton goes to a black market doctor for a risky eye transplant so as to avoid the citywide optical recognition system. He returns to PreCrime and kidnaps Agatha, shutting down the system, as the Precogs operate as a group mind. Anderton takes Agatha to a hacker to extract the minority report of Leo Crow, but none exists; instead, Agatha shows him an image of the murder of Ann Lively, a woman who was drowned by a hooded figure in 2049.
Anderton and Agatha go to Crow's hotel room as the 36-hour time nears, finding numerous photos of children, including Sean's. Crow arrives and Anderton prepares to kill him, accusing him to be a serial child killer. Agatha talks Anderton out of shooting Crow by telling him that he has the ability to choose his future now that he is aware of it. Crow however begs to be killed, having been hired to plant the photos and be killed in exchange for his family's financial well being. Crow grabs Anderton's gun and pushes the trigger, killing himself. Anderton and Agatha flee to Lara's house outside the city for refuge. There they learn Lively was Agatha's drug-addicted mother who sold her to PreCrime. Lively had sobered up and attempted to reclaim Agatha, but was murdered. Anderton realizes he is being targeted for knowing about Lively's existence and her connection to Agatha.
Witwer, studying Crow's death, suspects Anderton is being framed. He examines the footage of Lively's murder and finds there were two attempts on her life, the first having been stopped by PreCrime but the second, occurring minutes later, having succeeded. Witwer reports this to the director and founder of PreCrime, Lamar Burgess, but Burgess responds by killing Witwer using Anderton's gun. With the Precogs still offline, the murder is not detected.
Lara calls Burgess to reveal that Anderton is with her, and Anderton is captured, accused of both murders, and fitted with the brain device that puts him permanently into a dreamlike sleep. As his body is deposited into the prison, the warden tells him, "that all your dreams come true”.
Agatha is reconnected to the PreCrime system. While attempting to comfort Lara, Burgess accidentally reveals himself as Lively's murderer. Lara frees Anderton from stasis, and Anderton exposes Burgess at a PreCrime celebratory banquet by playing the full video of Agatha's vision of Burgess killing Lively. A new report is generated at PreCrime: Burgess will kill Anderton. Burgess corners Anderton, and explains that as he could not afford to let Lively take Agatha back without impacting PreCrime, he arranged to kill Lively following an actual attempt on her life, so that the murder would appear as an echo to the technician within PreCrime and be ignored. Anderton points out Burgess's dilemma: If Burgess kills Anderton, he will be imprisoned for life, but PreCrime will be validated; if he spares Anderton, PreCrime will be discredited and shut down. Anderton reveals the ultimate flaw of the system: once people are aware of their future, they are able to change it. Burgess shoots himself.
After Burgess's death, the PreCrime system is shut down. All the prisoners are unconditionally pardoned and released, although they are kept under occasional surveillance. Anderton and Lara are soon to have a new child together. The Precogs are sent to an isolated island to live their lives in peace.

Tags: paranormal

Review:
"Minority Report", the movie, was a visual delight with compelling action and a storyline that was multi-faceted, dealing with issues like guilt, free will, and technology.
I am sorry to say that Fox's 'Minority Report", the television show, has some of the same technological trappings, but none of the charm or surprise of the Spielberg film.The show opens eleven years after the abolishment of the Pre-crime Division.
Lara Vega (Meagan Good) is a cop who meets a man named Dash (Stark Sands), who might be connected to the old program, with the ability to see glimpses of crimes before they happen.
*My thoughts after having watched the pilot* What a bizarre and sad idea to set the show years after the events depicted in the film, rather than exploring the whole Precrime division idea from a new, TV series angle.
This means that the show has to clumsily explain in its first few minutes, through a boring and unimaginative voice-over, the premise and everything that has happened before, rather than surprising and challenging us with slowly making sense of this future world - one of the great pleasures a film or starting TV show has to offer.
It's like the producers had thought: 'Hey, let's spoil the mystery as soon as possible!' The whole writing in the pilot is the same - everything explained right away, no challenge anywhere, just watch and please don't think, you idiot TV viewers.
MINORITY REPORT the film hinged on a challenging idea - is it okay to arrest people for crimes they haven't committed yet?
Shows like this really give a bad name to TV series adaptations, giving fresh ammo to the people who say that movie versions are always better.
The characters, lead or secondary, are uninspired, unbelievable mediocrities, the acting is flat, the squeaky clean, bright, sugar-coated aesthetics of the show are insipid and a far cry from the movie's, while the writing is lazy (e.g. the way the characters meet and pair up in the pilot, *just like that*).
The film concluded with the idea that it was wrong to preventively arrest people because you can't really know what the future will be like, but the show is not interested AT ALL in that kind of stuff - the people Precrime had arrested really were criminals it turns out, and let's just go stop the baddies already.
You do actually feel like a precog while watching this - you know everything that's going to happen.
If you loved the movie, you may be mildly amused with the pilot's special FX and sci-fi predictions, but you'll hate the horribly clichéd writing.
I could live with the procedural elements, if they captured some of the tension and suspense demonstrated in the open of the movie with Tom Cruise's character stopping the domestic murder/suicide.
She shows no depth, comes across completely unbelievable as a detective and demonstrates such limited emotional range she comes across like corporate spokesmodel.All in all Minority Report the Series tarnishes the memory of the movie, which, though entertaining, was no Spielberg classic to begin with.
Unfortunately the show takes place a decade after the movie and misses out on what is likely a whole season of potential.
So Dash goes vigilante and tries to do it on his own.Without Tom Cruise and the other big stars of the original film, this series looks like a one-season wonder, if that.
Minority Report the movie was reasonably good and worth watching.
Essentially a show about one of the clairvoyants from the original movie now acting as a consultant to the police 10 years after the future crimes division was disbanded.
Compared to recent surge of sci-fi series, Minority Report is looking more refined with clearly better production.
While she does look fit, it doesn't translate to serious femme fatale personality.Its change to more humorous tone is different from the futuristic noir of the movie, it's not bad and probably better to accommodate TV series.
When you have an unlikeable and awkward character like that you need to really work to endear him, which only began much later in the series.
They retread ground frequently while trying to humanize them, the conflict is really apparent and at time jarring and I think ultimately that is what led to the show being cancelled so early on.It also suffers from what most cyberpunk TV shows suffer from, they never nail the low life aspect of the show.
As other reviews have stated, there is absolutely nothing original in this show, it has all the same plot elements as any other show you've already seen where the cop is helped by some other "unique" person.However, if you love over-the-top cheesy and poorly-acted shows that let you relive the wonderful cop-drama story lines you've already seen in every other show, you are in for a treat!On the bright side, I'm sure it will win lots of awards, most notably, "Most Worst New Show with the Worst Everything out of Everyone Ever of All the Shows"!
I don't know what is more painful, Meagan Good's disturbing eye-brows or her horrendous acting.And I simply cannot explain my irrational desire to slap Stark Sands upside the head - like my Nonna use to do when we behaved like idiots.
I love this kind of show and hope it runs a long time as it is enjoyable and easy to follow at the episode level with some interesting story arcs that extend to the season and series levels.
The people who have been overly critical are trying to compare it with either (a) the movie; or (b) top notch TV series (such as Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, etc.).
And it has great special effects and sci-fi as well as the hottest leading actress on television.If you want some simple, enjoyable sci-fi cop stories with great visuals, give it a try..
the script was just mediocre even the supposedly thrilling moments weren't really jumpy or catchy as they're were meant to be, and the the Sci-Fi still not feeling the Wowzer Tech deal to make me engage more that it is really a Sci-Fi.i believe this is the first experience of TV screenplay writing for Max Borenstein and i think he got over-Encouraged to do this after he wrote Godzilla's screenplay ,, but i think this was a premature move .As for The Cast,, Stark Sands was just okay his face in feeling fear was fine but other than that it was senseless, Meagan Good is lovely but i think she should be more concerned about the other new show "Mr. Robinson" and just be more active on it,..
The first episode was not really great, although the more I stuck with it the more I liked it to the point where now I feel super disappointed if it was to be canceled.
I think people need to give it a chance, sci-fi shows don't always hit the ground running, they often need time to develop and 10 ten episodes is not enough to establish the world they are trying to create.
I think it is a huge mistake of people expecting this show to be like the movie.
I think Wilmer Valderrama is doing it because he needs the money, he hasn't been in anything good, and Nick Zano play the precong that isn't really very much a precog.
I watched the pilot for this new TV series and found it boring, poorly acted, and childish.
Minority Report, the series, leads on from the 2002 film focusing on one of the three Precogs who are freed from the PreCrime unit at the end of the film.
The pilot (which is all I've seen so far) has a lot of cute sci-fi tech in it that I quite enjoyed, although I won't be surprised if they can't keep up a lot of special effects in a weekly series.
True, underneath the sci-fi flash it's just a cop-works-with-psychic-to-solve-crime series, and the introduction of a story arc isn't really that intriguing, but I still enjoyed it.
This is a series in the "minority report" universe and it takes place 10 years after the events of the movie.
He partners unofficially with a Vega (Meagan Good) a homicide cop to help people and prevent crimes.
Stark Sands is a good cast in the role of Dash.The production as seen in the pilot has extremely high values for a TV show with very good visuals of the USA around 2065, and the whole atmosphere is realistic enough.The script doesn't try much to be original but it is OK.
I have seen a lot of people deciding between this show and TV adaptation of Limitless, a "yet another cop+savant procedural".Personally, I have to say that this show is so far way better than Limitless.
The technology, while futuristic, seems like something our existing technology leads to (lenses, holographic tables, etc), and is a bit more believable than a super drug that feeds on the "we only use 10% of our brains" myth.Main characters seem interesting, I think that Dash's behavior is pretty realistic for someone who spent their childhood in a water tank seeing only the horror of murders.
Vega is your typical "good cop", but I think she will need more time to be fully developed as a character.And while the plot so far seems like a "monster of a week" plot, it is way too soon to dismiss it out entirely, as the "threat" that Agatha sees is an interesting plot.I definitely think that if you are deciding between this and Limitless, go for Minority Report, if only for the much more superior visuals.
Fox has canceled a lot of great shows and I really don't know why people (like producers) even sign up with them at all.
Minority Report is a TV show not the movie if you want to watch the movie then do so.This is also not a sequel to the movie.So what if its a police procedural,as long as they are police these shows will be made.I liked it, the actors they chose play their parts well and are believable.These are good actors,the characters are solid.I have worked with people in real life who are the complete opposite of me so this does happen.
I like this series,whether its renewed or canceled does not take away from being a great show.Not every show has to have deep meaning and I like shows like that but I also enjoy being entertained.
But if you were a fan of the film you already knew this, so the set up for the show is no shock in that regard.You follow the weakest of the 3 precogs as he struggles with knowing parts of the future and how he hasn't been able to do anything with his visions since the precrime program shut down (in the film).The show does a good job setting up that the world is still trying to recover from the loss of precrime and drops us into that world as Dash (the weak one) has finally decided to seek help instead of failing to solve crimes on his own.So yea it's a police procedural with a gimmick, but it's well done in a campy sci-fi sort of way and if the ending of the movie minority report left you with a few questions, this show at least makes a valid attempt at answering some of them while creating new questions to push the plot forward.I don't want to say too much more as it would spoil the plot (everything I've typed so far has been in the trailers or you find out within minutes of the setup), but the show looks like it has a over arching plot as well that is being setup, not just criminal of the week routines, and the sci-fi elements are done respectfully and don't look out of place.(ie.
I mean I personally could come up with several ways that precrime could have been "used" without causing the problems that it did, or without the abuses in the system that happened both before and after, but again those are societal flaws in the civil liberties portrayed and the government which are all left overs from the film and the series is working within the confines of that narrative.I do wish they could have found a way to bring back Samantha Morton as Agatha, but her replacement does an adequate job of filling the role; and the replacement of the other two precogs is seamless enough due to them not really being shown much outside of the tank in the film and this show is meant to be several years later, so they don't have to look 100% the same.But overall, if you were a fan of the film this will probably find reasons to hook you.
From the concept , setup and style of script it is basically a guy (One of the twins) of the original movie , is a psychic helping a cop to stop murders (Rings any bells of other shows same setup, literally all the CSI style shows, with too much less originality, unlike almost human).The future visuals of it are not bad , but yet again Almost Human's was way way better.I really really hope that Spielberg's company does focus groups and figures out that lack of original concepts and CSI style new murder mystery every episode rather than a new wholesome innovative story is not what people want, there is too too much of that, and as a Fox production (Cable) it will not be attainable rating wise for it to survive.I hope any of the people responsible for the show scripts, set up an innovative concept that is a wholesome interesting catching story rather than a CSI mini case that will always get solved every time style.
If you like science fiction and can let your mind relax and stop looking for flaws every second this is actually a very enjoyable series.
In fact, I think Minority Report is filled with many interesting relationships between characters showing struggles with balancing good deeds with personal sacrifice.
If you're looking for fresh faces in an interesting futuristic series, I would say it's worth giving the Minority Report a ride..
If you have seen the movie, and would have liked to see what happens afterwards, this series (so far) is for you.
I really liked the movie and I was at first intrigued by the possibility of a series.
The book and movie are very interesting, yet this show takes all of that and dumps it in favor of the 1000th version of "quirky genius helps cop solve crimes." Yawn.Worse, it also continues the trend of network TV trying to subtly brainwash people into accepting wrong ideas as right.
We should not wait big shots or anything like, "Minority Report" relies on its own history to create a good presentation.
As the show progresses, the character development is exponential and only with a little patience, you'll see all the beauty that is hidden in superficial performances in the start."Minority Report" is the best series I've seen in aspects of the sci-fi genre.
It's just not good and it had potential but I'm sick of seeing these procedural cop shows where one cop is like super awesome...
The police partner is very poorly represented by Meagan Good, with a typically cast technician by Li Jun Li. Neither have any on screen presence and the inclusion of one original cast member is a poor attempt to relate to the movie.All suspense, acting and good script from the movie has been totally stripped out of this show with what can only be described as an empty shell of a show, with some glossy special effects for good measure.I really hope they don't make anything more than just this poor pilot episode.Go watch Mr Robot instead to see how a well written show looks!.
Again, this does contain spoilers.I remember watching Nick Zano on "What I Like About You" & I didn't think he was a very good actor back then so I wasn't thrilled to see him on this.
Her Father was killed on the job- that probably doesn't help.I can see how people wouldn't have liked it if they just watched an episode or two.
As time went on though, we've gotten to see the other pre-cogs (Agatha & Arthur) get involved in the story & a little bit of their lives right after pre-crime stopped.
I thought the special effects where good and the characters had personality.
It's really wonderful to see someone like Meagan Good in a role like this especially considering that Tom Cruise was the lead in the movie.
If the pilot is boring with sloppy writing, acting, and directing; then you know it's only going to get worse.Most Sci-Fi shows today are like video games.
I could be wrong and I don't think there will be a 2nd season of Minority Report and other than the official announcement this show has been cancelled.Good Sci-Fi shows to watch: The 100, Continuum (which ended this year), or 12 Monkeys (2nd season to air in Jan. 2016).I would recommend passing on this show, but it looks like everyone already has..
Meagan Good is basically in the Tom Cruise role of the cop who hunts down crimes before they happen, and Stark Sands is one of the three "PreCogs", who helps her do so.
I feel the actresses and actors knew the same, that it would be cancelled.Here is why this story was set to fail:1.) We found out Dash was a precog right away.
It's like they used the same story every episode but changed the people to a certain extent.
People wake up Tom Cruise is not walking through that door.I personally feel the pilot made good use of the source material especially the precogs.
Vega acted badly, or I guess they could have picked a better looking actress, whereas Dash's character was just plane stupid.