Why Minority Report Kinda Sucks

Released in 2002, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report offered a slick sci-fi thriller set in the not-too-distant future resulting in huge financial and critical acclaim. However, before it was a feature film adapted by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen (who admitted in an interview with Script Magazine that he didn't understand the original story) The Minority Report was a short novella by Peter K. Dick. And for those who read the story before seeing the movie it's almost impossible to reconcile the fundamental changes to not only the narrative but also the core ideas Dick was exploring to such an extent that the film's title no longer makes sense. It would be another decade before a writer and director would so fundamentally misunderstand their source material resulting in Man of Steel.

Now, thankfully, Spielberg is a much, much better director than Zack Snyder (despite what his cult may want you to believe). I'm not against changing the source material in service of a film. I still consider 1990's Total Recall (another Dick adaptation) to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's best movie. What Total Recall (the original, not the remake which can eat an extra-large helping of dicks) managed to do was alter the plot completely but still stay true to the spirit and message of Dick's original short story. And that's where Minority Report, in possibly the most spectacular way possible, fails.

In both versions our protagonist is a member of the Precrime Division entrusted with stopping crime before it happens through the use of a trio of precogs (doped up psychic mutants who can see the future). In the story, John Anderton is far older than Tom Cruise and actually the creator and commissioner of the program. So in the original story Precrime is actually Anderton's baby (not a missing son which was one of many extraneous additions n the script).

The story starts much the same with Anderton's name coming up suggesting he will kill a man he's never heard of. Like in the movie, he goes on the run. In an attempt to prove his innocence, Anderton attempts to get ahold of the "Minority Report." And its here that the two stories radically diverge.

In the original novella, it's revealed that a Minority Report is dark secret to the Pecog program. The story reveals that the three mutants revealing crime in the future don't always agree, and under certain circumstances, the Minority Report proves certain futures can be avoided by pre-knowledge of this report which Anderton now has in his possession. And, making the title of the story make sense, this Minority Report version of events (which the whole narrative rests on) shows a future with Anderton choosing not to kill Kaplan.

The middle portion of the film gets much muddier with the Minority Report also proving Anderton's guilt. Meaning, in the movie, the Minority Report fails to play any vital role to the plot. There's also a bizarre sequence of Anderton "rescuing" on of the Precogs (Samantha Morton) from the facility in a failed attempt to prove his innocence. Instead, Anderton keeps soldiering on under a 100% guilt likelihood. However, at a crucial moment he chooses not to commit the crime revealing a conspiracy tied the film's emotional blackmail of the missing young boy taken (and perhaps killed) by a pedophile.

The novella also concerns a conspiracy, albeit a less fanciful one involving holding the audience hostage over child murder and contemplating if its okay to kill pedophiles. In the story, the conspiracy is simply to expose the existence of the Minority Report to the world showing the fundamental flaw in the program that the future is far less set than Precrime would have you believe. This won't work in the film, however, because the Minority Report only confirms a definite future (rather than offer an alternate possible one).

Spielberg's version of the story is a far more humanist one with the focus on Anderton being a broken man haunted by the loss of his son, discovering the truth, exposing corruption, and saving the Precog (which the film really leans into a larger debate about the treatment of these mutants). Dick's original was far more philosophical laying out a situation of how far one might go to save what they love, even give up their own life, to protect their life's work which, despite its flaws (i.e. the Minority Report) they continue to believe in and champion.

In the end of both versions, Anderton is forced with a decision. In the film, despite Precrime proving itself except when manually manipulated at the highest levels, he chooses to expose it and bring down the whole system. In the novella, when given the choice to protect his creation (and the safety of the world) or destroy his life work (underlying the key component of having Anderton be the father of Precrime) he chooses to murder a man he has no animosity towards and save his creation. Not only is the decision of the film in direct opposition to that of the original story, but the foundation on why that decision was made in the film is a tumbled mess of the grief of a grieving father and master manipulation of Precrime to frame him greatly influencing his decision.

At a fundamental level the film and the story can't agree on whether or not Precrime is a good thing, or even if flawed whether it is worth saving. Beyond that, the reasons for championing or shutting it down are so disparate (because of the writer's noted misunderstanding of the source material) that the film fails as an adaptation.

Do all adaptations need to perfectly align with their source material? No, but if they diverge to such an extent they are unrecognizable (while still garnering acclaim because they claim the original as a source) that's a failure to the core story and principles which are being corrupted for alternate means. I don't need a Superman who is taught not to save people and brutally murders the first super-powered being he fights, and I don't need a Minority Report that doesn't understand why the title of the story was crucial in its telling (however visually stunning it might be).

• Title: Minority Report
• IMDb: link