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Minority Report (2002)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Scott Frank & Jon Cohen (screenplay)
Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
Genre: Action, Sci Fi
High marks to the unique story concept of Minority Report, and that's thanks to the sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick who also penned the novel Blade Runner.
Minority Report did indeed feel a lot like Blade Runner. There was the same roguish law enforcement individual, who finds himself violating society's future laws and goes on the run. Then there's the humans who aren't quite the same as everyone else. They have unique abilities and those abilities cause them to be treated like objects, all for the benefit of society. Then there's the same invasive technology that has been usurped by commercialism and used to sell goods via personalized ads that follow you around like a bad rash where ever you go, sort of like what is happening today.
I found the concept of the movie to be deep...but damn if good ole Steven Spielberg didn't come along and muck up a great sci fi with his bloated chase scenes and product placement that must have brought in millions of bucks for him.
Image for a moment if Spielberg had directed Blade Runner and instead of the deep existential story about what it means to be human, we'd get Harrison Ford driving cars down the sides of buildings and flying through air as he leaps for his life like some reject from an amusement park ride. And image if Spielberg had taken the visual beauty from Blade Runner and replaced it with yet another assembly line looking Dream Works movie...
Luckily Spielberg didn't get his hands on Blade Runner but he sure did a number on Minority Report. This could have been great, an equal to Blade Runner...But instead this unique vision by Philip K. Dicks was demoted to 'Hollywood movie making magic'.
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Minority Report (2002)
Writer: Scott Frank & Jon Cohen (screenplay)
Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
Genre: Action, Sci Fi
'In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder.'
High marks to the unique story concept of Minority Report, and that's thanks to the sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick who also penned the novel Blade Runner.
Minority Report did indeed feel a lot like Blade Runner. There was the same roguish law enforcement individual, who finds himself violating society's future laws and goes on the run. Then there's the humans who aren't quite the same as everyone else. They have unique abilities and those abilities cause them to be treated like objects, all for the benefit of society. Then there's the same invasive technology that has been usurped by commercialism and used to sell goods via personalized ads that follow you around like a bad rash where ever you go, sort of like what is happening today.
I found the concept of the movie to be deep...but damn if good ole Steven Spielberg didn't come along and muck up a great sci fi with his bloated chase scenes and product placement that must have brought in millions of bucks for him.
Image for a moment if Spielberg had directed Blade Runner and instead of the deep existential story about what it means to be human, we'd get Harrison Ford driving cars down the sides of buildings and flying through air as he leaps for his life like some reject from an amusement park ride. And image if Spielberg had taken the visual beauty from Blade Runner and replaced it with yet another assembly line looking Dream Works movie...
Luckily Spielberg didn't get his hands on Blade Runner but he sure did a number on Minority Report. This could have been great, an equal to Blade Runner...But instead this unique vision by Philip K. Dicks was demoted to 'Hollywood movie making magic'.
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