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The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

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Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#31

Post by nkassis »

phamilton wrote: post #30

Scott Adams wrote in The Dilbert Future that life would become more like Star Trek. I heard once that the imagination of science fiction is the same imagination of innovation. That life becomes more and more like science fiction because actually building something is the next step after coming up with the idea,

I think it's mostly because science fiction molds are view of the future and many inventors are influenced by that. I'm pretty sure that Star Trek influenced some of the inventors of the cell phone even if it wasn't consciously. Now we have things that are looking closer and closer to holodecks (all we need is photonic matter), the kinect is pretty proto-holodeck in my view. The touchscreen interfaces and iPads were probably also influcence by Sci-Fi. Basically Star Trek invented the future ;p

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#32

Post by Stormbringer »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #26
hugh3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the point of the Dick story? Movie adaptations of science fiction short stories often have a way of missing the point. Sometimes it's an improvement, sometimes it isn't. The bit about Minority Report that I didn't like (and I think this point was made by somebody else at the time but I can't remember who it was) is as follows: the movie starts off by saying "Let's suppose that there's some psychic system tha…

My understanding was that the device did work there was just a human element to the interpretation.

Exactly. The difference between seeing something and comprehending it.

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#33

Post by dhughes »

I remember reading about an (now ex) RCMP officer from BC, Canada created an application that took all sorts of data from crimes and combined it to create kind of a heat map/"elevation" of predictions where the criminal may be based.

That's about as close as you could get to Minority Report (this was earlier than the movie) but it used ongoing series of crimes to predict where the crimes may occur or to narrow down where the criminal may live.

It's not the IBM software mentioned in the article this was from Canada and I distinctly remember it was an RCMP officer who created it.

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#34

Post by jonnathanson »

nkassis wrote: post #31
phamilton wrote: post #30

Scott Adams wrote in The Dilbert Future that life would become more like Star Trek. I heard once that the imagination of science fiction is the same imagination of innovation. That life becomes more and more like science fiction because actually building something is the next step after coming up with the idea,

I think it's mostly because science fiction molds are view of the future and many inventors are influenced by that. I'm pretty sure that Star Trek influenced some of the inventors of the cell phone even if it wasn't consciously. Now we have things that are looking closer and closer to holodecks (all we need is photonic matter), the kinect is pretty proto-holodeck in my view. The touchscreen interfaces and iPads were…

There's actually some truth to this. Cool sci-fi can influence scientists and technologists to pursue ideas they see on screen or read about in books. Alternatively, it can inspire kids to want to become scientists or technologists. While I have no data to back this up, I imagine the genre has done a lot more good for the world than we'll ever know.

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#35

Post by nemeth »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #26
hugh3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the point of the Dick story? Movie adaptations of science fiction short stories often have a way of missing the point. Sometimes it's an improvement, sometimes it isn't. The bit about Minority Report that I didn't like (and I think this point was made by somebody else at the time but I can't remember who it was) is as follows: the movie starts off by saying "Let's suppose that there's some psychic system tha…

My understanding was that the device did work there was just a human element to the interpretation.

The last scene of the movie demonstrates that knowing that a pre-crime report was generated does allow the future to be changed (Burgess chooses to shoot himself, rather than Tom Cruise). The earlier plotline had suggested there was no way to escape fate - the protagonist ends up committing the exact killing he had been desperately trying to avoid (a la Oedipus Rex).

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#36

Post by waterlesscloud »

nemeth wrote: post #35
TheEzEzz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding was that the device did work there was just a human element to the interpretation.

The last scene of the movie demonstrates that knowing that a pre-crime report was generated does allow the future to be changed (Burgess chooses to shoot himself, rather than Tom Cruise). The earlier plotline had suggested there was no way to escape fate - the protagonist ends up committing the exact killing he had been desperately trying to avoid (a la Oedipus Rex ).

At the time the film came out, I was in a long involved argument about the theme of the film on screenwriting board.

There, I said:

"The issue of her predicting the future as it actually ends up taking place is more or less irrelevant in terms of the story the filmmakers chose to tell. That's set up from the very first precognition and subsequent raid. Agatha sees a murder that does not happen, because there is interevention. The premise underlying the story the filmmakers chose to tell us is that what she sees will in fact occur if we do not stop it. We are free to stop it, of course, but only because we know it is coming. If we didn't know, the world would continue on the rails it has been traveling on, and it would arrive at the destination Agatha has foreseen. This is the essential point that you have to buy into for the premise to work at all."

I dig a little deeper here, including analysis of the eye transplant scene. With a bit of a snarky tone, but I was arguing with friends...

http://www.wordplayer.com/forums/moviesarc05/index.cgi?read=...

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#37

Post by MetallicCloud »

hugh3 wrote: post #20
DannoHung wrote: post #12

Was anyone else seriously pissed that the Spielberg version missed the entire point of the Dick story?

What was the point of the Dick story? Movie adaptations of science fiction short stories often have a way of missing the point. Sometimes it's an improvement, sometimes it isn't. The bit about Minority Report that I didn't like (and I think this point was made by somebody else at the time but I can't remember who it was) is as follows: the movie starts off by saying "Let's suppose that there's some psychic system tha…

What annoyed me about the movie was in the end you realise the movies premise contradicts itself.

The sequence of events would never have happened if she hadn't shown him committing the murder, and Tom Cruise would have kept going about his job.

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#38

Post by rms »

In 2011, we have precrime. See video of those arrested for planning on staging street theatre to protest royal wedding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOli98fgBP0 [01:15]

"This is minority report! Pre-crime! We're being arrested for street theater."

It's amazing how well the British do fascism, complete with a bit of descent into absurdist comedy. Life imitates Terry Pratchett.

Re: The surprising accuracy of Minority Report 10 years later

#40

Post by Joakal »

rms wrote: post #38

In 2011, we have precrime. See video of those arrested for planning on staging street theatre to protest royal wedding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOli98fgBP0 [01:15] "This is minority report! Pre-crime! We're being arrested for street theater." It's amazing how well the British do fascism, complete with a bit of descent into absurdist comedy. Life imitates Terry Pratchett.

Pre2011, there's attempted crimes like murder, conspiracy to commit like fraud, and even thought crimes where discussing a bomb in a cafe can land you in indefinite imprisonment.

Minority report is distinctly different in that there's 100% assurance that a crime has been committed in the future, therefore the suspects are guilty.

[SPOILER BELOW]

As plot progresses, it is found that reading the computer that looks towards the future are human and there's no 100% certainty due to paradoxes among other past life twists. This lead to release of all prisoners (I think).

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