After all these years, the only part I can't accept is John's eyes still being able to access secure areas at Pre-Crime after he became a fugitive and inmate. People talk about the technology, but I don't care about that. The only time I really get taken out of the movie is when his eyes are used well after they should have been taken out of the system. Still, this is a really good film. 8/10.
shareHa, I just saw this for the first time and I also had a big problem with that.
Suspension of disbelief for a sci-fi movie is one thing. John still being able to use his eye to enter the most secure area of the Pre-Crimes building, and Lara later using the same eye to enter the prison where John is an inmate, are very lazily contrived moments in an otherwise thoroughly entertaining and engrossing film.
I also could have done without all the obnoxious product placement.
Suspension of disbelief for a sci-fi movie is one thing. John still being able to use his eye to enter the most secure area of the Pre-Crimes building, and Lara later using the same eye to enter the prison where John is an inmate, are very lazily contrived moments in an otherwise thoroughly entertaining and engrossing film.
Yeah, because the police department is known for their efficiency and pro-activeness.
shareYeah this all takes place within 36 hours. They never would have suspected he would come back to their headquarters. And they're busy trying to track him down and prevent the murder...you could easily see them forgetting to do that.
Even the most primitive society has an innate respect for the insane.
It's less about whether they could forget to do it. They could since they are human. People are careless with security all the time, even people who should know better. The main problem is that John assumed that his old eyes would work. His entire plan was predicated on it. Imagine if they had removed his access and he attempted to access the system as he did in the movie. They'd immediately know that someone was trying to break in.
There's also the fact that in the future, the retinal identity systems will almost certainly do some sort of checking to make sure the eye they are validating is alive. Even some current fingerprint scanners can look for a pulse on the finger and disallow authentication if none is found. This is bound to be way better in the future.
You guys are incredibly generous if you have only one problem with the logic of this story.
Just watching it over, lessee:
1) Murder rate is zero with precogs—then why is first example of precrime in action up to the last second? Just knowing something's going to happen doesn't mean you can always prevent it. There ought to be some murders.
2) Anderton & Co meekly accepting federal oversight just on being presented with a warrant, not challenging it in court?
3) Pre-cogs can't predict robbery or rape, but Agatha can see every tick needed for her to escape the cops on their tail?
4) But then Agatha can't see the cops descending on the ex's house until it's too late
5) Swedish doc was only joking when he told Anderton he'd go blind if bandages are removed before 12 hours passed, because they were, with no ill effect
6) Anderton undergoes agonizing face change for no reason whatever when entering temple
7) Agatha has lived most of her life in a nutrient bath, but quickly adjusts to wearing clothes & being outdoors
Awk ... it's too much!
Of course nothing in the final third makes any sense, because it didn't happen.
But that's really true of the entire film, & I believe the filmmakers were perfectly aware of that. I think the film's intent is to be a satire on the lengths society will go to feel safe.
I think the film makers intended to make an entertaining movie, which they did :)
share It's entirely likely that Lamar Burgess had been helping Anderton the whole time to facilitate his own agenda of publicly vindicating Precrime, all at Anderton's expense. This might have included reprogramming the Precrime database to accept Anderton's new eyes, although Burgess may have failed to fully appreciate how Anderton might use this access (which, by the way, would be somewhat humorous given the movie's premise; the film displays a certain wry, dark humour throughout). So I didn't have a problem with that. As a viewer of a science fiction film, in which at least some honest effort may be required by the audience to dispel disbelief (Heaven forbid anyone be expected to make a grander effort than dragging their fat, self-entitled posteriors into a movie theatre), I could overlook such seeming discrepancies, since, in science fiction, everything can be explained away. No, my problem is the warm fuzzy ending.
In a world where freedom (or at least its perception) seems to becoming chancier and chancier, is it reasonable to assume that, after declaring free will non-existent (by the very existence of Precrime), an act by which this society's government has essentially criminalized free thought, imprisoning its most outstanding citizens for crimes the government claims they are about to commit, would the citizenry sit still after the entire thing collapsed after it was demonstrated free will does, in fact, exist. We live in a POST-holocaust society, and understand graphically how the path to Hell may be paved with good intentions. Thus the defense that 'it was in the best interests of society' doesn't work here, and the members of that government would likely face the wrath of a vengeful citizenry, and face ruinous lawsuits, and likely incarceration. That would include our friend Anderton, who, his late change of mind notwithstanding, as a co-architect of Precrime, would be front and center for litigation, and prosecution.