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Minority Report: Film vs. Short Story Essay

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Minority Report: Film vs. Short Story

Mutant humans, nicknamed precogs, have visions of future crimes. An entire police force is dedicated to interpreting these visions and catching the future criminals before they commit these foreseen crimes. Commissioner John A. Anderton was the creator of this institution called Precrime in New York City and has a strong pride in his work. Everything had seemed to be a success, there had not been a murder for five years, but it all starts to fall apart when the precogs have a vision of Anderton committing a murder of a man he has never met before, named Leopold Kaplan. The commissioner believes he has been set up by a young man, Ed Witwer, who will be taking Anderton’s place when he …show more content…

The precogs are not mutant humans, but are praised as wonderful beings. John Anderton was not the creator of Precrime, Director Lamar Burgess and Iris Hineman were the “mother and father” of Precrime. Anderton’s pride in Precrime came from a previous experience he had with the kidnapping of his only child. His wife, Laura (not Lisa), separated from him and lived near a beach away from Anderton and Precrime, but in Dick’s story they are married and she works at Precrime with John. Danny Witwer (not Ed) is an FBI investigator, not Anderton’s replacement, who enters the film to discover flaws in the Precrime system, specifically human flaws. The precogs vision of Anderton’s future murder depicts him killing a man he does not know, but the man is Leo Crow, not Leopold Kaplan. Anderton, in the film, still believes he is being set up and goes on a quest, which is drawn out more than in the short story containing encounters with new characters and full of dramatic actions. Anderton kidnaps Agatha (not Donna), the female precog who supposedly holds Anderton’s minority report. He discovers, as he does in the short story, that he does not have one, but his curiosity gets the best of him and he continues to find who he is supposed to kill. Eventually, he ends up at the place in the foreseen crime and finds pictures of his kidnapped son with a strange man. Thinking this Leo Crow is responsible for the disappearance of Sean, Anderton decides he is going to kill him.

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