Neil Smalley

Very light spoliers below
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Saw it last night.

One(well two or three) things I don't get

Why did'nt they cancel his access when he was declared a fugitive. Pretty dumb sys admins they have there...

Why go in all guns blazing 3 or 4 days before a murder happens(yes I know its america but still)? Simply turn up and say "You are going to kill so and so in 4 days time, should anything happen to them you are toast. Go choose."

That gets round the whole 'I have'nt done anything wrong', and the accuracy aspects. I.e use it as a preventive measure rather than a punishment measure.

Sure the ones that are going to happen right away treat differently, but at least give the guy a chance to choose.

Why did'nt Tom cruise just bog off to the country for a few days? He knew the place of the murder so all he had to was avoid it. That way he'd get off scott free and have the time and resources required for him to find out more.

The example they used to describe the whole paradox thing was lame too. If the ball was going to roll off the table, but was caught before it did then why could'nt the roller choose not to throw it in the first place.

What would happen to precrime in 60 or 70 years when the current precogs die or burn out?

Also, it tried to be the Matrix all over again(Compare the design of the spiders for example).

Anyway, 10/10 for an idea. Too many plot holes to make it really convincing.

Please be spoiler sensitive on replies..

[Edited by Neil Smalley - 8/4/2002 9:17:00 AM]

max-5

Agreed the plot holes were craters. I spent days afterwards thinking up much better things they should have done.

It was a while back I saw the show, but some things I recall not adding up:

(1) When Tom Cruise's wife was holding that guy at gunpoint to get the secret info from the files, why didn't the guy know she was NOT going to kill him even if he didn't give her the info. If she was going to kill him, the Pre-Crime Unit would have busted in 10 minutes ago and smacked her on the head. Seems he could have just grabbed the gun and said run along. (...or was she there getting Tom Cruise out of stasis? Can't remember, but plot hole is the same either way.)

(2) What was all that non-sense about the eyeball switching? And the face-changing thingy? Didn't seem necessary to me, he snuck in through a back door and nobody saw him anyways. Seems he would have actually had an easier time of it just keeping his original eyeballs and dodging the advert scanners.

(3) And on a related note, why didn't he eventually go blind for taking off his bandages early when those spiders came around to check his eyes? The whole reason he gets in the chilly tub is so he can evade the spiders and keep the bandage on, but then it gets lifted off - with no adverse effects. That whole thing where he ate the wrong sandwich was pretty far fetched. If I am blinded, I am surely going to at least sniff something before I munch it down.

(4) One of the biggest problems I had was that there was NO minority report! Seemed one of the biggest plot theme's was that on occasion they were "wrong" and this busted up the whole program. Turns out nothing in the movie ever had anything to do with the pre-cogs being wrong, just perhaps in interpreting the "intent" of the killing after getting all the facts, in Tom Cruise's case at least. There was No minority report!!

(5) What was that after-image non-sense. That guy set up this elaborate murder of that pre-cog's mother based on this quirky side effect of the premonitions. Well, I can't remember enough about it to inteligentlly express how it didn't add up, but trust me, it didn't-- at all. And why be so creative about killing her anyways. Seemed like the pre-cogs only detected murder in the D.C. area. Just ****** the mother, throw her in the back of the car, and drive off the desert and do your dirty business out of range - without some elaborate scheme, which I have already said would not have worked the way the movie would have you believe. For that matter, why set Tom Cruise up for this phony murder anyways? Just drive him off out of pre-cog range and take care of him.

(6) I recall that bad guy killing somebody while the pre-cogs were "offline". Pretty clever, except that it was a pre-meditated murder, not a passion killing, meaning that the pre-cogs should have seen it before. If Tom Cruise's "murder" of that guy was classified as premeditated (brown ball), so too should the other one that would have come in on the wire days in advance.

(7) How were they going to go "national" with the project when they only had 3 of these pre-cogs, and two of them didn't work so well anyways?

(8) How could that tank let Tom Cruise and that pre-cog flush away to freedom? You know they would have had a grate on bottom of the drain for just such a situation.

(9) What was up with their totally crappy computer data storage systems? And I really didn't get the necessity of that whole "ball" setup system? Come on. But I could have lived with little things like this were it not for the major puzzlers.

I was really reeling when I first came out, had tons of questions. I will rent it on video when it comes out and go insane.

However, overall good movie that did make you think.


[Edited by max-5 - 8/4/2002 11:46:44 PM]

MattN

the reason he didn't just go in to hiding was he thought he was being set-up and wanted to find out who was setting him up.

Agree about him still having access bit.

I think it tried to play on - when you've seen your future you can choose, but will you choose the same???

Finally, the guy he shot - well I wouldn't call that murder, the guy grabbed the gun, he'd have powder on his hands etc. This means when they reviewed the evidence you'd have the precogs version of him standing there shooting him from a distance. Forensics would disput this saying he was much closer there was a struggle etc. He also had a witness to say the guy grabbed the gun.

They found the dead FBI guy in his apartment shot with his gun - well surely his gun would have been held as evidence, no apparant trial, 'hey we found a dead guy in your appartment your gulity'. Just doesn't work. Especially considering he left his gun at the first crime scene so how would he have got it back??????

So, not quite all there but the idea of seeing the future, what would you do, the chain of events leading to it, all very good.

Thought it was a good film, despite the above.

P1Fanatic

Its a damn film for gods sake - every film ever made has flaws in it. Of course it had holes in the plot - probably cos they know we all spend loads of time discussing them afterwards.

Neil Smalley

Matt

Point i'm making is that if he bogged off somewhere until after the crime was supposed to happen, then he would be innocent and therefore cleared. He could then use all the resources of pre-crime to find the person who framed him and take as long as he liked.

P1f..

Of course its a film, but it also cost a 100 million bucks to make and you'd think they'd spend a few dollars to make the plot watertight. I think they should pay me a million quid a film to spot plot holes for them.

Andrewza

Have to disagree about the style thing, watch A.I. then tell me it's meant to look like the matrix

Tiggs

someone try and explain this to me....

if his boss was setting him up what was the steps he took to do this?

i assume he first gets hold of the "pretend" abductor and tells him to be in the right place at the right time...then what? if the pre cogs are the way that Tom finds out hes going to do it- how did they know? cause until he saw that he had no inyention of killing anyone? so whats the missing step?

Tiggs

and why cant steve end a movie with a hint of dark anymore, seeing tom and his mrs happy and preggers is hardly the same as wheeling the Ark of to some goverment wharehouse never to be seen again.

Neil Smalley

Tiggs, Agreed

Since it was established that you see visions and dreams while having a halo fitted and in stasis I would have ended it with the camera slowly panning out to show Tom cruise still in stasis in a room with millions of people being punished for crimes they may have comitted...