From: Gordon Worley (redbird@rbisland.cx)
Date: Sat Jun 22 2002 - 23:29:09 MDT
I saw /Minority Report/ last night/this morning, the Steven Spielberg
movie based on the PKD short story by the same name. The short review
is that your average person will like this movie and it's message, but
transhumanist will (I hope) find that the plot is amiss in a few places
that forces the ending. I'm less vague below (i.e. spoilers follow that
discuss the ending after some white space):
If you've read the story and liked the ending, you'll be disappointed.
Of course, if you hated the ending, you'll get the one you were after.
Despite my comments above, Spielberg has managed to create a fairly
logically consistent plot. The conclusion makes sense, but only because
the plot was changed from the plot of the PKD story enough to make a
happy ending possible. In many ways, /Minority Report/ the movie has
the same message as /Gattaca/: humans triumph over technology. The
problem with MR the movie is that, unlike /Gattaca/, the technology is
demonstratably making society better, so the only way to give the
audience the ending that will make them feel good about being human is
to change the plot so that there is an ethical dilemma that forces the
system to fall apart, but only based on human biased ethics.
The movie is okay and fits together well. It's wrapped up in a nice
little package for the audience, though, and doesn't make them think
about anything. /Minority Report/ the movie plays out exactly the way
the (human) audience would hope that it would, given the events of the
story.
Of course, keep in mind that I haven't had weeks to think on this, so
don't be too surprised to see a self reply in a month or so after I've
had a chance to chew on this movie for a while.
-- Gordon Worley `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty http://www.rbisland.cx/ said, `it means just what I choose redbird@rbisland.cx it to mean--neither more nor less.' PGP: 0xBBD3B003 --Lewis Carroll
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