Minority Report-Module 11

Going along with the theme I was asked to do an essay about a computer based movie.  I chose to write about the movie Minority Report.  I loved watching this movie.  It is about a team of “pre-crime” police officers that arrest felons, through a few psychics, who commit murder.  Or better said they arrest them before the crime happens.  These three psychics can basically tell the future and see murders taking place, they then communicate these events to the pre-crime police and they rush to put the pieces together and put an end to the murder before it takes place.  I think this plot is really cool. 

Without a deep look into the movie it could seem like the perfect solution.  No more murders.  And even into the movie everything seems to be going perfect for the main character John Anderton (Tom Cruise) and his team.  However the psychics soon produce a murder that John Anderton commits.  He leaves the team to prove his innocence. 

There is a flaw that I saw with having this kind of computer type justice system.  It is a topic with many people on both sides I’m sure.  The problem I see with it is that with a computer generated justice system it is very hard to say someone is going to do something.  Especially when it is such a drastic choice, such as killing someone.  It is one thing to say that a person will do something when the consequences aren’t high, but when they are, our emotions get in the way.  Emotions that computers do not have.  During the first murder the pre crime team solved the man that was convicted said “but I didn’t do anything”.  Maybe he would have let anger get the best of him and followed through with the murder.  Or perhaps he would have chosen a different path. 

 Maybe it is the difference between a pre-meditated murder and non-pre-meditated one.  If it is pre-meditated then there is a higher likelihood that it will happen.   However even with this it is still hard to know 100% if they will follow through with the act.  It is interesting to note that as the suspected time gets closer and closer to the murder the dream of the psychics comes closer to true.  If the pre-crime police stopped the murder days, weeks, or even months before it happened it would be a different story than if they stopped each act just a few seconds before.  I thought this was a great movie!