h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I thought that AI was like that, it could have had a profound and thoughtfull ending but ended up more like a Disney movie the nearer to the end you got, until eventualy you get the narator and the sad music. If Minority Reports is more about the main charictors feelings then about why such a system could be called into question and whether just locking them up with out Triel is even fair.

-- DoctorMO --

Yeah, well, that's the thing, it could have been a really great opportunity to examine the morality of the legal system and methods of punishment, but it ends up just being about Tom Cruise's wobbly chin. To be totally honest that's not a massive surprise, coming from a Spielberg movie, and this subject is a bit controversial in the states currently (seeing as a guy was recently imprisoned indefinitely without trial simply for *wanting* to commit a terrorist attack).

There were some good sequences, but sometimes it felt a bit 'so what?'. Like when he's esacping from the car - there's no great sense of danger

Anyway, a Minority Report sounds like something the CRE would produce...

AI was not marvellous, and it would have been better if it had ended half an hour earlier (with the kid at the bottom of the ocean, possibly rusting).

I liked Minority Report. Is that okay by you? Then again, I'm expecting to like Goldmember, so who am I to talk?

(welcome back btw)

Minority Report was brilliant. Right from the start it established a vaguely uneasy and unsettling atmosphere and pretty much stuck to it throughout the film. Spielberg was mostly sticking to his "adult" filmmaking style he utilised for "Schindler's List" and "AI" although the Spiders (which were marvellous) and the GM plants were very Spielbergian without ruining the atmosphere. The "Oprah" moment in the house with the precog, the "so much love in this house" stuff, was a bit too emotional but somehow fitted in with the story.

The ending felt a little bit like a cop-out, everything sorting itself out all nice, but not too much. I wouldn't compare it with, for example, the ending of "AI" (I really liked AI but I don't think I'd want to see that ending again. All 20 minutes of it).

I'm suddenly liking AI more and more - except for the ending, I know all the Spielberg fanboys (well the ones I know) are claiming Kubrick planned for it, but that's not to say he wouldn't have ditched it.
Anyway - I really didn't like Minority Report - it wasn't thrilling enough for a thriller (bring back The Big Sleep which it aspires to) or deep enough for a psycho drama, and I really really hoped it would have gone further into presenting some kind of debate into the ethics of pre-crime. and I really hated the ending.

I don't think I would have liked it if it was a thriller or a psyco drama, I would have much prefared a mix of Sc-Fi with Philosiphy and thought, (a bit like The new Time Machine movie).

-- DoctorMO --

I like psycho thriller drama sorts of things generally, but this was one that we could take the boys to see, and they wouldn't pass out from the lack of special effects/car chases etc.

Yeah, the running around stuff is kind of a lure for your mass audience. The problem with MR is that it isn't nearly as clever or as bleak as it thinks it is (the plot falls down/apart in at least two places).

And, honest, I really don't care if you disagree with what I say - it's the nature of the beast. I'd rather be argued with than ignored! (Did I say something that suggested this wasn't the case?)

First of all, I haven't seen MR yet (although I intend to) but I heard something curious about it from a friend. Is it true that there is absolutely NO reason that Cruise was set up? It seems like a bit of a plot hole, if it is true...

*goes back to try and work out whether she was arguing with Awix or not*

*doesn't think she was*

did I mention that I thought Colin Farrell was v. good though?

Fear not Swiv, it was Catwoman whom that wuz directed at ('I liked Minority Report - if that's all right with you').

Farrell was very good, just suspicious enough to... hang on, I'd better not spoil the film for Mr L.

There is a reason why Cruise gets set up, it's just that the way in which he's set up doesn't make sense on a couple of counts.

(Tedious logical bit follows, incl SPOILERS!!!)




Basically Cruise sees a prediction of himself murdering someone. This causes him to embark upon a course of events which ultimately results in the events of the prediction sort-of coming to pass. Had the prediction not been made, the events in the prediction would never have happened. Therefore the prediction is causing itself, which is the causal equivalent of Cruise lifting himself off the ground by his own shoelaces.

(Plus the film makes it clear that the murder in the prediction is premeditated, when it's obviously not...)

On the subject of time paradoxes, here's a good one, from the Science of Discworld II:

A man is locked up in a cell for the rest of his life. But one day, the lock turns and he is let out...by himself, a future self who has travelled back in time to free, well, himself. So the guy in the cell gets out, lives a happy and productive life and, on one occasion, pops back in time to free himself from prison.

It's a mindf**k, eh?

I felt the same way about AI. It should have ended when the kid was underwater. Instead, Spielberg had to tack on a happy clappy syrupy little bit which made *no sense* and simply existed to give a happy ending (rather than an interesting one). It nearly ruined the film for me - but to be frank, the talking teddy bear was the real star anyway. I spy a spin-off...

Yup, that's another version of the same paradox, self-causing events.

I admit that the end of AI came perilously close to gloopiness but there was that gorgeous tracking shot approaching New York over the glacier, and that genuine sense of weirdness to it all. If it had all wound up with David trapped under the wheel, everyone would have bitched just as much about how it didn't have a proper end and lacked closure.

Gratuitous plug for the 24LAS review of AI goes here: A640135!

SPOILING MINORITY REPORT


He was set up because he found out that in some cases one of the 'streams' from the pre-cogs was not in the archives, because they don't always agree, hence the existence of the minority reports. It was premeditated, but not by him.

Hmmm... the *plan* was premeditated, but not the actual murder. Suppose that just about gives the film-makers an 'out', but if so why didn't the precogs detect the villain's intention to arrange someone else's death? I mean, he was basically intent on murder, so there should have been a ball with his name on it too.

OK, now I definitely have to go see the film, with a notebook, just so I can weigh in with my opinion

I don't like the ads for it, print and TV. It seems to be taking product placement way too far.

Well, there is a lot of product placement in it, but it's done in a vaguely satirical way so I guess the producers could claim it's meant 'ironically'.

(I suppose that's one good thing about Star Wars and LOTR that no-one mentions - no product placement!)

I'd like to see them try.

Saruman: I have a mystical ball communication thing called a palanthir (bonus points for correct spelling?)
Gandalf: Well I have a Nokia 1622 (it's in the past, so smaller numbers)
Sarumuan: Wow, and it comes with a choice of Dark Lords!
Gandalf: I'm thinking of switching to Vader or Voldemort. Everyone has Sauron these days.