The Ending of Minority Report -- Spoilers Within
 

I figured since the DVD was just released, I would start a discussion thread on Minority Report's ending.

Do you guys take the ending at face value, or consider it a tragic Brazil-esque ending? Or do you think it's pretty open-ended (ala Total Recall)? I personally believe it a tragic ending. Spielberg puts a lot of subtle hints in it supporting this theory.

To those of you unaware of the theory, it is that when Anderton is put in the prison, that is where he stays, and everything happening afterwords is all in his head. Normally, I'd think this is ridiculous, but remember what the jail guard tells Anderton? He tells him that when prisoners are put in the jail 'all their dreams come true.' Right afterwords, his ex-wife figures out the whole plot, busts him out of jail, then Anderton ruins and humiliates Burgess leading to his eventual suicide. Afterwords, the pre-crime is shut down, he gets back together with his wife, impregnates her, and the 3 twins get to live the rest of their life in peace. They all live happily ever after.

Mind you, I haven't seen the film since its theatrical run, but I think that this happy ending is all in his dreams and imagination. Why else would that line be included? I have never been married, but I really do not think it's that easy to get back together with an ex-wife, AND to have another child with her. Perhaps he's reliving the period when his wife was pregnant with Sean, or in his mind, he's dreaming that he got back together with her, and wanted another kid to redeem himself.

I do not think I'm looking too deeply into this, as the hints are clearly there. Anyone else agree / disagree? Feel free to discuss.

I think in his perfect world precrime would have stayed. I know Speilberg left out one of the last lines of the script, talking about the year following the elimination of precrime their were x number of murders, because it interfered with his happy ending.

You can take it this way if you want to. I however think that it all really happened. I think Speilberg would have made it obvious if that was his intention. But that's just my opinion.

I agree with Mittman

IMO, Speilberg is the type that would make the ending really obvious.

warning: contains Solaris (1972) ending spoiler

I didn't really give much thought to the ending. The film had gotten a bit too mired in the muck for me to actually care what was going on. But then I saw Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972). Imagine my surprise when the Tarkovsky film ended with an almost identical shot. The camera pulls away from the action to reveal the characters isolated on an island.

Of course, the Solaris ending and everything up to it is densely layered with aspects of the psyche and christian mysticism to name a few. Minority Report can't begin to hope for such lofty goals. But man, that final shot is so derivative. I can't believe that Spielberg would be so ignorant to miss the similarities. Of course, Minority Report is so chock full of references to other works that it's a bit forgivable.

But anyway, anyone who has seen that last shot in Solaris and understands its significance can see the effect it might have on the "reality" of Minority Report.

well, I think I'll just listen to spielberg's commentary and see what he has to say about the ending.

oh, yeah

spielberg doesn't do commentaries.

I say it's a dream because once Anderton is "placed on ice" the rest of the film goes for the type of ending that I call the "Scooby Doo" ending where so many stupid things have to happen for the Scooby gang to catch "Old Man Lamar".

I would like it if the ending was all a "Brazil" like dream, but if that is indeed Spielberg's intention, I've never known him to be so subtle, ever, at any other time, in any of his movies. The similarity to Solaris' ending is there, and it is very similar in structure to Brazil, but I have a feeling that if Spielberg intended ambiguity, he would have made it obvious ambiguity, he's just not a subtle guy, the words not in his filmmaking vocabulary.

So while I would prefer a downer ending I doubt Spielberg intended it. But, I'll have to watch it again.

Spielberg never goes for downer endings. Many people say this is his one real weakness as a filmmaker, that he must always take the copout route. Not that I mind movies where the villains get their just deserves, but not when it tends to compromise the rest of the story.

I don't know, I just think it's in the spirit of Phillip K. Dick stories to make the end open-ended (like Total Recall, and I believe Blade Runner). Another reason why this might be a dream ending, is because Spielberg took out that very last line that MrX talks about. He wanted to make the ending as happy as possible. I don't understand why he can't be subtle all because he's Spielberg. A.I.'s ending was subtle. Everybody thought it was a happy ending, when in reality, it is a pretty sad one. Same thing goes in Minority Report.

But let's get to this question, why did he have the line included of the jail guard telling Anderton that 'once someone is locked up, all their dreams come true'? I think perhaps he wanted it to be open-ended, or he was ignorant at what the line implied.

I've only seen A.I. once and I can't recall the ending being subtle.
I though it was pretty straightforward.

I haven't seen it in a while, but I think most people walk away being angry that Spielberg gave us another 'happy ending.' I think the ending of A.I. is from from happy. It's relevent because Spielberg seems to be making new films these days, we'll see if the trend continues with Catch me if You Can.

I just take it at face value. As others have said, spielberg likes to spoon feed the audience, if it was meant to be a dream, he would have made it obvious.

It's just a typical happy hollywood ending.

I still like the flick though, it's on my X-mas list.

The film should have ended when Max von Sydow is shot and the camera zooms out and fades away, which would have left more cognitive processing for the audience. However, when the camera kept rolling and disclosing the ending with telling the future of the precogs and family reunited. At this instant, the film lost is dark and futuristic feeling for the unknown future and it hurt the overall value of the cinematic experience for me. I am not saying that the film is ruined, but it ruined a brilliant film exprience and degraded itself to a good film experience. Thus, it feels like Spielberg lacks confiendence in the audience ability to form their own thoughts. And it interfers with the notion of what describes: if poetry is what you can’t translate, then “art” is what you can’t define. - Robert Frost. This meaning that it defined too much, and a good story to me and many others is when the audience has to be cognitively active while inhaling the tale. But this is only my ¢2. :)

Cheers :beer: !!!

Well, it IS a Phillip K. Dick adaptation! That does make sense to me! Wow... never thought of it like that!

BUT what DID bug me about the ending was the part where he says something to the effect of "... and all the prisoners were released. Some of them had to be watched closely though."

THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! The PreCogs (?) WORKED! So if they worked, why release the prisoners!!!

Here's my logic:

DNA works. Just because one person may be framed by someone placing someone's DNA somewhere, does NOT mean that every single prisoner who's DNA was at a crime scene should be freed!

Agreed, everything just falls into place a little TOO easily.

Well, yeah, I'd be curious about anyone who considers the euthanization of David to be a "happy ending." :)

Agreed, it never crossed my mind that this was anything but an obvious "happy" ending, which is a shame because for the first 90 minutes, I thought it was an amazing movie, and then it totally fell apart for me at the end.

The ending scene is also like the ending scene from "The Princess and the Warrior".

being that unlike DNA where it points to person A being a location B and oh by the way there was a person C at location B with his head cut off and errrr you say you were never there but errr ahh here is person C's blood all over your car and shirt and the ax you have in your hand :)

Vs the precrime stuff where that last case would 100% cast doubt on any and all other cases.

Much like tom's last little lines of the film hinted at..

as for the dream end or not.. Hum.. hard call but I like that it was done that way...

I don't think it was a "dream ending." If it was all being played out in Anderton's mind, I think he'd live his life out with Sean.

You had me there for 2 seconds you silly monkey -smile-

I don't buy the dream part, partly because one thing bothered me towards the ending. Anderton (Cruise) was not arrested as a pre-criminal like all the rest. He was arrested AFTER the murder. Therefore, shouldn't he have a trial? And he has a very credible witness that can clear his name. Besides the fact he was no where near Whitmore (Farrell's character).

I can by the fact that they believed he did do the first murder though, and arrested him on that basis. then since he was "haloed" he couldn't defend himself. still the evidence would come up to clear his name very soon.

As for why the criminals were released, obviously anyone with a minority report could have been viewed as innocent. And if the system is flawed, how do you know which one is correct or not. It casts doubt in the public's mind. But more imprtant was the fact that Burgess (Von Sydow) proved you could change your own destiny and the system was flawed.

I just had this discussion on another site.

It's not a dream.

When Anderton is haloed, he doesn't know that Burgess is guilty of killing Anne Lively (as well as setting him up for the killing of Leo Crow). We as the audience know this because of Burgess killing Witmore, but the characters in the movie don't figure it out until Lara is talking to Burgess after Anderton's been haloed and he makes the slip up over Lively's death being a drowning (you will recall, Burgess claimed to have no knowledge of Lively when asked by Lara and she never said how Lively died).

So there's no way that Anderton could have "dreamed" Burgess killing Anne Lively as he never suspected Burgess of betraying him or Agatha (Lively's mother).

Yes, Gideon seems like a stong indicator, but if you look at the supplements on the 2nd DVD, they tried to populate the movie with a lot of odd, stand out characters...he was just another one of them.

Kind of off the subject, but what is the deal with all these movies set in the future where the prisoners are just frozen or put to sleep for an extended period of time? Where is the punishment in that? You're put to sleep, or frozen, then several years later they wake you up and you're set free. Wow, that's harsh. The prisoner is dreaming or whatever the whole time, with no real concept of time passing. Granted, at least in Demolition Man, they tried to "reprogram" the prisoners, but I still don't see this as punishment. Seems like it's more about keeping them off the streets than punishing or rehabilitating.