LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Student

Presentation

2005

 

Lori Nolen 

Minority Report

Primary Objectives:

  1. To identify, describe, and criticize stories humans tell about the future:
    1. Apocalyptic
  1. To identify typical visions of the future as seen from 2005
    1. High tech; virtual reality – slick, clean, cool, unreal, powerful?
    2. Low tech; actual reality – rough, messy, hot, real, powerless?
    3. Dystopia/Ecotopia – gone wrong, + ecology

Film:  Minority Report (2002), directed by Steven Spielberg; based on the short story by Phillip K. Dick.

Summary:

Jack Anderton is a cop working for the pre-crime division in Washington D.C. which arrests killers before the crime is committed.  Pre-crime, an ideal tool,  is based on three pre-cogs, psychics, who predict murders through their visions.  These pre-cogs are not ordinary psychics but genetically mutated humans.  Anderton is a firm believer in the system until his name is engraved on the wooden sphere and sent to the department.  John struggles to solve his own crime before he is arrested in 36 hours.  He learns that the three pre-cogs do not always have the same, unified vision.  When this occurs, a minority report is made.  This is the key to John’s discovery of the murder is about to commit.

Questions to Discuss:

1.  Our class favorite:  Is the future written or being written?  Are the pre-cogs prophets who reveal the written future or do they create the future?

 

2.  In Parable of the Sower, The Time Machine, and Minority Report, genetically mutated humans are a central part of the narratives.  A “disability” is turned into a specialization, a unique ability.  Are these transformations leading in the direction of utopian evolution or are they a de-evolution or dystopia?