Plot
Well, the plot starts out almost the same. John Anderton, the dashing protagonist (though in the story he was actually a fat bald man), gives a quick introduction to the innerworkings of the Precrime process, which is mostly the same. The only real difference is that the precogs have visions, and the police interpret these visions which are captured on video, whereas in the story, the precogs merely mumbled incoherent nonsense, and computers interpreted the audio. The whole Army failsafe concept was scrapped for the alternative of having a chief justice of the supreme court and a doctor overlook the investigation process. However, John Anderton naturally realizes that he has been pegged for futuremurder and takes off running. He is not kidnapped by the army. However, he is attacked by police officers on jetpacks, which was certainly an intriguing chase scene. Another notable difference is that Anderton is not actually the creator of Precrime, but is rather just an officer, so he hunts down the real creator, and is...attacked by plants....Yeah. The lovely lady tells him that he must kidnap the precog Agatha in order to find his Minority Report. However, other than serving as the impetus for the kidnapping, the minority report serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever in the story. Yes, that is correct. John Anderton, after undergoing ocular surgery and being attacked by robotic spiders (yeah) then kidnaps Agatha only to discover that he does not even have a minority report. The title of the movie is then not mentioned at all for the rest of the film. That's the biggest difference, really, the minority report doesn't even do anything or mean anything at all. Oh, there is also a complete and utter difference in the intention of the main character. After accidentally killing the man he was supposed to kill, Anderton realizes that he has been set up (there's another difference, by the way, movie-Anderton only tried to arrest his victim but the man forced him to shoot him, whereas story-Anderton shot his victim intentionally). By the end of the story, however movie-Anderton and story-Anderton are completely different. Movie-Anderton sets out to discredit and destroy Precrime by proving that the Director, the one who set him up, murdered in order to get the precogs. Story-Anderton, however, murders a man in order to keep Precrime functioning. One attempts to destroy it, while the other tries to save it.
Point of View
The Point of View is slightly different in the movie. In the story, Anderton was the sole focus; we were only able to see the story and the other characters through his eyes. However, in the movie, the focus is primarily on Anderton, but we also get to see some other people. There are several scenes in which Anderton is not even present, such as with the director Lamar Burgess and the investigator Witwer. Spoiler Alert, Witwer gets shot. This scene is particularly important because now we can see that the true villain is not Witwer, who was the original object of our suspicion, but is actually Burgess. Wowza kapowza! But we didn't get Anderton's take on this scene, because he wasn't even aware it happened. The focus is less on Anderton and how his realizations drive the plot and more on how the audience is directly shown what's happening. Also, by the end of the movie, Anderton disappears completely for almost 15 minutes, and the audience is not able to see how he pieces together all of his evidence to get a clear understanding of what's happening. Suddenly he just appears, and the audience is like "what the heck's going on?" and Anderton's like "don't worry, everyone, I'm fixin' to explain it to y'all in this very convenient monologue." His rap-up speech at the end sort of reminded me of the end of a Scooby-Doo episode where The Gang, after apprehending the criminal, explains how they arrived at their realization to the audience, because children are not very good at unraveling mysteries, apparently. So basically, the difference is that rather than getting Anderton's realizations in real-time as the plot advances, we get a quick summary all at the very end.
Setting
The setting is virtually the same between the two. Naturally, because the movie is...y'know...visual, we are able to get a pretty vivid idea of what the setting looks like. Apparently all cars run on autopilot and can drive up walls, which is kind of cool. However, the setting isn't really all that important, other than just looking nice and acting as a decent excuse to throw together some ridiculous special effects. Just like how it was in the story, the setting only matters in that it allows the concept of Precrime to exist. The story is in the future, hey, that's a perfect place for something as futuristic-looking as Precrime to exist. Other than that, nothing really mattered. Oh, the movie took place in Washington D.C., while the short story took place in Chicago. That's...pertinent somehow, I'm sure.
Characterization
The main character is still John Anderton, and he is still characterized fairly indirectly. Other than the fact that the two characters are completely different, they are essentially characterized in the same way. We are only able to discern who Anderton is through his interactions with others and how we observe his actions. However, the other characters are characterized in a completely different fashion from how they were in the story. In the story, John Anderton told us exactly what to think about everyone. Woah, I don't trust that guy, and you shouldn't either! Hey, don't worry, this guy will take care of me. Hey you, you're strangling my wife, and I don't approve! We don't get this in the movie, really. We aren't able to hear Anderton's thoughts, so we can't really tell exactly how Anderton feels about anyone, other than through actions with them. All of the people are essentially characterized indirectly, and we no longer have Anderton's opinions and views telling us who to trust and who to suspect.
Theme
However, through all of the many differences betwixt the story and the film, the theme essentially holds the same. In my last post, dear reader, I spoke of a theme of the dangers of having an army in times of peace. Forget that, the army is not even mentioned in the movie. However, there is still the question of free will. In the film, the question of free will is even more blatantly shouted out at the audience. When John Anderton is hunting down Leo Crow, the man who he is supposed to kill, Agatha directly urges him not to continue searching for him, stating that he still has a choice to just walk away from the hotel and not murder Crow. However, he ends up heading into the hotel anyway, which starts to make us wonder "hey, maybe he didn't have a choice after all." And then John pulls the gun on Crow, and we start to say "Oh hey, I guess he really couldn't choose not to kill him." And then he starts reading him his Miranda Rights, and we say "Hey wait, I was promised bloodshed!" So in the end, it appears that Mr. Anderton wound up having the ability to choose after all, which makes us feel happy! But then Crow forces Anderton to shoot him, and we start to ask "Wait...so Anderton had free will, but it didn't actually matter...so does free will matter at all?" Well that's a whole new can of worms, m'friend. All's I know is that Tom Cruise is insane.
No, you're getting a Porsche, Oprah! Surprise!
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