Sight is a main theme for the film. Anderton cannot escape the Precrime unit with his own eyes, everywhere he goes he will be identified, so he has to somehow get new eyes. He goes to a man who replaces his eyes with someone else’s and Anderton is now slightly safer. He is informed that he cannot remove the bandages that are covering his new eyes for twenty-four hours, which poses a problem when the flat that he is staying in to recover is invaded by spyders (Small mechanical critters that work in the same way as the machine on the train.). These creatures are relentless and seek heat. So, Anderton tries to lower his body temperature by filling a bathtub with water and ice, and he climbs into it. The spyders eventually find him, and they pull at his bandages, and scan his eyes. He is not identified as Jon Anderton and so the spyders leave.
Anderton finds out, through the woman who created Precrime in the first place, or at least discovered the talents of the three precogs (Agatha, Arthur and Dashiell), that there is such a thing as a ‘minority report’. This is something that happens when one of the precogs disagree with the other two. He realises that this could help him, and so he goes back to the Precrime building to try to find it. The minority report is contained inside one of the precogs, Agatha.
The scene at the Precrime building begins with what looks like a school trip. There are several children all dressed in white, perhaps symbolising their innocence to the imperfect system, standing outside the Precrime building, listening to a man telling them all about the precogs. Anderton walks past them, disguised, and one boy looks at him, but doesn’t recognise who he is. Anderton then crouches down behind a large stone, and takes out a device, which he injects into his neck. This totally changes his face, and so he is now virtually unrecognisable as the man he once was.
The children are being told about the Precrime system being the ‘perfect system’, and there, almost right in front of them, is the man who once believed that, but has now worked out that the system is far from idyllic.
Anderton then enters the Precrime building through what looks like a back entrance, and his reflection is shown in a puddle. The lighting is very dark, creating a sense of mystery and intrigue; it contrasts with the previous scene, which was very bright. He has to get inside the temple (The room in which the precogs are), and to get inside he has to be authorised. So, after looking around briefly, he comes to a door, and takes out his old eyes, which he plans to use to gain access to the building.
But he manages to drop them, as he shakes them out of the bag, leading to an almost comical scene, in which he is chasing his own eyeballs down a corridor. It might seem comical, but it shows how desperate he is, that he would chase his eyes through passageways. His eyes come to a grate in the floor, (which represents a barrier or obstacle he has to face) one drops down through it, but Anderton just manages to catch the other by the optical nerve. He nearly lost his sight, his link to the man that he was, but he managed to just keep hold of it.
Inside the temple, where the three precogs are, is dark with a blue tint. Wally, who looks after the precogs, spots Anderton, and shouts at him to leave. But Anderton runs to a door and gains access by using his remaining eye.
Wally eventually catches up with him, and he doesn’t recognise him, until he speaks. Anderton asks for Wally’s help in finding out information about his alleged crime.
The music and sound effects in this scene are very melancholy and sad, almost dirge like. In contrast, the scene with Anderton chasing his eyes through a passage, the music is lighter and more futuristic, like the rest of the film. But the scene in the temple is sad, because Agatha reaches out and touches Anderton, asking him the question, “Can you see?” They both look up, and the image shown is that of Anne Lively, Agatha’s mother, being murdered. The music is almost chilling, yet at the same time is sad and wistful, showing Agatha’s longing to be away from her ‘life’.
Anderton needs Agatha, and yet at the same time, she needs him just as much.
In a previous scene, Danny Witwer is looking at a screen, which shows the murder Anderton will commit, and Agatha is in the room. Later, after Anderton has escaped with Agatha, one officer wants to go after them, but Witwer says, “She’s already a part of his future.” She is a part of his future, in the sense that without her, Anderton would be arrested and locked up for the rest of his life.
To get inside the temple, and to try and get to Anderton before he escapes, Witwer breaks the window by throwing a chair through it. As the room is called the ‘temple’, this is sacrilege and wrong. But, he needn’t do this, because, as he said himself, Agatha is a part of Anderton’s future, and there was little that anyone could do.
The temple is classed as ‘womb-like’. It has a ‘plug’, which could be seen as the birth canal, and when Anderton drains the liquid and escapes down it with Agatha, this is showing that she is finally being ‘born’ into the real world, instead of the one that she, and the other two precogs, has not lived in, but existed in.
The system does seem perfect to everyone at first, but as flaw after flaw is revealed, it becomes evident that it isn’t. The system is based on Burgess’ ambitions, and his view on perfect. He is supposed to believe in this system, believe in putting the murderers away for life, but he commits two murders. He is the one who killed Anne Lively, because she wanted her daughter back, and he wasn’t prepared to let her go, as Agatha is the key, the one that the other two listen to (They are a hive-mind). So, in order to protect his own ideals and ambitions, he took the life of an innocent woman, and then covered it up.
Also, Burgess commits the murder of Danny Witwer, who worked out that there was something strange about her murder, and also the one person who did not believe in the system.
The reason that the system clearly isn’t perfect is because nobody knows exactly what perfect means. Something that is perfect to one person could be full of flaws to another. The system, which seemed so perfect to everyone only seemed that way, as they were told that, and they believed it. Whether they actually believed in it themselves was not relevant to the people of Precrime. They thought that as they were stopping murders from happening, they were doing good, and as well as pleasing people; they were saving their lives.
But, as with Danny Witwer, some people were not sure about this, and decided to go against it, and this was the collapse of the system, showing that it was not as faultless as it may have seemed.
