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http://www.steamshovelpress.com/altmedia12.html 'Minority Report': Spielberg's Psychic Dictatorship by Uri Dowbenko It's 2054, and it's bleaker than ever. It's not only bleak, but it's ugly. In 'Minority Report,' future murders are "seen" by "pre-cognitives," three shaved-head human-like mutants in a flotation tank, hooked up electronically so their predictive results come out as lottery balls naming the perpetrators. The Department of Pre-Crime then supposedly averts the murders that are supposed to be committed. (Imagine Attorney General John Ashcroft getting a "vision" during his morning "prayer" sessions about the "evil terrorists." "Jesus" appears to him and he puts the word out to arrest the "dirty bomb" guy Padilla, who just happens to look like the John Doe 2 of Oklahoma City Bombing fame.) 'Minority Report' is the ultimate in theocratic psychic dictatorship, where the pre-cognitives' storage facility is actually called "The Temple." Viewers are also reminded that, "The oracle isn't where the power is. The priests are where the power is." And the Fed-Thugs all agree -- "We're more like clergy than cops," they brag -- without a hint of irony. After all "the pre-cogs are never wrong" -- except sometimes they are. When one of the mutants disagrees with the majority, the dissenting opinion is called a Minority Report. Based on a Phillip K. Dick short story, director Steven Spielberg's 'Minority Report' is set in the ultimate surveillance society, where eye scans are so ubiquitous that billboards actually speak to individuals by name. When you walk into a Gap store, for example, your eyes are constantly scanned and checked against the Corporate-Government Database, so your name is called out in the most obnoxious sales pitch ever. Minority Report' is a control freak's version of the world, where commercials are really personalized based on eye-scan information. The only way out for an illegal alien or an info-rebel? Eye replacement surgery. Even in the Future, it's a horrific world out there, especially when white-collar criminals are running the Justice Department. You understand, it's kind of like today - but set in the future. John Anderton (Tom Cruise), Chief of the Department of Pre-Crime, says, "I believe in the system. I'm not going to kill anybody." He believes all right - until he's set up for a murder, which he claims he won't commit. Try to prove that you're not guilty of a crime you haven't committed yet. Yuck yuck. That's another subtext of the plot. But don't worry -- the Department of Justice in the future will put you away in the "Department of Containment," a long-term storage deep freeze, where people are encapsulated to hibernate forever -- without having to worry about laws, or courts, or judges, or any of that minutiae which the Attorney General finds so bothersome. So Tom Cruise and his Gang of Future Crime Fighters race to the future crime scene before the murder happens. Evidently, in the future, nobody cares about white-collar crime like fraud, narcotics trafficking, or money laundering. After all, the criminals run the so-called System. Hey, come to think of it -- the Future's just like Today. The Fed-Thugs have more important things to worry about. Their resources are spent on preventing a cuckolded husband from shooting his wife and boyfriend. It seems that the Future really is just like Today - only later. "Imagine a world without murder," says a commercial for the National Pre-Crime Initiative, a resolution to institute the psychic dictatorship as a formal institution of justice. "It will keep us safe and also keep us free." It might as well be a commercial for the phony War on Terrorism. Safe and Free? You can't beat that. Spielberg introduces some really important new technology, of course. There are talking cereal boxes, which irritate the Tom Cruise character to no end, holographic life-size 3-D movies for all those ephemeral memories, and jetpacks for federal Cop-Thug SWAT teams to bust into your living room. There are also robotic spiders, which crawl into low rent apartments and check everybody's eyeballs to make sure they're not wanted by the State Security Police. But no hover drones. Evidently Real Technology is, well, too real. And there are -- surprise! -- no free energy devices in 2054, according to the script by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen. There is, however, a new sporty two-seater Lexus for that all-important product placement. (There's even a chase scene sequence inside a robot-controlled Lexus assembly plant.) Tom Cruise's boss Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) tells him, "You don't choose the things you believe in. They choose you" - a singular bit of programming to reinforce the themes of religious and political control. Veteran actor Max von Sydow, of course, played the spook killers' controller in 'Three Days of the Condor.' "Come in. We'll keep you safe," he tells the Tom Cruise character in a parallel plot development in 'Minority Report.' And what do you do when somebody sets you up for a crime you didn't commit? The other programming hook kicks in. Tom Cruise repeats hypnotically again and again - "Everybody runs." It makes good "Reality TV" fodder. The Illuminati warning is also clear when the Department of Justice drone tells his boss, "Careful, Chief. You dig up the past. All you get is dirty." In other words, don't mind a thing. Go back to sleep. Everything is under control. Spielberg's cinematographer Janusz Kaminski has made 'Minority Report' one of the ugliest pictures in memory. Desaturated, washed out colors like all the juice got sucked out and there ain't nothing left. But that must have been a deliberate decision. Bleak production design takes Today's Nascent Police State into a Nasty Dictatorship Tomorrow. 'Minority Report' is a horror movie disguised as a science fiction thriller. It exploits subconscious fears. Constant Surveillance. Imprisonment. The Loss of a Child. The Loss of a Civilized Nation. Global Slavery. Surprisingly enough, however, unlike Spielberg's 'Artificial Intelligence,' there are no aliens. Repeat, no aliens. There is, however, Tom Cruise, the Rock Hudson of his generation, who for reasons unknown continues to play leading man heteros. The future in 'Minority Report' is all washed-out. There's even a subtext about the philosophical debate between Predestination vs. Free Will. But it's all very clear. The barrage of media mind control makes it all a moot point. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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