Minority Report

Minority Report is a 2002 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely based on the 1956 short story “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick. The film is set in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia in the year 2054, where Precrime, a specialized police department, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by three psychics called “precogs”. The cast stars Tom Cruise as Precrime Chief John Anderton, Colin Farrell as Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer, Samantha Morton as precog Agatha Lively, and Max von Sydow as Precrime director Lamar Burgess.

In this episode we discuss futurism, visual effects and technology in the film. We talk a bit about how large companies making smart decisions can still fail (we’re looking at you Nokia). On the science front we look at the real science of predicting crime and the history of data driven policing.