> I also think the movie should have handled the "conclusions" about pre-crime with a little more thought. The closing shots seem to act on an ethical conclusion that it has not earned by establishing a proper argument. A more open-ended ending would have been fine, as would this same ending with more exploration of the pertinent moral questions.

Yeah, well, maybe I'm allowing my personal biases to slip into my analysis, but I'm not sure I would have been entirely happy with a more ambigous ending (though it would have been preferable to what we got). One of the things I liked about the story (see? personal biases!) was how it really thought through the consequences of the existence of PreCrime -- essentially, the story was about unravelling both the temporal and moral implications of such an agency. The movie broadens its focus on its characters (a good thing) while adding in some great cinematic moments (a very good thing), but loses a fair amount of the complexity of ideas present in the story. I don't think that telling a more complex story would have dulled the movie.

>
> All the same, I think my problem with the ending is more centered on the plot itself than on the moral questions. I am not one of those that writes off absolutely everything that follows Anderton's imprisonment as an artificially contrived "happy ending" -- people who scoff at Spielberg because his movies tend to be upbeat annoy me --

I agree. I didn't find it too upbeat, myself, nor am I one to fault Spielberg for that. The ending certainly wasn't overly-sentimental or sappy, in my opinion. The story, written by Philip "Captain Downbeat and Random Ending" Dick himself, didn't have a particularly dark ending either, so I think that particular criticism is really unfounded.

> but I don't think the identity of the villain or the final confrontation with him were interesting at all. In stark contrast to the originality and creativity of the rest of the movie, these elements come straight out of standard formulas. With a story line that held up better at the end, I don't think the slight mishandling of the moral issues would have been as conspicuous.

Yeah, it was sort of a shame. I was particularly let down by the motives and methods of the villain, which seemed so pedestrian (though the set-up of Anderton by the villain was great).

Stephen