The Future
A major aspect of the film is how the filmmakers depict the future, and futuristic society. Spielberg's film focuses on a society in which crime is prevented using prophetic technology. Law enforcement, as well as many other elements of society and technology, have become much more sophisticated by 2054. The government tracks people wherever they go by scanning their irises. The eye scan is also used as a way to advertise to the specific individual, with hologram salespeople speaking directly to each potential customer, referencing their purchase histories. This image of the future is purely fantastical, but it also seeks to predict the ways that people will be more heavily surveilled as technology advances. In some ways, the image of advertising and identification in Minority Report bears some resemblance to the personalized ads that we now experience on the internet or social media.
Additionally, the future portrayed in the film shows a new road system where people no longer drive, but are carried in cars attached to the road systems. We see a man reading a paper that updates as soon as news comes through, jet packs that the PreCrime cops use to chase criminals, flying police vehicles and energy guns. All of these show a possible version of a futuristic society, the ways that technological advancements might make life easier, but also potentially worse—less free and more boring.
Loss
Anderton has been serving in PreCrime for 6 years under Lamar Burgess. The reason he began working for PreCrime in the first place is that his son, Sean was kidnapped just before PreCrime was invented. Had the technology been available to him before the loss of his son, Anderton would have been able to prevent the kidnapping. The loss of their child weighs on John and his wife Lara's marriage, and they drift apart. Anderton begins doing drugs and obsessively working for PreCrime, in search of answers to the mysteries of the loss of his son. Thus, while Anderton appears to be a highly confident and competent individual, underneath his determination is a profound grief and sense of deprivation.
John is not the only person to have suffered a loss. His wife, Lara, also feels the burden of the loss of Sean. Agatha, the Precog, also has suffered a loss, having been taken away from her mother and commissioned—seemingly enslaved—to work for PreCrime. Not only that, but her mother, Anne Lively, was killed when she tries to reunite with her daughter. John, Lara, and Agatha have all suffered tremendous losses, and they grieve together at the lake house just before John is arrested. A major theme in the film is loss and the sorrow that those who have lost people dear to them experience, as well as their search for closure.
Trust
Anderton has become close to PreCrime's Director Lamar Burgess—almost like his son. He follows Burgess because he believes in PreCrime and its capacity to change society for the better. As the film progresses, we learn that Anderton does not quite know the truth about Lamar Burgess, and that Burgess has blood on his hands and has covered up the organization's flaws. By trusting Burgess completely, Anderton aligns himself with the organization and the system, but when the organization turns on him, he must question the structures and people he has put his trust in. Once he realizes the depth of Burgess' crimes, Anderton takes it upon himself to reveal them to the public at large, challenging the trust that society has put in PreCrime. Additionally, once he is targeted for the murder of Leo Crow, Anderton must go on the run and use his wits, trusting no one. The only person he must put his trust in is the shady doctor who gives him an eye transplant—and who he learns, after being anesthetized, is a man he arrested years ago in Baltimore. Thus the question of who you can trust—whether it is an individual, an organization, or the government—is a major theme.
The Past
Another major theme in the film is the past. While John Anderton has devoted his professional life to solving murders that are predicted to happen in the future, it is revealed that he is doing so because of his obsession with the past. When he goes home after work, he takes a drug, neuroin, and watches old home videos of his missing son and estranged wife, trying to interact with the video footage as though it is real life. Anderton's obsession with the past, with the loss of his son for which he takes a great deal of responsibility, haunts him. It is not until he meets Agatha and he begins confronting his emotional experience of the past that Anderton can begin to move on and free himself from his obsessive relationship to his own personal history.
Corporate Greed
Lamar Burgess seems like a kind and ethical leader and mentor for much of the film, until it is revealed that he is the one behind the death of Anne Lively, Agatha's mother who was drowned. We learn that Burgess killed Anne Lively without the Precog system noticing, because he knew that her desire to connect with her Precog daughter might put the whole system of PreCrime in jeopardy. When Anderton begins to figure out more and more about the Anne Lively case, Burgess sets him up for the murder of Leo Crow, so that Anderton will be locked up and cannot snoop anymore. Thus, Burgess shows that he is more concerned with the legacy and reputation of PreCrime than he is with honesty and straightforwardness. He cares only for his own legacy as the director of the PreCrime program, and does not seem to care about the individuals who must wrongfully suffer along the way. In this way, a major theme in the film is the fact that corporations prioritize systems over people.
Fate vs. Free Will
The premise of PreCrime is that human beings' actions can be predicted, and that there is a certain amount of predetermination that goes into every act. In this schema, free will is an illusion, and human beings are victims of fate, unable to control or modify their actions at will. As a PreCrime cop, John Anderton firmly believes in this philosophy. However, once he is framed for a future murder of Leo Crow, he begins to question its efficacy. How can he kill someone whom he doesn't even know? When he meets Crow, he is led to believe that Crow is the man who kidnapped and killed his son 6 years ago. For a moment, Anderton becomes a victim of his own fate, filled with a murderous rage at Crow. Agatha, however, reminds him that if he knows the narrative of his fate, he can choose to make things turn out a different way. "You have a choice," she reminds him, and sure enough, Anderton is able to break out of his spell of rage and resist his supposedly predetermined fate. Thus, the film is concerned with examining the relationship between free will and fate, showing the ways that, while certain things are fated or predestined, human beings still make choices, and these choices are evidence of their free will.
Surveillance
As mentioned previously, a major element of the imagined future in Minority Report is a heavily surveilled society, in which individuals' eyes are identified by machines. Anonymity is almost impossible in the future, in that one's identity is marked and identified at every turn. The surveillance state depicted in Minority Report is primarily geared towards capitalism and consumerism, as advertisements come to life and speak directly to consumers by name once their identities have been determined. Once Anderton is on the run from PreCrime, he must get his eyes replaced in order to elude the system, going through a drastic physical alteration in order to move through the world without fear of being apprehended. The film suggests that in the future, consumerism will be directly connected to surveillance and the police state, and that the same systems that make shopping and consuming easier also compromise an individual's privacy and anonymity.
