June 2002 SJ's Corner : Spielberg Pushing Us Forward

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by Shelby J. Jones, Editor SJ's Corner : Spielberg Pushing Us Forward “Minority Report.” Brilliant, in my opinion. Slick and scary in actuality. Strictly Spielberg at the end of the day. The first film that I ever remember scaring me besides crazy vampire films was Spielberg’s “Jaws.” The film, till this day, has no rivals in terms of taking the viewer out into the ocean and leaving you stranded as a great white shark circles you, plays with you and ultimately eats you. Spielberg managed to prove to the studios that yes you can spend lots of money on a fictional water creature, scare the crap outta folks and make some money at the box-office. While Jaws was not revolutionary, it was a slingshot in a new direction of filmmaking. This weekend, Spielberg and Cruise take us to the year 2054 where big-brother has turned into a mother…The police in Washington DC have managed to find pre-cognitives that can actually predict whether or not you are about to murder someone. Before you do your dirty deed, the pre-cogs receive the information and spit out lottery balls with the expected killers name on it. Now can you imagine that? Can you imagine the possible flaws this system would have? If that system were in place today, I would be jailed every time someone cut-me off or every time I called Sprint and spoke to that damn Clair. Certainly with our current society and the anger it can produce, many of us would think, “damnit, I’m gonna kill you.” Of course we would not really do it, but the pre-cogs just might say that we would. So there it is, time-up, game over and you go to jail. Whatever you do, when you see this film, truly suspend all disbelief and try to really imagine where our society is going with issues of privacy and terrorism in abundance. Spielberg manages to push us again. Forcing us to think, what if? The scary thing about this film is that it probably will be.