Transcript
Nate Day: Welcome to adaptation, the book to movie podcast. I'm Nate.
Chris: And I'm Chris, and today there's a, I was gonna say familiar face, familiar only to us face, we've got our good buddy Brett. Brett, say hi to the people.
Brett: Hi, people.
Nate Day: Hi people. Brett is an old friend of Chris's right. You guys go back how far?
Chris: Oh gosh.
Nate Day: Whoa.
Chris: So weird, so weird.
Brett: I've has grown a lot since then. Yeah. yeah
Nate Day: and And you guys have stayed friends since then.
Brett: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: Since then.
Brett: Basketball skills have stagnated.
Nate Day: And you're both, you're a big, that's all right. There's more important things in all three of our lives than whether or not we can play basketball, I suppose.
Chris: Thankfully.
Nate Day: including you're a pretty voracious reader, right, Brett?
Brett: Uh, yeah, I, I read, I try to read as much as I can. obviously having a young kid at home kind of slows that down a little bit, but kind of switched to audio for a lot of things.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: And I try to keep one audio book and one physical book going, but I'm in a book club with Chris and he knows that either I will devour a book in a couple of days or it will take me months and it's,
Nate Day: i'm the I'm the same way.
Chris: like six of them.
Brett: yeah yeah no no and we have like such vastly different tastes in books too it's it's it's pretty wild i don't know how we're friends to be honest
Nate Day: I'm the exact same way. There's no in between.
Chris: I've wondered that many times.
Nate Day: i see you sawing through them on Goodreads all the time. Every time I get onto Goodreads, it's something new from Brett Shand, Brett Shand, Brett Shand.
Brett: yeah i try to try to stay on the horn
Nate Day: Yeah. Well, today we are going to be talking about Minority Report, written by Philip Dick and adapted by Steven Spielberg. Back in the news because of Disclosure Day is in theaters right now.
Nate Day: But before we dive into that conversation, Chris, what kind of stuff have you been reading?
Chris: Yeah, i I hope this is not a repeat. I don't think I had finished it when we discussed Push. Did I tell you about Crimson Fall? Does that sound familiar?
Nate Day: Is that one of the, is it really old? i think you've told me about it separately.
Chris: No, really, really new. It's by an author named M.A.
Nate Day: Oh, okay. No,
Chris: Glaude, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right. G-L-A-U-D-E, Glaude, Glaude.
Nate Day: close as I'd get.
Chris: He is a very famous and popular YouTuber that I love watching. And then he just like popped out this novel. This is his debut novel.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: So no idea what it was about. Just wanted to support his channel and him as a creator. So I bought it. It's I don't know. how many folks I would recommend it to, but it was it was a fun read.
Chris: It's like a vampire thriller set in the nineteen twenty s in Chicago, so very much not my wheelhouse.
Nate Day: Cool. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, it was fun. It was fine.
Nate Day: What kind of YouTube stuff does this guy make?
Chris: he but He plays all of the games that I play, so that's why I follow him so particular.
Nate Day: Oh, he's a game. OK.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He makes Let's Plays for Civilization and Stellaris and like Victoria 3 and all of these games. Yeah, I know. I know. i Nothing. Nothing.
Brett: League of Legends. Okay.
Chris: No, he does not play League. He plays the games that are like nerdy, even to video game nerds. So, yeah, that's fine.
Nate Day: That's a you. That's you, Chris. Brett, what have you been reading and and have you seen any movies lately?
Brett: I've been reading Lonesome Dove. I feel like it just kind of blew up on my my Instagram algorithm. And I was like, I just got to read it. And so far it's like,
Brett: I'm 200 pages in and not really a spoiler, but they haven't left the ranch yet. You know, they're just kind of talking around, sit, stand around talking, but I'm like, just in raptured, you know, there's, there's some books where it's just the the writing that, that just sucks you in.
Nate Day: Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Brett: It's not what's happening. It's the characters and the writing. and And that's this book. It's, it's really good. and then,
Nate Day: cool
Chris: Which for context, for anyone that's not familiar, 200 pages is about 20% of that book. I think it weighs in just north of 900.
Brett: Yeah, it's it's huge. It's a big book. But I'm a teacher, so like I got summers off and and so what else is there to do besides that and chip away at my garden?
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: Sick.
Brett: i'm Listening to a book about about fatherhood and how being a dad changes your brain and your body and and your your hormones and stuff.
Brett: So that's been pretty interesting.
Nate Day: Wow.
Chris: sick
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. Big stuff. Are you learning things? Are you like identifying with it?
Brett: You know, it's kind of validating. There's a lot of things that are going on in the book that I'm like, yeah, that totally makes sense. Like irritability or like, like just, uh, you know, gaining weight or not having energy, like all of those things that you kind of feel down on yourself about.
Brett: It's like, that's a real thing that, uh, many dads deal with.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: And, and, and yeah, so it's, uh, it's, it's a, it's a good one. That one's called dad brain by Darby Saxby. yeah
Nate Day: OK, cool. it sounds I like those kinds of things.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: Good for you, bud.
Brett: Yeah. And then the most recent movie I watched was Project Hail Mary.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: Wonderful movie.
Nate Day: Oh, great movie.
Brett: Honestly, one of the better sci-fi movies I've ever seen. it was incredible.
Nate Day: Yeah, I agree.
Chris: So good.
Brett: and The book is amazing too.
Nate Day: split
Chris: So good.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Blair and I like to laugh because Rocky reminds us of Chris so much.
Brett: Yeah. Okay. I can see that.
Chris: But, yeah.
Brett: It's like,
Nate Day: You know, when he's like, I didn't know that was a joke.
Chris: I can too.
Nate Day: That's 100%.
Nate Day: Our boy, Chris.
Brett: oh I like it. Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Fist my bump.
Nate Day: Yeah, that, Jess Ant, yeah, that is a good one.
Brett: Jazz hands.
Nate Day: I feel like I need to rewatch that one. I think I watched it two or maybe even three times in theaters, but that's been a couple of months now.
Brett: Oh my God. It's so good.
Chris: So good.
Nate Day: It's so good. But like I said, today we're here to talk about Philip K. Dick's Minority Report. So Chris, why don't you give us a rundown of the book and Brett, as you see fit, feel free to jump in and sprinkle a little Brett knowledge on us.
Chris: Yeah, well, we have Brett for this one in particular. As Brett alluded to, it's so fascinating. as A central tenet of our friendship, I'm going to say, is how different we are as individuals.
Chris: Is that fair, Buttski?
Brett: Yeah, I'd say that's fair for sure.
Chris: Yeah.
Chris: And it's so fascinating because we've been in this book club together. We did the math. and I mean, we've got to be pushing 100 books at this point. It's been six or seven years.
Brett: Yeah. Yeah, we've been we've been we've been plugging away and we're going at a pretty slow clip and until Chris went teacher mode on us.
Nate Day: Wow.
Brett: And he's like, hey, we've we got to have due dates on these. Like we we need to we need to pick it up a bit.
Nate Day: That's Chris. That's Chris for you.
Brett: but
Chris: Well, there there we have this fascinating butting of heads where we have very different books that we consistently, like the term in in book reading as a hobby is often your wheelhouse, right?
Chris: But if I need a recommendation, Brett's one of the first people I go to. And so this was a really fun one to get him on, a big Philip K. Dick fan. And this is an era of books that we have disagreed on in the past.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: And so that's why that's kind of a little origin story for this one.
Nate Day: Cool.
Chris: Because if Brett tells you any of his opinions on Ursula Le Guin, he is flat wrong.
Brett: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Chris: So.
Nate Day: Whoa. You're not an Ursula fan?
Nate Day: I don't even know the lady. I just know her from how big a fan Chris is. So I know that that's sacred ground you're treading on there, Brett.
Brett: yeah yeah i know i
Chris: on Same era.
Brett: Don't ask me about Tolkien either.
Chris: but but Okay, I wasn't even going to bring that up.
Nate Day: Oh.
Brett: yes
Chris: we're Nope. Okay.
Nate Day: Whoa.
Chris: The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick. Let me give you a little bit of context on our boy.
Nate Day: okay
Chris: First and foremost, this was published in 1956.
Chris: It is actually technically a novelette, not even a novella.
Nate Day: Wow.
Chris: Weighs in at a flimsy 112 pages.
Nate Day: Oh, pamphlet.
Chris: But let me, since you're both here, anybody want to take your stabs at, this is one of five huge titles of his that have been adapted. Four as movies, one as an Amazon series.
Brett: How many adaptations there are?
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: out No, there there are five primary ones of his. This is one of those five. So I'm looking for his other four.
Nate Day: are they all like Are they all kind of similar to this, or is the point that it's a...
Chris: This is really, no, this is his vibe. This is his whole thing. Yeah.
Nate Day: Okay, is it something like iRobot, or like...
Brett: Asimov.
Chris: Yep.
Brett: Paycheck.
Nate Day: Wow.
Chris: Nope. One of them you've told me to read a thousand times.
Nate Day: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And Nate, you are going to kick yourself about one of them. Early 80s, massive sci-fi movie.
Brett: Oh, do android's dream do androids dream of electric sheep?
Nate Day: Oh, yeah. What's that movie called?
Brett: Blade Runner.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: Oh, duh.
Chris: Blade Runner. Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: Blade Runner.
Chris: Total Recall is his.
Brett: Total Rico. Holy cow, yeah.
Nate Day: Oh, cool. That's a cool movie.
Chris: The one Brett suggested 75 times to me, Scanner Darkly.
Brett: scanner darkly. That one's weird.
Chris: And then Amazon series The Man in the High Castle is also an adaptation of Philip K. Dick.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah, and you like that show, don't you, Chris?
Brett: good show.
Chris: Massive. I have not watched it yet. I want to read the all of them.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: i have not seen because I want to read the books first.
Nate Day: Oh, maybe somebody else. I forget who then. Maybe if they're listening, one of my friends has recommended it. If that was you, send me a text.
Chris: But I mean, just a ridiculous career, because again, for this era, we often think of Asimov, as Brett already said, or Ursula Le Guin. But I don't want to go super into this because I think we've got some interesting stuff to chew on for the... for the book itself, but he his bibliography includes 45 novels, 121 short stories, made up into 14 different short story collections.
Nate Day: ge
Nate Day: okay
Chris: Just absolutely prolific author, of which this is part of one of them.
Brett: an animal.
Chris: Yeah, that's insane. I mean, that's absolutely insane, but he's got some themes that I think are going to come out a lot that I want to bring up on the front end because I'm not sure where the discussion will go. So once again, just like I said with
Chris: T.S. Eliot, I think the the broader discussion of Philip K. Dick as an individual will have to come later because I think there are some interesting contrasts between the book and the movie for us to pull apart.
Nate Day: Okay.
Nate Day: I have heard that there's some pretty big differences.
Chris: But
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, yeah. i want to So these are these are the themes that have really come up a lot in all of his books. So I want to bring that up and then we narrow it into this one. Sound good, fellas?
Nate Day: Okay. Yep. Yeah.
Brett: Sounds good to me.
Chris: So his the the three main things that really come up a lot, one, obviously, what is real? hu Which is a massive question that he, for some reason, loves to play with.
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: Could never be more timely, even though this book is now pushing... uh actually exactly 70 years old artificial intelligence and identity huge in this book and same with his third big big theme surveillance and control okay so lightning speed again brett jump in if i'm skipping something important but the book is a much more narrow cast uh
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: The, anderton God, what is this for? I always, i always remember Allison because that's his middle name, which I just think is crazy. John Anderton.
Nate Day: I was going to say, isn't it just John? Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. John Allison Anderton. no explanation given for that middle name.
Nate Day: Strange. yeah
Chris: pretty, pretty much on par with, uh,
Chris: Oh my gosh, Scientology Boys character. What is his name?
Nate Day: Tom Cruise.
Chris: Yep, yep, Tom Cruise.
Brett: Scientology boy.
Nate Day: The biggest movie star to ever live.
Chris: I was like, I should not be forgetting his name.
Nate Day: a
Chris: I would say Anderton is pretty pretty true to the character from the movie. Brett, you've seen the movie as well, right?
Brett: You know, believe it or not, that was one of the very first DVDs that we owned as kids, and that was probably the last time that I watched it.
Nate Day: Oh, a long time ago.
Chris: Goodness gracious.
Nate Day: Wow.
Brett: Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time.
Chris: Oh my gosh.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: This is like, I probably watch Minority Report every other year, if not every year.
Nate Day: It comes up in every other podcast episode we do.
Brett: Yeah. Does it really?
Chris: I love this movie.
Brett: Well...
Chris: I love this movie.
Brett: I feel like his the the movie and TV show adaptations of the short stories are thematically very on point and and usually pretty true to it, but there are some like major differences in them, typically.
Brett: Sorry, was I...
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: I think I've.
Brett: You're getting to that?
Chris: No, that's exactly yes.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: No, no, no.
Brett: yeah
Chris: That's...
Brett: And sometimes it makes more... like the the the movies and TV shows make more sense than what you're reading. You're like, oh, that is what that means.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I agree.
Brett: That's a cool interpretation of it, and that kind of thing.
Chris: Is it... But, Nate, you have not read it, correct?
Nate Day: Correct. Yeah. But I've obviously seen the movie.
Chris: Yes. Well... I would hope everyone has at this point. I was going to ask about spoilers, but I mean, both of these have been out for so long.
Brett: I know. but
Chris: We're not worried about spoilers, right?
Nate Day: No, I think especially because they're pretty different. I looked up a list of differences and Spielberg even has some quotes about the differences and it it seems like two two different dishes with the same ingredients kind of.
Chris: Yeah, that's a great, yes, yes. And it's it's curious to me in this case, speak well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Super fast. The TLDR of the book plot. So Anderton, head of the precog division or the, no, that's not the name of it.
Chris: a Precrime.
Nate Day: Pre-crime, yeah.
Chris: Precrime division.
Brett: Pre-crime. love that concept.
Chris: And they use, it's so good. It's so good. And I, oh my gosh.
Brett: I think about it every day.
Chris: oh
Brett: yeah
Nate Day: on the On the giving or the receiving end? Because that's a little scary.
Brett: that Sometimes you don't even know, you know?
Nate Day: yeah Yeah, that's kind of the point, I guess.
Chris: I ask myself every day, will I commit a crime?
Nate Day: Did we just get a spit take on the Right.
Brett: Is this my day?
Chris: such a wild statement, Brett.
Brett: Well, the thing is, like, like, in this world, you can't say that. You can't say, i like, because just, like, thinking it and saying it is a pre-crime.
Chris: right it
Nate Day: But Chris, do you want to explain that the TLDR before we get too deep into mechanics?
Brett: You know? Sorry.
Chris: Yes, yes, yes.
Brett: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: Sure.
Chris: So again, I'm going to try to say I've seen our book club read it five months ago.
Chris: And then I reread it this week just to be prepared for this. So I've only read it twice. So I want to make sure that I'm just giving book plot because I've seen the movie way more times. So he's the head of pre-crime and they they get these, they they they're like little note cards.
Chris: I mean, even for sci-fi, it was still written 70 years ago. So the honestly, the visual representations of some of the technology are way cooler in the movie.
Nate Day: Yeah, totally.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: Very graphic and what we would consider now not PC description in the book. Our word is thrown around often.
Nate Day: Oh, what the...
Nate Day: Okay. Okay.
Chris: Or they are called the idiots. Yeah, that part's a little unfortunate, which thankfully they...
Nate Day: The, the, the people that can read tell the future.
Chris: Yeah,
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: the precogs.
Nate Day: Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow.
Chris: Yeah, the movie did a great job of adjusting that aspect.
Nate Day: I would have had no idea. Yeah. That there is no sniff of that whatsoever.
Chris: Yeah, there is a super graphic description of their oversized heads and withered, wasted away bodies.
Chris: Yeah, it's that part's a bit rough in the book.
Nate Day: Gross. Okay. Yeah, I guess.
Chris: But again, he i mean, it's so short, it goes so rapid fire. So the book... The very first, you are like a page and a half in Very first scene, he's in there.
Chris: Card comes out. So the whole setup, they skip the setup that the movie gives that I think was very, very beneficial for the viewer of one entire near murder being stopped.
Nate Day: Crime.
Chris: That's not in the book at all.
Nate Day: Yeah. yeah
Chris: It's literally just him in there. We're given no context, just a loose description of what they do. And he gets a card that says he's going to kill Leo... leo Katsman, Kaufman,
Chris: Kaplan, Leo Kaplan. And he's like, I don't even know who that is. Of course, I'm not going to murder them. But the army also has their copies of it. So he snags it before anyone can see it, but he knows they're going to have a copy as well.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Runs away, gets abducted like seven times. The dude is pinballed around in the book. Kaplan himself abducts him, supposedly for his safety.
Chris: This is the head of the army who, in this you know dystopian future post-apocalyptic world, there's sort of a loose allusion to some grand battle that took place. did you What was your interpretation of that, Brett?
Brett: It was like a like a civil war. and And honestly, the whole world is the whole like little in-story universe is on the brink of civil war. Like it would take nothing, just a drop of a hat. There's just like two factions that are at each other's throats.
Nate Day: Interesting.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brett: And it's like it's like the police versus like the military or something like that.
Nate Day: Okay.
Nate Day: Whoa. Wow.
Brett: yeah
Chris: Yep. And then the military's, like, lost their power in this scenario. And the police have all this control, you know, because they're running this pre-crime unit and there hasn't been a murder in, like, six or seven years or something.
Chris: And then... So it turns out this is the person that he's supposedly going to murder. He thinks his wife is in on this, like it's a setup.
Chris: Some other dude wants his job. And they they kind of roll the characters together because the guy who formed pre-crime in the movie is Kaplan, correct?
Nate Day: formed pre-crime?
Chris: Right, the old guy?
Nate Day: Yeah, is that Kaplan? I guess it is.
Chris: I think so. Or that's that's as close as we have. That character doesn't exist in the book. They've kind of rolled them together here. And so the Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is both the head of pre-crime and this kind of neurotic, kind of paranoid creator of pre-crime.
Nate Day: Okay.
Nate Day: Yeah. Okay.
Chris: All as one character.
Nate Day: Got it. Got it.
Chris: So he thinks someone's gunning for his job. He suspects his wife is in on it. He thinks this is all fake. And then he realizes it's this giant coup that the army is has cooked up to take control back from pre-crime. Because if he kills...
Chris: The general, obviously, he's murdered somebody for the first time in seven years and pre-crime was wrong. But if he doesn't kill him, then that means it is revealed that we have been unjustifiably incarcerating all these individuals and pre-crime is flawed.
Brett: Yep.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: Right?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: yep
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: And this idea of the minority report that is just so brilliant. So i you can't beat this, is that there are three of these pre precogs that are simultaneously getting these glimpses of the future. And then those are sort of collated and collected to determine what will happen. And even Anderton, as the creator and figurehead of this this group, doesn't didn't know until this takes place that there are frequently minority reports where two of the three see a certain action taking place and one does not.
Chris: And that one is discarded.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: And again, the movie treats it differently. In the book, it's actually really brilliantly explained. The first one sees him killing Kaplan.
Chris: Because he's the head of pre-crime and sees the card, he decides, I'm not going to do that. So the second one sees him changing his mind and not doing it. And then because the second one saw that, the third one sees him finding out that he wasn't supposed to do that, finding out about the coup, and then actually doing it, which of course he does in the book.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: He just shoots him in the head and walks away.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: And no one could say shit about it.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Exactly, exactly.
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: nobody Nobody walks around armed because there hasn't been murder in seven years.
Brett: like
Chris: And a little bit unsatisfactory in that that's where the book ends. He just pops them and wanders off.
Nate Day: Okay. That makes sense based on something I've read that we'll get to later.
Chris: Yeah, yeah. Well, that's that again, there's a lot to discuss there, but that's truly, I mean, Brett, am i if there are main points that you feel are important that I left out.
Brett: No, I think i think you you nailed the plot down pretty well. But one thing worth mentioning is is his paranoia.
Chris: Thanks.
Brett: And he he blames or is suspicious of every single person in that book, whether it's his wife he's been married to or his closest friend or whatever.
Brett: He thinks everybody wants something from him.
Nate Day: Wow.
Brett: And so even that there's like a like a mental health part to it where like he's all of this aside, like he's not well throughout this entire thing.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Yep. Yep.
Brett: Like you could see him going off the rails and being violent at any moment. But there's this there's there's this component of of of free will to like, does free will actually exist?
Nate Day: Wow.
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: And it's just so genius.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: No, no, no. Back off there.
Nate Day: It really is.
Chris: Back off there.
Nate Day: Oh, oh, too far.
Nate Day: We went too far.
Brett: right
Chris: Too far.
Brett: yeah Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, even the, so his his wife helps him escape and then pulls a gun on him and says, no, actually, I'm not sure I trust you.
Brett: mean
Chris: We have to go back in and we'll find out if you're innocent or not. And then a different dude breaks in to try to stop him and start strangling her.
Chris: And even though she has initially helped him escape because she pulled the gun, he talks about, I let him continue strangling her maybe a moment too long before knocking this guy out. And you're like, all right, buddy, you gotta, you gotta sort something. Like I'm a little hard pressed to suggest we have a protagonist
Chris: in this entire story.
Brett: Everybody sucks here.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: But that's the...
Nate Day: I mean, i was always taught that a protagonist is the main character regardless of whether they're good or bad.
Chris: that's
Nate Day: is what my understanding of the character is.
Chris: Okay.
Nate Day: But I know based on some things that you've said on this podcast, you've said that before about a handful of other books where you're like barely a protagonist.
Chris: Okay. I'm saying...
Nate Day: So I don't know.
Chris: Well, maybe because it's not maybe the...
Nate Day: I could be wrong.
Chris: I feel like it's a loss of language. you know The only alternative I have is anti-hero, and that's certainly not the case, but you're not really rooting for him necessarily.
Nate Day: Right.
Nate Day: Right. Right. You don't know whether you can trust him. I mean, if the book is set up the same way as the movie.
Chris: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because it's very much from his perspective.
Nate Day: Yeah. Okay.
Brett: Well, it's almost like a sitcom where you're just like watching things unfold.
Nate Day: Interesting.
Brett: You're just like, okay, what's going to happen? And it's so short. You don't have enough time to really connect with the connect, the characters super well. So you're like, is he going to shoot her or shoot him?
Brett: Is he not going to, don't know. Let's find out. I don't really care.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: i do care because the writing makes me care, but,
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: it's kind of inconsequential. There is no hero to the story and there doesn't actually have to be.
Nate Day: Sure.
Brett: and don't think.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. The whole thing is damned if you do damned if you don't.
Chris: But that's all I want to say about the book. Exactly.
Brett: Exactly.
Nate Day: That's all you got for the book.
Chris: Yes, because I want to come back to a couple of those after we hear about the movie.
Nate Day: Wow.
Nate Day: Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to try and fly through my movie bit here, but same goes for both of you here. if If anything pops up, feel free to jump in, especially Chris, because you've seen it a lot more times than I have.
Chris: So many times.
Nate Day: The movie was released in 2002, directed by Steven Spielberg, who, like I said, he's got a movie in theaters now, Disclosure Day, which is a really interesting comp for this movie, I think, because it's that movie is about the dis but disclosure, I guess, that aliens are real and that we've known that for generations.
Brett: you
Nate Day: And so it's got the same sort of like your government is playing games with you that you don't realize your government is playing vibe going on and some cool through lines to, the, like you mentioned the technology in this movie, uh, in minority report, Steven Spielberg worked very hard to sort of develop that visually and make it something that's, that's interesting.
Nate Day: And, compelling i guess and that's very much what he does in disclosure day as well so uh getting a little bit ahead of myself here but if you like this movie i really think you might like disclosure day anyway written by scott frank and john cohen starring tom cruise as uh john anderton colin farrell samantha morton and max von sidow And it was actually when it was originally optioned, when the rights were purchased to turn it into a movie, it was going to be written as a sequel to Total Recall.
Chris: which is
Nate Day: But that fell through, that development of that project fell through, and it was rewritten as a standalone project. And eventually it it went through a lot of versions of of the script, which we've talked about a handful of times on the podcast. Sometimes they can just get spun up and sometimes like somebody's idea makes it all the way through. And sometimes there's like no trace of somebody that somebody worked on a version of the script. So kind of interesting that it came out well at all because oftentimes you can have like too many cooks in the kitchen on this kind of thing.
Nate Day: Spielberg and Cruz signing onto this made it a huge, huge deal. Like I said earlier, he's the biggest movie star that ever lived. Spielberg, quite possibly the biggest director that ever lived.
Nate Day: At the very least, they're both household names to people that are not mega movie fans like me, you know? And in order to make this movie happen, they both took really big pay cuts in exchange for a percentage of the box office gross off the top once the movie was done so that they could keep the budget lower on the movie. And again, make it something that studios were interested in doing because sci-fi epics like this are
Nate Day: really, really expensive and really hard to make successful. But get a big director, get a big star.
Chris: Thank you.
Nate Day: And if you get them for cheap, you can usually pull it off. I thought it was really cool. Back to the technology, Spielberg wanted everything to be super plausible. So he actually hired a group of...
Nate Day: of subject matter experts, I guess there were architects, technology journalists, computer scientists, all kinds of people that came together for this big think tank summit and talked about what would actually be realistic in the year.
Nate Day: Is it 2050 when this takes place?
Chris: I don't remember them ever specifying that. Hold on, let me check.
Nate Day: Maybe that was just a target date.
Chris: It just says near future. Okay.
Nate Day: Okay. Yeah. So, So, um,
Nate Day: Just really interesting to me that that all of this technology is is kind of plausible. For example, instead of getting an index card printed out, the pre-memories, what do you call them?
Nate Day: The visions, I guess, kind of are uploaded into these like giant marbles, and the marbles have that like holographic projections.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: It's really cool stuff. I mean, if I had seen this movie when I was 13, it would have been the coolest thing I'd ever And for many people, probably including Chris, it was the coolest thing we'd ever seen, right?
Chris: is.
Nate Day: Yeah, still is. And the good news is, Chris, it's it might be plausible because of all of these people that Spielberg looped in to make sure. He's like, I've got this idea, but I need to make it feel like it could exist in the real world someday because that was very much his goal was to take this crazy story that feels impossible because we're talking about people with like godlike abilities and and putting it in the real world. So really cool.
Nate Day: Just really cool like MO, I guess, that he had, you know, that thoughtfulness and putting that film together. That's why he's Steven Spielberg. First film to use pre-visualization for the entire pre-production, which is basically generating digital images of what's gonna be on the camera so that they can block a scene and not,
Chris: I
Nate Day: be doing it all with pen and paper. And that is now industry standard. Most films, at least from major studios, do that pre-visualization. And it's called Previz as a sort of nod to this film, yeah, which is also about having visions before anything actually takes place.
Chris: don't know.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: So kind of a cool you know flagpole moment in and movie history there. Like I said, big changes. I wanted to read this one quote from Spielberg and just see what your guys' reaction was.
Nate Day: me He said, the Philip K. Dick story only gives you a springboard that doesn't really have a second or third act. Most of the movie is not the Philip K. Dick story, to the chagrin of Philip K. Dick fans, I'm sure.
Chris: Mmm.
Nate Day: You're shaking your head, Brett.
Chris: Interesting.
Brett: I'm shaking my head because so much of Philip K. Dick's writing is just like thought provocative. Like, like, like that is such an insanely cool concept. But this book was 200 pages long.
Brett: You know, and and in a lot of them, Chris said that this book ends just like that.
Nate Day: yeah Yeah.
Brett: A lot of them are like that. And you're like, I want an explanation. i want more. I want to know why that happened. Is that person real? Did that really happen? Is this reality?
Brett: and And you don't get those answers.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: Phil K. Dick does not give you those answers.
Chris: I agree.
Brett: and And I'm not disappointed in any adaptation that goes any direction with it because I think that's just like so much of it is up to your interpretation as the reader and almost too much, almost too much.
Nate Day: and Okay.
Brett: but
Nate Day: Okay. I'm glad to hear you say that.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: I want to hear, before I explain why, I want to hear what you say, Chris, how you feel about that.
Chris: Yeah, no, I agree with him. i
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: I would view it as like you cannot help but get to the end of that and immediately wonder at the very least, where is Anderton going next? What is the next 24 hours going to look like?
Chris: And what Spielberg gave us was a plausible option.
Nate Day: Hmm.
Nate Day: Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Chris: i mean, if you made a full studio box office movie that stayed true to the book, you would have people up in arms with pitchforks and torches.
Chris: Excuse me.
Nate Day: Yeah. Well, interesting you say that. the The reception to this movie was mostly positive. Some people felt that Spielberg hadn't adequately addressed the questions that he posed in the movie, which of course are questions that also Philip K. Dick posed and sounds to me like he had no real interest in answering, you know, questions about free will and does it exist and like what what are the ethics of pre-crime and pre-cognitive,
Chris: a
Nate Day: am I getting too far ahead, Chris, or am I?
Chris: No, that's you're hitting the nail way on its head.
Nate Day: Okay. Yeah. I just think it's it's really interesting that that was a criticism of the movie. It's making me think it must have been totally intentional and that Spielberg might even be smarter than we we even give him credit for. Because what's also interesting about this having this discussion this week, Disclosure Day is having the same exact criticisms.
Nate Day: People are like, you pose this huge question, what happens when
Chris: Interesting.
Nate Day: the existence of aliens is disclosed and then there's no answers. That's where the movie ends. Sorry, spoiler alert. But we we don't see the day after Disclosure Day.
Chris: uh
Chris: huh
Nate Day: So a lot of people are are having that same conversation now about like, why does he pose all of these questions and then not answer them? Which I think, you know, is an interesting question artistically, but it also sometimes happens, especially now in the age of social media when people can like turn these ideas over in their head over and over again, and then shout them out into the void.
Nate Day: It's just like a movie sometimes crosses this threshold of like virality where you just can't please anybody. You know what I mean? Too many people can kind of get their hands on it.
Chris: m
Nate Day: But just,
Chris: Can I give you the prime example to me of like the logical conclusion to that argument though?
Nate Day: yeah, please.
Chris: Did you both see Cloverfield?
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: I've not.
Chris: super intense super on a knife's edge for 95 of it it's like this alien invasion everyone trying to get out and the scary part is they never reveal the aliens i would argue twister was honestly pretty similar and then once they do it's just right like it deflates
Nate Day: Oh, I heard that yeah.
Nate Day: yeah in fact and yes war of the worlds for me was the same way i just did a big steven spielberg marathon before disclosure day and i loved war of the worlds i mean i loved it until i saw them and i was like whoa i gotta take like a whole star off of this movie because they're kind of stupid like first of all they bungled the design and then secondly the the like mystery's gone that that whole element that was like a
Brett: with that
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: uh what it's called like a weighted blanket almost on top of you is is gone so interesting that these movies are having the same conversations especially because they come from the same director and he's so he's so open about what all of these films mean to him so many people including myself are really invested in like the steven spielberg project right so
Chris: who
Chris: yeah
Nate Day: all of his movies are about like broken families because he comes from a divorced home and they're often about withholding information because his parents were sort of withholding in in some of the ways that they raised him.
Nate Day: So if you sort of take apart disclosure day and minority report to see what it they say about Steven Spielberg, I think you end up with the same thesis.
Chris: Okay.
Nate Day: And I don't have that thesis like in, in words, to be totally honest with you, because art is so much more than that, but I think they're two movies that are very much in conversation with each other, super interesting.
Nate Day: that's That's pretty much all I've got for the movie, though. It was a big hit at the box office, mostly overlooked for awards, but has really undergone this reclamation in the last 10 years or so. a lot of discussion about it right now because a new Spielberg movie in theaters is such a big deal, so a lot of people watching it and and talking about it and just really cool to see it kind of unfolding the same way his his current movie is unfolding.
Nate Day: But let's, with that, let's dive into our discussion questions. Brett, did you have any come up? or Did you bring any? to Have any been nipping at you?
Brett: questions about the book itself or the,
Nate Day: The book, the story, yeah, anything.
Brett: let me marinate on that and let's hear what you guys have prepared.
Nate Day: Okay.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: All right, Chris, hit us with something.
Chris: Perfect, thank you. Yep, I've been trying not to say something. Okay.
Brett: but
Chris: One, because I was holding you guys back from it, and two, that that discussion of the movies goes into it. So, the huge, huge, huge question of free will.
Chris: One, because it's a massive question in there that obviously we're not going to answer, but
Chris: I think this is the first time in something we've discussed where the book really does service to the question the author intended. I think magnitudes better than the movie, at least in terms of fully fleshing out the explanation.
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: Okay.
Chris: I don't know what order to discuss these in. Well, okay, you've both seen the movie. I guess my initial question, what I really wanted to ask you both, is that what you took away as the primary question from the movie? This idea of his free will and how it altered the minority report production in comparison to all of these people that they've already arrested for their pre-crimes?
Nate Day: Yes, I think it's one of the major themes. And if I had to choose one sort of as the bullseye, I suppose that's what I would would choose. But because the movie is more of a crime thriller and he spends so much time sort of running and avoiding being caught, right, that it has some other I think that can get diluted a little bit in the fact that this is like an early 2000s action movie as well.
Chris: u
Nate Day: Right. but But yes, I think that's the ultimate takeaway.
Brett: People see Tom Cruise and and they want they want spies and guns.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: and
Chris: Mission impossible. yeah
Brett: Yeah. I guess my takeaway from the book was based on the main character's personality and the the situation that was unfolding, he literally had no choice.
Brett: he He did not have any choice.
Chris: Oh.
Brett: like That had to happen. It had to. Otherwise, what would have unfolded if he didn't do that? The thing that he devoted his entire life to would have gone up in flames.
Chris: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Brett: that He would have lost all power anyway, probably would have gone to prison because he sent a bunch of people to prison for something that may or may not be flawed, right?
Brett: The system of like...
Chris: Also never answered.
Nate Day: Yep.
Brett: Never answered. My personal opinion is it is flawed and he was trying to protect this. And but he had no choice. He had to kill. he had to kill this. bird He had to commit this crime. And the robot, they're not the robots, the precogs were right.
Brett: They were right. And so even though he was like, I have a choice, I'm not going to. It's easy not to kill somebody. You know, you just don't do it.
Nate Day: right.
Brett: But it wasn't up to him in the end. He had to do it.
Chris: See, and okay, yes, that's exactly what I took away from the book. I need to adamantly disagree with you, Nate, and as it often comes up here for us, I could just be extraordinarily dense.
Nate Day: Stop saying that.
Chris: But this was not my takeaway from the movie, because I feel like so much of the movie's plot refocuses on the precog having been taken away from her mom and her mom murdered to cover it up.
Nate Day: That's not the case.
Nate Day: Oh, right.
Chris: And so the the idea for me from the movie, each time I had seen it until I read the book, was
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: Anderton in the movie now is distinct of... Well, no, no, no, no. no no no no no Kaplan and Anderton are shifted positions in the movie, and he is not this general committing a coup for power.
Chris: He was the creator of pre-crime and the mentor of Anderton.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: And it comes to light that he killed one of the precog's moms in order to take her into the program for her power.
Nate Day: Right.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: And the question to me that I had always taken away from the movie was, is is this injustice justified for the greater good?
Chris: Quote, unquote.
Nate Day: Oh, I think that's kind of what I'm getting at, that there's several major themes, major questions posed. And I think that's that's another huge one. That's interesting that that was sort of your your number one takeaway, though, from the movie.
Nate Day: Because, he
Chris: i did not I did not take away the free will question at all from the movie.
Nate Day: really?
Chris: That was not my read on it. Yeah.
Nate Day: i mean, it's still, the climax is still Anderton trying to decide whether or not to kill, i mean, not even trying to decide whether or not to kill the guy that he's going to, supposedly going to kill.
Chris: And I suppose...
Nate Day: But it's it's sort of like him realizing that he's in the situation he thought he would not ever be in.
Chris: Uh-huh. Yes.
Nate Day: So I still feel like the free will and or the illusion of free will are sort of the bigger questions more. So i guess the the precog kidnapping thing to me felt a little bit more like you don't, none of us know what we're supporting.
Nate Day: So it's, again, it's still that illusion of free will.
Chris: Hmm.
Nate Day: You know what I mean?
Chris: Yes. Again, the surveillance, the, that whole setup in the movie of he kills this guy for being a pedo when it's just a a scapegoat.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yes, exactly.
Chris: But the book, I think so vividly because he specifically stops and they break down the different precogs, premonitions of the first one saw me doing it.
Chris: The second one saw me finding out I, I would, and then not doing it. And that's why he argues Not flimsily, but I was certainly not convinced from the text. Again, the text is very much a non-omniscient narrator. We're getting his perspective.
Chris: I'm the only person this could have happened to because I had access to the card. And I'm thoroughly unconvinced. I feel like... Dick was trying to imply in the text, this is him justifying it to himself. We are very much not led to a logical conclusion that, yes, he had to do this to defend pre-crime, the true and correct system.
Chris: Like, there is every realm in which this army coup is, in fact, taking down a deplorable and flawed system.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: I mean, the the U.S. justice system, for all of its own flaws, is built on the tenet of innocent until proven guilty. And this flips it on its head and says, oh, no, no, we we got you, buddy.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: at the air
Chris: i don't know. It raise raises more questions than answers, but in a delightful way. And I was just so fascinated...
Nate Day: yeah
Brett: It's not a world you would want to live in.
Chris: I don't know.
Nate Day: No.
Chris: Oh, absolutely not.
Nate Day: God, no.
Brett: You know, and and I could totally see i could totally see in the real world how this is pitched, like stop the crime before it happens.
Chris: And on its surface, it should be.
Brett: Like, do you want to wait for somebody to get murdered or for you to get robbed in order for that person to be put away?
Nate Day: Right. Oh, yeah.
Chris: hello
Brett: No, it's this person is going to do this. So let's put them in a work camp, which is, I believe, where they put them in the in the book.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: But I mean, God, you can really dissect this in a million different ways. Like, like, there's a whole thing about like biases and and and racism.
Brett: and And and maybe there's even a statement of, well, our criminal system already kind of does that a little bit just based on where you live, what you look like, what you believe in.
Nate Day: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: Yep. 100%.
Chris: statistically correct.
Brett: and This was written when in the 50s? I mean, my God.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Brett: Talk about ahead of his time.
Nate Day: Yeah. No kidding.
Chris: Well, and doesn't it, on its surface, it sounds not just plausible, but effective, right?
Nate Day: No kidding.
Chris: It operates on the idea of, oh, open your bag, show me your phone.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't complain. You know, this idea,
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: the
Nate Day: It's very Machiavellian.
Chris: yeah Well, the i think I think it's more subversive than that. It's very altruistic on a surface level and very Big Brother globally.
Chris: There are three of us here.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah.
Chris: Okay, so impromptu survey. Raise your hand if you think you will murder somebody in your lifetime.
Nate Day: Brett!
Nate Day: Let the record show Brett raised his hand and shrugged.
Brett: yeah I mean, come on.
Chris: He did say he thinks about pre-crime daily.
Nate Day: That's true. He did say that.
Brett: Because it's cool.
Nate Day: That's crazy.
Chris: So ideally,
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: It's interesting.
Chris: ostensibly, 0% of people should answer yes to that, right?
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: Right. Yeah.
Chris: As I intended for my survey to show.
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: We'll get rid of that in post.
Chris: Just ravenously obnoxious.
Nate Day: and
Chris: And so on the surface, cool. Hey, guys, we're going even you cut out all of the other stuff and you just say this is only going to find murders.
Nate Day: Sure.
Chris: OK, no one's going to commit murders. Cool. Well, if you even think about it, we're going to grab you before you do it. I, at least right now in my life, would comfortably say, i mean, I'm not advocating for this by any means, but again, we're talking about a theoretical society here.
Chris: Yeah, I'm not going to kill anyone.
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: Sure, sign me up. And if I'm genuinely going to kill someone, yeah, come and get me. And then the second they go and get somebody, well, he didn't do anything.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: How do we know? You know, it's, oh what a what a slice he has found here.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah, target your enemies, you know, and there there's there's an interesting checks and balances system that is built into it, which is kind of what makes this whole thing like, oh, this is an anomaly.
Nate Day: I know. Yeah.
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: This could only happen to this one person, you know, but I think part of the thing that gets thrown into question is like,
Chris: from
Brett: this is a really flawed system. Are you sure this is the only time that this could happen? Are you sure that this is such an infallible system?
Chris: Yes.
Brett: Because you've got a bunch of giant brain mutants that are just kind of crapping out names and future potential crimes. i mean, that's not a very good to stand on.
Nate Day: Yeah. And that's it.
Chris: And then... And the guy who invented it didn't even know about the minority report that theoretically has existed for everyone he's put away?
Brett: Hmm.
Nate Day: Right. That's a huge part of the movie is, is him learning that there is such thing as a minority report.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: And that's sort of what sets him on this journey. He's, he sets out to deter or to prove that the report that they got of him is a minority report.
Nate Day: And that quickly turns into
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: so many other things, but yeah.
Brett: It's plausible deniability is what we're going for, but it doesn't matter.
Chris: yep
Nate Day: Yep.
Brett: Like there is no, uh, there is no like reasonable doubt here. It's it's, uh, you're going to do this.
Nate Day: Yeah. Pretty black and white.
Chris: Yep.
Brett: We're shipping you off. It's crazy.
Nate Day: Yeah. so every time, pretty much every time that we, uh,
Chris: Brutally so.
Nate Day: talk about a mystery story on this podcast. Chris and I have the same discussion, which is do you or do you not try and solve the mystery along with our protagonist?
Nate Day: Like what are you know, Is that the right way to watch it? Is that how you like to watch it? Whatever. I've found myself completely unable because of all of these layers and how much time they spend like tangling you up in these massive concepts like do we have free will and what are the ethics of interfering with that?
Chris: for me.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: I was completely unable to even try and guess at what was going to go on even in the next scene. I wanted to know if you guys felt the same way when you're reading it, if you're constant. I mean, it felt like I was just getting beat up because I was like, let me catch my breath for a minute, you know? And I'm curious if the book is the same way.
Brett: i'm i'm a I'm a sucker for a red herring. I just i just fall straight into it every time. you know I want to believe that his wife is setting him up. I want to believe that there's a huge conspiracy.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: and and i yeah I just kind of let let the story unfold. But you just the book, you you don't end up really having an answer to that anyway.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Sure. OK. Because there's less, just less material.
Nate Day: OK. Interesting.
Chris: i feel I feel like they answer all of his suspicions, which is that... God, what is it? It's like with Withright or something? Colin Farrell's character.
Nate Day: Oh, the inspector or whatever.
Chris: its Yeah, yeah. Who, oh my gosh, talk about perfect casting. Like, Colin Farrell.
Nate Day: Yeah, that was really good.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: to To answer your question, Nate... What I think the book actually less so in my opinion, because I agree with Brett, you can't really guess an answer that's never given to you.
Chris: But the movie I would I would label this movie firmly under psycho thrillers to me, because they really build up more of a turn than than there was in the book.
Chris: I think it's kind of nonstop in the book, the movie kind of creeps up to it better.
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: And the brilliance in this one to me, unlike Sixth Sense or Shutter Island or Inception, where you can only truly live that experience the first time you see it, every time I watch Minority Report, it's still mind-blowing.
Nate Day: Sure.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Wow. That's a really good point, actually. There's just so much to turn over, you know, in your head.
Chris: Yes. Yes, because you're you're you're you're trying to you're you're questioning it to yourself, where I hope you know none of us are watching Inception and then sitting back in the theater going, am I dreaming right now?
Nate Day: And there's no answers.
Chris: Have I just not woken up? I hope none of us are watching Sixth Sense and going, is that guy I talked to earlier dead?
Brett: Okay.
Nate Day: Dead.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: That one messes with me sometimes.
Nate Day: That's funny. I'd tell you, Brett and I would tell you if that was the case.
Chris: But you know what I mean? You can only... Unless I'm making both of you up.
Brett: I don't know if I would.
Chris: Yeah, what if Nate Day and Brett Shan don't exist?
Brett: man. You kind of...
Chris: Those are creations of my brain.
Nate Day: Just saying, it was if it was true to character, I'd be blabbing.
Brett: man you
Nate Day: You know that's true.
Chris: That's a good point.
Brett: it kind of
Chris: Yeah, that's a good point. Okay.
Brett: You've kind of unearthed why I love Philip Dick so much. And, and like, you just genuinely don't know what's real or what to take at face value. You don't. And and this is true for so much of his stuff. Blade Runner.
Brett: The movie is based on the androids dream of electric sheep.
Nate Day: Uh-huh.
Brett: And till the very last sentence, you're like, You know, you you you you think one thing you think that this is the situation, you accept it, but then it just completely turns itself over and and you're like, oh, my God, what was real or or man in the high castle?
Brett: they have this I Ching that it it it spits out like prophecies. People use it like ai almost where they ask it a question and it tells it tells them what to do, you know, and it it tells them fortunes.
Brett: And and then at the very end, you're like, this is a multiple reality situation thing. Like, what is real? What's happening? It's like i it it begs itself to be reread.
Brett: It begs itself to be rewatched. And it's rewarding every single time because you have more information.
Chris: you know
Brett: And it's a different experience.
Nate Day: Yeah. Interesting.
Chris: I mean, this, let me give you, this this is a silly, but I think still germane example.
Nate Day: I wonder, uh,
Chris: This idea of perception is reality, right? Because Brett and I are both teachers.
Nate Day: yeah.
Chris: I'm sure you also get students turning in the most ridiculous answers that are clearly AI, right?
Brett: yeah Yeah, it's like, oh, you're a PhD.
Brett: Okay, didn't know that.
Chris: Well, buddy, this is very interesting.
Brett: Congrats, Doogie Howser.
Chris: yeah
Chris: So remember, Nate, I know I told you about this the day it happened.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: I assigned a Black History Month biography, and a student very confidently told me he wanted to do Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Nate Day: yeah yeah
Chris: And he showed me the Google AI search where he put in the prompt.
Brett: Wow.
Chris: And the prompt, I mean, I don't know how those algorithms operate, but it somehow weighted the second half of his question. It was about prominent black figures during World War II.
Brett: Thank you.
Chris: And it like zeroed in on prominent figures during World War II somehow.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: But in that moment for that student, not knowing different,
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: That individual was a prominent representative of Black history during World War II, right?
Nate Day: He was black.
Nate Day: Oh my God.
Chris: Obviously, we know it to be incorrect, but...
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: What don't we? What don't we? i What a question.
Nate Day: Yeah. Now but it's, Yeah, I know. I think it's kind of cool that, uh, yeah, that there is no answer and we can't know the answer.
Nate Day: Right. You know, i this was a hard one to come up with discussion questions for, for me anyway, because I think it sort of begs you to ask that question, sit on a call with two of your friends and say, what's ethical, what's real, what's, what's human, but you can't answer any of those, you know?
Chris: Cannot. Cannot.
Chris: Mm-hmm. No.
Chris: no
Brett: you and You and I, like we all know Eisenhower was white.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: And it's like, to Chris's point, like you don't know what you don't know. And then AI is spitting out things that like, it's it's it's showing you videos. It's showing you photos. It's showing you very convincing things that are trying to make you think a certain way about something.
Brett: And this kid was obviously mistaken, you know, and and whatever.
Nate Day: yeah
Brett: But when we just see like some video about something that's going on, it like you question reality. You're like...
Chris: Yes.
Brett: o
Chris: Yep.
Brett: Did the president really just say that? Is that really happening? Like, you know what I mean? and And it's like, I genuinely don't know sometimes.
Chris: h
Brett: And I have to look or like, like a really cool play on, on like, I'm a big Timberwolves fan, like a really cool like dunk or something. And then people like, this is actually AI that never happened.
Brett: I'm like, I was so hyped up about that play. That basket or whatever, and you're telling me it's not real?
Chris: Yep.
Brett: Like, I could live my whole life just thinking that something happened when it actually didn't.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: And I think that's getting much more complex right now as things are becoming more convincingly fake.
Nate Day: Yeah, totally agree.
Chris: Now, can I posit this is with with AI, it's obviously a very hot button right now, but it's not like this has not existed historically.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: Like when we were growing up pre-internet, when I went to write a paper in sixth grade, I would go home and my mom, the set of Encyclopedia Britannica that she was super proud of having, she'd made me plop out the relevant volumes and go do my research.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: Oh, sure.
Chris: But it's not like written research is not updated, right?
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: you You go to reference in in any modern scientific field, you go to reference a paper that was published even 30 years ago, you're pushing the edges of acceptable knowledge.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I'm not here to defend AI. I'm just suggesting that's not the only thing we can point our fingers at.
Nate Day: No, and you, and this movie and this book were well before AI was a thing.
Chris: AI also dog shit, but...
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: so
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Unbelievable.
Nate Day: it's existed It's existed in some form and AI has just magnified it, you know?
Chris: Mid right in.
Nate Day: Mm-hmm.
Chris: I mean, this would have been the peak of McCarthyism and the Red Scare. So I'm sure they were asking what to them were just as pressing and difficult topics.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: Yeah. With no Internet at all.
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: I don't, I think Philip K. Dick, posed a lot of these questions and he was a really good thinker and and a really creative person. i wonder if he could have foreseen like a re like this kind of thing happening.
Brett: know I wonder if he could have foreseen, can human beings, like can can normal people not tell what's real and what's fake anymore?
Nate Day: I mean, it's
Brett: Like, will that ever actually happen?
Nate Day: yeah.
Brett: Because i don't know, I think he's kind of out of a job right now. if he If he starts publishing today, they're like, okay, this is whatever.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: it just
Brett: That's every day for me.
Nate Day: Flop. Yeah.
Chris: It's just real.
Brett: like I can turn on Instagram and get the same experience.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: The same existential crisis. Yeah.
Chris: it
Nate Day: Well, I mean, think about what it was like to live in the 50s, though.
Brett: hey
Nate Day: You know, we we had a lot of revelations that things were not as we thought they were.
Brett: yeah
Nate Day: You know, kind of this, that like earth shattering thing that we were just talking about. So I'm sure to some degree, you know, i I don't think that he was like a prophet or anything, but I think he probably was able to look around and and say like, that's that way for a reason. You know, like,
Chris: Mmm.
Nate Day: the knicks winning the and nba championship recently that's great super excited I fully believe that at some point over the last year, the NBA sprinkled in some kind of favor for that because they knew that it would create the fervor that it did for the last few weeks. And I'm not saying that they gamed any of the games or or anything. I'm just saying that maybe they worked one or two things out, right? Like programmed the season so that it was slightly favorable to the Knicks because do you know how much money they made? And then guess what? The Knicks didn't win in three games.
Nate Day: they get, they extended the playoffs by a couple of weeks so people could spend more money. Just an example. i don't, I'm not trying to say that the and NBA is out to kill us or anything, but
Chris: i have I cannot believe you brought this up because I've been thinking about it a lot in the last week and a half.
Nate Day: really. Okay.
Chris: and Two parts in particular.
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: One... a gentleman, because we went we went down to a bar on 5th to watch the game Saturday night for the championship, as everybody did.
Nate Day: Yeah. Right.
Chris: I mean, it was insane.
Nate Day: right
Chris: we We tried to go home, and we had to go down to the street because it was so loud. We had to go see what was going on. People were stopping the city buses and giving them mixed flags to drive around with.
Brett: Oh, that's awesome.
Chris: I mean, there were 300 people in the street, and we're in a tiny, sleepy neighborhood. And just everybody just came out and was like, yeah, whatever. The fact is, even within our nation, the only place the and NBA exists, the the, you know, our NBA, not pro basketball.
Chris: It is factually better for each of us, me living here, Brett living in Minnesota, Nate living in Denver, because of how big New York is and its impact on the nation, the economic stimulus of that team winning will, in fact, in ways, improve the entire nation more than, you know, the Utah Jazz or something, right?
Nate Day: Right. Yes.
Chris: And that's nuts.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: That's absurd.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: That's so dumb. This is just a stupid sport. This was the first basketball game I've watched in five years.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: The bar owner where we ended up going...
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: legitimately he was talking to me and he was like, if they win it tonight in five, they're morons. Look at all the money they're leaving on the table. Two more nights at the garden. And I'm like, are you suggesting they should throw tonight's game in order to maybe win it on Tuesday here in New York?
Brett: but
Chris: He's like, yeah, you know how much money I'd make if they came back for another night?
Nate Day: It's true.
Chris: And I was like, wow. Yeah. No, because I've been having that same thought and I felt like a conspiracy theorist for even thinking it.
Nate Day: and know i I had this discussion with my family recently and my dad's a pretty big sports guy and he was sort of like, whoa, I'd never. thought of that but I think we were talking about it around the Super Bowl because we were like why are the frickin Chiefs in it again that's so boring and I was like why do you think they're in it because it's the most but the Taylor Swift effect it's the most popular team in the NFL because of a pop star you know what I mean
Chris: Well, well, well.
Brett: Yeah.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Brett: there's
Chris: I mean, Carl Anthony Towns was on the Timberwolves, and they did not win.
Brett: There's a lot of...
Chris: Goes to the mix, and they win.
Brett: no they did not.
Chris: don't know.
Brett: There's a lot of conspiracy in the and NBA realm of... it Is it is it rigged? and And there is actually quite a bit of evidence support that it might be.
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: There was one ref who was who was caught, you know, rigging some of the games and for for because he was betting on them.
Nate Day: Wow.
Brett: And i don't know. You're going to tell me it's just one guy. Just one guy.
Nate Day: Yeah, see, exactly. Well, and all it takes is one guy, you know?
Brett: there's there's a ref whose nickname is the There's a ref whose nickname is the extender because he extends, just as Chris was alluding to, he extends the, yeah. yeah Like, like it oh, it's it's it's gay it's game five?
Nate Day: Interesting.
Chris: We all make more money. Yeah.
Brett: All right, well, let's get let's go to game seven here. Yeah, but I don't know.
Nate Day: Right. Phil Dick would be interested. i think, I think he would. That's what I mean though. I think in the fifties, he probably was pointing at like, I don't know, I don't know what advertising looked like in the fifties, but you pointed a poster on the wall and you're like, wait a minute, it's tricking me. Or I've always told Chris, I won't wear a shirt that has like a,
Nate Day: Nike swoosh on it because I'm like, why the hell would I pay to advertise for you?
Chris: to give them, yep.
Nate Day: And we've been tricked into that kind of stuff.
Brett: Walking billboard.
Nate Day: You know?
Chris: Yep.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. So I think that's exactly what he's getting at here.
Chris: Dude, he would have he would have written some crazy stuff in the year of our Lord, 2026.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: If real existed,
Nate Day: Yeah, scared as I am by this one, I don't know if I want to read what he...
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: But you know what that brings us?
Chris: if real ai exist
Brett: That brings us right back to free will. You grew up in a society where people wear the Nike Swish. It's cool. It's a fashion statement. It's kind of a status thing.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: If you were an alien coming here to Earth, there's nothing inherently cool about the Nike Swish. And if you came to if you came to Earth for the first time, you're like, what what does it matter? But me, I'm like, I want to go out and I want to get Nike because I've been conditioned to think that way by my environment, not because of my own personal thinking.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: It's because my environment is what is driving me towards that. There is no free will.
Nate Day: yeah Yeah. Interesting stuff.
Chris: Cigarettes, on the other hand, objectively look cooler smoking a cigarette.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah, i don't know.
Chris: Nothing to do with marketing.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: yes
Chris: I stand by this claim.
Nate Day: I feel like i feel like the the cross-section of free will and addiction is a totally different conversation.
Brett: that's a different podcast, Chris.
Chris: It's the objective opposite.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: yes
Brett: Oh
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Okay, you may have a point. Still look cool.
Nate Day: Yeah, I know I do. Well, let's talk let's talk ratings.
Brett: my God, that's funny.
Nate Day: I think we might be on a little bit of a time crunch, right, Brett?
Chris: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: out of
Chris: Let's get Buttski out of here.
Brett: but
Chris: Do you, are you familiar with this? Oh, yeah, you explain it to him.
Nate Day: Out of five stars, what do you give? And if you want to use a half star or go by the half star, that's fine. But out of five, what would you rate the book and the movie, if you can recall the movie?
Brett: Okay. Can't recall the movie enough to give it a fair rating. The book, I'm going to give it a solid four.
Nate Day: Okay.
Nate Day: Okay.
Brett: because I would like to reread it, and i think I think there's room for it to shift one way or the other. But right now, just at face value, I'm giving it a four, because it made me think, and I still remember it, and I just think it's so creative.
Nate Day: Okay.
Nate Day: It is. Yeah. Truly original, you know?
Brett: Look at this conversation we sparked from pamphlet.
Chris: Very reasoning.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Right.
Brett: little pamphlet yeah
Nate Day: Yeah. And we're talking about the NBA.
Chris: And this is after you and I, i mean, Brett and i already discussed this with Book Club, and there was enough here to have a fun discussion a second time.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Well, on that note, then what do you give it? chris I assume it must be a fiver since you've read it a couple of times.
Chris: Honestly, these are both fives for me, and it was interesting when I went back to re-log it on Goodreads. It was only a four for me the first time, but I changed it to a five this time in full knowledge that I will return to it at least a third time.
Nate Day: Oh,
Chris: I got more out of it the second time, which is crazy for a book this short. I mean, that's remarkable.
Nate Day: Yeah, that is pretty wild. But that just is a testament to his writing. You know?
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: I gave the movie...
Chris: And the movie, obviously, for obvious reason.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah. you You would give the movie five stars?
Chris: I'd give it six out of five.
Nate Day: Six out of five? Whoa! i am I gave the movie three out of five. Or three and a half out of five. 3.5, guess. like... i felt like they It's a great movie, but like I said, it it gets kind of convoluted and confusing.
Chris: Fair.
Nate Day: it's It's impossible to follow because of all of the It's like a will he, won't he on steroids in some ways. And you need all of these small details.
Nate Day: And then on top of that, they did some interesting stuff visually that to to convey how like stark and bleak of a world this was. I don't know, Chris, if you really know what I'm talking about, but that movie is almost in grayscale. It's almost black and white.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: which I think works really well for this movie. It just, I think, unfortunately, it set Hollywood on a course to continue that and go deeper and deeper down that road. And now we have very bland, ugly movies. And this is, I think, kind of one of the starting points of that. So despite how much I love about it, I do, there was a, it left me wanting a little bit in the end, even though I think it probably was more Like, I think I would like the movie more than the book. If I were to read the book, I think I'd be more into it what the movie was doing.
Nate Day: But still still a lot to love. Still like it quite a bit.
Chris: No good points.
Nate Day: What about recommendations? What kind of people, who would you recommend this kind of thing to?
Brett: Anyone who is a sci-fi lover Anybody who who wants to think about the world around them and and what like question their perceptions, I think think that's who I would recommend this book to.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: Honestly, i would even say have have teenagers read it. you know Give them a little little slice of of rational thinking.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: like like You have to question things. You have to question things. Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Brett: the world is getting way more confusing.
Nate Day: I totally agree.
Brett: Like you have to think about it.
Nate Day: Chris, where's your head at?
Chris: percent No, 100% agree with Brett. As I was thinking about it before the episode, I was like, any first and foremost, any students in particular who were like, what's the deal with this sci-fi world?
Chris: I think this is a very low barrier of entry to that realm.
Nate Day: Oh yeah, sure. hu
Chris: It's not particularly dated as compared to some sci-fi of that period. And yeah, I mean, the number of times...
Chris: weekly, if not daily, that a kid comes and tells me a story and I'm like, where'd you see that? TikTok? Oh, did you fact check it? No. Let's pull it up quick. Oh, 100% falsified.
Chris: You know, like, yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: And I think you can, I think there's also a brilliance to this writing that there are ways that you can approach, I mean, you could have four different things six week ELA units on this book.
Chris: One about what was okay to write back then that we now know is not, or a different one about how do we approach storytelling and the non-omniscient character or just the question of free will or, you know, I mean, it's, it's magnificent again for a book.
Nate Day: Right.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I mean, the audio book was maybe four hours long. Like this is very accessible. Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah. yeah
Chris: without Without what's often bogging stuff down of, like, gore or profanity or sexual gratuities, like, really, really accessible.
Nate Day: Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. i'm I'm on a similar track as you guys. The biggest like net that I could cast is is just sci-fi fans.
Nate Day: I think as long as you can buy into these technologies and this world that doesn't exist, then I think you'll be really well fed by all of these ideas because it is a story built for not so much the story itself, enjoying the story itself, but for
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: you know, living with the ideas afterwards and turning them over in your head and talking about them on a podcast.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: So as long as you like sci-fi, i do think the really good comp is probably Blade Runner because it's the same sort of reality upending type of mind fuck, you know, to to put it plainly, right?
Chris: in news meeting
Brett: Yeah, total recall, man.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Cool. Well, great discussion, you guys. Thank you so much for joining us, Brad.
Chris: I know I'm like, oh, we're about to start an entire another discussion here.
Brett: hey
Chris: So easily.
Brett: yeah Let's go another hour. Come on. Honestly, we could.
Chris: so easily
Nate Day: I know. i know. We really could with a book like this one. But thank you so much for joining us, Brett. We've really enjoyed having you.
Brett: Yeah, thank you.
Nate Day: And please, anytime, any next time we do a Philip Dick adaptation or or anything along these lines, we'll be sure to have you back. And you know don't be afraid to to let us know that you'd love to come on and chat about one.
Nate Day: We'd love that too.
Brett: Yeah, for sure.
Nate Day: Next up, Chris and I are gonna take a look at Roots. I think it's our first time doing book to something that's not a movie.
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Nate Day: It's a television miniseries.
Chris: Correct.
Nate Day: So asked interesting discussions coming up, but thanks for joining us and we look forward to our next discussion.
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Say bye, Brett.
Brett: Bye.
Chris: Bye.
Brett: Bye. Happy reading and watching.
Nate Day: Yeah.
