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Ep. 37: 'Minority Report': When Storytellers Ask Questions Without Answers
49 Plays2 days ago
In this episode of Adaptation: The Book to Movie Podcast, Nate and Chris are joined by Brett Shand to discuss Philip K. Dick's novelette 'Minority Report' and its film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Cruise.
They discuss the questions posed by Dick and how Spielberg followed suit -- a tred he's leaned into for his latest feature, 'Disclosure Day,' as well. Additionally, they discuss how this text and be both lofty and accessible at the same time -- and what exactly makes the movie endlessly rewatchable.
UP NEXT: Alex Haley's 'Roots: The Saga of an American Family'
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Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Special Guest: Brett Shand
Producer: Nate Day
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
- Performed by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow, Nate Day
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:30
Nate Day
Welcome to adaptation, the book to movie podcast. I'm Nate.
00:00:35
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.
00:00:44
Brett
Hi, people.
00:00:46
Nate Day
Hi people.
Friendship and Reading Habits
00:00:47
Nate Day
Brett is an old friend of Chris's right. You guys go back how far?
00:00:52
Chris
Oh gosh.
00:00:58
Nate Day
Whoa.
00:01:00
Chris
So weird, so weird.
00:01:00
Brett
I've has grown a lot since then. Yeah. yeah
00:01:09
Nate Day
and And you guys have stayed friends since then.
00:01:12
Brett
Yeah, yeah.
00:01:12
Chris
Since then.
00:01:13
Brett
Basketball skills have stagnated.
00:01:13
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.
00:01:26
Nate Day
including you're a pretty voracious reader, right, Brett?
00:01:26
Chris
Thankfully.
00:01:31
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.
00:01:41
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:01:43
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,
00:01:57
Nate Day
i'm the I'm the same way.
00:01:57
Chris
like six of them.
00:01:58
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
00:02:00
Nate Day
I'm the exact same way. There's no in between.
00:02:11
Chris
I've wondered that many times.
00:02:14
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.
00:02:20
Brett
yeah i try to try to stay on the horn
00:02:23
Nate Day
Yeah.
Focus on 'Minority Report'
00:02:24
Nate Day
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.
00:02:38
Nate Day
But before we dive into that conversation, Chris, what kind of stuff have you been reading?
00:02:43
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?
00:02:53
Nate Day
Is that one of the, is it really old? i think you've told me about it separately.
00:03:00
Chris
No, really, really new. It's by an author named M.A.
00:03:01
Nate Day
Oh, okay. No,
00:03:06
Chris
Glaude, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right. G-L-A-U-D-E, Glaude, Glaude.
00:03:12
Nate Day
close as I'd get.
00:03:14
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.
00:03:23
Nate Day
Oh.
00:03:24
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.
00:03:35
Chris
It's like a vampire thriller set in the nineteen twenty s in Chicago, so very much not my wheelhouse.
00:03:40
Nate Day
Cool. Yeah.
00:03:42
Chris
Yeah, it was fun. It was fine.
00:03:45
Nate Day
What kind of YouTube stuff does this guy make?
00:03:48
Chris
he but He plays all of the games that I play, so that's why I follow him so particular.
00:03:51
Nate Day
Oh, he's a game. OK.
00:03:53
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.
00:04:03
Brett
League of Legends. Okay.
00:04:05
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.
00:04:14
Nate Day
That's a you. That's you, Chris. Brett, what have you been reading and and have you seen any movies lately?
00:04:20
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,
00:04:32
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.
00:04:42
Nate Day
Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
00:04:48
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,
00:04:54
Nate Day
cool
00:04:55
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.
00:05:02
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?
00:05:08
Nate Day
yeah
00:05:14
Chris
Sick.
00:05:17
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.
00:05:25
Brett
So that's been pretty interesting.
00:05:27
Nate Day
Wow.
00:05:27
Chris
sick
00:05:28
Brett
Yeah.
00:05:28
Nate Day
Yeah. Big stuff. Are you learning things? Are you like identifying with it?
00:05:32
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.
00:05:48
Brett
It's like, that's a real thing that, uh, many dads deal with.
00:05:49
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:05:54
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
00:06:03
Nate Day
OK, cool. it sounds I like those kinds of things.
00:06:04
Brett
Yeah.
00:06:04
Chris
Good for you, bud.
00:06:06
Brett
Yeah. And then the most recent movie I watched was Project Hail Mary.
00:06:07
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:06:10
Brett
Wonderful movie.
00:06:11
Nate Day
Oh, great movie.
00:06:11
Brett
Honestly, one of the better sci-fi movies I've ever seen. it was incredible.
00:06:17
Nate Day
Yeah, I agree.
00:06:17
Chris
So good.
00:06:18
Brett
and The book is amazing too.
00:06:19
Nate Day
split
00:06:21
Chris
So good.
00:06:23
Brett
Yeah.
00:06:23
Nate Day
Blair and I like to laugh because Rocky reminds us of Chris so much.
00:06:30
Brett
Yeah. Okay. I can see that.
00:06:32
Chris
But, yeah.
00:06:33
Brett
It's like,
00:06:34
Nate Day
You know, when he's like, I didn't know that was a joke.
00:06:35
Chris
I can too.
00:06:36
Nate Day
That's 100%.
00:06:39
Nate Day
Our boy, Chris.
00:06:40
Brett
oh I like it. Yeah.
00:06:41
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:06:42
Chris
Fist my bump.
00:06:45
Nate Day
Yeah, that, Jess Ant, yeah, that is a good one.
00:06:45
Brett
Jazz hands.
00:06:49
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.
00:06:55
Brett
Oh my God. It's so good.
00:06:57
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.
00:06:57
Chris
So good.
00:07:16
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.
00:07:27
Chris
Is that fair, Buttski?
00:07:29
Brett
Yeah, I'd say that's fair for sure.
00:07:29
Chris
Yeah.
00:07:32
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.
00:07:42
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.
00:07:43
Nate Day
Wow.
00:07:50
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.
00:07:57
Nate Day
That's Chris. That's Chris for you.
00:07:59
Brett
but
00:08:00
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?
00:08:14
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.
00:08:25
Brett
Yeah.
00:08:30
Chris
And so that's why that's kind of a little origin story for this one.
00:08:34
Nate Day
Cool.
00:08:35
Chris
Because if Brett tells you any of his opinions on Ursula Le Guin, he is flat wrong.
00:08:38
Brett
Yeah, yeah, I know.
00:08:41
Chris
So.
00:08:41
Nate Day
Whoa. You're not an Ursula fan?
00:08:43
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.
00:08:50
Brett
yeah yeah i know i
00:08:51
Chris
on Same era.
00:08:53
Brett
Don't ask me about Tolkien either.
00:08:56
Chris
but but Okay, I wasn't even going to bring that up.
00:08:56
Nate Day
Oh.
00:08:56
Brett
yes
00:08:58
Chris
we're Nope. Okay.
00:08:59
Nate Day
Whoa.
Philip K. Dick's Works and Themes
00:09:01
Chris
The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick. Let me give you a little bit of context on our boy.
00:09:03
Nate Day
okay
00:09:06
Chris
First and foremost, this was published in 1956.
00:09:11
Nate Day
Wow.
00:09:11
Chris
It is actually technically a novelette, not even a novella.
00:09:15
Chris
Weighs in at a flimsy 112 pages.
00:09:20
Nate Day
Oh, pamphlet.
00:09:21
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.
00:09:34
Brett
How many adaptations there are?
00:09:35
Nate Day
Oh.
00:09:37
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.
00:09:44
Nate Day
are they all like Are they all kind of similar to this, or is the point that it's a...
00:09:49
Chris
This is really, no, this is his vibe. This is his whole thing. Yeah.
00:09:52
Nate Day
Okay, is it something like iRobot, or like...
00:09:56
Brett
Asimov.
00:09:58
Chris
Yep.
00:09:59
Brett
Paycheck.
00:09:59
Nate Day
Wow.
00:10:01
Chris
Nope. One of them you've told me to read a thousand times.
00:10:06
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
00:10:07
Chris
And Nate, you are going to kick yourself about one of them. Early 80s, massive sci-fi movie.
00:10:13
Brett
Oh, do android's dream do androids dream of electric sheep?
00:10:17
Nate Day
Oh, yeah. What's that movie called?
00:10:18
Brett
Blade Runner.
00:10:20
Chris
Yep.
00:10:20
Nate Day
Oh, duh.
00:10:21
Chris
Blade Runner. Mm-hmm.
00:10:21
Nate Day
Blade Runner.
00:10:24
Chris
Total Recall is his.
00:10:26
Brett
Total Rico. Holy cow, yeah.
00:10:27
Nate Day
Oh, cool. That's a cool movie.
00:10:29
Chris
The one Brett suggested 75 times to me, Scanner Darkly.
00:10:34
Brett
scanner darkly. That one's weird.
00:10:36
Chris
And then Amazon series The Man in the High Castle is also an adaptation of Philip K. Dick.
00:10:41
Nate Day
Oh, yeah, and you like that show, don't you, Chris?
00:10:44
Brett
good show.
00:10:44
Chris
Massive. I have not watched it yet. I want to read the all of them.
00:10:46
Nate Day
Oh.
00:10:47
Chris
i have not seen because I want to read the books first.
00:10:49
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.
00:11:00
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.
00:11:21
Nate Day
ge
00:11:30
Nate Day
okay
00:11:30
Chris
Just absolutely prolific author, of which this is part of one of them.
00:11:33
Brett
an animal.
00:11:36
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
00:11:49
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.
00:11:56
Nate Day
Okay.
00:12:02
Nate Day
I have heard that there's some pretty big differences.
00:12:02
Chris
But
00:12:04
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:12:05
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?
00:12:14
Nate Day
Okay. Yep. Yeah.
00:12:16
Brett
Sounds good to me.
00:12:18
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.
00:12:29
Nate Day
yeah
00:12:31
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
00:12:58
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:13:00
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.
00:13:09
Nate Day
I was going to say, isn't it just John? Yeah.
00:13:11
Chris
Yeah. John Allison Anderton. no explanation given for that middle name.
00:13:16
Nate Day
Strange. yeah
00:13:19
Chris
pretty, pretty much on par with, uh,
00:13:24
Chris
Oh my gosh, Scientology Boys character. What is his name?
00:13:27
Nate Day
Tom Cruise.
00:13:29
Chris
Yep, yep, Tom Cruise.
00:13:30
Brett
Scientology boy.
00:13:31
Nate Day
The biggest movie star to ever live.
00:13:34
Chris
I was like, I should not be forgetting his name.
00:13:37
Nate Day
a
00:13:38
Chris
I would say Anderton is pretty pretty true to the character from the movie. Brett, you've seen the movie as well, right?
00:13:48
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.
00:13:58
Nate Day
Oh, a long time ago.
00:13:58
Chris
Goodness gracious.
00:13:59
Nate Day
Wow.
00:13:59
Brett
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time.
00:14:01
Chris
Oh my gosh.
00:14:03
Brett
Yeah.
00:14:04
Chris
This is like, I probably watch Minority Report every other year, if not every year.
00:14:11
Nate Day
It comes up in every other podcast episode we do.
00:14:12
Brett
Yeah. Does it really?
00:14:15
Chris
I love this movie.
00:14:15
Brett
Well...
00:14:16
Chris
I love this movie.
00:14:18
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.
00:14:34
Brett
Sorry, was I...
00:14:34
Chris
Yes.
00:14:34
Nate Day
I think I've.
00:14:35
Brett
You're getting to that?
00:14:36
Brett
Yeah.
00:14:36
Chris
No, that's exactly yes.
00:14:37
Chris
No, no, no.
00:14:37
Brett
yeah
00:14:38
Chris
That's...
00:14:39
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.
00:14:49
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:14:49
Chris
I agree.
00:14:50
Brett
That's a cool interpretation of it, and that kind of thing.
00:14:53
Chris
Is it... But, Nate, you have not read it, correct?
00:14:57
Nate Day
Correct. Yeah. But I've obviously seen the movie.
00:15:00
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.
00:15:04
Brett
I know. but
00:15:07
Chris
We're not worried about spoilers, right?
00:15:09
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.
00:15:27
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.
00:15:44
Chris
a Precrime.
00:15:45
Nate Day
Pre-crime, yeah.
00:15:46
Chris
Precrime division.
00:15:47
Brett
Pre-crime. love that concept.
00:15:48
Chris
And they use, it's so good. It's so good. And I, oh my gosh.
00:15:51
Brett
I think about it every day.
00:15:54
Chris
oh
00:15:55
Brett
yeah
00:15:56
Nate Day
on the On the giving or the receiving end? Because that's a little scary.
00:15:58
Brett
that Sometimes you don't even know, you know?
00:16:02
Nate Day
yeah Yeah, that's kind of the point, I guess.
00:16:05
Chris
I ask myself every day, will I commit a crime?
00:16:09
Nate Day
Did we just get a spit take on the Right.
00:16:15
Brett
Is this my day?
00:16:17
Chris
such a wild statement, Brett.
00:16:20
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.
00:16:34
Nate Day
But Chris, do you want to explain that the TLDR before we get too deep into mechanics?
00:16:34
Chris
right it
00:16:35
Brett
You know? Sorry.
00:16:39
Chris
Yes, yes, yes.
00:16:40
Brett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:16:41
Nate Day
Sure.
00:16:41
Chris
So again, I'm going to try to say I've seen our book club read it five months ago.
00:16:49
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.
00:17:05
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.
00:17:13
Nate Day
Yeah, totally.
00:17:19
Nate Day
Oh.
00:17:27
Chris
Very graphic and what we would consider now not PC description in the book. Our word is thrown around often.
00:17:36
Nate Day
Oh, what the...
00:17:38
Nate Day
Okay. Okay.
00:17:39
Chris
Or they are called the idiots. Yeah, that part's a little unfortunate, which thankfully they...
00:17:44
Nate Day
The, the, the people that can read tell the future.
00:17:45
Chris
Yeah,
00:17:49
Brett
Yeah.
00:17:49
Chris
the precogs.
00:17:49
Nate Day
Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow.
00:17:52
Chris
Yeah, the movie did a great job of adjusting that aspect.
00:17:55
Nate Day
I would have had no idea. Yeah. That there is no sniff of that whatsoever.
00:18:00
Chris
Yeah, there is a super graphic description of their oversized heads and withered, wasted away bodies.
00:18:09
Chris
Yeah, it's that part's a bit rough in the book.
00:18:10
Nate Day
Gross. Okay. Yeah, I guess.
00:18:13
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.
00:18:23
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.
00:18:34
Nate Day
Crime.
00:18:34
Chris
That's not in the book at all.
00:18:34
Nate Day
Yeah. yeah
00:18:36
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,
00:18:51
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.
00:19:04
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:19:05
Chris
Runs away, gets abducted like seven times. The dude is pinballed around in the book. Kaplan himself abducts him, supposedly for his safety.
00:19:15
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?
00:19:32
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.
00:19:47
Nate Day
Interesting.
00:19:47
Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:47
Brett
And it's like it's like the police versus like the military or something like that.
00:19:48
Nate Day
Okay.
00:19:53
Nate Day
Whoa. Wow.
00:19:54
Brett
yeah
00:19:54
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.
00:20:08
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.
00:20:19
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?
00:20:31
Nate Day
formed pre-crime?
00:20:34
Chris
Right, the old guy?
00:20:36
Nate Day
Yeah, is that Kaplan? I guess it is.
00:20:39
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.
00:20:45
Nate Day
Okay.
00:20:58
Nate Day
Yeah. Okay.
00:21:00
Chris
All as one character.
00:21:00
Nate Day
Got it. Got it.
00:21:01
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...
00:21:19
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.
00:21:35
Brett
Yep.
00:21:36
Nate Day
Right.
00:21:36
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:21:36
Chris
Right?
00:21:36
Brett
yep
00:21:37
Nate Day
yeah
00:21:38
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.
00:22:20
Chris
And that one is discarded.
00:22:20
Nate Day
Right.
00:22:21
Chris
And again, the movie treats it differently. In the book, it's actually really brilliantly explained. The first one sees him killing Kaplan.
00:22:34
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.
00:22:46
Nate Day
Oh.
00:22:54
Chris
He just shoots him in the head and walks away.
00:22:56
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:22:58
Brett
And no one could say shit about it.
00:22:59
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:23:00
Chris
Exactly, exactly.
00:23:00
Nate Day
Okay.
00:23:01
Chris
nobody Nobody walks around armed because there hasn't been murder in seven years.
00:23:01
Brett
like
00:23:04
Chris
And a little bit unsatisfactory in that that's where the book ends. He just pops them and wanders off.
00:23:14
Nate Day
Okay. That makes sense based on something I've read that we'll get to later.
00:23:19
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.
00:23:30
Brett
No, I think i think you you nailed the plot down pretty well. But one thing worth mentioning is is his paranoia.
00:23:37
Chris
Thanks.
00:23:39
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.
00:23:52
Brett
He thinks everybody wants something from him.
00:23:55
Nate Day
Wow.
00:23:56
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.
00:24:06
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:24:06
Chris
Yep. Yep.
00:24:07
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?
00:24:12
Nate Day
Wow.
00:24:19
Nate Day
Right.
00:24:20
Brett
And it's just so genius.
00:24:20
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:24:22
Chris
No, no, no. Back off there.
00:24:22
Nate Day
It really is.
00:24:23
Chris
Back off there.
00:24:23
Nate Day
Oh, oh, too far.
00:24:25
Nate Day
We went too far.
00:24:26
Brett
right
00:24:27
Chris
Too far.
00:24:28
Brett
yeah Yeah.
00:24:31
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.
00:24:35
Brett
mean
00:24:39
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.
00:24:49
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
00:25:11
Chris
in this entire story.
00:25:12
Brett
Everybody sucks here.
00:25:14
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:25:14
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:17
Nate Day
Yeah.
Spielberg's Adaptation Insights
00:25:19
Nate Day
I mean, i was always taught that a protagonist is the main character regardless of whether they're good or bad.
00:25:19
Chris
But that's the...
00:25:20
Chris
that's
00:25:25
Nate Day
is what my understanding of the character is.
00:25:27
Chris
Okay.
00:25:28
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.
00:25:29
Chris
Okay. I'm saying...
00:25:37
Nate Day
So I don't know.
00:25:37
Chris
Well, maybe because it's not maybe the...
00:25:37
Nate Day
I could be wrong.
00:25:41
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.
00:25:47
Nate Day
Right.
00:25:51
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.
00:25:59
Chris
Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because it's very much from his perspective.
00:26:04
Nate Day
Yeah. Okay.
00:26:05
Brett
Well, it's almost like a sitcom where you're just like watching things unfold.
00:26:05
Nate Day
Interesting.
00:26:10
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?
00:26:21
Brett
Is he not going to, don't know. Let's find out. I don't really care.
00:26:24
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:26:25
Brett
i do care because the writing makes me care, but,
00:26:26
Nate Day
Right.
00:26:31
Brett
it's kind of inconsequential. There is no hero to the story and there doesn't actually have to be.
00:26:35
Nate Day
Sure.
00:26:36
Brett
and don't think.
00:26:36
Nate Day
Right.
00:26:37
Chris
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
00:26:40
Nate Day
Yeah. The whole thing is damned if you do damned if you don't.
00:26:40
Chris
But that's all I want to say about the book. Exactly.
00:26:43
Brett
Exactly.
00:26:45
Nate Day
That's all you got for the book.
00:26:47
Chris
Yes, because I want to come back to a couple of those after we hear about the movie.
00:26:48
Nate Day
Wow.
00:26:52
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.
00:27:06
Chris
So many times.
00:27:07
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.
00:27:08
Brett
you
00:27:28
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.
00:27:51
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.
00:28:29
Chris
which is
00:28:30
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.
00:29:05
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.
00:29:15
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
00:29:45
Nate Day
really, really expensive and really hard to make successful. But get a big director, get a big star.
00:29:51
Chris
Thank you.
00:29:53
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...
00:30:05
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.
00:30:20
Nate Day
Is it 2050 when this takes place?
00:30:23
Chris
I don't remember them ever specifying that. Hold on, let me check.
00:30:27
Nate Day
Maybe that was just a target date.
00:30:28
Chris
It just says near future. Okay.
00:30:30
Nate Day
Okay. Yeah. So, um, So,
00:30:33
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?
00:30:45
Nate Day
The visions, I guess, kind of are uploaded into these like giant marbles, and the marbles have that like holographic projections.
00:30:54
Chris
Yeah.
00:30:56
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?
00:31:08
Chris
is.
00:31:09
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.
00:31:36
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,
00:31:44
Chris
I
00:31:57
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.
00:32:10
Chris
don't know.
00:32:15
Brett
Mm-hmm.
00:32:16
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.
00:32:31
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.
00:32:47
Chris
Mmm.
00:32:48
Nate Day
You're shaking your head, Brett.
00:32:49
Chris
Interesting.
00:32:51
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.
00:33:07
Brett
You know, and and in a lot of them, Chris said that this book ends just like that.
00:33:07
Nate Day
yeah Yeah.
00:33:11
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?
00:33:24
Brett
and And you don't get those answers.
00:33:25
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:33:27
Brett
Phil K. Dick does not give you those answers.
00:33:27
Chris
I agree.
00:33:29
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.
00:33:42
Nate Day
and Okay.
00:33:45
Brett
but
00:33:45
Nate Day
Okay. I'm glad to hear you say that.
00:33:47
Nate Day
I want to hear, before I explain why, I want to hear what you say, Chris, how you feel about that.
00:33:47
Brett
Yeah.
00:33:52
Chris
Yeah, no, I agree with him. i
00:33:54
Nate Day
Okay.
00:33:55
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?
00:34:07
Chris
And what Spielberg gave us was a plausible option.
00:34:08
Nate Day
Hmm.
00:34:12
Nate Day
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
00:34:14
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.
00:34:24
Chris
Excuse me.
00:34:25
Nate Day
Yeah. Well, interesting you say that.
Modern Relevance of Themes
00:34:27
Nate Day
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,
00:34:55
Chris
a
00:34:57
Nate Day
am I getting too far ahead, Chris, or am I?
00:34:59
Chris
No, that's you're hitting the nail way on its head.
00:35:00
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.
00:35:23
Nate Day
People are like, you pose this huge question, what happens when
00:35:24
Chris
Interesting.
00:35:28
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.
00:35:34
Chris
uh
00:35:38
Chris
huh
00:35:41
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.
00:36:01
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.
00:36:10
Chris
m
00:36:13
Nate Day
But just,
00:36:13
Chris
Can I give you the prime example to me of like the logical conclusion to that argument though?
00:36:18
Nate Day
yeah, please.
00:36:20
Chris
Did you both see Cloverfield?
00:36:23
Brett
Yeah.
00:36:23
Nate Day
I've not.
00:36:25
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
00:36:40
Nate Day
Oh, I heard that yeah.
00:36:46
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
00:37:02
Brett
with that
00:37:03
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:14
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
00:37:18
Chris
who
00:37:25
Chris
yeah
00:37:39
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.
00:37:52
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.
00:37:55
Chris
Okay.
00:38:03
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.
00:38:17
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.
00:38:45
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?
00:38:59
Brett
questions about the book itself or the,
00:39:02
Nate Day
The book, the story, yeah, anything.
00:39:07
Brett
let me marinate on that and let's hear what you guys have prepared.
00:39:09
Nate Day
Okay.
00:39:10
Brett
Yeah.
00:39:11
Nate Day
All right, Chris, hit us with something.
00:39:14
Chris
Perfect, thank you. Yep, I've been trying not to say something. Okay.
00:39:17
Brett
but
00:39:17
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.
00:39:28
Chris
One, because it's a massive question in there that obviously we're not going to answer, but
00:39:35
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.
00:39:54
Nate Day
Okay.
00:39:56
Chris
Okay.
00:39:57
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?
00:40:22
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.
00:40:50
Chris
u
00:40:50
Nate Day
Right. but But yes, I think that's the ultimate takeaway.
00:40:56
Brett
People see Tom Cruise and and they want they want spies and guns.
00:40:58
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:00
Brett
and
00:41:00
Chris
Mission impossible. yeah
00:41:01
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.
00:41:18
Brett
he He did not have any choice.
00:41:19
Chris
Oh.
00:41:21
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.
00:41:29
Chris
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
00:41:33
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?
00:41:43
Brett
The system of like...
00:41:44
Chris
Also never answered.
00:41:44
Nate Day
Yep.
00:41:46
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.
00:42:01
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.
00:42:10
Nate Day
right.
00:42:11
Brett
But it wasn't up to him in the end. He had to do it.
00:42:15
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.
00:42:28
Nate Day
Stop saying that.
00:42:29
Nate Day
That's not the case.
00:42:29
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.
00:42:44
Nate Day
Oh, right.
00:42:44
Chris
And so the the idea for me from the movie, each time I had seen it until I read the book, was
00:42:44
Nate Day
Okay.
00:42:53
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.
00:43:05
Chris
He was the creator of pre-crime and the mentor of Anderton.
00:43:08
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:43:10
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.
00:43:10
Nate Day
Right.
00:43:18
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:43:19
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?
00:43:31
Chris
Quote, unquote.
00:43:31
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.
00:43:48
Nate Day
Because, he
00:43:48
Chris
i did not I did not take away the free will question at all from the movie.
00:43:52
Nate Day
really?
00:43:53
Chris
That was not my read on it. Yeah.
00:43:56
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.
00:43:56
Chris
And I suppose...
00:44:09
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.
00:44:15
Chris
Uh-huh. Yes.
00:44:18
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.
00:44:34
Nate Day
So it's, again, it's still that illusion of free will.
00:44:36
Chris
Hmm.
00:44:37
Nate Day
You know what I mean?
00:44:38
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.
00:44:44
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:44:47
Nate Day
Yeah. Yes, exactly.
00:44:48
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.
00:44:59
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.
00:45:17
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.
00:45:44
Chris
Like, there is every realm in which this army coup is, in fact, taking down a deplorable and flawed system.
00:45:46
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:52
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.
00:46:03
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:46:06
Nate Day
at the air
00:46:06
Chris
i don't know. It raise raises more questions than answers, but in a delightful way. And I was just so fascinated...
00:46:12
Nate Day
yeah
00:46:15
Brett
It's not a world you would want to live in.
00:46:16
Chris
I don't know.
00:46:18
Nate Day
No.
00:46:18
Chris
Oh, absolutely not.
00:46:18
Nate Day
God, no.
00:46:20
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.
00:46:20
Chris
And on its surface, it should be.
00:46:28
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?
00:46:28
Nate Day
Right. Oh, yeah.
00:46:32
Chris
hello
00:46:35
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.
00:46:42
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:46:45
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.
00:46:58
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.
00:47:06
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
00:47:08
Nate Day
Yep. 100%.
00:47:11
Chris
statistically correct.
00:47:13
Brett
and This was written when in the 50s? I mean, my God.
00:47:16
Chris
Uh-huh.
00:47:16
Brett
Talk about ahead of his time.
00:47:16
Nate Day
Yeah. No kidding.
00:47:19
Chris
Well, and doesn't it, on its surface, it sounds not just plausible, but effective, right?
00:47:19
Nate Day
No kidding.
00:47:26
Chris
It operates on the idea of, oh, open your bag, show me your phone.
00:47:27
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:32
Chris
If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't complain. You know, this idea,
00:47:35
Nate Day
Right.
00:47:36
Nate Day
It's very Machiavellian.
00:47:37
Chris
the
00:47:37
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.
00:47:49
Nate Day
Oh, yeah.
00:47:49
Chris
There are three of us here.
00:47:50
Chris
Okay, so impromptu survey. Raise your hand if you think you will murder somebody in your lifetime.
00:48:03
Nate Day
Brett!
00:48:06
Nate Day
Let the record show Brett raised his hand and shrugged.
00:48:09
Brett
yeah I mean, come on.
00:48:13
Chris
He did say he thinks about pre-crime daily.
00:48:16
Nate Day
That's true. He did say that.
00:48:19
Brett
Because it's cool.
00:48:20
Nate Day
That's crazy.
00:48:21
Chris
So ideally,
00:48:21
Nate Day
Right.
00:48:21
Brett
It's interesting.
00:48:25
Chris
ostensibly, 0% of people should answer yes to that, right?
00:48:30
Nate Day
Right.
00:48:30
Brett
Right. Yeah.
00:48:31
Chris
As I intended for my survey to show.
00:48:31
Brett
Yeah.
00:48:35
Brett
We'll get rid of that in post.
00:48:38
Chris
Just ravenously obnoxious.
00:48:39
Nate Day
and
00:48:41
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.
00:48:51
Nate Day
Sure.
00:48:52
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.
00:49:08
Chris
Yeah, I'm not going to kill anyone.
00:49:08
Nate Day
yeah
00:49:10
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.
00:49:20
Nate Day
Right.
00:49:20
Chris
How do we know? You know, it's, oh what a what a slice he has found here.
00:49:22
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:49:28
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.
00:49:28
Nate Day
I know. Yeah.
00:49:32
Nate Day
Right.
00:49:41
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,
00:49:44
Chris
from
00:49:49
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?
00:49:55
Chris
Yes.
00:49:57
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.
00:50:07
Nate Day
Yeah. And that's it.
00:50:10
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?
00:50:17
Brett
Hmm.
00:50:19
Nate Day
Right. That's a huge part of the movie is, is him learning that there is such thing as a minority report.
00:50:22
Chris
Yep.
00:50:24
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.
00:50:34
Nate Day
And that quickly turns into
00:50:35
Brett
Yeah.
00:50:38
Nate Day
so many other things, but yeah.
00:50:38
Brett
It's plausible deniability is what we're going for, but it doesn't matter.
00:50:40
Chris
yep
00:50:43
Nate Day
Yep.
00:50:44
Brett
Like there is no, uh, there is no like reasonable doubt here. It's it's, uh, you're going to do this.
00:50:53
Nate Day
Yeah. Pretty black and white.
00:50:54
Chris
Yep.
00:50:55
Brett
We're shipping you off. It's crazy.
00:50:57
Nate Day
Yeah. so every time, pretty much every time that we, uh,
00:50:59
Chris
Brutally so.
00:51:04
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?
00:51:15
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?
00:51:32
Chris
for me.
00:51:33
Brett
Yeah.
00:51:34
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.
00:51:57
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.
00:52:07
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:52:09
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.
00:52:15
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:52:23
Nate Day
Sure. OK. Because there's less, just less material.
00:52:28
Nate Day
OK. Interesting.
00:52:30
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.
00:52:44
Nate Day
Oh, the inspector or whatever.
00:52:48
Chris
its Yeah, yeah. Who, oh my gosh, talk about perfect casting. Like, Colin Farrell.
00:52:54
Nate Day
Yeah, that was really good.
00:52:57
Brett
Mm-hmm.
00:52:59
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:53:02
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.
00:53:13
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.
00:53:25
Chris
I think it's kind of nonstop in the book, the movie kind of creeps up to it better.
00:53:27
Nate Day
Okay.
00:53:29
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.
00:53:29
Nate Day
Sure.
00:53:43
Nate Day
Yeah.
Philip K. Dick's Narrative Style
00:53:48
Nate Day
Wow. That's a really good point, actually. There's just so much to turn over, you know, in your head.
00:53:54
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?
00:53:55
Nate Day
And there's no answers.
00:54:09
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?
00:54:13
Brett
Okay.
00:54:17
Nate Day
Dead.
00:54:23
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:54:33
Chris
That one messes with me sometimes.
00:54:35
Nate Day
That's funny. I'd tell you, Brett and I would tell you if that was the case.
00:54:36
Chris
But you know what I mean? You can only... Unless I'm making both of you up.
00:54:40
Brett
I don't know if I would.
00:54:42
Chris
Yeah, what if Nate Day and Brett Shan don't exist?
00:54:42
Brett
man. You kind of...
00:54:45
Chris
Those are creations of my brain.
00:54:46
Nate Day
Just saying, it was if it was true to character, I'd be blabbing.
00:54:47
Brett
man you
00:54:51
Nate Day
You know that's true.
00:54:52
Chris
That's a good point.
00:54:53
Brett
it kind of
00:54:53
Chris
Yeah, that's a good point. Okay.
00:54:55
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.
00:55:12
Brett
The movie is based on the androids dream of electric sheep.
00:55:13
Nate Day
Uh-huh.
00:55:16
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?
00:55:38
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.
00:55:49
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.
00:56:01
Brett
It begs itself to be rewatched. And it's rewarding every single time because you have more information.
00:56:04
Chris
you know
00:56:07
Brett
And it's a different experience.
00:56:08
Nate Day
Yeah. Interesting.
00:56:11
Chris
I mean, this, let me give you, this this is a silly, but I think still germane example.
00:56:11
Nate Day
I wonder, uh,
00:56:20
Chris
This idea of perception is reality, right? Because Brett and I are both teachers.
00:56:24
Nate Day
yeah.
00:56:26
Chris
I'm sure you also get students turning in the most ridiculous answers that are clearly AI, right?
00:56:31
Brett
yeah Yeah, it's like, oh, you're a PhD.
00:56:34
Brett
Okay, didn't know that.
00:56:37
Chris
Well, buddy, this is very interesting.
00:56:37
Brett
Congrats, Doogie Howser.
00:56:38
Chris
yeah
00:56:41
Chris
So remember, Nate, I know I told you about this the day it happened.
00:56:42
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:45
Chris
I assigned a Black History Month biography, and a student very confidently told me he wanted to do Dwight D. Eisenhower.
00:56:53
Nate Day
yeah yeah
00:56:56
Chris
And he showed me the Google AI search where he put in the prompt.
00:56:56
Brett
Wow.
00:57:02
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.
00:57:11
Brett
Thank you.
00:57:15
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:57:15
Chris
And it like zeroed in on prominent figures during World War II somehow.
00:57:21
Chris
But in that moment for that student, not knowing different,
00:57:21
Nate Day
Right.
00:57:26
Chris
That individual was a prominent representative of Black history during World War II, right?
00:57:27
Nate Day
He was black.
00:57:32
Nate Day
Oh my God.
00:57:32
Chris
Obviously, we know it to be incorrect, but...
00:57:34
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:57:36
Chris
What don't we? What don't we? i What a question.
00:57:38
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.
00:57:48
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?
00:57:49
Chris
Cannot. Cannot.
00:58:03
Chris
Mm-hmm. No.
00:58:08
Chris
no
00:58:09
Brett
you and You and I, like we all know Eisenhower was white.
00:58:14
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:58:15
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.
00:58:38
Brett
And this kid was obviously mistaken, you know, and and whatever.
00:58:38
Nate Day
yeah
00:58:42
Brett
But when we just see like some video about something that's going on, it like you question reality. You're like...
00:58:49
Chris
Yes.
00:58:50
Brett
o
00:58:50
Chris
Yep.
00:58:51
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.
00:58:59
Chris
h
00:59:01
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.
00:59:12
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?
00:59:17
Chris
Yep.
00:59:19
Brett
Like, I could live my whole life just thinking that something happened when it actually didn't.
00:59:20
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:59:26
Brett
And I think that's getting much more complex right now as things are becoming more convincingly fake.
00:59:32
Nate Day
Yeah, totally agree.
00:59:33
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.
00:59:38
Brett
Yeah.
00:59:41
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.
00:59:41
Brett
Mm-hmm.
00:59:47
Nate Day
Oh, sure.
00:59:57
Chris
But it's not like written research is not updated, right?
01:00:01
Nate Day
Right.
01:00:02
Brett
Yeah.
01:00:03
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.
01:00:16
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:00:17
Chris
I'm not here to defend AI. I'm just suggesting that's not the only thing we can point our fingers at.
01:00:22
Nate Day
No, and you, and this movie and this book were well before AI was a thing.
01:00:22
Chris
AI also dog shit, but...
01:00:29
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:00:29
Nate Day
so
01:00:30
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:00:31
Brett
Unbelievable.
01:00:31
Nate Day
it's existed It's existed in some form and AI has just magnified it, you know?
01:00:32
Chris
Mid right in.
01:00:36
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
01:00:36
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.
01:00:40
Nate Day
Right.
01:00:48
Chris
Yeah. With no Internet at all.
01:00:50
Nate Day
Right.
01:00:51
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.
Conspiracy Theories and Influence
01:01:08
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?
01:01:08
Nate Day
I mean, it's
01:01:15
Brett
Like, will that ever actually happen?
01:01:16
Nate Day
yeah.
01:01:17
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.
01:01:22
Nate Day
Right.
01:01:22
Chris
it just
01:01:25
Brett
That's every day for me.
01:01:26
Nate Day
Flop. Yeah.
01:01:27
Chris
It's just real.
01:01:27
Brett
like I can turn on Instagram and get the same experience.
01:01:28
Chris
Yeah.
01:01:31
Nate Day
Right.
01:01:32
Brett
The same existential crisis. Yeah.
01:01:34
Chris
it
01:01:34
Nate Day
Well, I mean, think about what it was like to live in the 50s, though.
01:01:35
Brett
hey
01:01:37
Nate Day
You know, we we had a lot of revelations that things were not as we thought they were.
01:01:39
Brett
yeah
01:01:43
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,
01:02:01
Chris
Mmm.
01:02:02
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.
01:02:36
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
01:02:47
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.
01:02:52
Nate Day
really. Okay.
01:02:53
Nate Day
Okay.
01:02:53
Chris
and Two parts in particular.
01:02:55
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.
01:03:04
Nate Day
Yeah. Right.
01:03:05
Chris
I mean, it was insane.
01:03:05
Nate Day
right
01:03:06
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.
01:03:16
Brett
Oh, that's awesome.
01:03:16
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.
01:03:36
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?
01:04:03
Nate Day
Right. Yes.
01:04:05
Chris
And that's nuts.
01:04:06
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:04:07
Chris
That's absurd.
01:04:07
Brett
Yeah.
01:04:08
Chris
That's so dumb. This is just a stupid sport. This was the first basketball game I've watched in five years.
01:04:13
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:04:16
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:04:16
Chris
The bar owner where we ended up going...
01:04:20
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?
01:04:36
Brett
but
01:04:36
Chris
He's like, yeah, you know how much money I'd make if they came back for another night?
01:04:40
Nate Day
It's true.
01:04:40
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.
01:04:48
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
01:05:10
Chris
Well, well, well.
01:05:12
Brett
Yeah.
01:05:14
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:05:14
Brett
there's
01:05:15
Chris
I mean, Carl Anthony Towns was on the Timberwolves, and they did not win.
01:05:15
Brett
There's a lot of...
01:05:18
Chris
Goes to the mix, and they win.
01:05:18
Brett
no they did not.
01:05:19
Chris
don't know.
01:05:21
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.
01:05:28
Nate Day
Right.
01:05:32
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.
01:05:38
Nate Day
Wow.
01:05:41
Brett
And i don't know. You're going to tell me it's just one guy. Just one guy.
01:05:46
Nate Day
Yeah, see, exactly. Well, and all it takes is one guy, you know?
01:05:48
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?
01:06:01
Nate Day
Interesting.
01:06:01
Chris
We all make more money. Yeah.
01:06:04
Brett
All right, well, let's get let's go to game seven here. Yeah, but I don't know.
01:06:07
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,
01:06:27
Nate Day
Nike swoosh on it because I'm like, why the hell would I pay to advertise for you?
01:06:31
Nate Day
And we've been tricked into that kind of stuff.
01:06:32
Chris
to give them, yep.
01:06:34
Brett
Walking billboard.
01:06:34
Nate Day
You know?
01:06:34
Chris
Yep.
01:06:34
Brett
Yeah.
01:06:35
Nate Day
Yeah. So I think that's exactly what he's getting at here.
01:06:37
Chris
Dude, he would have he would have written some crazy stuff in the year of our Lord, 2026.
01:06:41
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:06:42
Chris
If real existed,
01:06:43
Nate Day
Yeah, scared as I am by this one, I don't know if I want to read what he...
01:06:44
Brett
Yeah.
01:06:47
Brett
But you know what that brings us?
01:06:47
Chris
if real ai exist
01:06:50
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.
01:06:58
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:06:59
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.
01:07:15
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:07:18
Brett
It's because my environment is what is driving me towards that. There is no free will.
01:07:23
Nate Day
yeah Yeah. Interesting stuff.
01:07:27
Chris
Cigarettes, on the other hand, objectively look cooler smoking a cigarette.
01:07:27
Brett
Yeah.
01:07:30
Nate Day
Yeah, i don't know.
01:07:31
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:07:31
Chris
Nothing to do with marketing.
01:07:31
Brett
yes
01:07:34
Chris
I stand by this claim.
01:07:36
Nate Day
I feel like i feel like the the cross-section of free will and addiction is a totally different conversation.
01:07:46
Brett
that's a different podcast, Chris.
01:07:46
Chris
It's the objective opposite.
01:07:48
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:07:48
Brett
yes
01:07:51
Brett
Oh
01:07:52
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:07:55
Chris
Okay, you may have a point. Still look cool.
01:07:57
Nate Day
Yeah, I know I do. Well, let's talk let's talk ratings.
01:07:59
Brett
my God, that's funny.
Ratings and Recommendations
01:08:01
Nate Day
I think we might be on a little bit of a time crunch, right, Brett?
01:08:05
Chris
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:08:06
Chris
Let's get Buttski out of here.
01:08:06
Brett
but
01:08:07
Nate Day
out of
01:08:07
Chris
Do you, are you familiar with this? Oh, yeah, you explain it to him.
01:08:10
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?
01:08:20
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.
01:08:24
Nate Day
Okay.
01:08:30
Nate Day
Okay.
01:08:30
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.
01:08:39
Nate Day
Okay.
01:08:44
Nate Day
It is. Yeah. Truly original, you know?
01:08:47
Brett
Look at this conversation we sparked from pamphlet.
01:08:47
Chris
Very reasoning.
01:08:50
Nate Day
Right.
01:08:50
Brett
Yeah.
01:08:52
Brett
little pamphlet yeah
01:08:53
Nate Day
Yeah. And we're talking about the NBA.
01:08:54
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.
01:08:59
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:09:00
Brett
Yeah.
01:09:03
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:09:03
Brett
Yeah.
01:09:04
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.
01:09:11
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.
01:09:19
Nate Day
Oh,
01:09:27
Chris
I got more out of it the second time, which is crazy for a book this short. I mean, that's remarkable.
01:09:31
Nate Day
Yeah, that is pretty wild. But that just is a testament to his writing. You know?
01:09:37
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
01:09:38
Nate Day
I gave the movie...
01:09:39
Chris
And the movie, obviously, for obvious reason.
01:09:41
Nate Day
Oh, yeah. you You would give the movie five stars?
01:09:44
Chris
I'd give it six out of five.
01:09:46
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.
01:10:10
Chris
Fair.
01:10:11
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.
01:10:22
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.
01:10:39
Chris
Yeah.
01:10:39
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.
01:11:13
Nate Day
But still still a lot to love. Still like it quite a bit.
01:11:18
Chris
No good points.
01:11:19
Nate Day
What about recommendations? What kind of people, who would you recommend this kind of thing to?
01:11:26
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.
01:11:39
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:11:44
Brett
Honestly, i would even say have have teenagers read it. you know Give them a little little slice of of rational thinking.
01:11:49
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:11:53
Brett
like like You have to question things. You have to question things. Yeah.
01:11:57
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:11:59
Brett
the world is getting way more confusing.
01:11:59
Nate Day
I totally agree.
01:12:01
Brett
Like you have to think about it.
01:12:05
Nate Day
Chris, where's your head at?
01:12:06
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?
01:12:19
Chris
I think this is a very low barrier of entry to that realm.
01:12:22
Nate Day
Oh yeah, sure. hu
01:12:25
Chris
It's not particularly dated as compared to some sci-fi of that period. And yeah, I mean, the number of times...
01:12:35
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.
01:12:46
Chris
You know, like, yeah.
01:12:48
Brett
Yeah.
01:12:49
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:12:50
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.
01:13:03
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.
01:13:06
Nate Day
Right.
01:13:14
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:13:22
Chris
I mean, the audio book was maybe four hours long. Like this is very accessible. Yeah.
01:13:27
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
01:13:28
Chris
without Without what's often bogging stuff down of, like, gore or profanity or sexual gratuities, like, really, really accessible.
01:13:37
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.
01:13:46
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
01:13:48
Chris
Yes.
01:14:03
Nate Day
you know, living with the ideas afterwards and turning them over in your head and talking about them on a podcast.
01:14:09
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:14:10
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
Conclusion and Future Discussions
01:14:24
Chris
in news meeting
01:14:25
Nate Day
to put it plainly, right?
01:14:27
Brett
Yeah, total recall, man.
01:14:30
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:14:33
Nate Day
Cool. Well, great discussion, you guys. Thank you so much for joining us, Brad.
01:14:37
Chris
I know I'm like, oh, we're about to start an entire another discussion here.
01:14:41
Brett
hey
01:14:41
Chris
So easily.
01:14:42
Brett
yeah Let's go another hour. Come on. Honestly, we could.
01:14:47
Chris
so easily
01:14:47
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.
01:14:53
Brett
Yeah, thank you.
01:14:53
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.
01:15:07
Nate Day
We'd love that too.
01:15:09
Brett
Yeah, for sure.
01:15:10
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.
01:15:15
Chris
Oh, yeah.
01:15:17
Nate Day
It's a television miniseries.
01:15:18
Chris
Correct.
01:15:19
Nate Day
So asked interesting discussions coming up, but thanks for joining us and we look forward to our next discussion.
01:15:20
Chris
Yep.
01:15:27
Chris
Say bye, Brett.
01:15:28
Brett
Bye.
01:15:31
Chris
Bye.
01:15:32
Brett
Bye. Happy reading and watching.
01:15:34
Nate Day
Yeah.