Just as The Adjustment Bureau sees Philip K. Dick exploring the idea of free will versus determinism, so too did his far superior short story The Minority Report delve into similar themes. And, just as the movie version of the former took artistic license and changed the ending for the worse, so too does Steven Spielberg's adaptation Minority Report opt for an ending which flips the original on its head and becomes all the worse for it. Tom Cruise plays John Anderton, head of the PreCrime facility where a trio of precognitive psychics are used to predict upcoming murders. After being named as a future murderer by the very system he's charged with maintaining, he goes on the run and tries to discover how he has been named. Eventually he uncovers a set up in which his own boss (Max Von Sydow) has tried to frame him in order to prevent him from discovering a murder he'd committed some time ago. Needless to say, in the source material his character fulfills the prophecy and murders the man he was predicted to kill, winding up exiled on a space colony. Maybe there's something in Tom Cruise's contract which states that he has to save the day and emerge the hero at the end of his films - watching them and you certainly get that impression. Whatever the reason, once again fans of Philip K. Dick found themselves let down by a neat little bow where a more complex, intriguing ending once was.
