Dystopian Trailer Critique

For this assignment I watched the trailer for Minority Report,  directed by Steven Spielberg. It is rated PG-13 and was released in June, 2002. John Anderton is the Captain of the Pre-Crimes Unit, a police force designated to stopping murders before they happen, but John soon finds himself running for his life when he is predicted of a future murder.



This trailer is conveys three major characteristics of a dystopian society, citizens are perceived to be under constant surveillance, citizens live in a dehumanized state, and the society is an illusion of a perfect Utopian society. Spielberg is able to convey the perceived notion of constant surveillance with scenes of John Anderton looking at a computer screen with many different people on it; with the technology depicted in this trailer it appears that information on citizens  can be very easily attained by the police. The dehumanization of citizens is shown through the scenes when the Pre-Crime Unit crashes into a man's home and arrests him, no trial is held, there is no need for one because as John Anderton says in the Trailer, "the system is perfect." This is also how Spielberg creates the illusion of a perfect Utopian Society, he uses clips from the movie that highlight the working components of the system such as when Anderton says there hasn't been a murder is six years, or that the system is flawless.
When my groups creates our own dystopian trailer, I believe we should use some of the methods that Spielberg used, such as key scenes that describe the state of the dystopian society, while also furthering our plot. We will also highlight the characteristics of our dystopia by using a series of editing techniques for example the use of voice overs and quick montages to explain the history of the society.