what is the drug in minority report

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Clarity is an addictive drug in the Pre-Crime Universe.

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John Anderton

• 3 John Anderton

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Minority Report

• Action/Adventure , Mystery/Suspense , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Tom Cruise as Detective John Anderton; Max von Sydow as Director Burgess; Steve Harris as Jad; Neal McDonough as Officer Fletcher; Patrick Kilpatrick as Knott; Jessica Capshaw as Evanna

Home Release Date

• Steven Spielberg

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Movie Review

In a perfect world, murderers would be caught before they could kill, and the innocent would never live in fear. But even when the coupling of science and humanity produces the tools to prevent crime before it occurs, people still manage to mess things up. It’s 2054. Detective John Anderton is a pre-crime officer in Washington, D.C. He flies around with his jetpack, taking down bad guys before they can do bad things. And then John is identified as a future killer. In an instant, the full weight of the system he’s fought so valiantly for and served so faithfully comes crashing down on top of him.

It’s not a computer or an alien life-force that predicts future killers. It’s three highly-sensitive precognitive people. Since murder so forcefully “disrupts the fabric of life,” that’s what they see the most clearly. Murder after murder after murder after murder. Their visions are recorded as fragmented video images for the police officers to scrutinize. The names of the victims and perpetrators are burned into wooden balls—which roll down a maze of Plexiglas pipe before plopping down in front of waiting enforcers (think of the system as a giant, Steven Spielberg-inspired Mousetrap game).

When John finds himself on the lam, desperately trying to prove his innocence of a crime he’s yet to commit, his turbulent past reaches out to possess him. He and his wife lost their 6-year-old boy to an act of murder just before the “pre-cogs” effectively did away with capital crime. He’s never recovered, and has devoted his life to sparing others the agony he’s endured. That’s a good thing, but his obsession led to divorce and drug addiction. He knows he’s not going to kill the man he’s “supposed to,” but how is he going to convince anyone else? There’s no such thing as a conspiracy in a system that never fails .

positive elements: Minority Report provides numerous opportunities to think about and discuss the idea of judging someone for what they might do instead of what they’ve done. Prosecuting potential criminals seems to have great appeal at first blush, but as Minority Report shows, there’s more to justice than “keeping everyone safe.” Only God knows a man’s heart, and while Spielberg never evokes God’s overarching presence, his portrayal of humanity’s bumbling grasp on secret intent and future events speaks directly to this spiritual issue. The other area that gets specific attention is that of free will. A theme throughout is that John has choices. Just because a pre-cog predicted his actions, doesn’t mean he has to go through with it. There is always a way out. (Look at 1 Cor. 10:13 for a biblical parallel.)

spiritual content: While spiritual lessons can be drawn from the film, its only overt spiritual content is negative. Predicting the future is essentially a spiritual ability. But Minority Report attributes precognitive abilities to nothing other than chance, chemical combinations and hyper-sensitivity. A man finding himself in the presence of one of the pre-cogs, falls to his knees in front of her, crosses himself and blasphemously utters the name of Jesus. Detectives refer to themselves as “more like priests than cops” since they directly change the course of destiny in people’s lives.

sexual content: Opening scenes intertwine snippets of passionate kissing and a brutal stabbing. (It turns out that a man discovers his wife bedding someone else.) A holographic recording of John’s ex-wife shows her wearing a nightie and enticing him to come to bed. While mechanical police drones (in the form of spiders) search an apartment building, the camera flits overhead, spying on people in their homes (one couple is having sex). Another hologram shows a man’s sexual fantasy (the images are brief and distorted, but the sexual connotations are clear). Suggestive dialogue includes slang for sexual acts and even references the desires a man has for his cousin.

violent content: Disturbing, disjointed images of future murders play across police video screens. Drownings. Stabbings. Shootings. Strangulations. There’s also a lot of violence while John runs from his former colleagues. Personal jetpacks allows for high-speed, airborne combat, raising the pursuit’s stakes. John slams one of the cops against a wall and puts a gun to his chin (later he breaks a mirror with another man’s head and points a gun at him, too). Stealing an officer’s “sick stick,” John immediately uses it, causing the victim to projectile vomit. Shockwave guns throw men across rooms, but futuristic methods of violence quickly give way to old-fashioned fisticuffs. At least two men are shot in the chest (blood spurts and oozes). There is also a suicide.

crude or profane language: One forceful f-word and a half-dozen s-words. The Lord’s name is abused more than a dozen times.

drug and alcohol content: John is addicted to a futuristic substance called “clarity.” He breathes in the drug using what looks like a modified asthma inhaler. While his doping is illegal and frowned on by officers who find out about it, John never comes clean and the issue is dropped without resolution. Also, there’s a futuristic ad shown for beer, and alcohol is consumed by various characters.

other negative elements: [ Spoiler Warning ] Since security systems in John’s world rely almost exclusively on retinal scans, eye transplants have become a black market gold mine. Running from his old unit, John undergoes a back-alley eyeball swap to hide his identity from public scanners. The portrayal of the surgery is relatively bloodless, but John takes his old eyes with him in a plastic baggie. In one scene, the bloody orbs get away from him and roll down a hallway. There’s also talk about a plastic surgeon setting fire to his patients while they were under anesthesia. A subplot deals with the abduction and murder of children. A derelict makes an obscene gesture at police. A man is shown using the bathroom.

conclusion: Minority Report is an old-fashioned murder mystery dressed up in futuristic clothes. Sometimes those clothes are cool and comfy; other times they feel a bit stiff and scratchy. Personal jetpacks, spider drones, shockwave guns and bizarre elevator-style autos are all a bit over the top even for 2054. And the computers! If my wrists hurt now from pounding away at this keyboard, they’ll be in eternal agony if Spielberg’s vision for the future comes true. Computer users have to transform themselves into orchestra conductors just to keep the clunky things running. And don’t get me started on those “invisible” flat plexi screens. To be sure, Minority Report ‘s heart beats strongest when it focuses on the mystery, not the future.

A lot could be written about the sociopolitical ramifications of a justice system that pre-judges crime. And Spielberg quite expertly opens that can of worms. But don’t expect Minority Report to explore the moral ramifications of its subject matter as much as A.I. did. (It’s not nearly as melancholy, either.) This is much more a mystery than an exploration of the meaning of life. “It’s like a whodunit,” Spielberg says. “It’s a ‘who will do it.'” Spielberg even shot the film using a dim, grainy technique to evoke comparisons to the grand mysteries of yore. And it works. Based on a short story by the man who conceived Blade Runner (Philip K. Dick), the yarn spools out convincingly as John gradually learns why he has become a target. Hint: Politics and money are never bad guesses. The only big hole in the story’s fabric is that John uses his old eyeballs to get back into his office while he’s being pursued. Wouldn’t the security codes be changed the instant he’s fingered for the crime? Still, the story carries you along to a strong conclusion and the mystery is satisfactorily solved. Sadly, one cannot use the term “satisfactorily” in this context without weighing it down with a giant asterisk. And that asterisk denotes gore, violence, foul language and sexual content. Not easy things to get around even when there is a good story to be told.

Steven Isaac

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Minority Report Neuroin Drug Inhaler

This is an original screen used prop from Minority Report. These Neuroin drug inhalers were used as set dressing around John Anderton’s (Tom Cruise) apartment.

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Top 10 Sci-Fi Drugs

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10: Minority Report (2002)– Neuroin Intent: To give that Kodak moment a bit of beefing up. Side effects: You may end the movie twice and blow it the second time. Notes: Yep, that sounds pretty much like ‘neural heroin’ to me, and it’s the vice of future-cop Tom Cruise in Spielberg’s fascinating but very flawed re-imagining of Philip K. Dick’s short story. The first time we see Cruise using it he is watching holo-tapes of his missing (presumed dead) son and his estranged wife, and a quick toot on the inhaler (see picture below) gets miserable old Tom smiling again…

9: Robocop 2 (1990) – Nuke Intent: To mess you up and mellow you out Side effects : Instantaneous addiction. Notes: Clearly based on the then fairly-new phenomenon of Crack, Nuke is a disturbingly red liquid in vial form.

8: Logan ’s Run (1976) – Muscle Intent: To double reaction speed, similar to a super-amphetamine. Side effects: “shakes you to pieces–speeds everything up to a blur…” so says sandman Logan of this fictional speed-clone in one of the later drafts of the screenplay by David Zelag Goodman, from the novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Notes: The screenplay also mentions that use of the drug would kill anyone older than 13. Interestingly, one of the renegade youths that threatens Logan and Jessica in Cathedral proffers a toot of the drug as a menace to our heroes…

7: The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch – Can-D Intent: Relieve the boredom of the drafted colonists in their dreary and undeveloped frontier outposts by allowing them to ‘translate’ into the layouts of Ken & Barbie-like dolls ‘Perky Pat’ or her boyfriend ‘Walt’. Side Effects: Like the main effects aren’t enough! One couple who carry on an affair in their ‘translated’ guises as Pat and Walt wake up to do the same in reality. Notes: Can-D is an officially illegal drug which is nonetheless manufactured with little official impedance and routinely distributed to the mining colonies. It derives from a hallucinogenic substance found on Ganymede. In Philip K. Dick’s typically mind-blowing novel, Can-D is superseded by Chew-Z, a legal alternative which has the additional side-effect of connecting all its users to the mind of mysterious and wealthy space explorer Palmer Eldritch. This conceit of an experience of collective or group consciousness is also found in a more televisual form in Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep , though this particular domestic ritual did not make it into Blade Runner .

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6: Screamers (1995) – Reds Intent: Stop the ambient radiation on the war-ravaged planet Sirius B from killing its inhabitants Side Effects: You don’t die.. Notes: The idea of cigarettes that prevent cancer is unique to Christian Duguay’s interpretation of the Philip K. Dick short story, and an obvious kick in the rear to political correctness. When a cloud of particularly dense radioactivity approaches the military base, a voice comes over the loud-speakers to order everyone to light up…

5: Star Trek: TOS ‘Mudd’s Women’ (1966) – The Venus Drug Intent: Make the user irresistibly attractive by enhancing their own natural charms – women become more alluring and men more aggressive. Side Effects: Wolf-whistles; unbidden sleazy saxophone solos. Notes: The lothario and entrepreneur Harcourt Mudd is dosing up his cargo of miners’ wives with the illegal Venus drug to ensure his procurement fees, until he ends up stranded with the fabulously attractive women on Kirk’s Enterprise. Kirk later gives one of the women a placebo and it works anyway – so it was all in the mind…

4: Scanners (1981) – Ephemerol Intent: The relief of morning sickness in pregnant women. Side effects: Rashes; dizziness; kids may end up with the ability to read other people’s thoughts whether they want to or not, to set other people on fire or even blow other people’s heads up in a nasty display of gore; Now available in strawberry. Notes: Ephemerol can also be used as inhibiting treatment for children whose mothers took the drug and who are now themselves ‘scanners’ (telepaths).

3: UFO ( UK TV 1970) – ‘The Amnesia Drug’ Intent: To wipe the recent memory of unauthorised personnel who have discovered the existence of SHADO, a worldwide clandestine military organisation that is secretly protecting the human race from aliens who want to harvest human organs for their own dying species. Side Effects: Of what? Notes: In the episode ‘The Square Triangle’, SHADO Commander Ed Straker (Ed Bishop) was forced to wipe the memories of a man and a woman –lovers – who were conspiring to kill the woman’s husband. The illicit couple had encountered both aliens and SHADO, and once their memories of this were erased, they proceeded successfully with their murderous plot…as Straker well knew that they would. The drug itself is never named in the series, is usually administered by syringe – or by spiking a complimentary cup of tea in the SHADO waiting-area – and predates the flashing memory-wipers of the Men In Black – who needed their ‘neuraliser’ device for exactly the same reason – by two decades.

2: Brave New World – Soma Intent: Keep the people sweet, placid and a liiiittle bit hippy. Side Effects: Hallucinations; under excess, death due to failure of that part of the autonomous nervous system that controls breathing. Notes: There is a real-life muscle relaxant called carisoprodol which is also known as ‘Soma’. The intent of Huxley’s fictional drug is to keep the citizens of his imagined utopia in perfect and blissful equilibrium, though it leaves them little prepared for the intrusion of a ‘savage’ from the world beyond the city limits (this role was played by 2001 actor Keir Dullea in a widely criticised US TV mini-series in the early 1980s) The popular rumour about Ridley Scott’s new sci-fi project is that he will be taking on Huxley’s classic – presumably and inevitably with Russell Crowe as the noble savage. Actually, that sounds pretty good…

1: Dune (1984) – The Spice Melange Intent: To fold space so that the enormous freighters of the Spacing Guild can cross vast distances without moving. Side effects: Weight gain; euphoria; enlightenment; precognition; skull enlargement; increased skin thickness; ah hell, you’re basically gonna turn into a huge thirty-foot slug that needs a cottage-sized floating glass tank in order to move about. Notes: Yeah, but it’s goooood… Better notes: Mined exclusively, and at some peril, on the planet Arrakis, also known as ‘Dune’, where the giant sand-worms – whose larval form (rather disgustingly, if you ever see the full process in the appalling ‘Alan Smithee’ version) contributes the ‘spice’ – often swoop in upon the mining craft with little warning.

Honorary convictions: Substance D (A Scanner Darkly – really, you could make a much longer list than this just from Philip K. Dick’s fictional drugs); Vellocet (A Clockwork Orange); Plutonian Nyborg (Heavy Metal – 1981); Phenyldihydrochloride benzelex (Withnail and I – 1987. Not sci-fi, but just a great name!); Shadow (Blake’s 7); Polydichloric euthymol (nasty addictive stuff from Peter Hyams’ Outland – 1981).

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Description

An original prop used in the production of Minority Report, the 2002 science fiction picture starring Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell under the direction of Steven Spielberg.

Neuroin inhalers such as this can be seen in various scenes of the movie, constructed from resin the prop features a mouthpiece of blue plastic with a bubble to the top of pink plastic. The inhaler measures approximately 2.25" x 2" and remains in excellent production used condition with some minor paint wear and a small dent to the side of the top bubble, otherwise fine.

A highly displayable artefact from this critically acclaimed and Academy Award nominated blockbuster.

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Neuroin was a drug that featured in Minority Report .

Neuroin was a new drug that circulated in the markets over the years leading to 2054. Originally, it was a very addictive substance the constant use of which led to brain damage to newborn children. In an effort to tackle Neuroin abuse, it was discovered that several of these children had the gift to see the future. However, these were all murders that were occuring shortly in the future which in turn led to the development of the Pre-Crime program.

After the loss of his son, John Anderton began to use Neuroin that he purchased from drug dealers in an effort to cope with his son's disappearance.

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John Anderton

Character analysis.

(Avoiding Spoilers)

Grew Up… in Washington D.C., a city that was gripped and divided by crime until five years ago, when the invention of “PreCrime” changed the face of American society.

Living… in a safer world. Anderton, living in the year 2054, believes that his efforts as a crime fighter in D.C.’s controversial “PreCrime” unit has made the world a better place.

Profession… Chief of the Department of PreCrime. Chief Anderton leads a team of special policemen who use the psychic abilities of three mutated humans, colloquially called “precogs,” in order to see into the future and prevent murders before they take place. Under their vigilant stewardship, the US hasn’t seen a murder in six years.

Interests… nursing his secret drug addiction. Anderton, unbeknownst to his colleagues, is addicted to Clarity, an intense psychoactive drug. John takes the drug in order to distract himself from the painful memory of his young son, Sean, who was murdered before the PreCrime system was put in place.

Relationship Status… divorced. After the disappearance of their son, John’s marriage to Lara Anderton fell apart. Now, between arresting criminals and doing hard drugs, he doesn’t really have the time – or the inclination – to date.

Challenge… proving his innocence for a murder he has not yet committed. When the infallible precogs say that Anderton is poised to commit a murder within a week, John suddenly finds himself evading the department he helped build. Convinced that he’s innocent of the pending murder, Anderton will have to find out who set him up, prove his innocence, and try to change a future that seems inevitable.

Personality… sad, driven, and blessed with the skeptical mind that comes from a lifetime of police work. John Anderton has nothing to lose as he tries to solve the mystery of a crime he is going to commit. Ever since the loss of Sean, John has only been living for his dedication to PreCrime, which he believes is a perfect system. Now that it’s implicated him in a crime, he’s questioning his commitment to the one force of good in his life.

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Get to Know him in...

John Anderton is a top "Precrime" cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes the quarry when another investigator targets him for a murder charge. Can Anderton find a glitch in the system and prove his innocence before it's too late?

A collection of eighteen science fiction short stories features "The Minority Report," in which Commissioner John Anderton's clever use of "precogs," people who can identify criminals before they can do any harm, turns against him when they identify him as the next criminal.

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