Minority Report is more than just the movie or the book or the pre-production scripts. The whole 'telling' of the world, and it's many versions, are interesting

Minority Report is more than just the movie or the book or the pre-production scripts. The whole 'telling' of the world, and it's many versions, are interesting to look at. The history of the story provides a great, if navel gazing, look at free will and the future in general: many possibilities. The interactions of how empathy for the characters are created in the audience via the book and/or pre-production script vs. the movie are a great look into how us humans deal with these issues of 'free will'. It's largely emotional, not logical. How these various 'tellings' deal with that issue honestly shows the genius of Spielberg's approach to stories. Why does free will elicit such an emotional response in us? The 'world' of Minority Report is, largely, the antagonist of these tellings/stories. It's not just a place where characters interact that has cool stuff and whizz-bang technology. Here, it's a character itself. In doing that, it demonstrates this 'free will' issue again. The world interacts with the audience and has the audience 'buy into' the (fictional) world. It's oppressiveness and thrilling nature is felt by the audience. But why? Where does free will reside in this interaction of 'story' and audience? Why are stories gripping in a world with/out free will? The use of water's distortions of light are a big theme in the movie too. I'm not sure how it relates to free will, but, thematically, it was a really cool feature that comes up all over the film. The movie really is a good one. The great Michael Tucker has a fantastic essay on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbMPjas_rRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbMPjas_rRU