Themes in Minority Report film is a combination of whodunit, thriller, and science fiction. Spielberg has characterized the movie's story as "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot." The film's central theme is the question of free will vs. determinism. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance. It also concerns itself with the role of preventative government in protecting its citizenry, which was apt of the time of the picture's given America's debates over the government's expanding powers after 9/11. "Minority Report" presents a
Technologies in Minority Report ideas for the film's technology to Roger Ebert before the film's release: News sources have noted the future technologies depicted in the film were prescient. "The Guardian" published a piece titled "Why Minority Report was spot on" in June 2010, and the following month "Fast Company" examined seven crime fighting technologies in the film similar to ones then currently appearing. It summarized that "the police state imagined in the Tom Cruise flick feels a bit more real every day." Other major media outlets such as the "Wall Street Journal" have published articles dedicated to this phenomenon, and National Public Radio