After seeing the outstanding pilot of The Man in the High Castle – Amazon’s new series based on the award-winning eponymous novel by Philip K. Dick – I couldn’t resist to watch Minority Report for the umpteenth time to drench my thirst for good sci-fi flicks.
Minority Report is perhaps to date the best adaptation of Philip K. Dick to the screen. Ridley Scott had a good stab at it in 1982 with Blade Runner but, in my opinion, Steven Spielberg takes it to a higher level with Minority Report (2002) by perfectly portraying a dystopian world where murderers are arrested even before they commit their crime. Beyond the special effects and innovative sci-fi elements, Spielberg pays tribute to Philip K. Dick by preserving and building on the themes dear to the sci-fi mastermind like alternative realities and the clash between all mighty science and individual free will.
In Minority Report, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) heads Precrime, a special crime division in charge of arresting murder suspects based on the visions of precogs who can see the future. But when he is himself accused of a future murder, he must run and fight the flaws of a seemingly perfect system. The ethical and philosophical questions raised by Minority Report fuel the suspense and make Minority Report a riveting fast-paced thriller throughout.
Leaving aside the wild and passionate debates Minority Report invites us to, there is one thing that always sparked my interest at the end of the film: the log cabin on a desert island where the precogs are sent to live their lives in peace.
Although in Minority Report the small un-charted island is reported to be in the North Atlantic Ocean, there’s no straight answer as to its actual filming location.
After searching around on IMDb, Quora and Yahoo Answers, it seems likely that Minority Report’s last scene was filmed at Beaverdam Park in Gloucester, Virginia.
According to IMDb, Steven Spielberg and his crew filmed for over a month in Gloucester but on screen this translated into just a minute or so. Sadly, the town was given no acknowledgment in the credits.
Check out the photos below and see for yourself. Do you think this last scene of Minority Report was filmed in Virginia?
© County of Gloucester Virginia
Check out this Flickr album for more nice photos of Beaverdam Park in Gloucester, Virginia: https://www.flickr.com/photos/coach_jeff/sets/72157625980739019
Comments
Sheldon Sanborn
The last shot is of. Butter island off North haven maine . In Penobscot bay .i work on an around these islands . To the east is great spruce island,chain of islands ,bear iland .google earth .ielsboro is about 2 miles to the eastern,an Camden maine .you will see that it actually where it was filmed .
Keke
Hi Sheldon,
Thanks a lot for the information! We’ll update the article asap.
Cheers,
Kevin
Terry Lawrence
Hi, The location is indeed in Penobscot Bay, I think I found the exact location on Google Maps:
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Penobscot+Bay,+Maine,+USA/@44.23277,-68.7650933,506a,20y,270h,82.19t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x4cafc0b172479751:0xf626ac5e3134d491
colin
I was the caretaker for Butter Island when that scene was filmed. The helipcopter they used to shoot that scene scared the hell out of the sheep all day long, going back and forth.
The cabin shown here was digitally added – my cabin was along the south end of the island among a stand of pines.
Cathy Edwards
The head of precrime is John Anderton not Anderson.
Gary Mohr
Lived on Mount Desert Island for 40 years and the cabin is definitely somewhere in Maine!
Paul Campbell
The exact location of the digitally added log cabin is here:
https://goo.gl/aSyr5g (link opens google maps)