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Kaplan
Witwer is Anderton's new assistant and future replacement. He is young, handsome, and confident, which makes Anderton incredibly insecure and puts him on the defensive from the moment they first meet, certain that Witwer is after his job. Anderton’s paranoia intensifies when Witwer briefly interacts with Lisa in a friendly manner, giving rise to Anderton’s suspicions that they are both involved in a Senate plot to remove Anderton from his position. Lisa attempts to be the voice of reason, pointing out to Anderton that Witwer believes in the value of Precrime, has good intentions, and is not involved in any sort of twisted plot to steal Anderton’s job. Playing into Anderton’s fears, though, Fleming tells Anderton that Witwer and Lisa are indeed plotting together, leaving Anderton terribly confused as to who he can trust. Over the course of the story, Witwer loses his initial over-confidence, realizing that he does not fully grasp what is transpiring because he doesn’t have Anderton’s wisdom and experience. For example, Witwer permits Kaplan to make a copy of the precognitive tapes, not realizing Kaplan’s plot until Anderson explains it to him. At the end of the story, Witwer indeed has Anderton’s job—in the wake of killing Kaplan, Anderton has to flee the planet—but Witwer is no longer so sure of himself. In their final exchange, Anderton informs Witwer that, as the new head of Precrime, he must watch out for the same predicament. Although Witwer initially makes Anderton feel paranoid and old and insecure, Witwer later functions to reinforce Anderton’s superior understanding of precognitive dynamics.
Witwer Quotes in The Minority Report
The The Minority Report quotes below are all either spoken by Witwer or refer to Witwer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Section 1 Quotes
“You’ve probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback to precrime methodology. We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law.”
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Section 2 Quotes
“I’m being framed—deliberately and maliciously. This creature is out to get my job. The Senate is getting at me through him.”
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Section 5 Quotes
“…unanimity of all three precogs is a hoped-for but seldom-achieved phenomenon, acting-Commissioner Witwer explains. It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance, since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future.”
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Section 7 Quotes
“You’ve convinced me that you’re innocent. I mean, it’s obvious that you won’t commit a murder. But you must realize now that the original report, the majority report, was not a fake. Nobody falsified it. Ed Witwer didn’t create it. There’s no plot against you, and there never was. If you’re going to accept this minority report as genuine you’ll have to accept the majority one, also.”
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Section 10 Quotes
“Each report was different,” Anderton concluded. “Each was unique. But two of them agreed on one point. If left free, I would kill Kaplan. That created the illusion of a majority report. Actually, that’s all it was—an illusion. ‘Donna’ and ‘Mike’ previewed the same event—but in two totally different time-paths, occurring under totally different situations.”
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Witwer Character Timeline in The Minority Report
The timeline below shows where the character Witwer appears in The Minority Report. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Section 1
Anderton shakes Witwer’s hand warmly, but he privately worries that he’s getting “Bald and fat and old.” Witwer...
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As they walk through the office, Anderton and Witwer discuss the basics of how Precrime works: with the help of “precog mutants,” Precrime has...
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Witwer shockingly beholds the “Vegetable-like” precogs. He is somewhat taken aback by their “deformed” and enslaved...
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Anderton proudly informs Witwer that Precrime has reduced felonies by 99.8 percent, and that the last murder was five...
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Section 2
Anderton and Witwer walk past the Precrime outer office. Inside, Lisa—Anderton’s “slim and attractive young wife”—engages Page in...
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Noticing Witwer’s “admiring scrutiny,” Lisa introduces herself, asking him where he is from. Observing their friendly interaction,...
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...didn’t look at it closely enough, darling.” Having assumed the card indicated he would murder Witwer, Anderton is surprised to see a name he does not know: Leopold Kaplan.
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Section 3
...him. “Didn’t she even hesitate?” Anderton asks, assuming the man is a police offer that Witwer and Lisa have sent. But, much to Anderton’s surprise, the man takes Anderton to see...
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...duplicate cards, which is why Kaplan knows already. Pleading his innocence, Anderton tells Kaplan that Witwer and Lisa are “acting in concert, apparently.” Kaplan admits that this is a possibility, but...
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Section 6
...he realizes. Trembling in anticipation, Anderton copies the report, but then thinks to himself that Witwer has surely already seen the report, so showing it to him will not prove Anderton’s...
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Section 7
...report as genuine you’ll have to accept the majority one, also.” She continues, explaining that Witwer is a good man who wants Precrime to succeed. If he were involved in a...
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...precognitive tape reel, he proceeds to lay out the plot: “Kaplan is working directly with Witwer,” and “[Lisa] was back of the whole thing.” As Lisa protests the charge, Fleming crouches...
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...Lisa is innocent after all. Calling back to the station, Anderton speaks to a surprised Witwer, insisting he close down the precog room. But Witwer explains that Kaplan was just there...
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Section 8
Back at the station, Anderton informs Witwer that Page is a spy who has been passing information to Kaplan. Kaplan—who just left...
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Section 10
...pack up to leave for Centaurus X, Anderton ties up a few loose threads for Witwer: there were three minority reports, each of which covered a different time-path. In the first,...
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