Christopher Nolan's Inception

[ray245]

Just seen it and I really like it. It's one of those films where I don't notice how much time has passed.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Good movie. I'm glad they got Cilian Murphy for the young businessman, because that role could easily have gone to some schmuck. The only thing that pissed me off was the ending, because I knew what was coming and really didn't want them to do it.

[Whiplash]

I'm impressed.

I got worried at the beginning, because of the odd pacing and I was afraid it was going to be like that the entire movie, but it really picked up. I really got into it once they actually started showing the dreams to Juno ... I mean Ariadne. That anti-gravity fight was awesome (Arthur is the fucking man), I just wish it lasted longer. My only beef with the film (outside of the beginning) was that they kept showing that car falling off the bridge, I just busted out laughing every time I saw it.

As for the ending (eat a dick Nolan) ... I would like to think of it as an open ended thing, but there's too much evidence to suggest
Spoiler

Cobb was dreaming. Here I'm thinking wow, I wasn't expecting such a happy ending, and then that happened. The kids were wearing the same clothes, they didn't age, and they were doing the exact same thing as he remembered. Then the top wobbled barely, and then it just ended.

As for Mal, I have not been that scared of chick since Dahlia Hawthorne from the Phoenix Wright games.

I clapped when
Spoiler

Ariadne shot her.

On a special note, a lot of movies have that one line that just make you react in like the worst way. My friends kept chuckling whenever someone said "you have to go deeper and deeper", and I was able to let it go pretty easily, but I lost it at "you have to come, there's nothing like it".

[CaptainChewbacca]

I laughed every time they showed the van, too. It was like 'Yep... still falling'.

IDK if you guys noticed, but they kept messing with Mal. They had her eyes change color a few times, and her accent seemed to drift about.

[Whiplash]

I didn't notice the eye thing, but I would imagine that something like that would have been done on purpose, to what effect, I don't know. The accent I felt was french, but yeah it did drift a couple of times (there goes her Oscar, cause honestly speaking, she had a shot in my opinion), Mal still scared the crap out of me. They did that sound when she noticed Ariadne which made me jump because she hadn't even turn around to look at her yet.

I can't believe I forgot to mention that epic finale.
Spoiler

I mean fuck, you're filming all that shit on three different locations and with all those 'kicks' seemingly flowing into each other making one giant crescendo of action, I was just like ... WOW!!! Not a lot of people could pull something like that off.

[The Spartan]

I just got back from seeing it with some friends and it blew my mind. I mean, I was able to follow along and was never lost, but by the climax I was all but sitting on the edge of my seat.

On the other hand, at the end I wanted to scream at the screen, "TELL ME THE FUCKING ANSWER!!!!" Spoiler

Was it real? Was it all a dream? Answer me!

I didn't notice the eye thing, but I would imagine that something like that would have been done on purpose, to what effect, I don't know.

I didn't notice it, but the 'effect' would be to make her subtly wrong to people that picked up on it. To give another example, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the actor that played Grima Wormtongue shaved his eyebrows so that there would be something subtly wrong with him so that the audience would have a gut level, repulsive feeling about him.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Speaking of 'something wrong', what the hell was up with the blonde 'distraction' chick?

Edit: You know, what I realized is really great about Murphy's performance is you get the sense that there existed another, parallel movie where HE was the main character and went through a massive ordeal in his own dreams to come to full self-actualization.

[Shroom Man 777]

That blonde distraction chick was their Forger, whatshisname. The guy who ended up rigging the C4 on that icy base (SHADOW MOSES) while shooting people in the face with his SCAR.

[CaptainChewbacca]

That blonde distraction chick was their Forger, whatshisname. The guy who ended up rigging the C4 on that icy base (SHADOW MOSES) while shooting people in the face with his SCAR.

I know it was the forger. I meant the actress. Does she have an asymmetrical face, or what?

[Companion Cube]

I liked Spoiler

how DiCaprio's partner (who was previously described as having no imagination) is forced into thinking of and setting up a "kick" in zero-G, and does so with aplomb. The chemist who "doesn't go into the field" carries out a great chase sequence and there's no-one there to appreciate it. The whole thing was a great heist movie.

[The Spartan]

I know it was the forger. I meant the actress. Does she have an asymmetrical face, or what?

I don't think so.

According to IMDB, her name is Talulah Riley. Look her up and see what you think.

[LMSx]

My only beef with the film (outside of the beginning) was that they kept showing that car falling off the bridge, I just busted out laughing every time I saw it.

As for the ending (eat a dick Nolan)

As for the ending (eat a dick Nolan)

eat a dick Nolan

Ohhhhh my god the entire theater went "AWWWWWW" at that Spoiler

final cut after the wobble. Curious to note how much can be read into the hard cut to the title, if it was a fade to black we're clearly left with the impression of the top still spinning in perpetuity.

More end stuff: Spoiler

I've read speculation that because Saito asked Cobb on the helicopter to "take a leap of faith" and Cobb takes the job, Cobb now becomes complicit in the idea implanted in him that he CAN go home. Mal asked Cobb while on the ledge to do the same thing; to accept that reality was just a dream which he clearly couldn't follow through on. If somehow Cobb had been able to go through the movie without taking Saito's leap, he couldn't end up in that end scene with the kids.

I don't know, that sounds either plausible or bullshit. Just need more time to think this stuff through! But regardless of that, Nolan clearly aimed to be ambiguous with the ending. I really want the job to have been successful, so, like Cobb with his kids, who am I to insist it didn't happen? This movie can be what I want of it.

In spite of some clumsy exposition in the first act to kick-start things, Inception gets it together and starts unfolding like a finely tuned Swiss watch. Very well worth seeing, and satisfying that Chris Nolan could get this done in the same way that George Lucas earned the (relative) freedom with American Graffiti to fuck around with his own pet project.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Someone pointed out something to me that seems to resolve the ending rather difinitively:
Spoiler

Whenever he's in the real world, Cobb isn't wearing a wedding ring, but whenever he's in the dream he is. At the end, he's not wearing a ring.

Of course, the batspit crazy theory is that the entire movie is Michael Caine trying to bring Cobb out of a dream state that he's been in since before the film started and that Mal was right.

[Zac Naloen]

There were points where he was supposed to be in the real world where he was just too awesome, eg mombassa that made me think that he was in the dream world the whole time I think thats just me being picky though.


Also re: the ending
Spoiler

His kids haven't aged one bit since he left...?

and the kids he spoke to on the phone sounded much older than the kids they showed, especially the boy

[Whiplash]

About the ending.
Spoiler

To say he was not dreaming would be really simple. I mean this is how I see it if he was dreaming. Siato's brain probably fried after being in limbo for so long, so he was never able to make the phone call. Cobb would have been arrested on the second he landed, but since he was asleep, they probably just put him somewhere. My brother told me (after I convinced him that he was dreaming) that Ariadne probably created a limbo for him, since she saw just about everything that was in that limbo.

I don't think the ring matters, because whether he was dreaming or not, he still let go of Mal.

And no Spoiler

He was not dreaming the entire movie, that's stupid.

I love how they call Saito 'The Tourist' on one of the movie posters.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Can we have this thread titled with [SPOILERS] instead? Clicking the real button gets tedious after a while.

I got back from seeing it this morning, having spent all night wandering London after missing the last train. But seeing it in a packed IMAX was well worth it. Truly a brilliant film, and if anyone is curious about the score, I got that before seeing it and as a stand alone, it doesn't disappoint

The names given to each of the characters are also relevant to mythology e.g. It will be fascinating to read the hypotheses that percolate about Inception after release and no doubt what characters are called will be explored. That Page is Ariadne — the name of a figure in Greek myth who guides a hero from a maze — has already been noted. Eames shares his name with seminal designers/architects Charles and Ray, who made a celebrated short film, Powers Of 10, about the magnitude of the universe. Marion Cotillard is Cobb’s wife, Mal — which means “bad”, but can also derive from the Hebrew for messenger or angel. Cobb itself comes from Jacob, who, when fleeing from his murderous brother in the biblical book Genesis, dreamt of a ladder to heaven.

- From the Empire Online review.

They also have the other names such as The Forger or The Shade on the fourth trailer, which I never saw before.

Anyone else catch the Francis Bacon reference this time? Nolan always throws one into his films these days.

Will need a second or third viewing to really comment on all of this. The ending alone could keep you speculating on various theories for an age (the entire theatre went "AWWW!" here too).

[Gil Hamilton]

Our theatre went Aww! too at the end. However, I'd say whether he woke up or not is irrelevant. Whatever reality he is experiencing, whether he's awake or in a dream, is the same to him; real. That's why Nolan deliberately left the end ambiguous I think, because at the end of the day, for Cobbs, the distinction between the dream world and the real one had become academic.

That said, I think he woke up and they used the same actors for the kids because they needed to recreate the scene where he can't see their faces entirely so they can turn around. That's the out of universe reason and because if they were older, it would have made the ending completely unambiguous. It frustrates people, but Nolan clearly wanted people frustrated so they'd question if he was out or not, thus contemplate the nature of reality and how you could possibly tell if he was out or not. To me, it doesn't make much dream logic for the top to wobble suggestively like it was going to fall over. It certainly didn't do that before.

It was certainly a brilliant film.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Our theatre went Aww! too at the end. However, I'd say whether he woke up or not is irrelevant. Whatever reality he is experiencing, whether he's awake or in a dream, is the same to him; real. That's why Nolan deliberately left the end ambiguous I think, because at the end of the day, for Cobbs, the distinction between the dream world and the real one had become academic.

Precisely. The whole film is built on the premise that reality is what you make it, and if you have a machine that enables lucid dreaming to be perfectly performed, then you're essentially able to make your own world, which Cobb and Mal did. Even in limbo, there is still control, and although it may be a coma for your physical body, it would seem that the catharsis Cobb received at the end was real enough to have him let go of those memories. So who cares if he is still dreaming or, even, if the whole film was basically mostly a dream state guided by whomever? Cobb got home.

That said, I think he woke up and they used the same actors for the kids because they needed to recreate the scene where he can't see their faces entirely so they can turn around. That's the out of universe reason and because if they were older, it would have made the ending completely unambiguous. It frustrates people, but Nolan clearly wanted people frustrated so they'd question if he was out or not, thus contemplate the nature of reality and how you could possibly tell if he was out or not. To me, it doesn't make much dream logic for the top to wobble suggestively like it was going to fall over. It certainly didn't do that before.

It was certainly a brilliant film.

Did we even get told how long it had been since he had been suspected of murdering his wife? I don't recall any timeline there, since we just enter into the final mission with Kobol Engineering with no real idea of whether he's been on the run doing jobs for years or not. It could have been a matter of months only, leaving the kids still virtually unchanged. Given when we dream we have different time perception, as the film also states, it could have simply felt like he was away far, far longer, while in reality it wasn't years, but months. To the children, it'd still seem like he was never coming home, as even days being away can make kids feel like you've left them forever if you're a parent, their own perception of time being different.

If Cobb was dreaming, though, there would have to be something to alert his subconscious to this, such as something being amiss. Remember, most people can tell a dream is a dream when something really odd happens, hence they had to keep things being real-world when inside Fischer's mind, else they'd set him off (no imagining ray guns to deal with those militarised projections from his training; reminds me of ghost hacking, actually). Still, if he's in control of that dream and was only guided to the final scene by someone else making him think he performed that job and was now back in reality, then so long as he bought it, he won't inadvertently mess with his world and cotton on to it being fake. That is if it is a dream anyway (I remain unconvinced either way, since it's purposely ambiguous and I think Nolan made a point of saying it was supposed to be open, like Memento).

Oh yeah, and with Saito in limbo, I presume that was a fourth depth in his subconscious, so given that anaesthesia, another ten times of time distortion. So from the point Saito's mind tries to wake from death in level 3, he's only gone a few minutes until Cobb himself materialises there, hence the mental image age discrepancy. That's right, isn't it? I forget that the different layers all work at differing levels of sleep depth.

As an aside, been a while since I've had a decent dream myself, I always did hate those "kicks" that wake you up, though I wonder if that's an evolved way for our brains to wake us from bad dreams given motor control is shut off from the motor cortex during delta sleep.

[Zac Naloen]

Did we even get told how long it had been since he had been suspected of murdering his wife? I don't recall any timeline there, since we just enter into the final mission with Kobol Engineering with no real idea of whether he's been on the run doing jobs for years or not. It could have been a matter of months only, leaving the kids still virtually unchanged

Doesn't work for me.

If you see it again pay attention to the voices of the kids on the phone, not only does the boy sound way too old vocally, but if you think a boy that young can form complex sentences I have to wonder how many young children you've spent time around.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Doesn't work for me.

If you see it again pay attention to the voices of the kids on the phone, not only does the boy sound way too old vocally, but if you think a boy that young can form complex sentences I have to wonder how many young children you've spent time around.

They did sound somewhat older than they look, but I wouldn't put it past the kid to be able to speak that well (I've certainly heard some very intelligent Year 1s before). It's not like his parents were idiots, so I'm not seeing this as being cut and dry proof that he's dreaming any more than the ring theory. I'd want something a little more conclusive, and we do have a good outside of universe reason for the children being the same. I think the better evidence is that aside from his children, such as the hints at dreams within dreams and how the subconscious will choose a reality to believe is real.

[neoolong]

Apparently there are two sets of kids, aged about 2 years apart. From IMDB's credits:

Claire Geare ... Phillipa (3 years)
Magnus Nolan ... James (20 months)
Taylor Geare ... Phillipa (5 years)
Johnathan Geare ... James (3 years)

[Admiral Valdemar]

Apparently there are two sets of kids, aged about 2 years apart. But I hear that's from the credits.

That would tie in with the production reason for the discrepancy between their image and sounds, which is why I don't see it as being the best evidence for Cobb wanting to create a lucid dream where he exonerates himself.

EDIT: Heh, one of the younger children was a Nolan, which ties in with the flight attendant being a family member too.

[Gaidin]

Doesn't work for me.

If you see it again pay attention to the voices of the kids on the phone, not only does the boy sound way too old vocally, but if you think a boy that young can form complex sentences I have to wonder how many young children you've spent time around.

If the kids are that old shouldn't they be past "when are you coming home?" and asking "why do the police say you did this?"

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I'm not seeing all the high praise for this movie. It was well-constructed, but predictable as all hell, which was annoying. It's like a poster said in another thread: when the audience knows something obvious that the characters should figure out, but don't, then it gets frustrating. Even if it's something the characters shouldn't figure out, if it's supposed to be a big surprise, but you see it coming, it really flattens the movie.

For example, the moment I saw that dreaming-within-a-dream is possible, I knew that the ending would have to be "It was all a dream...or was it?" The movie couldn't introduce that idea and not go for it. Still, I was hoping for a little more closure, or perhaps an ending that was ambiguous in a more well defined way. As it is, there are now so many possibilities that it makes the movie feel moot to me. "Pick your own ending" means to me "You just wasted $25 when you could have just read a synopsis and then used your own imagination for a better experience". I know that's a personal issue for me, but it's one that bothered me in the same was as the Blair Witch Project, with its ending that solved nothing and answered no questions. The ambiguous ending felt like "Remember Total Recall? Well, this is even more ambiguous! Bazinga!"

The way I see it, it could all have been a dream (of Cobb's, of Mal's?), Mal could be dead/alive in another level/a figment of his subconscious. The ending could all be a dream designed by Saito to "fulfill his bargain" or by Ariadne to keep Cobb sane/happy. Maybe the kids themselves aren't even real. I might as well have not even bothered.

The tightness of the writing and pacing also gave away the whole Mal thing. As soon as Cobb said he'd done it before, we knew he had used inception on his wife and that's why she's dead. The movie didn't have time to deal with those two issues separately or introduce new characters, so it was a bit too obvious. This made a lot of the build-up to the revelation tedious and frustrating.

The rules of the dream world made very little sense to me. So the human brain works faster in a dream world, therefore a person in a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream will have a brain operating 1000s of times faster than the baseline. Why don't we add another level of dreaming and outdo quantum computers? Give a person a math or physics problem to solve and he'll have decades to work on it in an 8 hour sleep, because his neurons are moving just that much faster.

Also, since when does a van falling in your dream affect your inner ear? The whole point of a kick is that reality is affecting a part of your anatomy not influenced by the dream world...therefore the kicks within the dream shouldn't have worked...unless all of them, including Fischer, were aware that they were part of a dream within a dream within a dream and following the progress of each level simultaneously.

Don't get me wrong: I liked the movie. I just don't see it anywhere near the "movie of the year" hype that's being heaped on it. Of course, I'm also not a fan of heist movies, and for all the buzz, this was still just a heist movie, although one dressed up with fantastical elements to allow for some truly spectacular action sequences and an ambiguous ending.

Also, I found that Cillian Murphy's acting and character arc totally blew DiCaprio's out of the water. He was just more compelling to watch, and as someone else said, it really felt like there was an alternate movie somewhere where Murphy was the star. And, of course, Pete Postelthwait delivered.

The one scene I expect to be stolen/ripped off in action movies for the next decade is the variable-gravity fight in the hotel (and also, the zero gravity scenes, too). That was amazing.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The van falling must have impacted on their perception the same way as any kick. How do you wake from a lucid dream in reality? You experience something that affects your perception in the dream, that wakes you up from the illusion. It's not that you woke up from falling out of bed, though that can happen, it's that something in your subconscious made your body react. The van falling is the same thing, but it was also affecting the deeper conscious levels that the others were mentally awake in. Unless there is something to make you jolt in that dream, you won't wake, just as you won't figure it's a dream unless you experience something that clearly isn't possible in reality, so Fischer had to be fooled into thinking it was a dream in the second level because they fucked up.

I agree with the assessment of Murphy though. I'm hoping he'll be in more Nolan films. I am, however, a fan of heist films, especially ones which aren't dumbed down or have "Ocean" in the title again. And I already knew the dream within a dream thing beforehand, it's mentioned in every review, but that does not impact on the actual experience. It's just good that they acknowledge it with the opening audition test at the start, because otherwise people would be "Oh, it's totally a dream within a dream. I bet THAT'S the twist they didn't expect", yet that's pre-empted and made a non-issue from the start just as the whole "death" thing is (going into a coma and feeling pain are possible; not like the bullshit "death in The Matrix means you hæmorrhage and die in reality" crap).